With all the news and hype around the New Jersey UFO flap, I figured I'd do a little digging through trove and find some historical 'UFO' sightings throughout Australia's earlier history, pre-WW1. No particular rhyme or reason for many, just a fun thread.
Perhaps the earliest newspaper reference to an 'unknown' object in Australia's skies, this 1839 column details an earlier sighting of a 'mid-day' star, one which is presented as Venus. While it is unclear if this is a UFO sighting, it demonstrates the characteristics of some modern-day sightings.
This 1842 sighting of a "strange phenomena" in Portland describes, in decent detail, an oddly moving faint light. The observer describes it like many modern UFO sightings, with erratic, stop-start movements. Besides the language used, this could pass as something from modern-day New Jersey.
Sightings of strange lights in the sky seem to die down from here, but pick back up in 1909, when the people of Victoria seem to be accosted by what could be a 'UFO flap'. More likely, these sightings were simply meteor showers, but so many articles in a single week make you wonder.
Not only were these seen in Victoria, but the northern coast of Tasmania. These sightings in Tasmania are far more detailed, and describe even weirder lights, such as a "strange body travelling along at a high altitude" with "two bright lights attached". Weird, although likely not unexplainable.
This 1909 flap seems to encompass the entire country by the middle of August, with "phantom airships" nearly hitting chimneys being reported in Western Australia and "Strange Lights" in NSW. Some attributed this to stars and planets, while an 'astronomer' suggested a hoax using a kite and a light.
This 'flap' seems to have ended with that article. Other minor sightings would occur, such as this one in Queensland in 1910. Here, oddly moving, flashing lights would be spotted in February around Milbong, though apparently the light had been seen since January.
A single light, seen around Adelaide in 1911. This short sighting is fairly detailed, describing the light as "tadpole"-shaped. In addition, the observer seems to know the easy explanations for UFO, as he preempts suggestions of meteors and searchlights. Interesting, although a singular account.
Heres the final sighting, this time in Gympie, Queensland. This seems to suggest a trend, as this light, like the previous one, is not just a strange light/circle, and instead has a different shape. In fact, this one changes shapes, from sparking meteor to comet tail to triangle and semi-circle.
There are likely plenty more sightings, however, finding them isn't the easiest as you can't just search up 'UFO' like you can nowadays. In any case, these showcase the way early colonial Australians dealt with sightings, with wonder, with fear, with confusion, similar to the modern-day I guess. It also, weirdly, shows a sort of evolution, going from 'angels' to 'strange circular lights' to phantom airships and shape-changing meteors, things which may not seem out of place in New Jersey, or any other more modern UFO 'flap'. In the end, whether you believe or not, I think these are super interesting, just in the way they tell us how people, over a hundred to two hundred years ago, dealt with unknown things in the sky. And how, like us, they viewed these things with awe.
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