Researcher calls for UFO investigation group in Australia
Posted by: Jason McClellan September 8,
2014 0 672 Views
A researcher believes Australia needs a dedicated
civilian group tasked with investigating UFOs.
Cover of Basterfield’s 2nd book. (Credit: Reed Natural
History Australia)
The idea was proposed by longtime UFO researcher Keith
Basterfield at the recent Victorian UFO action conference in Victoria,
Australia. He stated, “At the moment we have no idea of what UFO reports are
being made around Australia . . . I would like to see somebody take that up
again.”
Basterfield started researching unexplained aerial
phenomena in the 1960s, and has been involved with multiple UFO research groups
including the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and the Aerial Phenomena Research
Organization (APRO). The Herald Sun reports that
Basterfield suggests modeling Australia’s national response unit after MUFON
and GEIPAN, a unit of the French Space Agency charged with investigating UFOs.
“The role of the team would be to receive a case, fly
there, interview the witnesses, take samples, document their findings, analyse
it and publish it for us all to look at,” he explains. “It is possible for us
to do that.”
At the sold-out Victorian UFO action conference,
Basterfield also proposed a three-day symposium dedicated to the
still-unidentified 1966 Westall UFO incident, a case in which hundreds of
students, staff, and nearby residents watched a UFO hover, land, and quickly
fly away. A weather balloon was recently
offered as a potential explanation for the incident. But witnesses and
attendees at the recent conference questioned this assertion. Basterfield
explained, “I know of at least one Australian researcher who is sitting on some
very detailed information about this case supplied by an informant and I would
like to see them invited to share the knowledge with us all.”
There is significant UFO activity in Australia, with
several interesting sightings regularly reported in the media. Recently, the
head of a UFO research group in Queensland reported a spike in UFO reports in
the past few months. “We get about 100 calls a year and across Australia all of
the UFO research groups get up to 800,” she explained. “That’s just the
reported sightings – a lot go unreported.”
Basterfield believes that establishing a quick
response team to investigate UFO sightings across Australia within hours of
them being reported would greatly aid in identifying and better understanding
the active UFO presence over Australia.
ABOUT JASON MCCLELLAN
Jason McClellan is a UFO journalist and the
producer/co-host of the web series Spacing Out! He is also the web content
manager and staff writer for OpenMinds.tv, and a co-organizer and technical
producer of the International UFO Congress. As a founding member of Open Minds,
Jason served as a writer and editor for the now defunct Open Minds magazine. He
has appeared on Syfy, NatGeo, and, most recently, he co-starred on H2's Hangar
1: The UFO Files. ------ Follow Jason on Twitter @acecentric and subscribe to Jason's updates on Facebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment