Season 08 Episode 15: If We Can Sparkle

filled with mystery. From astrological charts in ancient Babylonia to ten thousand year old cave paintings discovered in India's Chatterscar State, the idea that the stars conceal more than their appearance has been at the center of human spirituality for millennia. It wasn't until nineteen forty seven, however, that the possible phenomenon of UFOs truly captured the publican imagination as a coherent hypothesis. Up until then, the idea of visitors from

outer space was a disparate notion. Evidence was scant beyond a few anecdotal cases of alleged witness testimonies that furnished the pages of tabloid newspapers. After the mysterious events that took place near the town of Roswell, New Mexico, in that year, people began to question whether there was more to the idea of aliens than really met the eye.

This was in part due to Cold War paranoia and the subsequent fallout from what seemed very much like a bungled attempt to cover up the true nature of the event by the US military. What is clear is that the strange events of June fourth, nineteen forty seven opened the floodgates on the reporting of similar incidences over the

next few decades, no doubt. Amplified by the popular science fiction boom of the late fifties and early sixties, writers like Ursula k Legwen and Philip K. Dick, the subject of this season's second episode, Desire Production, were among the

first authors to capitalize on this new wave. The term eupology, referring to attempts within the scientific and skeptic community to coordinate the study of unidentified flying objects, was coined in nineteen fifty seven, and over the next decade, organizations like the Mutual UFO Network or move on became hugely influential

in the field. With eupology now beginning to gain traction as a somewhat serious pursuit for academic study, funding became available for determining the veracity of any eyewitness testimonies that predated nineteen forty seven. The so called Foo Fighters that were supposedly cited by the US four hundhundred and fifteenth Night Fighter Squadron during the Second World War were studied extensively.

Ghost Flyers, as they were called in North America and Europe during the nineteen thirties, garnered significant attention, as well as the curious mystery airships which reputedly appeared over parts

of Michigan in eighteen ninety seven. Despite the increased level of scrutiny around contemporary cases and the back dated analysis of older phenomena, some of the field's most extraordinary stories still managed to fall through the cracks, and after an initial wave of enthusiasm during the mid twentieth century, eupology soon began to be treated as something of a pseudoscience

by the academic community at large. Official explanations began to be taken at face value, and a general weariness took hold as more cranks and hoaxes were exposed, But there was still a significant number of ufologists and authors doggedly willing to stake their reputations on pursuing what they saw as the holy grail of truth eufologists like Bill Chalker, who in the nineteen eighties uncovered what he believed to be among the most bizarre and significant UFO cases in

Australian history. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. At just thirty three years old, Bill Chalker was already the most well known UFO researcher in his native Australia. Three years earlier, in nineteen eighty two, he'd been granted unprecedented access to the government's records archive, and what he reported from the interior of Canberra's Department of Defense Building

was truly shocking. According to Bill, he saw references to a secret report from nineteen fifty four by respected nuclear physicist Harry Turner, in which comparative data between the Australian experience of UFOs and that of the United States showed clear evidence of extraterrestrial craft. Another document from October nineteen seventy three seemed to collate reliable witness testimony from two senior employees at a US communications base in Northwest Cape

in Western Australia. Both apparently claimed to see a circular object measuring around thirty by thirty feet, flying in close proximity to their post. The two men noted how their experiences seemed almost to deliberately coincide with a full nuclear alert that was issued to American forces within the Pacific region,

but more or less the precise same time. What baffled, however, according to Bill, was that quote what was seen by the deputy commander of the base and the fire captain was way beyond any kind of aircraft, drone or whatever was available to the military at that time, certainly according

to their lieutenant commander. Following the publication of Bill's findings, first in the International UFO Reporter, then later several of Australia's mainstream news outlets, the Royal Australian Air Force took the bizarre and unprecedented decision to close its UFO files indefinitely. It's nineteen eighty five and Bill is firmly ensconced in his role as Mouffon's State representative for New South Wales

in Australia. Having initially studied for a degree in chemistry and mathematics at the University of New England, Bill became

more and more fascinated by fringe areas of science. His desire is to bring a more rationalist perspective to the sometimes discredited fields of eupology and paranormal research, going so far as to propose the influence of telluric currents low frequency electrical energy weights generated by mineral rich areas of the land to explain high rates of suggestibility and erratic

behaviours among paranormal witnesses. He brings this theory to bear on several well known instances of unusual light activity in more arid rural areas of Australia. He even suggests that it might have something to do with the unusually high number of ghost sightings and supposed paranormal phenomena experienced in Australia's so called most haunted town, Kapundakapunda, established during the gold rush in eighteen forty two, gained its reputation as

a mining town first and foremost. Bill suspects that the proximity of copper and other natural resources to large reservoirs of water may be responsible for generating low frequency electrical currents throughout the region. What Bill cannot take his mind off, however, is the letter he receives one morning at his home. He is just about to put on a second pot of coffee when the doorbell rings. It's the postman, with a pile of packages for Bill cradled under his arm.

As Bill stoops from his hallway onto the verandah, he notes that one of the parcels the postman is carrying is not only thick, but hand addressed, it thinks Bill. As Bill thanks the postman and returns to his study, he takes a closer look at the hand addressed envelope. It's wrinkled and faded, and postmarked from Queensland. When he sits down and opens it, he finds the text is

written neatly in a small and even hand. It's a letter covering nearly ten a four pages front and back, and as Bill begins to read it, he puts the rest of his morning's plans on hold. Dear Bill Chalker, the letter begins. My name is Cecil Danny mc gann, and I'm a sixty seven year old cattle farmer from New South Wales. I hesitate in writing this letter, owing to your reputation, but I feel that I have nowhere else to turn with my experience of something that has

haunted me for almost sixty years. It's a Barmey spring night in nineteen twenty seven in Fernvale, a small rural settlement about fifty miles west of Brisbane in the outback of eastern Australia. The mcgans, a hardy and diligent bunch who for several generations have made their way as sharecroppers, run a two hundred acre dairy farm on the outskirts of the village. The land forms part of an estate owned by one of the biggest landlords in the county.

Ten year old Cecil is one of six McGann children who have grown up on the farm. They don't have much money, but life is good, especially getting to be out in nature all day and night. They love that more than anything. Cecil doesn't remember how his family came to be at fern Vale exactly, only that when his family were first looking at the property, some locals had warned them about the land being cursed, but the family

simply laughed it off and moved in anyway. That Barmey spring night, the family is out on the verandah, having finished their day's chores, when Cecil's younger sister points suddenly to something high up in the distance, it looks like a star moving erratically in the eastern sky over the horizon, only it seems to bob and weave in a way that is out of keeping with normal astrological activity. Cecil's father, Thomas, regards it stobically for a moment, its weather beaten, brow

creasing as he squints to see through the dark. Seeing the confusion on his face, Cecil's sister becomes suddenly frightened. It's okay, it's nothing to be worried about, he says, warmly, telling the children to get off for bed. The following morning, Cecil wakes to find the house in an agitated state. One of the families heard has gone missing from the cowshit, even though it was locked when his father first checked it that morning. The family quickly saddle up together and

charge out into the countryside to look for her. It's hours later when they finally come across the cow, miles from anywhere she could have gotten on foot, and something clearly isn't right. The heifer seems wildly disorientated and petrified. The others watch on as Thomas dismounts and approaches her with caution. Then he stops, there's something wrong with her eyes. It's almost as though they've been physically removed and put back in, like they're on the end of their stalks.

As Thomas draws closer, the cow becomes even more erratic, almost arranged, thinks the farmer. Horrified at seeing her in that state, he feels he has no other option. He grabs his rifle from the saddle, takes aim at the cow, and fires. Over the next few nights, the family can't help but speculate about how one of their prize heard had escaped in such a way. In the end, they chalk it up to bad luck and try to put the incident behind them, But then things get even weirder.

Over the next week, three more of the McGann's animals go missing. The difference this time is that when they're eventually found, the cows turn up dead. When a local vet is brought out to assess what happened to them, he seems as baffled as the family. The only thing he feels sure of is that each of the cows appear to have been scared to death. One night, their neighbor, mister Smith, turns up at the door wanting to speak

to Cecil's father. Cecil watches from the stairs as the solemn looking man follows Thomas and his wife Sarah into the kitchen, where he proceeds to tell them that he and his wife have decided to leave their farm for good. Cecil and his siblings uddle close to the kitchen door to eavesdrop on the conversation. What they apparently hear astounds them.

One night, Smith was walking home from the local primary school when he saw some kind of apparition on the road, something that had apparently frightened him so much that he lost his boots trying to get away from it. His only your memory of the night was the fear he felt, and that he was sure he'd seen something terrible, and when he finally found himself back home, he was horrified to find that hours of his life had gone missing. A few days later, three of the mcgans pigs disappear.

Although one is never found, the other two are eventually located dead. Both apparently have puncture wounds around the neck area and have been completely drained of blood. When the mcgans later returned to the farmhouse, they find a herd of cows gathered in a circle around an enormous pool of blood. When the vet finally arrives, he confirms that the blood on the ground is pig's blood, but there

is more to it. He also finds bits of hair and pig carcass among the waist, suggesting these are perhaps the last remaining vestiges of the pig that was still missing. That night, ten year old Cecil and his siblings are woken by a strange, incessant rumbling that seems to emanate from somewhere outside the property. As the noise continues, the family's terrified farm docks can be heard whimpering from out

of the darkest corners of the house. Cecil's father, Thomas, grabs his gun and bolts outside to see what an earth is making the noise, only to find himself standing on the porch with nothing but the darkness of the night stretching out all around him. Inside, Cecil's mother, Sarah, listens anxiously to the sound. She's almost certain that beneath the noise she can just about make out what sounds like a multitude of voices talking to each other. The

strange hum continues for two days. On the second night, Cecil's father, driven to distraction, is just on his way outside again to try and find its source, when he sees that the front door is wide open. Staring at the floor in shocked disbelief, he sees what appears to be muddy footprints heading back into the property, but there is no sign of an intruder. A few nights later, Cecil and his older brother Tom are playing among the

trees that border the eastern flank of the farm. The sun steadily sets as they make their way home, blanketing everything in a surreal haze of neon, pinks and orange. Just then, the boys spot what appears to be a person holding a lantern in the distance. As they get closer to the house, they soon realize it is in fact some kind of machine that seems to be hovering above the house. Cecil later describes it as a massive metal cylinder of some sort in the shape of a

giant biscuit tin. Just as they're about to reach it, the craft suddenly shoots off to their left and lands in the paddock. The boys rush inside the farmhouse to find their parents and two of their neighbors waiting for them in the living room. Boys, they say, thank God your home. When the mcgans and their neighbors go out to observe the paddock. The next day, they find a huge patch of burnt grass near to where the brothers

had apparently seen the strange craft land. It isn't long before word gets back to the village of Fernvale, but something but cute ulia is happening at the mcgan's farm. Despite a welcome influx of support from some within the local community, others seem to treat the event with skepticism. Theories begin to circulate about what is taking place, everything from government experiments with new kinds of aircraft to the suggestion that the mcgans are faking the whole thing for attention.

Some time later, Cecil is returning home from school. A few hundred feet away from the front door of the school is a small wooded glade. As Cecil nears the trees, he's suddenly startled by something perched high on top of one of the branches of a huge fur that seems to be watching him. He guesses it's about six feet tall and appears to have the features of a man, but also enormous wings like a bird. It's plumb glints in the sun. Cecil is transfixed, but the longer he

gazes into its eyes, the more fearful he becomes. After running home to tell his parents what he'd seen, Cecil is shocked to discover how calm they both are, just simply nodding their heads as Cecil relays his story. That's the birdman, says his father. Finally, it's what mister Smith saw just before he left. Despite everything that had taken place,

life went on as normal for them Agans. Being sharecroppers, they had no choice but to just keep on working as hard as they always had and work the farm as best they could. Cecil and his siblings were still expected to do their allocation of chores. His mother and father still rows at dawn every morning, Thomas to tend to the animals, and Sarah to keep the house clean,

prepare the family's food, and look after the finances. It was some time later when Cecil and his brother were finishing off repairs at the farm's perimeter fence when they observe not one, but two of the supposed bird men flying low overhead. The boys watch aghast as the creatures seem to regard them, speaking to each other in a strange language. Back in Bill Chalker's home, Bill takes off his glasses and rubs them on the hem of his shirt,

then stares again at Cecil's extraordinary letter. He isn't quite sure what to make of it all, but there's no doubting the profound solemnity that seems to emanate from the pages. Bill takes the coffee cup from his desk and heads out to the verandah. He stands thinking for a moment in the quiet of the mid afternoon, as the carda's chirrup and the sun. There's no question he'll have to

pay Cecil McGann a visit as soon as possible. He also knows that in order to substantiate his story, he'll need to conduct a series of extensive interviews, not only with the man himself, but with any one in Fernvale who might remember the story. And so between nineteen eighty five and eighty six, Bill and Cecil work closely together

on the narrative of the Outback Birdmen. When Bill eventually publishes the tale in nineteen ninety two, the Fernvale u FO becomes the most significant and divisive close encounter's story on the Australian public record. The contentiousness of the case is further compounded when in nineteen ninety nine, Cecil gets back in touch with Bill, this time sending him a

typed document called Terror on the Tweed. In this letter, Cecil apparently provides Bill with additional details of things the family had seen in nineteen twenty seven, including the appearance of a strange man in an immaculate white suit, whom they had apparently seen one night standing in the dark in the living room of their house. Cecil McGann would go on to detail that during the time of the strange encounters, he developed a mystery growth on his leg.

The growth seemed to lead to debilitating illness, which local doctors were baffled by and to which they could ascribe neither a cause nor a cure. Though Cecil was assailed by frequent fevers and long bouts of bed rest, he swore that when he was alone in the house one evening, he observed what he took to be small gray elephants

at a distance from the farm. Since then, people have questioned Cecil's experiences, wondering why he only chose to come forward some sixty years after the events had taken place. It wasn't so much that his testimony was disbelieved. Though the provision of additional details did raise some eyebrows or that they doubted Bill's impressive credentials as an objective researcher, it was more the fact that they believed any number of credible explanations could be given for what the mc

gann family had experienced. Suggestions have ranged from sightings of the strange and alien like Cassowariburt or the even rarer shoe Bill Stork, to what Bill Chalker himself has speculated that perhaps it was telluric currents that caused the family

to hear and see inexplicable things. Whatever the cause of the strange events that supposedly occurred at the McGan ranch in nineteen twenty seven, the convergence of both an apparent UFO and cryptid sighting, as well as the extensive number of supposed animal mutilations, certainly leaves more questions than answers.

In light of recent declarations made by NASA and the Pentagon in the United States regarding what is now referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena or UAP activity, this almost one hundred year old case is receiving renewed interest. Unfortunately, Given the passage of time and the fact that Cecil McGan has long since passed away, the mysterious case of the so called out Back bird Men will likely forever remain unexplained. This episode was written by James Connor Patterson

and produced by me Richard McLain Smith. James is a brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection of poems, titled Bandit Country, Exploring the Hinterland between the North of Ireland and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty two T S. Eliot Prize and is out now to buy. Do check it out. Thank you as ever for listening to the show. Please subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.

You can also now find us on TikTok at TikTok dot com, forward slash at Unexplained podcast Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also produced by me Richard McClain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase

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