Tuesday, 2 September, 2025
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SPORT
Oasis no longer? The battle to protect Greater Dandenong’s tall trees has resumed - this time at the Dandenong Wellbeing Centre construction site. Protesters, pictured, say they were shocked by Greater Dandenong Council’s plans to chop down 43 trees mainly in and around the adjoining Dandenong Oasis car park. The council argues that most are not of high retention value. More on the story, turn to page 2
Members of Greater Dandenong Environment Group, Friends of Braeside Park, Gardens for Wildlife and Friends of Eumemmerring Creek rally to save the car park trees. (Gary Sissons: 498798)
UFO inquiry call By Cam Lucadou-Wells It’s one of Australia’s best-known UFO mysteries - Westall 1966. And nearly 60 years on, scores of former students at Westall primary and secondary schools who say they saw up to three unidentified flying objects in broad daylight deserve answers, says Melbourne researcher Grant Lavac. He has initiated a petition for an independent federal inquiry to “uncover the truth” and for federal authorities to finally uncover their files.
“It continues to be a fascinating unsolved cold case that has people asking questions. “As a researcher I feel for the witnesses - for those who were children on the day - and want to know what they saw in the skies and why they were told to shut up about it.“ Three years ago, Lavac interviewed ex-students for his documentary The Westall Witnesses, and was struck by how genuine they were and how vivid their descriptions. “I certainly believe that what they saw was what they were telling me.“
He says witnesses dismissed therories that the UFOs were everyday objects like weather balloons. “They say it wasn’t a weather balloon or hotair balloon. It was like nothing that they’d seen before and moving in ways they couldn’t understand.” Recently, an academic suggested they were high-tech, top-secret devices used to measure atmospheric radiation from Pacific nuclear tests. At the time, Dandenong Journal was the only newspaper to cover the event, under headlines
Flying Saucer Mystery: School Silent and What was it? The coverage featured a student’s hand drawn sketch of a round object with “a hump on top and round things underneath”, as well as interviews with students and teacher Andrew Greenwood. It remains one of the Journal’s most soughtafter stories, with requests from across the world to republish the 1966 report. More on the story, turn to page 3
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