Reports of Unidentified Flying Object – The Encounter in Detail
By January 25, John Auchettl had made arrangements for an interview with the Knowles family, who had arrived in Melbourne. Interviews were to be conducted by himself, Judith Magee (VUFORS President), Mark Sawyers (Secretary), and myself. We arrived at the address of a relative with whom the family was visiting and found the Knowleses still in a state of distress and suffering from an assortment of symptoms, including the swelling of Faye’s right hand and arm.
We learned that the incident occurred before daylight after the family had left the Madura Roadhouse and were heading east toward Mundrabilla, when they sighted a group of lights. They thought at first that these were street lights but then realized that there were no streetlights in that part of the outback. During the three-hour interviews with the mother and her three sons we were told several details of the encounter. Although it was difficult to determine the sequence of the different phases of the activity, some of the highlights were clear in the memory of one or more members of the family. Beginning about a quarter of an hour before the lights were first spotted, the car-radio started malfunctioning, with a lot of static and other noise which continued for the entire period of the encounter.
At another stage Sean saw another light ahead. He thought at first that it was a truck with one headlight, but as he got closer he saw that it was not a truck but a strange brightly glowing light either on the road or hovering slightly above the ground. It was on his side of the high way so he had to swerve to the wrong side of the road, and looked up just in time to see an approaching car pulling a caravan. They almost collided.
Soon after the near collision, the Knowleses met an other vehicle, with a light flying at the same speed above it. By this time Sean’s curiosity got the best of him and he made a U-tum and sped back towards the west to see what the light was. After chasing it for a few moments the light changed course and headed back towards the Knowleses’ car. Sean then made another quick tum, and as he was speeding towards the east again, the object overtook the car and landed on the roof with a thud (see Figure 8:2).
Patrick said that the object seemed to grab the car and began to pull it up. At the same time he yelled out, ”Why us?” “We did not know what to do,” said Patrick. “The dogs started to go crazy”. All four felt as if they were about to die. Patrick said that he felt as though his brains were being pulled from his head. Sean did not realize that the car was in the air until it dropped back to the ground, bursting the right rear tire.
He thought he was doing 200 k.p.h. ( 120 m.p.h.) to escape from under the UFO. While the object was on the roof, Faye rolled down the window so she could reach up and touch the object. It felt like a warm sponge and she thought it might be a suction pad. She began to scream.
Patrick, who was in the front passenger seat, rolled down his window, and dust started pouring into the car. When Faye pulled her arm back inside the car her arm was covered with this dust. She said there was an odor that she thought smelled like decayed bodies. [Abductee Alfred Burtoo reported a smell of “decaying meat” during his encounter in Aldershot, England, in 1983 , as described in Above Top Secret-Editor.]
Sean reported that at one stage he was “out cold” and could not remember some of the details related to us by other members of the family. During the time the car was in the air their voices sounded as though they were talking in “slow motion. “
When Sean brought the car to a stop, all jumped out and hid in the bushes along the side of the highway until the UFO flew away. The family described the object as a white light about the size of the car, with a yellow center, “like an egg in a cup. ” The sound was similar to a humming transformer. They changed the tire as quickly as possible before speeding on to Mundrabilla, where they talked about the frightful experience with three truck drivers. One of the drivers had been driving some distance ahead and saw a bright, white light with a yellow center through his rear-view mirror.