Westall High School landing

At 11am on April 6, 1966, more than 100 students, teachers and residents saw up to three metallic objects land in a field next to Westall High School in Melbourne, before taking off and vanishing.

“The authorities arrived very quickly and tried to hush things up. The children were told not to talk about it. One teacher took photos and her camera was confiscated,” says Ben Hurle of Victorian UFO Action.

One witness, then at school, remembers being warned by men in suits not to talk. “We all got called to an assembly. They told us all to keep quiet,” she told reporters years later.

“Westall is a rare case because it was a sighting in broad daylight with around 200 or so witnesses. I’ve spoken to quite a few of the witnesses and am always impressed by how certain they are of what they saw that day. I certainly think something was in the skies that day and that it came from somewhere else,” says Ben.

Today, the landing site is a playground – complete with a giant flying saucer.