THE JARROLD FILE
by Bill Chalker
copyright B.Chalker, 1999

EARLY AUSTRALIAN UFOLOGY

In July, 1952, in response to a huge wave of sightings at the time, and one of his own, during May, 1951, Edgar Jarrold, 33 year-old foundry office worker, husband, and father of 2 young children, began Australia's first civilian flying saucer organisation.

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Initially a one man affair, the Australia Flying Saucer Bureau (AFSB) headquartered in Sydney, was by May, 1953, publishing Australia's first UFO publication, the Australian Flying Saucer Magazine.

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An extract from Edgar Jarrold's "personal biography" from his idiosyncratic typewriter during January, 1954.

On February 6, 1953, 5 Victorians founded the Australian Flying Saucer Investigation Committee (AFSIC). The organisation's chairman was journalist Donald Thomson. In South Australia, during 1953, the Australian Flying Saucer Club (AFSC) was started by Fred Stone.

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An extract from Edgar Jarrold's "personal biography" from his idiosyncratic typewriter during January, 1954

JARROLD AND THE DRURY FILM AFFAIR

While civilian interest was growing, extensive official interest focused on a daylight movie footage of an extraordinary unidentified "missile" over Port Moresby, taken by Tom Drury, the Deputy Director of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) in Papua New Guinea, then an Australian territory.

On August 23rd, 1953, Tom Drury was taking pictures at about midday. The sky was clear, when a small cloud began to form. After a few minutes a silver object came out of the cloud. Drury had started filming. The object climbed very fast, with a vapour trail behind it clear marking its trajectory.

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A Directorate of Air Force Intelligence (DAFI) print of a frame from the Drury film
Found by the author in the DAFI files

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A somewhat erroneous artist's impression of the Drury film sequence

It was gone in a few seconds. A handwritten note in DAFI files specifically states that the object was not a secret missile firing from Woomera.

The Drury UFO film became a controversial and famous mainstay of the Australian contribution to the UFO "cover-up" argument. It became all the more controversial when it was claimed that the UFO section of the film was missing and the RAAF were denying any knowledge of its whereabouts.

A 1955 RAAF UFO file indicates that DAFI had sold prints of the 1953 UFO pictures "at 4/9 a pop" to civilian researchers. Edgar Jarrold and Fred Stone were among those who secured copies of these prints.

Edgar Jarrold's own publication, the Australian Flying Saucer Magazine, stated in its February, 1955, issue that "94 prints examined reveal conclusively the existence of a shiny, disc-like object whose behaviour could by no wildest stretching of the imagination be attributed to a bird, balloon, orthodox aircraft, hallucination, piece of windblown paper, natural phenomena, or a meteor. The cloud from which the silvery object ... emerged is distinctly visible.

On emerging from it at a right angle with no other clouds apparent in a clear sky, still pictures reveal vivid confirmation of Mr. Drury's report that an object, looking at first like a tiny brilliant sun, dashed rapidly from the cloud, heading north-west. The object flashed brightly in the sun as it made an abrupt right-angle turn soon after emerging from the dark cloud, zooming straight up with no reduction in speed. Upon reaching a greater altitude, it levelled off again, with another abrupt right-angled turn (Jarrold's emphasis - B.C.), resuming its north-west flight thereafter until out of camera range altogether....

On effecting such turns, a greater expanse of the object's upper surface becomes visible, causing it to present a featureless, disc-like appearance, which is in sharp contrast to first glimpses showing an object somewhat blurred in focus, and shaped like a theoretically fast moving, very bright star."
Jarrold wrote years later, "...I was able to view blown up still pictures made from this film before it left Australia due to the American request and am still, I think, the only civilian ever to have seen them.

The pictures show what could only be accepted as an extra-terrestrial object, the flight path and behaviour of which, rule out any man made object or meteor. The film was made about midday against a cloudless sky and unfortunately the object was filmed from a distance, thus providing little real knowledge of the object's shape and composition, main importance being attached to it's most unusual actions and behaviour.".

It should be noted that Drury himself observed no discontinuity in the UFO's flight path. Whether the claims of 90o turns were legitimately recorded on the film, or were due to camera movement, or were artifacts of processing, analyses or just plain extravagant interpretations based on limited or poor data, we may never know. The references to 90o turns all stem from Jarrold. No one else, who either saw the film or prints, made such claims. The limited prints I have make any analysis impossible. They are very poor in quality.

Documentation I examined in the DCA and DAFI files contradicts Jarrold's claims to have been the only one to have seen the prints and to have seen them before the original footage was sent to the United States.

A letter to Jarrold from Mr. E.W. Hicks, secretary, the Department of Air, dated December 2nd, 1953, states that "the film has been sent to the United States for technical processing, and it is therefore, not possible to accede to your request (for contact prints - B.C.) until its return, which, it is anticipated, will be early in the New Year..."

The Minister for Air, Mr. McMahon, was quoted in the press during late January, 1954, that he "had the film flown to the U.S to be enlarged." He further stated that the object "was so small that a detailed study of the film was not possible until tecnicians had enlarged it." (McMahon, 1954). The official files also records a letter from DAFI to Mr. Wiggins of the DCA dated 12/7/54 which states, "The "Flying Saucer" film taken by Mr. T.C. Drury, at Port Moresby in 1953 and forwarded by you on 22 Sept. is returned here with.

We have subjected the film to detailed study and processing but have been unable to establish anything other than the blur of light appears to move across the film. In spite of this disappointment we would like to thank you for your co-operation in this matter." Thus the evidence suggests that Jarrold would have not got his prints until July, 1954. probably during a meeting he had with Air Force intelligence. Fred Stone also received copies of the same prints late in 1954 during a meeting he had with Air Force intelligence.

In a letter Stone wrote to the Director of Air Force Intelligence in 1973 he stated " The original film was much clearer to view when shown on a screen and I can only presume that the use of them by the bodies of the USA Air Force, then their Navy Dept. plus our own Air Force and Navy caused them to get into the state they were when the blow up copies were made. I might add that I kept my promise to the official at the time when I was interviewed in Melbourne regarding same and they have never been shown publicly and only to executives of UFO Groups and Societies and then on a very select basis..."

The orginal Drury film, which allegedly held the UFO image, became something of a "holy grail" for Australian ufology. A number of efforts were made over the years to secure the film and further information about the affair. All largely met with failure.

"THE MARS CONNECTION"

Edgar Jarrold, of the Australian Flying Saucer Bureau (AFSB), had stated in a January 7th, 1954, press release that record waves of sightings had occurred in 1950 and 1952 during previous close approaches of Mars. He therefore expected that record sightings would occur during 1954. Jarrold had already communicated that view to the Australian Minister for Air as far back as November, 1952.

Jarrold's suggestion of a 'Mars connection' in the saucer mystery was supported by contemporary expert thought. During an Australian visit in 1954. French Mars expert, Dr. Gerard de Vaucouleurs, was quoted as saying, "There is something remarkable on Mars. If we could one day conclude there was activity displayed by reasoning minds on Mars, what a prodigious upheaval it would cause in human thought." Incredibly, of his Mt. Stromlo observatory Mars viewing , de Vaucouleurs said, "This is not only a learned probe for academic information. It is also a hunt for possible enemies from space."

THE "JARROLD MYSTERY"

While the RAAF was confronting "the UFO problem" civilian research was in disarray following the "disappearance" of pioneer researcher Edgar Jarrold. The "Jarrold mystery" was absorbed into the notorious Albert K. Bender saga, and seemed to share a lot of the bizarre elements of it. Bender's US organisation, one of the earliest flying saucer groups, closed suddenly.

Many enthusiasts concluded Bender had been silenced and the whole saga was aired in Gray Barker's notorious book, "They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers". Bender fed the paranoia bandwagon when he broke his silence with the book, "Flying Saucers and the Three Men". Bender claimed alien agents,"three men in black", silenced him preventing him from revealing the truth about the saucers.

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Albert K. Bender

Jarrold's "disappearance" was used to fed the burgeoning "men in black" legend. However, a critical analysis of the Jarrold affair argues for a more prosaic explanation than the paranoid alien "men in black" myth. In part Jarrold was a "victim" of what has been called the "UFO widow" syndrome,.ie. his obsession with the saucer mystery lead to a disintergration of his life.

By the end of 1953, Edgar Jarrold had come to think he had confronted the solution to the saucer mystery. The answer was a secret he felt he shared with "select" researchers with the key to the UFO enigma, namely the likes of Albert Bender and others. Early in 1953 he announced that he had under consideration 5 theories for UFO origins, namely "red star, stellar, Mars, Biblical or 4-D origins".

During 1953 Jarrold, Bender and pioneer New Zealand researcher Harry Fulton focused on the idea of a saucer base in Antartica ("the mysterious Project 'X' "). Such approaches were naive by modern standards, but the stuff of superficial enquiry was the foundation of "saucer research" of the fifties. It is interesting to note that each of these three early researchers reported experiencing unusual manifestations of odours and violent knocking noises.

Light phenomena also allegedly occurred in the cases of Jarrold and Fulton. Such ranges of phenomena have under different circumstances been attributed to occult or paranormal agencies. They are even suggestive of poltergiest-like manifestations. Bender's "experiences" were much more colourful and less believable. His tales of "the 3 men" and alien contact appear to be the stuff of fantasy. Jarrold also spoke of 2 men in a car keeping vigil on his house. These individuals were allegedly "identified" as "criminals, reputed gunmen holding police records".

Some of the incidences described by Bender, Fulton and Jarrold may suggest clandestine intelligence activity. Were they being monitored by the likes of the FBI (in the case of Bender), ASIO (in the case of Jarrold) and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Branch (SIB, in the case of Fulton)? The cold war paranoia prevelant at the time makes the possibility of such exercises more than idle speculation.

In the November, 1953 issue of the Australian Flying Saucer Magazine, Jarrold wrote that with the closure of Bender's UFO organisation, "if the facts are exactly as they appear to be, the surfeit of theories regarding actual flying saucer origin has been drastically reduced to no more than two. One of these is that saucers originate from Mars - with all that that momentous fact conveys and implies.

The other theory involves a staggering event which, unfortunately, for very vital reasons, cannot be revealed - or even discussed theoretically - ... until specific additional data (not currently in the possession of the A.F.S.B.) has either established or rejected it with positive certainty. All that can be conveyed here is that the particular information emphasises the cause of flying saucers rather than their origin." Jarrold had been promoting the Mars connection as far back as November, 1952, even communicating his ideas to the Minister for Air at the time.

JARROLD AND "THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR"

Jarrold appeared to be waiting for some compelling development to focus his obsessions on. That focus materialised in the guise of a "mysterious visitor" who visited Jarrold on 4 seperate occassions during December, 1953 and swore him to secrecy. The visits had a profound effect on Jarrold. What the "visitor" told him amazed him "beyond belief", and while indicating he was not frightened by what he had learnt, Jarrold indicated he could not guarantee that others would not have been terrified.

Jarrold never publically revealed who the "mysterious visitor" was or what amazed him "beyond belief", but both matters were revealed independently as Jarrold set about informing Harold Fulton in New Zealand that the "visitor" was going to visit him! Jarrold sent Fulton several telegrams and letters building up Fulton's expectation that the visitor would reveal "fantastic information." Fulton as it turned out was not impressed by Jarrold's "mysterious visitor". It is easy to understand why.

The visitor in fact was not so mysterious. Indeed he was Gordon Deller, a energetic worker behind the scenes in early Australian ufology, who had some quaint and rather bizarre theories about flying saucers. The theory he revealed to Jarrold was based on the occult UFO tradition of the Ethereans. The "terrifying" dimension of Deller's credo was his "revelation" that the saucer mystery was linked with a coming geological cataclysm.

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(from l to r) Gordon Deller, Andrew Tomas, Fred Phillips & Dr. Mirian Lindtner
Source: "People", January 9, 1957

Andrew Tomas, Jarrold's Sydney co-worker, indicated that Gordon Deller "after a rather material life, all of a sudden discovered a few years ago that the human mind has strange faculties which can help man pierce the veil of time. One day he just walked into strange knowledge which has to do with a geological cataclysm (man created) destined to break out very soon. Mr. Deller mentioned this to Jarrold who was interested and impressed. He also told him something about methods of telepathic communication. I think that was about all. I have told Mr. Jarrold a great deal more, particularly at a time when he was puzzled about 4D happenings at his place". This took the form of "strange audible phenomena" which Tomas put into a wider flying saucer occult context.

ANDREW TOMAS' OCCULT PERSPECTIVE

Tomas believed "that a War of Two Worlds is going on and that terrestrial and cosmic forces are arrayed for battle." "Saucers have been known in the East for thousands of years. Their present appearance in mass has been foretold long, long ago. They are only an effect, not the cause, and the cause is the great struggle between the Forces of Good, of Culture, of Enlightenment - and of Evil, of Hate, and Darkness", wrote Tomas in a letter to Barker in 1956. Tomas took such matters seriously enough that he made plans to respond to them.

In a letter to Frederick Phillips,a UFOIC co-worker, in 1957 Tomas revealed that he was planning to start up a business in the Queensland countryside with the President of the Queensland UFO group, Charles Middleborough.

"Besides in the bush there will be more scope for the realisation of Project Contact Space. (Middleborough) had a UFO hovering right over his house already. I wish you would materialise that plan about space contact you talked to me about. This should have priority because (excuse me for talking like our mutual friend G.D.) I am absolutely certain of the approach of the cataclysm. Cofidentially the friend in Queensland and myself have been working on a 'saviour community' for the last 2 years. Not to save ourselves but some fruits of our culture.

There are at least 3 or 4 in America and a number in India and other countries. Another one coming up in Sth. America. All prefer to keep quiet about it. Some have stocked up food for a year or more", he wrote to Phillips.

By March, 1958, Andrew Tomas was circulating a draft for a PLANETARY PACT - "an international treaty for a planetary pool of natural resources, means of production, manpower and scientific genius." He was advocating "a planetary government for the Space Age". One of its ultimate aims was "to step up space projects once there is a Planetary Government to control the resources pooled by all the countries, and then to attempt contacts with other planets being prepared to find life on some of them.

From a narrow minded nationalist man will first become a planetary citizen and then a citizen of the Universe." Tomas was optimistic that the pact would "concluded at the dawn of the space age so that people on this planet should live in peace and plenty building bridges to the stars." Tomas' plans feel on deaf ears. In the wake of the popularity of von Daniken's book "Chariots of the Gods?", Tomas was able to get his own book out. "We are not the first - Riddles of ancient science" was published in 1971.

It was dedicated the Count of Saint-Germain! He followed it in quick succession with "Atlantis: From legend to discovery", "Beyond the Time barrier", "On the shores of Endless worlds" and his true passion, "Shambhala: Oasis of light". His lifetime of work in esoteric traditions had come full circle. The UFO occult connections had taken his a long way. Jarrold's journey was not quite so liberating.

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THE DELLER FALLOUT

Gordon Deller did not restrict his attention to Jarrold and Fulton. Beyond Australia and New Zealand he met with "researchers" in the United States. He was alleged to have a strong interest in Communist Russia and while in the US met with the fascist leader William Dudley Pelley who was at the time dabbling in an eclectic mix of occult and flying saucer related mysticism. Fulton wrote to Barker concluding, "I am not altogether certain of (Deller's) real motives."

It was even alleged that Deller may have been a government agent. While some intelligence operatives are a little weird and somewhat paranoid (perhaps a hazard of the trade) I don't think they were quite that weird. The alleged source of the government agent rumour about Deller could not confirm the story when I spoke to him.

Jarrold failed to see the shallowness and facile nature of much of the UFO occult claims. Unlike Tomas, Jarrold could not readily see beyond it to avoid its inevitable pitfalls. Harold Fulton's reaction to Gordon Deller was an entirely rational one. Fulton was a New Zealand Air Force officer and his military pragmatic background rejected Deller's UFO vision steeped in spiritualism, "Oahspe - the Kosmon Bible", and sightings of mile long Etherian spaceships

Deller even went into a trance transmitting purported messages from the Etherians to Fulton. Deller indicated that Fulton and others (including Jarrold) had been specially chosen by the "Etherians" to prepare the ground for them. Deller indicated he had see their ships but had only contacted the crew in trance.

Fulton could not accept these ideas at all. He was only interested in factual sightings and not in any fantastic aspect of "explanations". In short he thought Deller was a nut. Occult diehards with UFO persuasions may cling to the claim that Fulton experienced an illness of 3 days duration following Deller's visit. Coincidence is more likely, as Fulton went on to provide a balanced and enduring legacy for New Zealand ufology through the 1950s. Although old age slowed him down he was even representing MUFON during the 1970s.

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Harold Fulton

JARROLD AND THE RAAF

Whatever the original effects of Deller's theories, Edgar Jarrold was by the middle of 1954 experiencing the high point of his ufological career. He had received an official invitation from the then Minister for Air, William McMahon, for a meeting with Air Force Intelligence in Melbourne. The impetus for this was the coincidence of UFO sightings that seemed to confirm Jarrold's predictions of an increase in reports in June - July, 1954, during the closest approach of Mars to Earth. Jarrold was not alone in support for this theory.

Even Harry Turner promoted it in the anonymous article he authored for the Melbourne Argus newspaper on June 26th, 1954.

Turner was to gain full access to the DAFI UFO files of the day to undertake an offically requested classified "scientific appreciation" of their contents. Jarrold was only to gain a meeting with DAFI officer Squadron Leader Peter Birch, but he was given a set of still prints from 94 frames of the controversial Drury UFO film.

It must have seemed unusual that Jarrold ceased to operate his group by 1955, apparently because of "personal reasons". It seemed to have nothing to do with "security matters". Jarrold's departure produced wild speculation, part of which was fuelled by the fact that he had meet with Air Force Intelligence on July 19, 1954.

The Minister for Air, William McMahon, had written to Edgar Jarrold on July 6, 1954, suggesting that he visit Melbourne for discussions with Air Force Intelligence. On July 19, Jarrold met with Sqd. Leader A.H. Birch. According to Jarrold, Birch candidly discussed Air Force policy on the "flying saucers".

Jarrold indicated that Birch stated that:

(a) The RAAF had "a completely open mind" regarding the origin of UFOs

(b) At present the Air Force was awaiting "depth of evidence" as to the precise source of the objects themselves.

(c) "the greater threat" to Australia was then believed by the Air Force to be coming from South East Asia, for which reason, "no intensification of RAAF research is planned immediately",

(d) current RAAF research was carried out along almost identical lines being pursued by Jarrold's group.

Much of the discussion, according to Jarrold, centred around the question of origin of the "flying saucers" rather than on speculation as to their mere existence. Particular mention was made of the validity of "the Mars theory" and "UFO occupants".

Again Jarrold wrote that Squadron Leader Birch infered that the absence of verified landing reports made it appear certain that "the Martains are unlike us". Jarrold indicated, "S/L Birch appeared baffled by the apparent inability of UFO occupants to land openly and gave (me) the impression that the belief held officially that "the Martians are unlike us" followed consideration of the occupants' apparent inability to manufacture suitable artificial aids such as spacesuits as we know them..."

Jarrold indicated that the popular civilian theory was "the Interplanetary theory". S/L Birch rejected the "unidentified Natural Phenomena theory" immediately pointing out that "if this is the case, surely the fact would have been established with certainty long ago." Jarrold also attributed to Birch the position that the Drury film and the possibility of it being a rocket from Woomera, was not only discounted, but even ridiculed.

Birch, himself, painted a different picture. In a letter to South Australian researcher Fred Stone, by then Wing Commander Birch atated, "...information given by the RAAF is naturally limited, and no access is given to our files. In the same way, Mr. Jarrold did not repeat evaluated comment but rather an incident of conversation, which would not have been the text of a formal statement ." Basically Birch was saying that Jarrold had not been given file access, and Jarrold's emphasis were not correct.

PERSPECTIVES

Such developments were to confirm Jarrold as the leading civilian Australian UFO researcher of his day. They also served to deepen the mystery of Jarrold's "disappearance". What is clear is that matters much more prosaic, such as the pressure of his dedication and increasing obssession with flying saucers on his own private life and family and their eventual disintergration, were the main factors for Jarrold's departure from the Australian UFO scene.

Deller's intrusion into his life and his flirtation with the Australian military were not the key factors. For example as late as mid 1955 when he was by all accounts departed from the scene, a feature article in People magazine headlined "The Australian Flying Saucer Bureau believes MARTIANS MAY LAND HERE NEXT YEAR" and focusing on Jarrold, confirmed that despite all the other intrigues that had diverted him up until then, Edgar Jarrold was still enamoured by his Martian theory - a theory that he had entertained since 1952.

He resurfaced briefly in the early seventies to titillate some researchers of that period, but ultimately the Jarrold enigma remained unresolved. The net effect back in the fifties though was that Jarrold, who had met with the RAAF in 1954 and had been the leading civilian figure in ufology, had by the second half of 1955, disappeared from the UFO scene. South Australian researcher Fred Stone tried to move into the centre stage of Australian civilian research, and take up Jarrold's fallen mantle, but progressively state borders lead to the formation of independent groups.

These included the UFO Investigation Centre (UFOIC) in 1955 with Dr. W.P. Clifford and from 1958 with Dr. Miran Lindtner, the Queensland Flying Saucer Research Bureau (QFSRB - now known as UFO Research (Qld)), with Charles Middleborough in 1956 and with Stan Seers from 1957, and the Victorian Flying Saucer Research Society (VFSRS - now known as the Victorian UFO Research Society), with Peter Norris in 1957.

REFERENCES

Barker, Gray. They knew too much about flying saucers. New York: University Books, 1956

Bender, Albert. Flying Saucers and the three men.

Clarksburg, W.Va.: Saucerian Books, 1962

Davis, Robert, Letters to Bill Chalker, 1982

Jarrold, Edgar, Australian Saucer Record, February, 1955.

Jarrold, Edgar, "The Port Moresby Photos", Australian Flying Saucer Magazine, (February,1955): 2-3.

Jarrold, Edgar, in Albert Bender, 1962, ibid.

Jarrold, Edgar, Letter to Frank Wilkes, April 1st, 1972

People, (Magazine - Australia), "Martians May land here next year", People, (July 27, 1955): 23-24,26-28.

Thomas, P.D., "Those Men in Black Suits! - Or, Let's Get this straight", Australian Saucer Record, Vol. 2. No.2. Second Quarter, 1956, pg. 12-17.

Tomas, Andrew, Letter to Gray Barker, February 20th, 1956 (quote supplied by Robert Davis, 1982)