2 January 1954
(The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia)
The whole article:
“An A.N.A. pilot, Captain D. Barker, to-day reported seeing about 10.15 a .m. a ‘metallic mushroom-shaped object’ flying low over the Yarra Valley, towards Templestowe, about 10 miles from Melbourne.
The regional civil aviation director, Mr. A. R. McComb, said in Melbourne to-night: ‘We give serious consideration to all reports of this nature and our instructions are to forward them to our head office where they are studied.’
Airline officials said that a Convair airliner had been over the Yarra Valley about 10.15 (2 January 1954), but Captain Barker said he had ‘never seen anything less like a Convair.’
He stated: ‘First of all, it was travelling about 700 miles an hour, well below the minimum altitude for the safety of normal aircraft.’
‘It was also very big, about four times the size of a DC4. I see Convairs every day, but this resembled no aircraft I know.’
Captain Barker said he saw the object flying at 2,000ft from his home in East Doncaster, an outer Melbourne suburb.”
