In 1988 Australia celebrated its bicentennial. However, among the headlong articles on national celebrations in Australian newspapers, there was also room for the story of an Australian family. It told about what these people had to endure while traveling around the country. Something frightening and inexplicable.
On January 19, the Knowles family left their home in Perth and headed to Melbourne, 2,000 miles from their home, where they were going to celebrate with their friends. Mrs. Faye Knowles took three sons with her - Patrick, twenty-four, Sean, twenty-one, and Wayne, eighteen.
And since they also took two dogs with them, it was crowded and hot in the car. Therefore, the family traveled more at night when it got cooler.
Having safely crossed the border of South Australia, the Knowles found themselves on the wide Nullarbor Plain in the early morning of January 20. And although the road was not lit, the moonlight created excellent driving conditions.
There were almost no cars coming from either side. But a danger not mentioned in any of the tourism guides lay in wait for them in the dark night sky.
Their adventures began seven or eight miles before their next scheduled stop in the small town of Mundrabilla. Sean Knowles, who was driving, noticed a strange object, glowing around the edges with white and yellow lights, hovering over the road. In the next second he disappeared from sight, and the young man decided that he had dreamed everything.
However, after driving another mile, he again noticed a luminous object, which was moving towards them very slowly and at a low altitude, so that it was almost on the same level with their car. At that moment, the driver screamed and woke up the rest of the family. The travelers opened their eyes just at the moment when the shiny object landed on the road near the braked car. Then Sean started the car again, trying to avoid the strange object, but almost collided with an oncoming car, the driver of which did not see anything unusual on the road.
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The Knowles Terrier barked furiously, and while they were calming him, the strange object disappeared. After a brief meeting with relatives, Sean Knowles decided to turn the car and drive back, deciding that this was the best way out of the situation. However, as soon as he started the engine, a strange glow appeared above their heads, and with it a rumbling sound, similar to the noise of a running engine.
The car began to sway, and the roof sagged under the weight of something huge.
In an instant, the whole family realized that what had recently been blocking their path was now sitting on the roof of their car. Suddenly, through the half-open windows, black dust fell into the cabin, and in the next instant the Knowles realized that the car was being lifted into the air, as if by a strong invisible magnet.
Along with the black dust, a disgusting smell penetrated into the cabin, so strong that two sons fainted.
The torture ended unexpectedly. The car was thrown to the ground. At the same moment, one of the tires burst, the control got out of control, the car turned to the side, drove through the dense thickets of bushes, and then, buried in a sand dune, stopped. When the frightened passengers left, only stars shone above them and a bright moon hung.
Curious story? There are quite a few of these in the UFO literature. Strange traffic accidents (such as engine shutdowns in cars whose drivers saw UFOs) have become commonplace today in reports of encounters with alien visitors. There were several completely identical stories, the participants of which, like the Australians, claimed that their cars took off into the air, and sometimes even into an alien ship. As a rule, such stories are not taken seriously, but the incident at Nullarbor Plain in January 1988 is marked with important details.
The Knowles family was not the only one traveling that night on the ill-fated highway. John de Jong, a truck driver who was traveling with his girlfriend, saw a strange glow on the horizon near Madura Pass. This happened at a time when that unpleasant story happened to Knowles. Graham Henley, another truck driver, said that he saw an incomprehensible object, which, according to the description, fully corresponded to what the Knowles saw. Henley was sure that the object he saw in the sky did not resemble an ordinary earth plane.
Another piece of evidence comes with an interesting detail. While dealing with the Knowles case, Officer Tre-bilcock of the Port Lincoln Police Department told reporters that all the Knowles family members had raised the alarm and were very frightened by the experience. Moreover, Mrs. Knowles, who was sitting in the car by the window, received severe burns.
Trebilcock personally inspected the car and found specific marks on the roof, indicating that the car was lifted and put pressure on it from above. Such traces did not remain from an ordinary road accident. In addition, a thick gray soot was found on the surface of the car and in the cabin, its origin is absolutely inexplicable; this substance was spreading the unpleasant odor that Knowles spoke of.
A thorough analysis of the strange substance was made. Scientist Richard Haynes and workers of the geological laboratory studied it. It is curious that the found substance is similar in composition to treated flax, except that it also contains an extremely high percentage of chlorine. It is quite clear that the unusual gray "soot" did not appear as a result of the operation of the car, therefore this particular detail, perhaps, represented the most important material evidence of the "strangeness" of the case.
Another interesting feature: the Knowles car speedometer showed a speed of 200 km / h. A Ford Telstar car could not develop such a speed in 1984. Experts found out from the wheels that it really was moving at such a speed and came to the conclusion that for some time the car was "driven" by an invisible force flying above it.
The widespread publicity that this story gained due to newspaper publications led to the fact that the Knowles family acquired the status of an Australian medium for a time. The skeptics' vain attempts to find a natural explanation for what happened only increased interest in the Knowles case.
The most common assumption is that the Knowles saw a simple sunset, but this version was rejected immediately, because eyewitnesses saw the strange object after sunset.
The second version: the lights allegedly came from lightning - was also not justified, since it was reported from the nearest weather station that no thunderstorm had occurred in the area at that time. The third explanation was this: the flashes of light may have occurred during military training missile explosions. It was also not confirmed, since no similar test explosions were carried out in the area.
Australians who saw the Knowles talk on television made sure these people weren't lying. When, the following year, the University of Adelaide meteorologist Professor Peter Schwerdfegger finally presented a seemingly natural explanation for the phenomenon that did not contradict most of the facts, people refused to believe him.
Professor Schwerdfegger's hypothesis was that the Knowles family encountered a rare type of natural phenomenon known as sky-clearing electrical discharges. It is characterized by strong and highly localized hurricane winds. A possible side effect of such winds, according to the professor, could be disturbances in the atmospheric physical equilibrium, leading to the appearance of ashes of an electrostatic sample, which covered the Knowles car.
Although Schwerdfegger's arguments seemed convincing enough, for most people, the Knowles case was due to only one thing - their encounter with a UFO.