Elsewhere, there were fewer UFO sightings, but several which recalled the 1954 European wave. In the Australian town of Norwood, a woman was driving with her three children on the evening of October 28, 1962, when they all saw an illuminated oval object land near the road. She stopped the car and watched the object for forty minutes, claiming to see a man wearing a helmet and gas mask near the craft. On the morning of February 15, 1963, in the Australian town of Willow Grove, a man saw an object approach and stop over his farmhouse at an altitude of about fifty feet. It was about twenty-five feet in diameter and about ten feet tall. The object was blue, made a swishing sound, and the underside spun counterclockwise. It hovered for about five seconds, then took off amazingly fast. The man had a strong headache for the rest of the day. Landings and humanoid sightings were reported in Italy in December 1962 and January 1963, including one case of witness paralysis. Meanwhile, on December 12, in Amagasaki City, Japan, five students saw, and independently sketched, a Saturn-shaped UFO.18
THE UFO SCENE IN 1963
In January 1963, Robert Friend left as Blue Book’s director. He had tried, and failed, to disband it. His replacement, Maj. Hector Quintanilla, held to a simple policy: make no changes whatsoever. No changes meant no improvement, as the April 1963 issue of the
Based upon unreliable and unscientific surmises as data, the air force develops elaborate statistical findings which seem impressive to the uninitiated public, unschooled in the fallacies of the statistical method. One must conclude that the highly publicized periodic air force pronouncements based upon unsound statistics serve merely to misrepresent the true character of UFO phenomena.
Despite the new leadership at Blue Book, 1963 was essentially a repeat of 1962. Once again, it recorded a mere fourteen official unknowns (this time, five outside the United States). Once again, the unknowns were an unimpressive lot: mostly oddly maneuvering lights. Once again, most of the good UFO reports were going elsewhere.19
NICAP recorded more interesting and difficult sightings, including two from June 26, 1963. First, at 1 P.M. in Rockland, Massachusetts, a number of people heard a loud roar and saw a silhouette of a Saturn-shaped UFO; a white light on top and orange light on bottom were visible. The object hovered, then moved away horizontally. The same day in Pine Crest, California, a technician and many others saw three glowing, greenish objects with halos move westerly. They were approached by a similar object from the west; the fourth object stopped and hovered while the others approached, split formation, and continued west. It then continued east.20
Once again, South America was the source of many UFO reports. An especially dense wave of sightings occurred there in October. Several times in Argentina, humanoids or figures were seen, and sightings included gunfire, witness burns, and local panics. Two interesting naval sightings occurred in November 1963. The first involved an Argentine navy transport vessel,
