Empire unusual suggested

34 PASSPORT TO MAGONIA
Neither was it revealed why the pilots of the super-secret communist
weapon could not resist the temptation to buzz the tractor
of a twenty-seven-year-okl banana grower.
Fortunately, there were several natural explanations for the
sighting or the nests, although only one hypothesis accounted for
both. The latter was suggested by a Sydney Sun-Herald reader on
January 30. He believed the "outer-space" panic in Queensland
was caused by a "tall shy bird with a blue body and red markings
on the head." It was either a type of brolga or a blue heron,
but the man did not know the correct scientific name. Many
times, as he wandered barefooted through the bush, he said, he
had seen the birds dancing, but they flew away at high speed
before he could reach them. "They would resemble a vaporous
blue cloud and would certainly make a whirring sound in flight."
Unfortunately for this pretty and imaginative theory, it got no
backing from the Australian Museum. Museum ornithologist
H. J. Disney thought the brolgas could not make circular depressions
of symmetrical design. He was similarly skeptical about the
"bald-headed coot theory" advanced by another man, Gooloogong
resident Ken Adams. "I've never heard of this habit by the
bird," Disney said.
Donald Hanlon, one of the best-informed specialists in the
field, has pointed out to me that another explanation for the nests
has been proposed locally: they are the "playground of crocodiles
in love." I fully share Hanlon's skepticism about this last explanation,
because it could hardly apply to the nests found in Ohio,
which will be discussed in a moment, or to the damaged wheat
field in Montsorcau. A Queensland resident, Alex Bordujcnko,
who knows about the crocodiles, claims that the reeds arc too
thick in Horseshoe Lagoon for crocodiles to move through them.
So here we are: dancing cranes are held responsible by some
people for bending reeds that are so thick crocodiles, according
to other people, cannot move through them. What caused the
damage? Nobody knows.
On his way home that Wednesday night, George Pedley decided
he would tell no one about the "spaceship" in the swamp.
He saw neither portholes nor antennae on the blue-gray object,
THE GOOD PEOPLE 35
and no sign of life either inside or about it. Furthermore, he had
always laughed at flying saucer stories. But then he met Albert
Pennisi, the owner of Horseshoe Lagoon, and disclosed the sighting.
He was very surprised when Pennisi believed him right away
and told him he had been dreaming for a week that a flying saucer
would land on his property. This last detail places the Queensland
saucer nests in the best tradition of the fairy-faith.
The time: six months before the Queensland experience. The
place: Delroy, Ohio. On June 28, 1965, a farmer, John Stavano,
heard a series of explosions. Two days later, he discovered a curious
formation on the ground. When analyzed, soil and wheat
samples showed no evidence of explosive cause/ 1 Wheat plants
seemed to have been sucked out of the ground, like the uprooted
reeds in Queensland, or the uprooted grass in a French landing
of 1954 in Poncey. 6
The Ohio incident was carefully investigated by A. Candusso
and Larry Movers of the Flying Saucer Investigating Committee, 7
accompanied by Gary Davis. They found the strange circular
formation on Stavano's farm, which is situated on a high point.
At the center of the ring was a circular depression about twentyeight
inches in diameter. It was probed with a pinch bar, but only
loose soil was found for a depth of nine inches. Much of the
wheat had been removed, roots and all, and clods of soil a few
inches long had been disturbed. The wheat was laid down like
the spokes of a wheel; there was no swirling effect as in the
Tully nests.
If we turn from Australia and Ohio to England, we are faced
with another incident:
July 16, 1963 will long be remembered in the annals of British .
Ufology. Something appeared to have landed on farmer Roy Blanchard's
field at the Manor Farm, Charlton, Wiltshire. The marks
on the ground were first discovered by a farmworker, Reg Alexander.
They overlapped a potato field and a barley field. The marks comprised
a saucer-shaped depression or crater eight feet in diameter
and about four inches in depth. In the center of this depression
there was found a three feet deep hole variously described as from
five inches to one foot in diameter. Radiating from the central hole
were four slot marks, four feet long and one foot wide. The object