Australian UFO Researcher

BILL CHALKER

Bill Chalker, born in Grafton, New South Wales (NSW), Australia, was educated at the University of New England, graduating with a Honours Science Degree (B.Sc. Hons.) with majors in Chemistry and Mathematics.

In 1996 Bill Chalker's book on the Australia UFO experience, "The OZ Files: the Australian UFO story", was published in Australia by Duffy & Snellgrove.

The OZ Files Available Now Contact Bill Chalker For Details Here

The OZ Files Government Files Reveal the Inside Story of Australian UFO Sightings

By Bill Chalker 246 Pages, Trade Paperback Cover Size: 5 x 8 inches Duffy & Snellgrove Date: 1996   ISBN: 1-875989-04-8 Country of Origin: Australia

Our Review

Opinion of the webmaster, subject to debate

In a blow to the the idea that flying saucers are an American commodity, Bill Chalker presents an excellent protrayal of the UFO situation in Australia. Chalker comes from a no-nonsense science background and it shows in this conservative, well grounded effort. Don't mistake conservative for boring... there's some plenty-weird goings-on in the Outback.

In one sense, it is familiar stuff: saucer sightings, abductions, trace cases, strange crashes, etc. But that's part of what makes it so intriguing... that similar phenomena (or delusions, if you prefer) are occurring in widely scattered locations on our planet. The format resembles that of the Timothy Good books, with plenty of references, and it makes a good supplement to Above Top Secret. Overall, a very comprehensive work on the current UFO climate Down Under. Imported from Australia by special arrangement. -- Glenn Campbell

"The Oz Files" was listed by Hilary Evans and Dennis Stacy (editors of the book "UFO: 1947-1997" (1997) as one of "the best UFO books in English".

"Fortean Times" (the popular journal of strange phenomena) publisher, Mike Dash lists "The Oz Files" as one of the "100 essential Fortean books" (Fortean Times, 100th issue, pg. 57)

ABDUCTION RESEARCH

In 1999 Bill released details of the world's first PCR DNA profiling of an "alien" biological hair sample implicated in a Sydney abduction experience. The DNA evidence revealed in continuing study appears to have profound implications for the nature of the reality behind abduction experiences. Bill Chalker has formed a specialized research team - the Anomaly Physical Evidence Group (APEG) which is focusing on the biological and genetic aspects of the UFO phenomenon.

In 1996 Bill lectured with Harvard researcher Dr. John Mack and Dominique Callimanopulos on the abduction phenomenon in Sydney and assisted them in their cross cultural investigation of possible abduction experiences in indigenous cultures. In 1989 and 1990 the first articles on the UFO abduction phenomenon by a UFO researcher to be published in national Australian magazines appeared, namely Mr. Chalker's articles in Penthouse and Nature & Health.

In 1988 he was able to begin the first working relationship with a qualified clinical psychologist/hypnotherapist, in Australia, in which they developed a long term research programme focusing on Australian abduction claims. Several other health professionals and researchers have participated in the research programme. He has worked with clinical psychologists, who specialise in hypnotherapy, to examine a number of cases of claimed "missing time" and "abductions".

Because of concerns about the utilisation of the hypnotic recall technique to date they have adopted a careful research protocol, that places the well being of the percipient as the main focus instead of UFO research. Procedures have been utilised to minimise investigator/hypnotist influences on recall.

In 1980 the MUFON UFO Journal

published Mr. Chalker's 1979 UFO conference paper

"Australian "Interrupted Journeys"

The first comprehensive discussion of Australian abductions. In 1976 Bill co-authored (with Keith Basterfield) Australia's first catologue of CE3 (Close encounters of the third kind) events. In 1979 Mr. Chalker presented the first comprehensive study of physical evidence for UFOs in Australia. Some of Bill Chalker's contributions in this area include:

"Strange Evidence", International UFO Reporter (IUR), Spring, 1999 issue, Volume 24, No 1

"UFO ABDUCTIONS & SCIENCE - A CASE STUDY OF STRANGE EVIDENCE", Australiasian Ufologist, Vol.3, No.3, 3rd, 1999, pgs. 43-56

"The OZ Files - the Australia UFO Story", Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney, 1996

"Beyond the CE3 down under - Notes on the apparent absence of contact, time lapse and abduction cases in Australia",

1977, UFO conference paper, Surfers Paradise, Qld, UFOCON 3. "Australian Interrupted Journeys", originally presented at UFOCON 4, Sydney, 1979, and published in the MUFON UFO journal, No. 150, August, 1980, and UFORAN, Vol.5, No. 2, March-April, 1984.

"A UFO Vision? - the Mystery of 'a machine to go through the air', 1873, Parramatta, NSW, Australia", originally presented at UFOCON 5, Canberra, ACT, 1980 and published in UFORAN, Vol.3, No.1, Jan.-Feb. 1982.

"Abducted?", Australian Penthouse, November, 1989 (includes accounts of 6 Australian cases).

"An Extraordinary Encounter in the Dandenong Foothills", International UFO Reporter,

September/October, 1994 (account of Kelly Cahill's experience).

UFO FLAPS - A CONTEXT FOR SCIENTIC STUDY

One of the more frustrating aspects of the UFO phenomenon is its unpredictability. One of the mainstays of the scientific method is the repeatable experiment. In the case of an unpredictable and elusive phenomenon this is rather hard to organise. Occasionally UFO phenomena occurs in specific localities for an extended period. These are referred to as localised "flaps".

In the manuscript for his 1996 book, "The OZ Files", Bill Chalker wrote: "A challenge exists for researchers to determine if there is something about these areas that makes them attractive for UFO sightings. If the factors can be determined then it provides researchers with a powerful means to predict localities that might be the focus of UFO "flaps".

To date there has been mixed success. Sometimes researchers can be lucky and learn about a "flap" area as they are unfolding. This happened to me with Tyringham-Dundurrabin during 1973.

Some of Bill Chalker's articles on this aspect include

"The UFO Flap - a context for scientific study",

1975, UFO conference paper (UFOCON ONE). The Macleay UFO Window, in 2 parts, Psychic Australian, March & April, 1977 (re Kempsey, NSW, flap area.

"Eastern States UFO Zones", Psychic Australian, Sept.,1978, and NSW's UFO Zones, Psychic Australian, October, 1978 (re the North Coast and New England flap areas of NSW).

"The Tyringham-Dundurrabin UFO Flap", report held on UFOIC and personal files (also covered in APRO Bulletin and Official UFO magazine during 1976).

"UFO Flaps - a context for scientific study", Australian Annual 1997. The middle of 1973 and a remote locality between Armidale and Grafton called Tyringham - Dundurrabin provided Bill Chalker with an opportunity for a repeatable experiment. Locals started observing unusual light phenomena and other strange occurrences.

Fortunately details about the situation were reported to the University of New England and thus came to Chalker's notice shortly after they began. Indeed he was eventually able to witness some of the range of apparently anomalous activity in the area, including unusual aerial lights and objects, and auditory phenomena.

Bill Chalker was fortunate that the strange activity persisted for months and knowledge of it remained largely limited to locals and a few researchers. It was both an intriguing and bizarre time.

Enquiries Into Official Involvement In Australia

In 1982 Bill Chalker was the first civilian researcher to gain direct access to the previously classified RAAF UFO files during several visits to the Canberra headquarters of the Directorate of Air Force Intelligence. He described his access in the following way:

"Prior to 1982 civilian UFO researchers only had a confused and vague picture of clandestine official involvement in Australia. In the face of the lethargy in the RAAF's replies to serious enquiries, I stepped up my efforts at diplomatically trying to get direct access to the RAAF UFO files. It probably surprised me more than anybody else when the RAAF finally agreed to permit me to examine their files.

"The extent of access was unprecedented in the history of the Australian UFO controversy. From the first of my visits to the Russell Offices of the Department of Defence, in Canberra, on January 11th, 1982 to my last in June, 1984, I was able to scrutinise the extent of official UFO investigations in Australia. For the first time a detailed "inside" picture was revealed of RAAF investigations.

"I was able to undertake the first officially sanctioned direct review of the Australian government's UFO files. Over two and a half years I was able to :

(1) Examine the majority of the extant UFO files held by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at the Directorate of Air Force Intelligence (DAFI), Department of Defence, Russell Offices, Canberra

(2) Examine the entirety of the extant UFO files held by the Department of Aviation at their Bureau of Air Safety Investigation in Melbourne, Victoria. The review has provided a detailed understanding of official involvement in Australia.

"On Monday morning, January 11th, 1982, I arrived at the Russell Offices of the Department of Defence, in Canberra, to undertake a review of the RAAF/Department of Defence UFO files. This was the first time that a civilian researcher had been afforded this sort of access. For almost thirty years, the RAAF had been the official body invested with the responsibility of investigating reports of UFOs or unusual aerial sighting (UAS) reports in Australia and its territories.

Until then no clear and unambiguous picture had emerged about the role the RAAF played in the UFO controversy in Australia. Two polarized positions had emerged. The RAAF was covering up its high level involvement in an international "cover-up" of UFO facts, perhaps in concert with the US Air Force. Or, the RAAF was bureaucratically locked into a responsibility it had long since decided was a waste of time, but continued as a service to the general public."

Some of Bill Chalker's Writings on official Australian Activity

"The UFO Connection - Startling Implications for NW Cape and Australia's security",

OMEGA-Science Digest, March/April, 1985.

This article along with Addendum (letter) appeared in FSR, Vol.31, No.5, July, 1986.

"Yes, There is a UFO Cover-up", OMEGA-Science Digest, Nov/Dec,1983.

"The North West Cape Incident: UFOs and nuclear alert in Australia", IUR, Jan/Feb, 1986, Vol.11, No.1.

"Working with the Government", in Spencer/Evans Phenomenon, Futura,1988, and Avon, 1989.

"UFO Sub Rosa down under - The Australian Military & government role in the UFO controversy", on the internet at http://www.project1947.com/forum/bcoz1.htm

Interest in Ufo Physical Evidence

Mr. Chalker has had a long term interest in UFO physical trace events. Part of this specialised interest appeared in his contribution, "Physical traces", for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) book, "UFOs: 1947 - 1987 - the 40-year search for an explanation".

Researchers and commentators have referred to Bill's interest in this area: "Bill Chalker, an industrial chemist and Australia's leading researcher into UFOs. He is one of the most knowledgeable students anywhere in the world concerning physical traces found in association with UFOs.

"Paul Fuller & Jenny Randles in "Controversy of the Circles an investigation of the crop circles mystery" (BUFORA, 1989) "The writings of Bill Chalker ... have been valuable. Chalker in Australia has worked to get UFO landing sites investigated with science and rigour..." "Bill Chalker, an industrial chemist living in New South Wales, Australia, has investigated UFO landing sites in his spare time for more than twenty years.

He is one of the most prominent researchers and is mainly interested in cases where physical traces have been found. He sees the investigation of such traces as the main scientific approach because if flying saucers have a physical reality and are actually landing on Earth, then the landing sites may offer detectable information.

As Chalker says: "The physical trace phenomenon is an enduring aspect of the UFO mystery, having manifested for the entire duration of the modern era of the UFO controversy. And like the UFO phenomenon itself, it is global in its extent.

"Edward Ashpole, "The UFO Phenomena - A Scientific Look at the Evidence for Extraterrestrial Contacts", Headline, 1996. "As someone once said, all it takes is one white crow to prove that not all crows are black. Serious researchers like Bill Chalker have devoted their adult life to the search for the white crow.

Chalker, an industrial chemist and laboratory manager from Sydney, is one of Australia's leading UFO researchers. He is an alumni of what he likes to call an "invisible college" - a network of scientists and researchers toiling away on a scientific mystery which for the time being has no Department in Academia....

Chalker (is) a physical scientist and he wants proof. Since becoming interested in UFO phenomena during a flap of sightings around Grafton and Lismore in the 1960s, Chalker has investigated literally thousands of cases.

"Peter Barber, Australian Style, Issue 17, 1996. Bill Chalker's contributions in the area of physical evidence include: "Physical Evidence for UFOs in Australia - a preliminary study of the physical trace experience in Australia", paper at Australian UFO conference, UFOCON 4, 1979.

Excerpts of this paper appeared in the MUFON UFO journal, No.157, March, 1981.

"Tully (Australia) "saucer nests"", in R. Story's Encyclopedia of UFOs, 1980. Comments on the circles, in Controversy of the circles, a BUFORA publication by Paul Fuller & Jenny Randles, 1989.

"The Bent Headlight Beam case revisited", published in UFORAN, Vol.5, No.3, May-June, 1984, and FSR, Vol. 32, No.4, 1987.

"Rosedale, Victoria - A Close Encounter", with Keith Basterfield, UFORAN, Jan.-Feb.,1981. "The Rosedale Landing with Physical Traces, Extraordinary case reported from Victoria, Australia", with Keith Basterfield, FSR, Vol.26, No.6, 1981.

HISTORICAL RESEARCH

Bill Chalker has untaken an ongoing interest in historical (pre 1947) cases. Some of his contributions in this area of research include:

Historical Reports in Australia, first appeared in ACUFOS Journal, Vol.2, Nos.1 to 4, February to July/August, 1981, and then in UFOs over Australia, ACUFOS, 1985, ed. by M. Moravec & J. Prytz.

"A UFO Vision? The mystery of 'A machine to go through the air', 1873, Parramatta, NSW, Australia", UFORAN, Vol.3, No.1, Jan./Feb. 1982.

"The Terror Down Under", Fate, September, 1988 (re 1927 Fernvale, NSW, UFO milieu). "Australian 1947 UFO reports", Project 1947 - A preliminary report on the 1947 UFO sighting wave, 1997, pgs. 168-170.

"Ufology down under", Proceedings of the Sign Historical Group UFO History Workshop, US, 1999, pgs. 92-109.

"The Jarrold File", Australian Ufologist, Vol.4, No.1. 2000, pgs. 18-23. Bill Chalker wrote contributions on contemporary Australian UFO history for all 3 volumes of Jerome Clark's comprehensive UFO encyclopedia series:

Australian Ufology, in Jerome Clark's The UFO Encyclopedia, Volume 1, UFOs in the 1980s, Omnigraphics, 1990.

UFOs in Australia and New Zealand through 1959, pages 333 -356 in Jerome Clark's The UFO Encyclopedia, Volume 2, The Emergence of a Phenomenon, Omnigraphics/Apogee, February, 1992.

UFOs in Australia and New Zealand, 1960 - 1979, The UFO Encyclopedia, Volume 3, High Strangeness, April, 1996. His 1996 book "The OZ Files: the Australian UFO story", is an account of Australian UFO history.

Indepemdant Endorements

"Bill Chalker - a thorough and reliable investigator...." - Timothy Good in "Above Top Secret" (1987) "Bill Chalker, one of the more rational of UFO investigators…"

Barry Williams, President of the Australian Skeptics, The Skeptic, Summer, 1994 "Bill Chalker, an industrial chemist widely considered to be Australia's leading UFO investigator, succeeded in obtaining direct access to the RAAF files on UFOs."

Jenny Randles and Peter Hough in "Death by Supernatural Causes" (1988) "One man in Australia who is familiar with the abduction phenomenon and is considered something of an expert in the field is Bill Chalker, an industrial chemist from Sydney who has studied UFO phenomena (incuding reports of alien abductions) more than 20 years.

And without committing himself to one particular theory, he agrees that there is definitely something of significance going on.... "So can he, as a scientist with a wealth of experience in investigating UFO phenomena, give us any better idea of what might really be going on? "As a physical scientist I am very much impressed with the physical phenomena. There is a real phenomenon there, but what it is I don't know...."

Raelene Allan, in "Close encounters of the fourth kind", in Medical Observer, 3 September-16 September, 1993.

"...the entry: "UFOs in Australia and New Zealand through 1959" (in Volume 2 of Jerome Clark's UFO Encyclopedia trilogy,

"The Emergence of of a Phenomenon" (1992)). This exceptional effort is written by William Chalker (who, in this reviewer's mind, personifies Australian UFO professionalism along with his friend and colleague, Keith Basterfield).

Chalker does a deep and intelligent job of taking us through aboriginal legends, through Parramatta's 1868 "Machine to go through the Air," to the saga of Edgar Jarrold and the RAAF UFO documents. Near the end of the entry is the description of one of greatest cases in our history, the Father Gill CE-III at Boianai, New Guinea...Bill Chalker leaves the reader-researcher with more than seventy references to explore within...."

Professor Michael D. Swords, College of Natural Sciences, Western Michigan University, in the Journal of UFO Studies, New Series, Vol.4, 1992, pg. 183.

"I would like to express my gratitude ....to Bill Chalker, a scientist and leading figure in Australian (and world) ufology, for his history of the phenomenon in Australia and New Zealand."

Jerome Clark in his introduction to "The Emergence of a Phenomenon", The UFO Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Apogee, 1992.

Bill Chalker can be contacted at:

P.O. Box 42, West Pennant Hills, NSW, 2125, AUSTRALIA

Phone: Sydney (02) 9484 4680 Email: bill_c@bigpond.com

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