Episode 67 | A Bad Day for Playground Duty: The Westall UFO Encounter
Episode 67 | A Bad Day for Playground Duty: The Westall UFO Encounter
Embedded Files
This is AI... but I wish it wasn't
On 6 April 1966, students and teachers at Westall High School looked up and saw something they couldn’t explain. Six decades later, many of those who were there are still saying the same thing: they know what they saw.
This episode isn’t about making fun of those accounts. Quite the opposite. We take the witnesses seriously, even when we don’t know what to make of what they experienced.
Shannon and Megan, however, are absolutely fair game!
This week we’re heading back to 1966 and becoming two spectacularly unqualified secondary school teachers: Shirl and Mavis.
Armed with questionable 1960s duty-of-care standards, International Roast and the comforting knowledge that there are cigarettes waiting in the staffroom, we work through the events at Westall as they unfold.
One kid sees something strange? Fine.
Dozens of kids see it? Less fine.
Teachers see it too? Mavis, we may have a situation.
Students jump the fence and start chasing the bloody thing across the paddocks?
Mavis. Get the clipboard. We’ve lost the children.
From the Grange and decades of witness testimony to Bob Lazar, modern UAP encounters and testimony before the US Congress, we ask what happens when something simply doesn’t fit inside what we think we know.
Sixty years later, we still don’t know exactly what happened at Westall.
But we do know one thing.
It was a very bad day for playground duty.
4 Days Earlier..
4 Days Earlier..
The photograph James Kibel said he took over Balwyn, Melbourne, 2 April 1966.
On 2 April 1966, four days before the events at Westall, Melbourne businessman James Kibel reported seeing a strange object over Balwyn.
Unlike the witnesses at Westall, Kibel had a camera nearby.
And he took a photograph.
Kibel described the object as metallic and said that as he watched, it appeared to tilt or rotate before accelerating away.
There is no evidence establishing that the Balwyn sighting was connected to what happened at Westall four days later — and exactly what Kibel's photograph shows remains disputed.
But the timing, location and reported movement make it an intriguing part of the story.
Melbourne was already having a strange week.
and we will come back to this!
Timeline..
Timeline..
Images referenced in the episode...
Images referenced in the episode...
What was it??
What was it??
Recommendations
Recommendations
Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers
Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers
In 1989, physicist Bob Lazar broke the story of Area 51 and the US government's work on alien spacecrafts. He blew the whistle, shocked the world, then went silent - until now.
Tick... Tick... Tick (welcome inside Shannons mind)
Tick... Tick... Tick (welcome inside Shannons mind)
So... What Happened at Westall
So... What Happened at Westall
Sixty years later, Westall sits in an uncomfortable space between evidence and uncertainty.
We know something happened. We know a large number of students and adults reported seeing something unusual. We know newspapers investigated, television cameras arrived, aircraft were reported overhead, marks were seen on the ground, and witnesses have continued telling their stories for decades.
But there is also an enormous amount we don't know.
We don't know what was in the sky. We don't know who was flying the aircraft witnesses described. We don't know who all the uniformed men were, what caused the marks at the Grange, or why the official paper trail is so thin. And somewhere along the way, potentially valuable pieces of the contemporary record — including the Channel Nine footage... Disappeared.
None of that proves aliens.
But it doesn't make the questions disappear either.
Perhaps the thing that bothers me most about Westall isn't the lack of an extraordinary explanation. It's the lack of transparency around the ordinary ones.
If it was a weather balloon, tell us which one.
If those were ordinary aircraft, who were the pilots?
If uniformed personnel attended, who sent them?
If Channel Nine filmed the witnesses, where is the footage?
There may be perfectly mundane answers to every one of those questions.
Sixty years later, there are a whole tonne of people who would just really like to hear them.
Source Information
Source Information
ABC (2010) ‘UFO Mystery’, Overnights, ABC Radio, 3 June.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/overnights/ufo-mystery/7737812
ABC (2026) ‘The Westall UFO Mystery’, Australian Story, 6 April.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/the-westall-ufo-mystery-/106528518
Berends, T. (2024) ‘Strange lights in the sky: The Westall UFO event, 1966’, State Library Victoria, 6 April.
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/strange-lights-in-the-sky-the-westall-ufo-event-1966/
Corbell, J.K.L. (dir.) (2018) Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers [documentary], The Orchard, United States.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9107368/
Dandenong Journal (1966a) ‘Flying saucer mystery: School silent — What was it?’, Dandenong Journal, 14 April, p. 1. Reproduced and discussed by State Library Victoria.
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/strange-lights-in-the-sky-the-westall-ufo-event-1966/
Dandenong Journal (1966b) ‘Who were 5 pilots?’, Dandenong Journal, 21 April, p. 1. Reproduced and discussed by State Library Victoria.
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/strange-lights-in-the-sky-the-westall-ufo-event-1966/
Eastwood, M. (2010) Something Is Out There, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma9929566773607636
Fox, J. (dir.) (2020) The Phenomenon [documentary], 1091 Pictures, United States.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13095604/
Greenwood, A. (1966) Interview concerning the Westall sighting, Dandenong Journal, 21 April, p. 1. Reproduced and discussed by State Library Victoria.
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/strange-lights-in-the-sky-the-westall-ufo-event-1966/
Jones, R. (dir.) (2010) Westall ’66: A Suburban UFO Mystery [documentary], Endangered Pictures, Australia. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
https://pro.nfsa.gov.au/titles/TA9CTWQ6?view_mode=grid
Kibel, J. (1966) Photograph of an unidentified object reportedly taken at Balwyn, Victoria, 2 April 1966 [Polaroid photograph]. Reproduced in Scott and Latham (2026).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/westall-ufo-mystery-witnesses-want-answers/106126614
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (2023) Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team Report, NASA, Washington, DC.
https://science.nasa.gov/uap/
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (2023) ‘NASA shares UAP Independent Study Report; names director’, 14 September.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/update-nasa-shares-uap-independent-study-report-names-director/
Real Life with Bel (2026) ‘Westall 66: Joy Clarke’, podcast episode, 9 May.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/westall-66-joy-clarke/id1819447984?i=1000767046472
Scott, L. and Latham, R. (2026) ‘After 60 years, witnesses to Australia’s biggest UFO sighting at Westall High School say it’s time for answers’, ABC News/Australian Story, 6 April.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/westall-ufo-mystery-witnesses-want-answers/106126614
The Age (1966) ‘Object perhaps balloon’, The Age, 7 April, p. 6. Reproduced and discussed by State Library Victoria.
https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/strange-lights-in-the-sky-the-westall-ufo-event-1966/
The Clayton Calendar (1966) Untitled article concerning the Westall sighting, reprinted in Australian Flying Saucer Review, June 1966, p. 13. State Library Victoria.
https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma999903143607636
United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (2023) Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety, and Government Transparency, hearing, 26 July, Washington, DC.
https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-implications-on-national-security-public-safety-and-government-transparency/
Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society (1966) Investigation of the Westall sighting and reported ground traces, Clayton/Westall, Victoria. Contemporary material reproduced in Australian Flying Saucer Review, June 1966.
https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/permalink/61SLV_INST/1sev8ar/alma999903143607636
Westall researcher Shane Ryan’s research and witness interviews are also extensively documented in the ABC’s 60th-anniversary coverage:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-06/westall-ufo-mystery-witnesses-want-answers/106126614
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