Witness accounts of the Westall UFO incident vary, with some reporting a single UFO while others describe a bright spherical light they cannot explain. Former student Terry Peck has recounted multiple times how she jumped the school fence to reach the UFO’s landing site in the nearby pines, only to find two classmates already there, with one of them screaming hysterically. According to Peck and another witness named Kelly, the hysterical girl was taken away in an ambulance and never returned to school. Subsequently, the school was invaded by various authorities including the air force, army, police, fire brigade, and ambulance, and students were told to pretend they had seen nothing.
Efforts to uncover official documentation detailing the response to the Westall incident have been largely unsuccessful, despite the interest of journalists, historians, and UFO enthusiasts. The incident occurred during a period of heightened UFO sightings amidst the Cold War, a phenomenon that some academics attribute to widespread paranoia. Clarke Watson, a member of the Mutual UFO Network, stated that attitudes towards UFO investigations have shifted towards a more scientific approach in recent times. Watson and his team gather information on UFO sightings in Australia, analyzing reports skeptically and contributing to a global database to document such occurrences.
Former science teacher Andrew Greenwood is said to have photographed the UFO before the authorities confiscated his camera. Greenwood described the object as a “classic cigar-shaped object” made of grey metal and believed it was intelligently controlled. Despite reports that a weather balloon released at Laverton could explain the sighting, Greenwood insisted that the object he witnessed was not a balloon. On the 58th anniversary of the incident, Watson highlighted the mental health challenges faced by witnesses who were not believed, suggesting that validating their experiences could help provide them with vindication. He emphasized that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and compared the discovery of nonhuman intelligence to the evolution of understanding electricity.
Watson expressed his belief in the existence of nonhuman intelligence interacting with Earth, whether on a spiritual or scientific level, and described it as an exciting prospect. Witness Kelly echoed a sentiment of urgency for answers regarding the Westall incident, expressing a desire to uncover the truth in his lifetime. He emphasized that the event definitely occurred and expressed a sense of owed closure due to the phenomenon that captured his attention that day. The Westall incident remains a significant event in UFO history, with multiple witnesses providing consistent testimonies that have garnered interest and investigation from UFO researchers globally.
