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- SYDNEY, Australia (AP) 1/21/88 -- Police Thursday said two groups
- of people who reported separate encounters with a UFO both
- experienced voice changes during the experience.
- In the first sighting, a family of four claimed their car was
- chased by an egg cup-shaped flying object along a remote highway,
- plucked from the ground and covered in a sort of volcanic ash.
- The crew of a tuna boat 50 miles (80 kilometers) away also said
- they were buzzed by an unidentified flying object on Wednesday, and
- that their voices became blurred as a result.
- Faye Knowles, a mother of three, also told police her speech and
- that of her sons became slurred during the encounter.
- Police said the sightings occurred minutes apart.
- "We were a little bit skeptical at first," said Sgt. Jim Furnell
- of Ceduna police in the state of South Australia. "But after
- investigating, we are treating the reports very seriously."
- He said forensic scientists would examine the blackish powdery ash
- found inside and outside Mrs. Knowles' car. She told police she was
- driving through the Nullabor Plain from Perth in Western Australia
- state when she saw a glowing object in her rear window at 2:45 a.m.
- "It apparently picked the car up off the road, shook it quite
- violently and forced the car back with such pressure that one of the
- tires was blown," said Furnell.
- "While this was happening the family said their voices were
- distorted and it was as if they were talking in slow motion."
- Mrs. Knowles told police the UFO turned their car around and
- placed it back on the road facing in the opposite direction.
- Furnell said Mrs. Knowles had to drive nearly 400 miles (about 600
- kilometers) to report the incident.
- He said the car was damaged, covered in ash and that the family
- was shaken.
- Furnell added that the crew of the tuna boat could not have known
- about the Knowles family experience when they reported a UFO sighting
- in the Great Australia Bight.
- He said forensic scientists would examine the car next week.
- There was no immediate comment by the Australian military about
- the incidents.
- The family was to meet with scientists at the Adelaide-based
- Australian UFO Research Center, reportedly after signing exclusive
- interview rights with a television network.
- Colin Norris, director of the UFO center, the oldest such
- organization in Australia, said he took the report seriously.
- "It fits in with a lot of other sightings in the world," he said.
- "It appears to be an extra-terrestrial encounter. It's not of this
- planet."
- Keith Basterfield from UFO Research Inc., an international
- organization which records UFO sightings, said if confirmed, the
- encounter would be unique in Australia.
- "If it is confirmed it will certainly be the most physical of
- encounters ever recorded in Australia," he said.