Most of us are interested in planes – at least, a little bit. We want to know that they re definitely going to take off and land. We d like the seats to be comfortable. We hope there aren t long queues for the toilets.
But that s generally where it ends. Planes get you from A to B. There s no more to it.
For some travellers, however, there s a lot more to it. Some travellers, to put it bluntly, are kind of obsessed. They love planes. They know planes. They get just as excited about the thing they re flying in as the place it s supposed to take them.
Among the many, many UFO reports out there, some of them have truly stood the test of time and proven to be even more unexplainable than most. These are the cases that have come from very credible witnesses, with corroborating evidence to show that they are not making all of this up, and it is cases like these that truly inspire wonder and awe. One such UFO encounter happened in the skies of Australia, and has served to incite debate and discussion to this day.
On August 31, 1954, a Lieutenant J.A. “Shamus” O’Farrell was returning to Royal Australian Navy Air Station Nowra, in New South Wales, aboard his Sea Fury aircraft. It had been a routine standard night-navigation exercise at dusk, and at 7:10 PM O’Farrell contacted the air base with a routine radio communication. Up until that point everything had been going smoothly and without issue, but things were about to get very strange. Shortly after this radio contact with the base, O’Farrell allegedly saw a very bright lig
The untold histories of the Cooks River
Reflecting on the river’s little-known past. Art by Dmitry Kuznichenko.
February 28, 2021
The Cooks River holds a special place in my heart. I grew up alongside its cluttered depths; elusively beautiful. Sometimes it glittered blue and other times it smelt like rubbish. I used to roll down the miniature hills of Ewen Park, its playground and soccer fields located in the largely overlooked suburb of Hurlstone Park which cocoons the river I still live there today. I celebrated many birthday parties at the wooden picnic benches that are dotted along the waterway and made some of my first childhood friends on the swing sets that are grounded amongst brown mulch chips.