The Australasian Ufologist Magazine 4/2001 [antikvár]

Editorial Focus ON BILL CHALKER: A WEEK IN THE LiFE OF A UFOLOGIST Bill lectured on June 28th on "Strange Odyssey - UFOs, Abductions, Science the Alien Vision" at the 2nd International Philosophy, Science Theology Festival in the Grafton Christchurch Cathedral during the 5 day conference/ festival. It was a great meeting and the lecture was well received with numerous contacts were made. One of the other lectures was "Is there anyone out there?" by Dr. Martin Hendry, a UK astrophysicist, a more mainstream scientific and somewhat conservative presentation that went as far as the Anthropic principle re life elsewhere questions. Bill spent a few days with Harry Turner, a retired Defence scientist, who was the author of the secret 1954 "Scientific Appreciation" report on the Directorate of Air Force Intelligence (DAFI) UFO files, which concluded that some of the reports may involve extraresstrial crafton. Harry Tumer was the chief AustraUan health physicist during the atomic bomb trials at Maralinga during the 1950s/60s. By the end of the 60s he was a scientific analyst with the Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB), then Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) (which then became DIO). Bill has visited Harry before and been in contact with him in various ways since the mid 80s. This visit was highlighted by estrablishing a very detailed outline of his personal story, exposure to strange phenomena including psychic and UFO phenomena and official involvement. Bill also mentioned Harry Tumer in various articles over the years, including his book "The Oz Files". Some of you may remember the strange Cynthia Appleton saga - a Birmingham housewife who had a "contactée" type experience in 1957-1958 - the story was covered more recently by Jenny Randies in her book MIB. Part of the story involved an "alien baby" & genetic scenario. Harry Turner made available to Bill Chalker his notes on a situation that involved initially one woman, then another in the Canberra area during the 60s & 70s, which was like a re-nm of much of the Appleton affair. Bill is looking into this story very careful and will make info available to us all in due course. One of the highlights of Bill's trip, at least for him, was the visit to the Fernvale area, outside Murwillumbah, where I wanted to locate the site of the 1927 UFO/"big bird"/cow/pig "mutilation" affair. He managed to achieve far more and was able to locate a local historian who had gone to school with his primary informant and was aware of the story. Bill also located a local man whose family took over the property in question after the family left in the late 30s & early 40s. His sister married one of the sons from the family that featured in the 1927 episode. He was kind enough to give Bill a guided tour of the property. In retrospect it would have been difficult to find the locality on his own. He also had heard of the stories as a kid. Many of the old locals had heard about it. Bill plans to lecture about the 1927 Femvale milieu at Australia's first cryptozoology conference scheduled for the weekend of 20-21 October, 2001 in Sydney. This should be a very interesting conference. So if you are interested in mystery animals & associated phenomena be there! The 1927 events featured reports of giant bird "men" and "elephant" "humanoid" creatures (the latter Bill hasn't written about, but will discuss at the conference). The latter might have been seen again in the Narrabeen Lakes area of Sydney during 1968-71. The former milieu of "big birds"AJFOs/ strange "visitors" was "revisited" in the well known West Virginia "mothman" saga of 1966-67, soon to be a film with Richard Gere, based on John Keel's wild "gonzo" ride "The Mothman Prophecies". By way of tribute and because the 1927 events so much anticipated the events Keel and others reports 40 years later, Bill will be calling his piece "The Femvale Prophecy - UFOs, strange creatures and terror on the Tweed". i ,