Aussie Unexplained Phenomena

Investigators: Moira McGhee, Bill Chalker, Bryan Dickeson, Diane Harrison, Robert Frola
UFO Group: INUFOR, UFOIC, UFOR(NSW), UFOICQ
Date of Experience: 10.08.98
Report written by: various

Original Story:

Mrs. E Stansfield 61 years said that she saw cobwebs falling from sky she saw 20 silver balls “….when some of them maneuvered and increased speed this cobweb like substance started to drop to the ground. Some of it got caught on the telephone lines".. When she went out to her daughter she too was covered in a fine film off cobwebs. When she tried to pick it up it disintegrated in her hand. The family car had cobwebs all over it John? Scooped it up and put it in a jar it to disintegrated.  Mr. E Stansfield stated that they were flying higher than local air traffic. (Tamworth's North Daily Leader, 10.08.98)

Investigation to date:

“Ross Dowe” posted this Story to the Australian Associated Press from the Australian UFO hot line, which in turn faxed it out to all the newspapers. In which Tamworth's North Daily leader ran the story. Duty officer stated that without an extensive search of the duty rosters book or talking to his 70 manned staff, he is currently unaware of any UFO sighting and has received no phone calls as of Friday 10.00am today (14.08.98). (Robert Frola, 14.08.98)

The "angel hair" UFO spectacle at Quirindi, New South Wales, Australia, on 10 August, 1998,  has now been the subject of interviews and investigation.  Moira McGhee of INUFOR spoke with the family on the evening of 11 August and arranged for a sample of the material, which had been sealed in a yogurt container with glad wrap and rubber band, to be dispatched to her.  It was packed with a cardboard cover and securely sealed (we hope!).

Moira kindly made the sample available to me on Saturday 15 August.  Bryan Dickeson of UFOR(NSW) also spoke with the family.  I have undertaken discussion with some specialists working with me and we are attempting to arrange at least gas chromatography.  The determination of detector and column combinations has to be determined.  We may also try to undertake some micro video imaging if the nature of the sample permits it.  I have discussed the incident at length with 2 of the witnesses.

Mrs. Eunice Stanfield told me that 2 strands of the material originally about 3 feet long were put into the container.  They were "evaporating" and she indicated that prior to dispatch the material appeared to have reduced in volume to about the size of a match had.  Because of this we have cooled the sample.  It is currently held in a freezer.

This will assist us to determine if phase changes occur.  Because of the severe sample limitations we may only get one crack at this.  I will advise all concerned of any results.  I have refrained from opening the sample to facilitate needle sampling under control sampling conditions, if this is determined as a viable option.

Apart from my physical trace interests the following account of my own experience with apparent "angel hair" will serve to highlight that I have more than a passing acquaintance with the subject.   Is it spider's web or something more exotic? We will have to wait and see. (Moira McGhee, Bill Chalker, Bryan Dickeson, 17.08.98)

Account from Eunice Stansfield, aged 61. (One of at least four witnesses)

Seen above southern section of township of Quirindi, NSW (31deg 30 min South, 150deg 41min East) some 61 km (south) from Tamworth .

Soon after midday - around 1 o'clock(?) Eunice and Noelene were in the back garden finishing their cups of tea. Noelene lay down on bench looking straight up into the sky, while Eunice took the cups back inside. On returning Eunice heard Noelene say "That's going bloody fast!"  Eunice looked directly upwards where Noeleen was pointing and saw a silver ball moving quickly across the sky from East to West (?) over Quirindi.

Then several other objects appeared. They were all a long way up "higher than the jets they often see going overhead" and were a bright metallic grey with a size "like tennis balls". They moved quickly, or stopped (hovered) and started in a very complex series of movements. They moved up and down and around, but "never got any lower than the usual height normal planes travel over [Quirindi] at". The objects made absolutely no noise.

Her husband, Mario (an ex NATO pilot in the 6-day Middle East war) estimated they were flying around the 50-60,000 feet.

She noticed that one of the larger spheres seemed to turn side-on slightly , and she could see that it was in fact two spheres, connected ("tethered") by a cylinder (soon after described to Eunice as a "dumb-bell" shape). Two of these dumbbells were seen during the sighting, which lasted well over 1.5 hours (possibly 2 hours).

Mostly the objects were the smaller, simple spheres and at one time there were about 20 objects in the sky at once. They tended to arrive slowly from the East or the West "in waves", before beginning their fast and complex maneuvers.

Eunice described the larger objects as being "2-3 inches long" at arm's length which suggests they were between 820 and 980 metres across (900 + 80 metres) (Peter Turner, Bryan Dickeson – details to be confirmed).

Maneuvers very complex, and covered whole of the sky - difficult for any one witness to follow all that was going on:

Examples of movements (some details to be confirmed):

1. Objects in formation would veer off to the left and right, or come up close to each other, almost to the same point and stop/hover - showing fast, precise flying, right-angle turns, or same complex maneuvers mirrored by several objects, or objects moving side-by-side.

2. Would come in reasonably slow but maneuver very fast - at "a speed like jets" turning and formation flying. Up to 20 maneuvering at a time, and others "coming in over the house."

3. At one time there were four spheres stacked up one on top of each other and stationary.

4. Lines of stationary spheres would leapfrog one another. One sphere would move up and over a stationary one in front or behind it and fall into line position in front or behind the stationary sphere by exactly the same distance. The next sphere would leapfrog under its neighboring sphere and take up position.  These were precise and deliberate, controlled movements.

5. From a flying 'arrowhead' formation of five, one banked left, one right, one  or two would fly straight-ahead and one fly straight downwards.

6. Two spheres followed each other in tight formation and at very high speed while other spheres were moving in and around these two central objects, travelling even faster and in a more intricate flightpath.

7. Mario saw at least one of the smaller spheres fly up and into one of the bigger dumb bells (after he had been talking to another Ufologist he began referring to these two larger dumbbell craft as 'motherships')

8. One of the stationary dumbbells had a smaller sphere head directly towards it at very high speed as if to collide, then executed a right-angle turn, and swerved to pass right through the dumbbell and came out the other side unchanged -- all at high speed!

No 'exhaust' could be seen when these objects flew in a straight line from A - B.  But when objects maneuvering, they could clearly see a light whitish material streaming out from inside (?) the object and behind (this was definitely not a vapour); "it came out of the back of the craft and fell downwards."

The light material appeared to consolidate into long, substantial whitish strands that could be seen falling slowly downwards all around the local area, onto telephone wires and trees. It was not being blown by the wind - there was no wind - there had been several days of heavy rain previously (in other nearby parts of NSW record rainfalls had/were creating flood conditions); Monday was the first clear, clean blue-sky day after this rain. The air temperature was still cool and wintry.

The white material appeared to be carried by slight warm-air "thermals". Very little of this material actually landed in Eunice's place, but pieces fell in surrounding areas and on the street nearby. Noelene first retrieved a 30-cm strand from a nearby bush - it was extremely light, whitish and strong, like cotton, requiring a good tug to break. It quickly "dissolved" away to nothing when handled.

Noelene retrieved a second piece which was about 90 cm long and which seemed to be made up of two separate strands. This was put into a clean yogurt container with a piece of glad wrap over the top and a rubber band to hold the glad wrap in place.

Eunice had gone to speak to husband Mario, who was working in the front of the house on the verandah on repairs, sawing wood with an electric saw. At first, he thought Eunice was pulling his leg but could see the objects flying around above the roof of the house

Mario turned his saw off and placed it on the ground. The saw turned itself back on (which was unusual) - still to confirm what happened with saw after that. (Peter Turner, Bryan Dickeson)

Mario (ex-NATO pilot) said the craft were some way off - higher than most jets at possibly 50-60,000 feet. He's familiar with conventional aircraft over flying the area.

Looking straight up, he saw four objects stacked one on top of the other, in line. In the middle was one of the larger dumb bells. He thought it must be helicopters at first, but too big. Appeared to be going to one side and then the other. Mario watched display for a good 50 minutes - very clear.

Eunice went inside to telephone others and look for their video camera. She first phoned Telstra Information to see whom she should call. They put her on to Ross Dowe's National UFO Information hotline. She spoke to Ross Dowe for about 5 minutes (at about $3.20 per minute) before saying she had to ring off because she couldn't afford to keep paying for the call (Ross wanted her to keep talking). She gave him her phone number so he could call her back (Ross had said he couldn't guarantee that he would call her back). 

(Apparently Telstra gets the first $3.20 per call and Ross gets any further time/value per caller - (Bryan Dickeson)

Within a few minutes, the phone started jumping as radio stations and newspapers began calling Eunice back - Ross must have put it on the wire (WITHOUT even asking Eunice's permission) and had still not called back by the following Friday. By the time she gave up answering the phone and went back outside, the objects had all gone. No video was taken.

Mario said that the objects had been "jumping from side to side" – they appeared to fade-out in one location and fade-in in another location nearby, before they all disappeared.

The same day, but later on that evening at around 7.30, Mario heard all the neighborhood dogs barking and went outside - he saw a very bright reddish orange ball of fire, a little smaller than the moon pass slowly and smoothly overhead from the east - as if covered with flames. He was unable to estimate it's height, except to say it was probably not very high up – It soon disappeared after several minutes behind a range of low hills/mountains to the west of Quirindi.

After an account appeared in local papers, such as the Northern Daily Leader (A short, mistake-ridden account also appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on Tuesday 11 August) and state-wide radio news telephone interviews with Eunice, she was contacted by Gary from Gunnedah.

He is a Telstra technician who was visiting the telephone exchange at Piallaway, 40 km North of Quirindi. At about 2 p.m. Gary  noticed masses of white cobweb-like material falling down around him - falling onto fences, telephone lines and bushes etc and onto his car. He could not see anything up in the (clear) sky at all. Mystified by it all. The cobweb-like substance evaporated fairly quickly when he handled it.

When he got back home to Gunnedah, he noticed there were still some remnants on his car but this had since vanished. During all her unanticipated 'public' interviews with (some very smart-ass) city radio reporters, Eunice has remained completely unflappable about what they all saw in Quyirindi. To her it’s a fact that they saw something unusual. Eunice has since been interviewed over the 'phone by Moira McGhee (INUFOR), and Peter Turner and Bryan Dickeson (UFORNSW); but has had numerous other calls from media.

Eunice decided to send her yogurt container of angel's hair to Moira McGhee of INUFOR in Sydney. (Eunice posted it Wednesday, and Moira received it on Thursday.) Moira contacted Bryan Dickeson (UFORNSW) on Friday - who suggested she put it into fridge freezer (angel's hair is a notoriously unstable material which sublimates from solid to gas phase very quickly) while Bryan located someone to analyze the material. Time is now of the essence.

The yogurt-container 'sample' has since been passed on by Moira McGhee to UFO researcher Bill Chalker (on Saturday evening 14 August) for laboratory analysis via his contacts - for gas chromatography tests, in vacuum, by a Sydney laboratory. The package still had not been opened in Sydney on Saturday evening, to check the state of its contents, HOWEVER......the Angels hair (AH) sample may have already sublimated altogether. (Peter Turner, Bryan Dickeson, 18.08.98)

Bill Chalker (UFOICNSW, Sydney) phones Moira McGhee for info on Quirindi and sample and offers to use his scientific analysis contacts for testing. Bryan agrees to have Bill organise the analysis. Bill collects package across town from Moira (very late 15th August, monsoon conditions!).

Bill spends Sunday 16 trying to stabilise container/sample -- unwraps package, which only seems to show a small speck of 'something' on the bottom, but does not actually open container/remove plastic film cover. Bill also contacted Mrs Stansfield directly -- she said she had checked the container/sample later on the 10th and noticed most of the sample had evaporated. She had gone outside in the dark to find/collect (difficult) some more material to add to the container. There is now a possibility the 'sample'  to hand may not be the original 'angels hair', but cobweb.

However, Bill extracts a sample of the atmosphere from the container for possible future testing, with some difficulty. Complications: Bill tries to contact a colleague to arrange further testing/viewing of sample (colleague not available for several days; wife has just had a baby). All samples kept cold/constant temperature. Bill had also hoped he might be able to get an air sample (in a yoghurt container) from Quirindi, as a 'standard' for any later tests, but delays/etc. suggest this would not be worthwhile. 

Bill contacts Moira and Bryan to update them with a detailed progress report of what is happening. He indicates he may only be able to get one or possibly two chances to test the remaining sample, there's so little of it left and that could degrade. Bryan to delay sending his report to Mrs Stansfield, until sample can be viewed/tested. (Bryan had asked that while the equipment/expertise was available, would it be possible to create and test the white, unstable 'ash' created by a Van De Graaf generator, as a further 'control' sample for the Quirindi material?

Bill (rightly) indicates this would be difficult to coordinate at this stage, and the emphasis should be on the Quirindi material in hand.) Some days later, Bill arranges a 'micro-endoscopic' (cf 'microscopic') inspection of the speck in the bottom of the yoghurt container (micro-endoscopy - the sample speck is put on a glass slide and strongly illuminated; light from the sample is collected by a bundle of glass fibles and magnified 5, 50, 5000 times; results shown on a TV 1. (Bryan Dickeson, 18.09.98)  

What is Angel's Hair.

Reports of AH are fairly common from the 1950s and 1960s (much rarer recently). One author (Dickeson) remembers a personal AH incident from March 1958 (when aged 7) in New Zealand when a small hank of fibres landed on his sleeve from a completely clear blue sky and sublimated within 5 minutes before he could get home ½ kilometre away to show parents.

There are extremely few good AH cases from the late 1960s to 1990s.  Most incidents have since been attributed to 'gossamer' incidents (the massive accumulation of web-parachutes created by millions of small spiders for seasonal dispersal/migration - AH ideas have fallen out of favour in recent years due to the lack of good, recent examples)

Theories from 1950s (1959) and 1960s re angel's hair could now be tested fairly reasonably if UFO researchers have good/prompt access to gas chromatography and X-ray crystallography equipment.

Back then, AH was seen as a sort of polymer of air molecules (nitrogen and oxygen) caused by the unusual high frequency, electromagnetic and plasma effects associated with some UFOs (especially spinning disks). For example, in a fairy floss/candy floss machine, coloured sugar is melted in a small, heated, rotating cup and flows outwards through tiny holes in the walls of the spinning cup by centrifugal force. When the molten sugar hits the air it cools into the fibres of coloured sugar-glass we call fairy floss.

Similarly, AH is thought to form by a metastable polymerization of Nitrogen and Oxygen. The plasma electromagnetic effects near UFOs create highly-directed, 180 degree metastable N-O bonds, which link up into long polymers/fibres around a quickly-rotating body such as a disk, or in air streaming through the magnetic field generated in the central cylindrical section of a bar-magnet-type field.

This is consistent in the Quirindi case with a moving dumb-bell-shaped object, where AH was seen to form behind the object. This 180 degree bonding seems chemically possible using some of the so-called 'forbidden' electron states of Nitrogen and Oxygen (states which are usually only seen to occur in some aurora phenomena in the near-vacuum plasma environment at the top of the atmosphere, and which can be simulated in the laboratory).

These bonds are, however, unstable under normal conditions and the N and O atoms drop off the ends of the AH fibre and return to their usual N2 and O2 states - that is, the fibres sublimate from a solid to a gas without melting (to a liquid) in between. If you have ever used an out-of-synch arc welder, you can (under the right temperature and moisture conditions) create small amounts of a similar sort of white 'ash' at the electrode, which quickly sublimates.

Also, a light white material is created momentarily by the sparks from a large, discharging Van de Graaf generator in the laboratory. (Bryan Dickeson has seen this phenomenon at the School of Electrical Engineering at 11am, in Christchurch New Zealand in 1974. A path of 'ash' an exactly duplicate the shape of the discharge sparks is created.

This always floats downwards for a second or so, presumably under the influence of gravity, before fading/disappearing. The two electrical engineers present acknowledged this phenomenon and said it didn't seem to be a visual artifact created on the eye retinas of observers by the bright discharge spark, but weren't interested/didn’t know what it was). This material has(to our knowledge) never been analyzed, because it's seen to have no commercial/research potential.

For ufologists, recreating AH in the laboratory could well indicate the sorts of electromagnetic conditions found near UFOs. Any information Bill Chalker's analysis team can find about the Quirindi material will therefore be most welcome. (Peter Turner, Bryan Dickeson, 18.08.98)

Ross Dowe's Response

Your recent report on UFO sightings around Australia is nothing short of total bunk.. From the Australian National UFO Hotline's call to the public, this service has received some 50 samples of the "flying web type substance" not only from the public but from official channels as well.

Our findings are that the odd aerial event was cause by cotton farming activity some 300 klm west of Tamworth. Sample of the flying cotton came in from a 300klm radius of Tamwoth NSW. These huge Cotton farming companies harvest large areas and the light cotton fibbers get caught in the temperature thermals and travels for 100s of kilometres. During that week the winds were heading east. End of story. (Ross Dowe, 08.09.98)

(In response to Bryan Dickenson's Report - Web Master)  This  Story is total Rubbish and all the so called facts are incorrect. (Ross Dowe, 15.09.98)

Researcher's Response to Ross Dowe's Comments

I'm not defending Ross Dowe's comments at all, but I think it is premature to rule out anything at this stage.  Based on the information Moira McGhee, Bryan Dickeson and myself seperately gleaned from the witnesses it is difficult to reconcile the observations of the "dumbell" shaped objects and the smaller objects.  But we should not rush to judgement about certainty on either dismissing the case as a "IFO" or a confirmed "UFO". Currently it is a sighting - an interesting one at that, subject to ongoing investigations.

Now as for the "angel hair".  The material I managed to extract from the container provided by the witness was subjected to a powerful video microscopic imaging, with spiders web from my back yard as a control comparison.  There were many similarities, and at this stage if I had to draw a conclusion I would be suggesting the material is spidersweb, or something very similar.

I will be showing the microscopic videoing imaging during my presentation at the UFO conference at the YWCA, Sydney, on Saturday, Sept.  12th. People can draw their own conclusions.  Also I will point out that I took elaborate precautions in the sample transfer to a more secure container, in case we were dealing with a sample that sublimates, as it appeared to do in my hands, in my own experience with possible "angels hair" back in 1969 at Grafton.

I also extracted a gas phase via an eppendorf syringe prior to opening the container, just in case.  Now the sub-sample on the micro slide we extracted from the sample remained stable throughout the imaging session and seemed comparable to prosaic garden variety web samples on a seperate slide.  Both slide samples after a week are still stable and will be subject to further comparative testing when time and other priorities permit.

It is possible that the sampling sequence carried out by the witnesses may have inadvertently led to a combination of sampling - "angel hair" and "spiders web".  Thats a bit of a long bow, but may be consistent with the statements made by the witness to me on tape.

All this is preliminary observations but I thought it was appropriate to comment to focus speculation on this event, which seems to be quickly out stepping the facts so far gathered. As for the "cotton" suggestion: the sample looks superficially like "fine cotton", but better resembles (or is) "spiders web".

This affair is a very instructional and worthwhile exercise in focusing speculation and debate on the issue of "angel hair".  It certainly has had me reviewing all the literature, my own 1969 experience and the literature on possible natural explanations. I will advise when I have further info to hand.  But at the moment lets be led by the facts rather that the fancies.  I am very interested in the truth, irrespective of where it leds us. (Bill Chalker, 10.09.98)

I had thought Ross Dowe's "cotton-picking" comments so awful and unscientific as to not even warrant consideration (which is pretty typical of much of what he does).

However:

1) You don't need to be an agronomist to know when the cotton is fluffing up and raring to go; certainly not late winter (at best them lil' old cottonseeds will still be tucked up in their lil' old cotton beds, waiting to sprout in the spring!). Ask Ross to check it for himself anyway, the Agriculture Department people are just a phone call away and I believe he can run to that.

2) After a series of days of very high rainfall throughout the district, it is very unlikely that any cotton bolls  that might be around would be dry enough the first day of sunshine afterwards to pop their bolls en-masse.

3) Most of the fertile riverbed 'bottom lands' used to grow cotton (which requires a lot of water and fertiliser to grow) were flooded by those same rainfalls - result (at best) soggy cotton, or cotton plantlets -- any that had been planted up to the rains would probably have to be replanted once the floods subside.

4) The Meteorological Department says there was no wind in the area (just the thermals mentioned by the main witness) - suggest Ross 'phone the Met folk to check this as well.

And there are other considerations.

Where does that guy get his info from? - certainly not the Junior Woodchuck's Manual. I don't know why he wastes everyone's time or even why we give him e-space. (Bryan Dickeson, 16.09.98)

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