Within WA UFOs
What the WA Police UFO File Reveals
The state police file shows how country witnesses, officers and officials recorded strange-sky reports before internet UFO culture.
On this page
- How reports entered the police record
- What witnesses and officers actually wrote
- Why official attention is not proof
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Introduction
The WA Police UFO File matters because it shows how strange-sky reports entered Western Australia’s official record before social media, smartphones and online UFO culture. It does not prove that unusual craft crossed the state. It does show something more useful: country witnesses, local constables, the Commissioner of Police, the State Records Office and sometimes the Royal Australian Air Force all formed part of a practical reporting chain when people saw something they could not identify. The file includes reports from government officials and members of the public dating back to 1951, with many sightings recorded through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, often from country areas. [State Library of Western Australia]slwa.wa.gov.auOpen source on wa.gov.au.
For Western Australia’s UFO history, that makes the police file a key evidence source rather than a collection of campfire stories. Its value is in the paperwork: witness statements, local police judgements, references to reliability, and correspondence that sometimes passed reports towards the RAAF. Its limits are just as important. Most reports lack photographs, radar tracks, aircraft logs, astronomical checks or physical evidence, so “officially recorded” should not be confused with “officially confirmed”.
How reports entered the police record
The WA Police UFO File sits within a broader archive of Police Department records held by the State Records Office of Western Australia. Police records in WA cover far more than crime: the State Library’s guide to Police Department records notes that they include correspondence, subject files, station records, occurrence books and reports on many kinds of local events, including accidents, natural disasters, plane crashes and other matters of public concern. [State Library of Western Australia]slwa.wa.gov.auState Library of Western Australia Police Department | Dead ReckoningState Library of Western Australia Police Department | Dead Reckoning
That archival setting helps explain why UFO reports were preserved. In a remote state, especially before modern communications, a country police station was often the first official place a resident could report an unusual event. A witness might ring or visit the local constable; the constable might interview witnesses, assess their credibility, write up the details, and forward the material through district police channels. In some cases, the report then moved beyond WA Police and entered the orbit of Commonwealth air-defence interest.
The 1953 Dalwallinu case shows the process clearly. According to an archival account based on the WA Police file, Richard Hunter and Keith McNamara saw a bright object while hunting foxes north-east of Dalwallinu on 13 January 1953; two other men later said they had also seen it. Local and metropolitan newspapers covered the story, and Flight Lieutenant Arnold of the RAAF wrote to the Commissioner of Police asking for witness forms to be completed. The request was passed through police channels to Dalwallinu, where Constable Wells interviewed the men, recorded their answers and even marked the object’s apparent position and course on a map before the material was sent to the RAAF. [The Dusty Box]thedustybox.comThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty BoxThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty Box
That chain is more revealing than the sighting itself. It shows that the police file was not simply a scrapbook of odd claims. It could operate as a local evidence-gathering mechanism for a federal air-force question: what did people see, where did they see it, how long did it last, what colour was it, did it leave a trail, and was there any visible structure? The questions were basic, but they were the right kind of questions for a preliminary aerial-sighting report.
What witnesses and officers actually wrote
The most striking feature of the WA file is not sensational language. It is the plainness of the descriptions. The State Library of Western Australia says reports often described metallic, round or cylindrical objects, bright lights, pale green illumination, silence and sudden changes of direction. It also notes that some witnesses said they were frightened, and that police officers sometimes qualified reports by describing a witness as “reliable” or a “teetotaller”. [State Library of Western Australia]slwa.wa.gov.auOpen source on wa.gov.au.
Those details matter because they show how credibility was being judged in the language of ordinary policing. Officers were not writing like modern UFO podcasters. They were doing what police often do with unusual reports: asking whether the person seemed sober, steady, known locally, and worth taking seriously. That is not the same as proving the object was extraordinary. It means the report was considered worth recording.
The Cunderdin reports from 1954 are useful examples. In February, May Brechin and June Devenish reported seeing a large shiny flat disc over farmland south of Cunderdin, with a farmhand also said to have witnessed it. The object was described as silent, glittering in the sun and moving west after hovering. When Constable Webb completed inquiries, he wrote that the three people interviewed were emphatic that it was not an aircraft or similar object and that it was something they had not previously observed. [The Dusty Box]thedustybox.comThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty BoxThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty Box
A second Cunderdin report followed in April 1954. Vera Fulwood and two children saw a round, flat, silver object west of their homestead; it was said to move slowly, rotate or tilt, make no sound and vanish into the glare of the sun. Constable Zanette noted that he had known Vera for a year and considered her reliable, and the report was forwarded through police channels towards the RAAF record. [The Dusty Box]thedustybox.comThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty BoxThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty Box
These examples show the strengths and weaknesses of the file at the same time. The reports are vivid, local and contemporaneous. They often record multiple witnesses, times, places and directions. But they also rely heavily on human perception: distance, altitude and speed were usually estimates, and even a witness with flying experience in the Dalwallinu case acknowledged that height and speed were extremely difficult to judge. [The Dusty Box]thedustybox.comThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty BoxThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty Box
Why country WA dominates the file
ABC Perth’s summary of the WA Police UFO File says most reports came from country areas, including Kojonup, Dalwallinu, Onslow and Bridgetown, with a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. [ABC News]abc.net.auABC News'UFO file' sheds light on strange encounters in Western AustraliaABC News'UFO file' sheds light on strange encounters in Western Australia That pattern fits Western Australia’s geography. In much of the state, people were watching large skies with little urban light pollution, few nearby reference points and long horizons that can distort judgement of distance and movement.
Country reporting also reflected how official life worked in remote WA. A local police station was not only a law-enforcement post; it was a practical contact point for unusual incidents. If something strange crossed a farm, road, station property or small town sky, the police were often the nearest authority who could take a statement.
This rural weighting makes the file especially valuable for state-level UFO history. It captures reports from people who were not necessarily part of organised UFO groups and who, in some cases, described themselves as previously sceptical. The State Library notes that some people reporting sightings said they had been sceptical before the experience but were subsequently convinced that UFOs were real. [State Library of Western Australia]slwa.wa.gov.auOpen source on wa.gov.au.
That does not mean they were right about the nature of the object. It does mean the file preserves a form of testimony that is often lost: ordinary residents reporting to ordinary officials, before later retellings could harden into folklore.
Official attention is not proof
The most common misunderstanding about the WA Police UFO File is to treat official paperwork as official endorsement. A police record proves that a report was made and processed. It does not prove that the reported object was exotic, technological or beyond natural explanation.
The wider Australian official context reinforces this caution. ABC’s 2024 reporting on Australia’s RAAF UFO files notes that, until the 1990s, the RAAF was responsible for investigating reports then called Unusual Aerial Sightings. It received thousands of reports from civilians, researchers and military personnel, partly because Cold War, space and satellite concerns gave air forces real-world reasons to care about unidentified objects. Former RAAF intelligence officer Brett Biddington explained that this interest was not based on special knowledge of aliens, but on practical defence and space-age concerns. [ABC News]abc.net.auOpen source on abc.net.au.
The same ABC account says most UFO sightings and encounters could be dismissed as mundane things such as weather, while a smaller percentage remained unexplained. It also reports that the RAAF closed its UFO work in the 1990s because Unusual Aerial Sightings were judged not to be core air-force business when there was no evidence of a defence threat, and that the files were later sent to the National Archives of Australia, with hundreds digitised online. [ABC News]abc.net.auOpen source on abc.net.au.
That distinction is crucial for the WA file. “Unexplained” means the available information did not allow a confident identification. It does not automatically mean “unexplainable”. A report can remain unresolved because it was too brief, too subjective, too late, too poorly measured or too detached from supporting evidence.
Modern UAP research makes the same point in more technical language. NASA’s UAP material says most sightings produce very limited data, making firm scientific conclusions difficult, and its 2023 independent study report found no conclusive evidence in peer-reviewed scientific literature for an extraterrestrial origin for UAP. [NASA Science]science.nasa.govScience UAP FAQsScience UAP FAQs
What the file can and cannot tell us
The WA Police UFO File is strongest as a record of reporting behaviour, witness language and official procedure. It helps answer questions such as who reported strange objects, where reports came from, how police assessed witnesses, and how local statements could be moved into state and Commonwealth channels.
It is weaker as a source for proving what the objects were. Many reports were made after the event, often without technical corroboration. A bright object might have been an aircraft seen at an odd angle, a balloon, a meteor, a planet low on the horizon, a reflection, an atmospheric effect, space debris or something else. In the Dalwallinu case, contemporary checks reportedly found no meteorological balloon, no aircraft known to air traffic control or the RAAF at the relevant time, and a Government Astronomer who did not think it was a meteorite. [The Dusty Box]thedustybox.comThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty BoxThe Dusty Box U.F.O. Files – The Dusty Box That makes the case interesting, but not decisive.
The National Archives’ Woomera learning resource, although focused on South Australia rather than WA, is a useful comparison because it shows how official investigators could work through competing explanations. In the 1960 Wewak case, officials considered balloons, aircraft flashes, practical jokes, static electricity, meteors and other possibilities; the report concluded that the source could not be positively identified, while still favouring meteor or static electricity as possible explanations. [National Archives of Australia]naa.gov.auOpen source on naa.gov.au.
That is the right model for reading the WA file. A good report is not one that jumps quickly to belief or dismissal. It is one that records enough detail to let later readers test possibilities. The WA Police file often gives us the first half of that process — what witnesses said and what officers thought of them — but not always the second half: independent measurements, follow-up data and final identification.
Why the file still matters to Western Australia’s UFO history
The file matters because it gives Western Australia a distinctive UFO archive. Many places have famous single incidents; WA’s strength is a distributed record of reports from small towns, farms and remote districts. ABC Perth describes the file as containing dozens of police reports from across the state, and the State Library frames it as part of the Police Department’s wider archival record rather than as a private UFO collection. [ABC News]abc.net.auABC News'UFO file' sheds light on strange encounters in Western AustraliaABC News'UFO file' sheds light on strange encounters in Western Australia
That makes it useful in three ways.
First, it preserves local voices. The file records how people described strange things before later internet-era vocabulary standardised UFO stories into familiar shapes and claims.
Second, it shows that police did not always dismiss witnesses. Officers sometimes took statements, checked character, forwarded reports and treated frightened witnesses seriously. [State Library of Western Australia]slwa.wa.gov.auOpen source on wa.gov.au.
Third, it helps separate “officially recorded” from “officially solved”. Some reports remain intriguing because they were made close to the event, involved multiple witnesses or were handled carefully. Others remain weak because the data never rose above sincere recollection.
For readers exploring Western Australia’s UFO history, the WA Police UFO File is therefore best read as a foundation document. It does not deliver a single answer. It reveals a reporting system: country witnesses saw unusual things, local officers wrote them down, state records preserved the paperwork, and some cases passed into the wider Australian air-force record. That is why the file remains important even when the objects themselves remain uncertain.
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The UFO Experience
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Directly parallels the value and limitations of official sighting records such as police archives.
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Endnotes
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Title: Science UAP FAQs
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Additional References
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BIZARRE UFO Sightings and Alien Encounters in Western Australia...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: OZ Encounters
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAZNXPEaq0QSource snippet
"UFO" "Australia" official files archives Archived: Australia's UFO Files | Official Trailer BayView Entertainment...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: Australia’s UFO Secrets Exposed with Ross Coulthart
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzoJPerhz-ISource snippet
Government UFO/UAP Sightings Exposed: Shocking 2009 7NEWS Documentary | Ross Coulthart...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: BIZARRE UFO Sightings and Alien Encounters in Western Australia
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0vrONvj-BgSource snippet
OZ Encounters - UFO's In Australia (FULL DOCUMENTARY)...
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Source: youtube.com
Title: WA’s Top 10 Most Haunted Stories: From UFOs to Haunted Prisons
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1Ewnc5q54Source snippet
Australia’s UFO Secrets Exposed with Ross Coulthart...
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Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374373111_UFOs_and_Unidentified_Anomalous_Phenomena_The_NASA_report_1492023_has_found_no_evidence_to_suggest_that_UAPs_are_extraterrestrial_in_origin -
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