UFOs in Australia – Eyewitnesses Talk to Dr. James E. McDonald During His Investigative Tour (1967)

“Certainly as a scientist, I am not entirely happy with taking hearsay evidence”

“I'm not entirely happy with taking hearsay evidence. And I've been down here in Australia interviewing witnesses to find out for myself, in direct, face-to-face, or in some cases, phone interviewing, exactly what happened in individual cases and what the credibility of the witness is”

“I have about 10,000 feet of tape, I noticed, when I wound this thing up.”

“And I've interviewed about 70 Australians or New Zealanders.”

“Talkback 638151. Professor James MacDonald, the University of Arizona, talking about unidentified flying objects. Let's hear from you on 638151.”

“I think if you could give Peter Surrey your number before we switch you off, it would help. We might be able to check up later and talk to you further”

“It's Mrs. Smith from South Caulfield. ... I saw a cigar-shaped object, approximately 1949 this would be. ... Yes, in Hawthorne. We were living in Hawthorne at the time.”

“And it was perfectly stationary.”

“had a dull light inside and then as though it had an electric light globe going up and down from, you know, top to bottom continuously.”

“James E. MacDonald: uh what was the state of the weather at the time do you recall? Mrs. Smith: it was clear and almost cloudless ... James E. MacDonald: That type of situation, clear sky, there were no thunderstorms anywhere in the area. Mrs. Smith: No, not at all.”

“Yes, that rules out plasmoids of the ball lightning type.”

“let's just take the stationary aspect. The possibility that it's a meteoric fireball is ruled out...”

“James E. MacDonald: If there was no sound together... Mrs. Smith: No, not at all.”

“we were down with the Melbourne UFO group, the Victorian Flying Saucer Society, very helpfully have been taking me around the countryside to some of the key witnesses.”

“We were down in Mowi, in the Gippsland area, talking to a farmer named Brew,”

“who was milking 0700 on February of 1963. All of a sudden, coming out of the overcast was a large disc-like object which hovered over a tree 100 yards away.”

“The cattle, he was most impressed by the way in which the cattle jumped and stampeded, the dogs started barking, horses broke loose and so on.”

“we both quite independently saw this grey object which for want of a better name I'll call a flying saucer, which arose out of the steam board the way over on the horizon, went vertically upwards”

“what made it more convincing to us was the fact that there was broken cloud at the time, and we kept on seeing these things that would go behind clouds and reappear.”

“We sort of both talked to my fellow engineers about it, who immediately rubbished us. ... said, well, we shouldn't have stopped at the pub.”

“I ceased to talk about it, and ever since then, I've only told people who indicated some interest in the subject.”

“When you look at these various hypotheses, psychological, advanced technology, hoax, fabrication, fraud, poorly understood geophysical phenomena, you run through all of those. This is certainly what I've done in the past year of checking.”

“You find yourself ending up with the seemingly absurd, seemingly improbable hypothesis These things may be coming from somewhere else.”

“We've got to get at this right away. We've got to get on it on a global scale. And with the best scientific talent, not just in United States or not just in Australia but the world's best scientific talent has to get on that.”