Family UFO Encounter In Australia

Family UFO Encounter In Australia

Date: January 20, 1988

Location: Mundrabilla, Western Australia, Australia

Unfortunately none of this is conclusive. There were other UFO reports in the same area at the same time, which tends to imply that something unusual occurred. The only conclusion we can safely come to though, is that something happened, and that the family witnessed an unusual light and were extremely frightened by its effects. All we have is an interesting story, and still no clear idea of exactly what happened.

This was the day that the Knowles family and their two dogs had an unexplainable experience whilst travelling across the Nullarbor Plain in the early hours of the morning.

At about 4:00 a.m., Faye Knowles and her sons Patrick, 24, Sean, 21, and Wayne 18 were between Madura and Mundrabilla with Sean driving and Patrick next to him in the front seat when a bright light was seen ahead of them. Sean thought the light strange and asked his brother if he thought it was a spaceship. This idea was rejected by his brother, but Sean's interest was piqued and he sped the car up in order to catch up to the object and get a closer look. At about 65' from the object the family say they were confronted with a white blinding light that moved along in front of their moving vehicle. It was about 3' wide and described as a slightly angular egg in an egg-cup shape with a yellow center. The object, which at first appeared to be either on the ground or immediately above it then began to move back and forth. Sean swerved the car to the opposite side of the road to avoid a collision with the object, but then nearly collided with a station wagon towing a caravan coming in the other direction. The object then circled around to the right side of their car and appeared to give chase to the second vehicle towing the caravan. The Knowles made at 2 u-turns at this point, the first to give chase to the object, and the second to abandon this idea as they had grown frightened. They had at this point gained the idea that the object was after them.

At some point the family felt that the UFO had returned and had landed on their vehicle. They heard a clunking sound and felt that the car was being pushed down by a weight that rested on top of it.

By now the family was understandably frightened, and the following events are difficult to unravel in retrospect. The family believed that the car was lifted above the road, though none of them were able to estimate for how long or how high. Mrs Knowles wound down a rear window and reached for the roof. She felt something soft and rubbery that was hot but did not burn her hand, and when she brought her hand back into the car she found it covered in a blackish dust. This event caused a panic in the rest of the family. Patrick wound down his window, only to be covered in the fine dust, which was accompanied by a foul smell that was likened to dead bodies. A high pitched sound was then heard, which sent the dogs into a frenzy. The family became disoriented and felt that their voices had become slower, and lower in pitch. They believed at this point that they were going to die. Patrick said that he felt that his brain was being sucked out, and Mrs Knowles likened it to having something going into our heads.

A while later, the family felt the car forced back down onto the road, bursting the rear right tyre. Sean brought the car to a sudden stop and then blacked out. The family left the car hurriedly and hid in some bushes by the side of the road. They remained there for 15 minutes before changing the tire and continuing on to the nearest town.

Unknown to the Knowles', a truck driver, Mr Graham Henley also saw, at the same time and in the same area, a strange light in his rear view mirror. He described as being like a strong spotlight and like a big fried egg hung upside down. He kept the object in view for 5 minutes and did not see any car headlights beneath it. Shortly after Henley pulled into Mundrabilla, he saw the Knowles' car arrive, and was confronted by the frightened family all trying to describe their experience. He looked over their car and confirmed the presence of black ash in various areas, both inside and on the exterior of the vehicle, and likened it to fine silicon sand with a burnt odour to it. He also noted four indents in the roof of the car and the damaged tyre. Henley and two of his friends also surveyed the scene of the incident, finding skid marks, footprints and tread tracks that they felt confirmed the Knowles account of their incident.

The family had by this time arrived at Ceduna and been interviewed by the police there, who confirmed that the family were visibly shaken. They also reconfirmed the presence of the four dents and the fine dust. UFO Research South Australia was contacted and arrangements were made for the Knowles' to continue to Adelaide for further investigation. Keith Basterfield was at this stage brought into the investigation, and he stated that it appeared to be an extraordinary example of a close encounter that had left physical traces. However, owing to the story reaching the media, serious investigation became obstructed by chequebook journalism, with investigators needing to mediate with a television station to be able to talk to the Knowles'. The TV station did, however, commission a laboratory investigation of the vehicle, which concluded that no significant dust was observed on the vehicle as presented for inspection. Ufo researchers did manage to obtain samples themselves, which they forwarded to Dr Richard Haines, a NASA scientist at the time, who concluded that the dust taken from the interior of the car was different to the dust sampled from the exterior. Further tests by different analysts have provided no evidence of it being alien or unusual.

In a related post, The following was addressed:

My name is Patrick Knowles. My family and I have been the victim of a media frenzy since first telling our story. Now I very much regret making it public.

We have experienced unrelenting ridicule, being described as crazy, or accused of making up a hoax just for money, and so on.

But we only wanted people to know what happened to us, we weren't after anything!

It happened on January 20, 1988. My mother, two brothers and I were driving from Perth to Melbourne. We were going to drive straight through in shifts, and we planned to cross the desert at night when the heat wasn't so bad. By 2:30 a.m. we were in the Nullarbor Plain.

We stopped for petrol and switched drivers. Sean was driving and I was in the front seat next to him. The road was empty.

Suddenly we saw a bright yellow light up ahead and Sean slowed down. As we got closer, the yellow light seemed to be emanating from an egg shaped object hovering just above ground level.

We thought we might be seeing things but then a caravan passed going the other way, and it swerved sharply to avoid the luminous egg. The closer we got to it, the more we realised it wasn't a normal vehicle or a road signal or anything like that. Sean swerved to avoid it and we continued on, leaving it behind.

Suddenly, the object started towards us. It appeared to accelerate with tremendous speed. We drove on and it literally chased us. The faster we went to get away from it, the faster this object went after us. I reckon we reached a speed of 125 miles per hour but it caught up in a matter of seconds. Then Sean made a sudden u-turn and headed back West in the direction of the petrol station. The UFO also turned around.

I don't know how the hell it was flying, because it didn't have any wings or anything like wings. It just kept coming after us. Sean made another fast u-turn heading back toward Melbourne again but the UFO turned as well and kept pace with the car. In the backseat, everyone was scared. The dogs started barking and whining.

Then suddenly, we were hit. It shot a beam of light out and punctured our back tyre. The back tyre was on fire. We started sliding across the road. I realised if we braked we would have to confront the UFO, but Sean didn't have any choice. Then it landed on the roof of the car and picked the car up.

It lit up the car like a microwave. The heat was intense. Our hair was standing straight up and we felt really funny, like we were being dehydrated. It was awful, frightening, like our brains were being sucked out. My fear was that I would be pulled out of my body. I put my hand out of the window and touched something spongy that burned my hand. I thought we were going to die.

You could actually feel the car rising in the air. The car began to fill with a thick black fog. It was so hot, and all this soot, this junk, started covering us. Our voices started changing, you know how a tape deck sounds when the batteries start to go flat? That's what it was like.

Then I passed out.

I came to when I heard a tremendous noise, like a bang, and our car suddenly dropped back to earth. Dawn was coming up. The thing just flew away, that was the last we saw of it. I had to change the tyre, and we tried to clean out the black soot.

There were marks on the roof of the car.

As soon as we could, we drove fast to the nearest roadhouse.

We were too shocked to talk for a while. Then we realised we had lost a couple of hours time during the incident.

We called the police. The funny thing was they were already looking for us. Someone, maybe the people in the caravan we passed, had phoned the police anonymously. Their report states that they witnessed our car being picked up off the road and shaken violently. They noticed the car was covered in black ash.

The police inspected our car and noted the ash, the bad smell, and the dents on the roof. They was convinced something had occurred. They took us to the hospital where we were treated for burns and s hock.

But then the media got hold of the incident. I don't think a single reporter or journalist asked sensible questions or tried to console us for our fear, they just wanted to humiliate us.

When our car was examined by forensic scientists, they found unexplained high concentrations of chlorine, an element not usually present in cars, animals, or the desert environment.

My family does not need proof of this sort because we all know what we witnessed and what we went through that night.

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