One of the most unique UFO encounters from the 1980s occurred on the Nullabor Plain, in a remote area of Australia.
On January 20, 1988, the Knowles family, including Fay Knowles and her three sons, Patrick (24), Sean (21), and Wayne (18) and their two dogs, drove along a desolate road at around 4:00 a.m when a bright light object was seen ahead of them.
At about 20 metres from the object, the family say they were confronted with a white blinding light that moved along in front of their moving vehicle. At first they thought it was a large truck, but as they approached, it was about 1 metre wide and described as a slightly angular egg in an egg-cup shape with a yellow centre.
The object, which at first appeared to be either on the ground or immediately above it then began to move back and forth. Sean swerved the car to the opposite side of the road to avoid a collision with the object, but then nearly collided with a station wagon towing a caravan coming in the other direction. As the Knowles family drove by, the strange object started to pace their car. Then it started to maneuver around the car.
At one point, the object seemed to leave, but then suddenly, the unthinkable happened. The object returned and actually landed on top of the car. The family heard a loud clunking noise and felt the car shake. Suddenly, the entire vehicle was lifted up off the road.
Mrs. Knowles reached out her window and touched the object, which she said felt “spongy and rubbery.” She pulled her hand back in, and it was covered with strange black dust. Suddenly, the entire car filled with the black dust. At the same time, a high-pitched sound was then heard, which sent the dogs into a frenzy.
The family became disoriented and felt that their voices had become slower, and lower in pitch. They believed at this point that they were going to die. Patrick said that he felt that his ‘brain was being sucked out’, and Mrs Knowles likened it to having something ‘going into our heads’.
A while later, the family felt the car forced back down onto the road, bursting the rear right tyre. Sean brought the car to a sudden stop and then blacked out. The family left the car hurriedly and hid in some bushes by the side of the road. Meanwhile, the UFO remained above the car for a few moments and then darted away. They remained there for 15 minutes before changing the tyre and continuing on to the nearest town.
Unknown to the Knowles, a trucker just a few miles down the highway also observed the strange object as it sent down what appeared to be beams of white light. The Knowles family was extremely traumatized and the police were notified.
Faye Knowles, a mother of three, also told police that her speech and that of her sons changed during the encounter along the highway.
Police dismissed any suggestion of a hoax.
″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.″
She told police she was driving through the Nullabor Plain from Perth in Western Australia when she first saw a glowing object in her rear window at 2:45 a.m. Wednesday
″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,″ Furnell said.
″While this was happening the family said their voices were distorted and it was as if they were talking in slow motion.″
The crew of a tuna boat 50 miles away also said they were buzzed by an unidentified flying object minutes later, and that their voices become unintelligible as a result.
Police said the crew of the tuna boat could not have known about the Knowles’ experience when they reported a UFO sighting in the Great Australia Bight, a body of water off the Australian coast.
Somehow the media heard about the sensational case and the Knowles became overnight, reluctant celebrities. Despite the physical evidence of their encounter (including strange indentations on the roof of their vehicle and the weird black dust), the family was ridiculed intensely in the press.
Although they never backed down or changed their story, they later said that they regretted coming forward because of how they were treated.
Sources: Mysteries, Legends and Unexplained Phenomena: “UFO and Aliens” by Preston Dennett
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I have a theory that the family were attacked by a paramilitary force operating in Australia. From what is written in your story I will explain the evidence. The family say that the craft that attacked them resembled an egg in an eggcup and when you look at a chopper from underneath it does indeed have a egg shaped front and tapers down towards the rear and the yellow light that was seen was the globe of the powerful searchlight. The family all heard a metallic thump on the roof as the electromagnet was attached and felt its heavy weight pushing the car down. Mrs Knowles reaches onto the roof and touches the soft rubber insulation that protected this sensitive magnet and said it felt like a suction pad. Mrs Knowles’s hand and arm were burnt by the hot fumes from the choppers engines being down drafted onto the cars roof and she needed medical treatment for those burns. After a 90 minute cat and mouse game the family finally escaped the attacking craft by pulling into a roadhouse. A truck driver looked at the roof and noticed four dents, one on each corner and he said I looked like the car was picked up by a magnet, IT WAS. During the incident the family say that their voices were distorted and it seem they were talking in slow motion. This is what happens when you are close to the main rotor of a chopper as the rotating blades compound and oscillate the air around you. The family did experience a bizarre and deadly attack and were very confused and stressed by all of the events that occurred that night and did their best to explain the story to a doubting media and public. There are many eye witness accounts to this encounter and enough forensic evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this attack happened but there was a coverup to confuse and hide the facts to protect this right wing affiliated paramilitary terror group. The Truth Is Out There and I intend to get to the bottom of it one day and expose this Corporate Cabal.
The Knowles family encounter is one of the best UFO mysteries of all times but sadly there is nothing that has been said or found to suggest it was an Alien encounter. The craft that attacked the family was said to be about the size of a station wagon, it hovered, it had a powerful searchlight, it spewed out carbon soot and hot fumes from it engines and made a high pitched humming electrical noise and a vroom vroom noise, sounds like a helicopter to me. If you go to Google- James Bond 007 Movie/ You Only Live Twice/ helicopter chase/ electromagnet, you will see that it is possible to hoist a speeding car off the road with an electromagnet attached to a helicopter by a steel cable. This is what happened to the family when they were attacked by a paramilitary terror group in a case of mistaken identity. During the attack a fine chemical compound spewed out of the helicopter and ended up all over the family and inside and outside of their car. That chemical was tested and it was found to be potassium chlorate and explosive compound used by terrorists to build improvised explosive devices. Maybe a huge Starship travelled across the Universe and launched a helicopter type attack craft to try to abduct the family who are the Chosen Ones and then commit a terrorist attack during the 200 year celebration of Australian occupation of the First Nation Peoples land but I doubt it. The truth is that the family were unfortunately caught up in a Spy Thriller and the powerful Corporate Cabal behind this attack had to use up a lot of influence they had over the Government, the Spy Agency, the Police and Media to cover it up. Behind this story on the Nullarbor Plain that night is the Greatest Story Never Told and its such a shame that most people Can’t Handle The Truth.