Within Port Augusta
How strong were the railway witnesses?
The Port Augusta account depends heavily on three workshop witnesses, especially Ron Ellis's brief but unusually detailed description.
On this page
- What Ellis and his workmates said they saw
- Why RAAF experience matters but does not settle size
- Where brief group sightings can still go wrong
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Introduction
The strength of the Port Augusta sighting rests less on the unusual objects themselves than on the people who reported them. On 5 February 1947, railway workshop employee Ron Ellis and fellow workers at the Commonwealth Railways yards said they saw five pale, egg-shaped objects cross the sky in formation and disappear within seconds. The case is often remembered because Ellis had wartime Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) experience and because the witnesses reportedly gave matching descriptions shortly after the event. Those factors make the report more interesting than a typical single-witness sighting, but they do not remove the usual problems of judging size, distance and speed during a very brief observation. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
For South Australian UFO history, the witness testimony is therefore the key issue. If the witnesses were unusually reliable observers, the case gains weight. If their observations were vulnerable to ordinary perception errors, the mystery becomes less compelling. The evidence points somewhere between those two extremes.
What Ellis and his workmates said they saw
The original newspaper report identified three railway workshop witnesses rather than an anonymous crowd. According to the account, Ellis and two workmates observed five white or light-pink objects travelling from north to south while working in the yard. The objects were described as egg-shaped, moving in formation, appearing to quiver, and remaining visible for only a few seconds before disappearing. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
Several details made the testimony stand out:
- The witnesses described multiple objects rather than a single light.
- The objects reportedly maintained a formation and a direct course.
- Ellis stated that they appeared to cast shadows.
- The observation occurred in daylight.
- The witnesses were carrying out routine outdoor work rather than actively searching the sky. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
Contemporary reporting also stressed that Ellis and a companion independently gave matching descriptions shortly after the event and that another workshop employee said he had seen the same objects. Newspapers treated this as evidence against a simple optical illusion affecting only one observer. [Project 1947]project1947.comkbsaufo05 1Project 1947SOUTH AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS LISTING - Part OneWhile working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshop yesterday morn…
That does not prove the witnesses were correct about what they saw, but it does distinguish the case from reports that depend entirely on a single recollection. Agreement among several observers generally strengthens confidence that something unusual was present in the sky, even if it does not establish exactly what that something was. [Project 1947]project1947.comkbsaufo05 1Project 1947SOUTH AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS LISTING - Part OneWhile working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshop yesterday morn…
Why RAAF experience matters but does not settle size
The most quoted part of Ellis’s testimony is his estimate that the objects were roughly the size of a locomotive. He immediately qualified that judgement by saying he could not accurately estimate their size. His reasoning was based on his wartime experience with aircraft while serving in the RAAF. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
This point is often misunderstood in later retellings. RAAF service gives Ellis some credibility as an observer because he was familiar with aircraft and had experience looking at objects in the sky. It makes it less likely that he casually mistook an ordinary aeroplane for something entirely unfamiliar. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
However, aviation experience does not solve the central problem of the sighting: distance. To estimate the true size of an airborne object, a witness must know or accurately infer how far away it is. In the Port Augusta report, the estimated height of about 6,000 feet was itself only an estimate. If the objects were farther away than assumed, they would have been larger than Ellis believed. If they were closer, they would have been smaller. A trained observer can still make large errors when an unfamiliar object is seen briefly against a featureless sky.
The same issue affects the reported speed. The objects were said to vanish within seconds, which sounds extraordinary. Yet apparent speed depends heavily on distance. An object far away can seem to race across the sky, while a closer object can appear slower even when moving faster. Without independent measurements, witness estimates of speed and size remain linked uncertainties. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
In other words, Ellis’s background strengthens the testimony at the level of observation but not at the level of measurement. His experience makes the report harder to dismiss, but it does not transform visual impressions into precise data.
Why investigators paid attention to the witness group
One reason the Port Augusta case survived in later discussions of Australian UFO history is that contemporary observers did not immediately dismiss the railway workers.
Government Astronomer G. F. Dodwell commented on the report and stated that it did not fit any obvious astronomical explanation known to him. He reportedly rejected a simple meteor interpretation, noting that meteors would not normally match aspects of the witnesses’ description. [Project 1947]project1947.comkbsaufo05 1Project 1947SOUTH AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS LISTING - Part OneWhile working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshop yesterday morn…
That response is often cited as support for the sighting, but it is more limited than it first appears. Dodwell was not confirming that the witnesses had seen unknown craft. Rather, he was saying that the reported characteristics did not comfortably match the astronomical explanations available from the information he had received. His remarks indicate that the testimony was considered worth taking seriously, not that it had been verified. [Project 1947]project1947.comkbsaufo05 1Project 1947SOUTH AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS LISTING - Part OneWhile working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshop yesterday morn…
The railway workers therefore passed an initial credibility test: their report was specific enough that it attracted informed comment rather than immediate dismissal. Yet the available evidence never advanced beyond witness descriptions.
Where brief group sightings can still go wrong
The strongest argument for the Port Augusta witnesses is that several people reported the same event. The strongest argument for caution is that they all viewed it under nearly identical conditions.
Psychological and observational research has repeatedly shown that groups can share the same misperceptions when looking at a fast, unexpected event. Witnesses often influence one another without realising it. Once attention is drawn to an unusual object, observers tend to focus on similar features and can converge on a common description.
Several factors in the Port Augusta case encourage caution: [hauntedadelaide.blogspot.com]hauntedadelaide.blogspot.comufos over port augustaUFO's over Port Augusta5 Feb 2019 — Ron Ellis, an ex RAAF employee was working in the train yards when he spotted the strange sight flyin…
- The observation reportedly lasted only a few seconds.
- The witnesses had no measuring instruments.
- No photographs or physical traces were produced.
- The reported altitude, speed and size were estimates rather than measurements.
- The descriptions were filtered through newspaper reporting rather than preserved in detailed witness statements. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
Even the famous “size of a locomotive” estimate illustrates the problem. It is memorable because it sounds precise, yet it was based on a chain of assumptions about distance and altitude that could not be independently checked.
The reported shadows are another example. If accurately observed, they would support the idea that the objects were physical bodies illuminated by sunlight. But the surviving reports provide too little detail to evaluate the observation rigorously. There is no information about shadow direction, duration, geometry or whether all witnesses reported the effect in the same way. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
How strong were the railway witnesses?
By the standards of early UFO reports, the railway workers were reasonably strong witnesses. They were named individuals, they were observing in daylight, they reported the event promptly, and more than one person claimed to have seen the objects. Ellis’s wartime RAAF experience adds some weight because he was not entirely unfamiliar with judging aircraft in the sky. [Trove+2Project 1947]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
At the same time, the case never escaped the limitations of a fleeting visual observation. The witnesses could describe what they believed they saw, but they could not independently establish the objects’ distance, size, speed or nature. The testimony therefore supports a cautious conclusion: something unusual was reported by credible railway workers, but the available witness evidence is not strong enough to determine exactly what crossed the sky over Port Augusta in February 1947. [Trove]trove.nla.gov.au6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have…
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Endnotes
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Source: trove.nla.gov.au
Link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/30511159Source snippet
6. While working in the yard at. the Commonwealth Railways work-. shops yesterday morning Mr. Ron. Ellis and two workmates claim to. have...
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Source: project1947.com
Title: kbsaufo05 1
Link: https://www.project1947.com/kbcat/kbsaufo05-1.htmSource snippet
Project 1947SOUTH AUSTRALIAN UFO REPORTS LISTING - Part OneWhile working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshop yesterday morn...
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Source: trove.nla.gov.au
Link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/195086303?searchLimits=exactPhrase%7C%7C%7CanyWords%7C%7C%7CnotWords%7C%7C%7CrequestHandler%7C%7C%7CdateFrom%7C%7C%7CdateTo%7C%7C%7Csortby&searchTerm=quivering+objects++++++++++++Source snippet
10 Feb 1947 - STRANGE FLYING OBJECTS SEEN - TroveADELAIDE, Sunday: While working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshops...
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Source: trove.nla.gov.au
Link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93346874Source snippet
13 Feb 1947 - Strange Objects In Sky - TrovePORT AUGUSTA—While working in the yard at the Commonwealth Railways workshops this week...
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Link: https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/a1fce9bf-9afe-426f-a4b8-e2661e611436/resource/632bbc88-e6bf-4f4d-98da-48f27f98d0c1/download/oralhistories.xlsxSource snippet
domestic and...Read more...
Additional References
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STAR DUSTEDSON, a scientist in the Office of the. Chief of Ordnance, Department of the Army, discussed the planet Mars in a lecture to th...
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The Jewel on the MountaintopIt is both a symbol of, and an example for, a period during which Europe struggled to regain its former posit...
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Title: in the 3 days that followed lens arrival at phillip ponds on 12 march 1947 len c
Link: https://www.facebook.com/lenbeadell/posts/in-the-3-days-that-followed-lens-arrival-at-phillip-ponds-on-12-march-1947-len-c/1549821686946393/Source snippet
In the 3 days that followed Len's arrival at Phillip Ponds on...In June 1921 Michael "MP" Durack takes the SA Government Astronomer, Dod...
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of Southampton Research Repository - ePrints Sotonby T Ellis · 2018 · Cited by 10 — This thesis reconstructs American perceptions of the...
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e expanding British presence in the country, and the relationship both...Read more...
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a, [South Australia]({{ 'why-south-australias-ufo-stories-still/' | relative_url }}), watch five white or light-pink egg-shaped...Read more...
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19479 Jan 2017 — As the 7 February issue of the 'Adelaide Advertiser' stated that Mr Ron Ellis has been in the RAAF during the war; I che...
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Order from ChaosBy February 1947 six ambulances vans were in use, by August 1947 it was seven, and by October the total was eight, four o...
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"Catalogue newAstronomy, 4, None, Presumed date given preface and text in appendix, John Lee, 2017, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=..."](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=...")...
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Title: ufos over port augusta
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UFO's over Port Augusta5 Feb 2019 — Ron Ellis, an ex RAAF employee was working in the train yards when he spotted the strange sight flyin...
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