DATA-NET: On The Road Again In Queensland.

This is an incident from the April 1970 edition of DATA-NET. It's one I'd read before at CUFOS. I've not seen it mentioned anywhere else, though surely it must be [I mean as a case report rather than just a listing in Mark Rodeghier's catalog of "electromagnetic" Vehicle Interference Reports. Mark cites this same entry from DATA-NET as his source]. The case, to me, is astonishing, and cries out for more coverage. At a minimum there must be an investigative interview somewhere, perhaps in an old Queensland Flying Saucer group newsletter [unfortunately pretty rare in my resource collection]. Thankfully, the DATA-NET article is long for that publication's typical entries.

Here's the case: On the evening of March 19th, 1969, a woman was well into a 1300 mile drive from Cairns to Brisbane, Australia. With her were her children, understandably asleep. She was nearing Gladstone [having just passed Marmor and Mt. Larcom] in Queensland with 500 miles still to go. There is nothing in the narrative, by the way, which says that she drove this whole thing in one go, nor that she was in any way unalert. In fact much of the experience takes place outside the car, as you will see. "Highway Hypnosis" is, thereby, an unlikely ingredient in this story.

The first thing that is astonishing is that she begins to hear a "distant" and intermittent "radio broadcast" despite her car having no radio. This excited her with a sense of wonder. Following the piecemeal "news", there was a musical tune of some kind. This now worried her a bit, as she wondered if the experience might be premonitionary, and she slowed the car, fearing a possible accident [though there had been no traffic for awhile.]

She kept on at a reduced speed of 40mph for a time and then noticed a light pacing her car off to the side past the trees. It turned and came towards her. She thought: "could this be a flying saucer??" That scared her and she slowed nearly to a stop. The light pulsated as it came on.

The lady, now thoroughly afraid, stopped her vehicle and decided to turn around to go back to the nearest passed town, Mt. Larcom, and stay the night. Just as she was to return, another vehicle came up from the lane that she had been on [i.e. from behind her original path going towards Gladstone]. Our lady flashed her lights and the oncoming car stopped.

It was another single woman. This new arrival seemed to know a lot about UFOs and had a very relaxed confident manner about the UFO presence. She convinced our first lady to turn back around and they'd drive in tandem onwards toward Gladstone. As they began to proceed, the UFO came closer until it was over the other woman's car. Now alarmed herself, she and our first lady braked to a stop and both got out and talked. The UFO-savvy lady said that if they turned off their lights it would go away. Our lady watched the thing closely. It was about automobile-sized and had several porthole-like lights. The second lady relaxed a bit when the UFO moved to the side, and wanted to watch what she said "was something wonderful that we probably would never see again". Our first lady was not so sure, as she wanted to get going on her trip home, and she was noticing a strange pulsing of her new companion's car lights when the object itself pulsed. They drove off finally, our first lady driving in the "wrong" lane as there was no traffic and she distrusted the way her companion's car was pulsating its headlights.

The second woman apparently never understood what our lady was talking about [re: her headlights] and seemed somewhat non-plussed from then on out. Our lady reported that the object continued to fly along beside them at about 100 yards distance as they drove towards Gladstone. Apparently, the thing would send out a "streak" of light horizontally [though not it seems directed at the cars], and simultaneously her companion's car lights would broaden. Then, even more astonishingly, the object would send out a streak of light upwards, and her companion's car headlights "would streak up".

Then she says this: "It appeared to be a pattern. A lengthening of the vertical shaft of light, followed by a horizontal lengthening, alternatively." Our witness is apparently describing the famous and highly strange UFO-associated phenomenon of "solid", cut-off, extendible light beams.

As they drew near Gladstone, the UFO rapidly soared off into the sky, looking like a star at height. The UFO-savvy lady took our witness' name and address and said she'd contact her. That never happened, sadly, or we'd have a lot solider case with two independent witnesses on record. Our lady stayed overnight in Gladstone and drove on to Brisbane. There she reported the experience, and was apparently visited by the Australian military. They wanted to inspect her vehicle, and later told her that she needed a new alternator for her electric system. She had no idea what that could have had to do with her UFO encounter as it was the other lady's lights which were pulsing. The DATA-NET correspondent seems to have visited the anonymous witness and made a recording of his interview, which was the basis for this report. He describes her as "an ordinary housewife who speaks with no frills, and is apparently telling the event exactly as she remembers it happening". He reports that she has talked to very few people and seeks no publicity.

So, what have we here? My intuition is: a very good high strangeness UFO encounter with critical "missing witness" testimony. Still, it seems a case worth keeping in the pile of "good" UFO incidents and it is a shame that it remains a hidden rough gemstone waiting for the rest of the testimony.