Believe it or not: Macleay residents reported dozens of UFO sightings during the 1970s | Photos

The Kempsey Museum, which the Macleay River Historical Society (MRHS) manages, has accounts starting in the 1950s and going right through the 1970s, 1980s and beyond.

However, according to MRHS president Phil Lee, the boom period for sightings was in the 1970s.

"We have between 100 and 200 hundred articles concerning UFO sightings from around the Macleay and a few from around the country," he said.

"Kempsey had so many accounts of UFOs, the Flying Saucer Review in London declared Kempsey a UFOCLA in 1971, an area with lots of UFO activity.

"The editor of the Macleay Argus at the time, Pat Riggs, took a particular interest and published articles about the incidents every week.

"She also had correspondence with people overseas; all the sightings brought a lot of attention from UFO groups in London and Arizona."

Some of the encounters have since been explained away, but many more still lack a plausible explanation.

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Phil says one account in particular stands out from the rest.

"Three schoolboys from Collombatti saw a UFO descending from the sky; it received quite a lot of attention at the time, with multiple publications covering the story," Phil said.

"There were reports of scorch marks found on the grass paddock nearby, and the three boys drew pictures of what they saw."

The story of three schoolboys spotting a UFO spread like wildfire; some people believed the tale, while others scoffed at the idea of extra-terrestrial life visiting the Macleay.

Either way, the story eventually attracted an investigator working on behalf of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in America.

Donald L. Cline interviewed the boys over 50 years ago, and in his opinion, they were not lying about seeing something in the sky.

"I found them serious and specific in what they said, with no sign of embellishment or bravado," he said.

"After a number of years as a private investigator, I developed the habit of following the facts to a conclusion rather than adopting a conclusion and then trying to find facts to support it.

"The actual evidence and testimonies of witnesses are weird enough without adding personal fantasies into the mix."

After talking to the boys individually, Donald then asked them to draw what they saw, and the results reinforced his assertion that they were telling the truth.

"They were separated by their school headmaster, who was a retired RAAF flight officer, and asked to not talk to each other, they each made a sketch of what they saw descending from the sky," Donald said.

"The youngest boy sketched a ball of fire descending from the sky with little or no detail.

"The middle boy sketched an oblong object with three spikes coming out the front, with flames blowing back from its forward passage through the air.

"The oldest boy had some drawing talent and depicted the object much more clearly than the other, but they were all very similar, I have no doubt they saw something.

"I ended up writing a five-part series on my investigations for one of the Sydney newspapers."

Donald spent many years with APRO; impressed with their rational, scientific approach to the UFO phenomena, he investigated his fair share of sightings on their behalf.

While he never saw any UFOs in Kempsey during his time in the town, the incidents are still stuck in his mind all these years later due to the sheer number of sightings.

"One thing I thought was very striking, it seemed like the 'flap' was nearly constant with sightings every day during this period of activity, but every time I drove to the Macleay, everything stopped," he said.

"There was never any activity while I was actually in the Kempsey area.

"Every time I returned home though, I could hardly walk in the door before the editor of the Macleay Argus, Patricia Riggs, was on the phone telling me about another sighting.

"Around the same time there were several other sightings in the area and off the coast at Crescent Head, but my funds were too limited to be running back and forth 90 miles between my house and the Macleay every time something new happened."

In only a few years, there were dozens of reports of UFOs in the region, but towards the end of the 1970s, the incidents slowed, and then ceased entirely.

Phil Lee says Kempsey Museum has records of UFO encounters up until the 1990s, but there haven't been any significant updates in years.

"There have ben isolated reports of UFOs, usually through social media but nothing like it was back in the 1970s," he said.

"A lot of places in town used to have forms that could be filled out to report suspected sightings, and they would be forwarded to one of the many UFO societies investigating the region, but they are long gone.

"It was quite an interesting era, but then it suddenly all went quiet."

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