Cyclone Tracy

Back in the 70's, a few weeks before cyclone Tracy wiped out Darwin on Christmas day, I was on the 12-4 watch on the bridge of a small cargo ship, about 80 miles out of Darwin and headed for port. It was about 1am and there was only the 3rd mate and myself on the bridge. We saw a massive UFO enter the atmosphere and land in the ocean about half-a-mile off the port quarter. It looked to be at least a mile long. It was oval shaped, pock-marked with various sized craters on its surface, and glowing with a bright blue-green halo, but no tail as a meteor would have had.

Just the fact that we could see the details of its surface clearly should tell you something. It could not possible have been any kind of natural meteor. A natural meteor would have been traveling at great speed and burning. This was not burning; it was 'glowing'. It took about thirty seconds from the first time we spotted it until it disappeared. The object landed gently and made no splash at all as it passed into the ocean. We picked it up on the radar briefly as it came in. The sea glowed bright-green, lighting up the surface over a wide area, and was still glowing behind us as we sailed on our way. The third mate suggested we keep this to ourselves (as we usually do) not wanting to be laughed at by our shipmates.

That morning while tying the ship up, just before dawn, I looked out to sea and saw another big one come down far out to sea, roughly where we'd been a few hours earlier.

A couple of weeks after seeing these, what could only be massive UFO's, on our next trip up North, in the early hours of Christmas morning, cyclone Tracy totally blew Darwin away. The official death toll was about 45 (incredible B/S) but according to the locals there were actually hundreds of people killed. To be an "officially dead person" you had to be found fairly intact and with ID on your person; or have someone ID you. Darwin is right at the top of the NorthWest of Australia. Its tropical and the standard garb is shorts and thongs (very hot and humid). They dug graves with bulldozers and piled the bodies and bits in. I heard from the locals that entire aboriginal settlements were wiped out. Ancient forrests were razed to the ground, impassable even on foot: just so much kindling to Tracy. It became a 'political' issue, and for some reason the government seemed to think a high death toll would make them look bad; what with an election just around the corner.

My ship was there the day after the cyclone hit, having weathered the storm out at sea (more like running for our bloody lives -- the seas were huge) and the crew started pulling bodies out of the water as soon as we entered the bay -- fishermen mostly, killed trying to save their boats. Tracy was BIG and not one to weather out. If not for our skipper having a funny feeling and heading way out to sea, we'd have gone down with all hands for sure. There's not many ships afloat that could withstand a thing like Tracy. The locals recon the winds peaked somewhere around 200 mph. And the seas were like high-rise buildings...forget it.....! No one really knows for sure how high the wind speed got as the local weather station was blown away. They did, however, find a wind speed dial in the wreckage, with its needle bent around the limit stop.

I remember some of the guys cursing the skipper that night (God bless his cotton socks) saying he was a paranoid pratt for taking us so far out to sea. We all wanted to get ashore and hit the bars and local talent. After all, the weather-man had said Cyclone Tracy would pass Darwin by!

I remember standing in the middle of downtown Darwin some time later, looking out over the residential area. It was so quiet. I heard a child sobbing somewhere nearby; and the sounds of men searching through wreckage; rubble and timber sliding and glass breaking. All the steel traffic and street light poles were bent flat to the ground. Looking around, it reminded me of pictures I'd seen of Hiroshima after the A bomb hit. There was nothing left standing above waist-high; just a huge mass of rubble and ruin as far as I could see. Behind me, in the main part of town, a few buildings still stood after a fashion. The four-storey, double-brick hospital had one entire wall blown out. It looked like a broken doll house. Along the main street were a few boats and small ships, tug boats, etc, blown there during the storm. It was really weird. Everything was out of place and it seemed almost obscene to see a 100 ton ocean-going tug nosed up at the local pub.

Most of the locals we met were very quiet, having sort of a stunned look about them; but some of them cried all the time. There was a heavy atmosphere of shock over the town; the kind that puts shivers up your spine. I remember seeing a group of soldiers crying. They'd found a little girl shut in an old refrigerator. They hadn't found her in time. We guessed her parents had put her in there when their house started breaking up. Most people survived in the open by hiding behind concrete steps and other low, heavy structures. Most of those who stayed in their homes died.

Every now and then, mainly during the daytime, we'd hear a distant crack of gunfire. People can be very strange and everyone reacts differently in a crisis. There was 'some' looting going on, and several people were found shot dead; possibly suspected looters. I remember hearing of one case, a volunteer electricial helping to put the town's power supply back together, was shot by a farmer who mistakenly thought he was looting. He was dragging cables out of a ruined roof and the farmer called for him to stop. The guy either ignored him or didn't hear, so the guy just up a shot him dead with his old .303 rifle. It was very sad. The guy had a wife and children back in Perth. We stayed longer than usual, till other ships and the army got there in force; unloading everything we had on board with our own cranes (the wharf gear was totally trashed). I remember we drank a lot on the way home to Fremantle; but it was a really quiet trip back.

A couple of years after cyclone Tracy, an old shipmate I met in a bar claimed to have had a similar UFO experience around about that same time; within a couple of hundred miles of the same area where I had seen the huge blue-green UFO land. He was on a survey ship (small ship with about a dozen crew) and the watch sighted a blue-green glow coming off the surface of the ocean a few miles away. The skipper order a change of course to check it out. When they got closer they found the sea lit up for hundreds of yards in all directions. It was as bright as day; but eerie green and dead calm. The whole crew turned to and hung off the rails watching the show. Using sophisticated sonar (it was, after all, a modern survey ship) they detected a large object on the ocean floor. They estimated this to be about half a mile long (bloody huge). As they took their first sonar reading the thing moved rapidly away, then stopped a few miles away. The ship followed and took more readings. This time the UUO (Unidentified Underwater Object) took off and moved beneath them, taking some time to pass completely under them due to its size. Then it picked up speed and vanished in seconds, speeding away out to sea. The whole crew watched the massive blue-green halo as it headed off towards the horizon. None of them said a word about it and this episode, and many like it, have never been reported. No one likes to be ridiculed and laughed at!

All these events happened in roughly the same area, about 80 miles off the coast of Darwin in the North-West of Australia. (RB)

Recently (in December 2000) I was contacted by a lady who lived through Cyclone Tracy. She saw a massive UFO flying around at low level during the peak of the cyclone. Its likely many others also saw the same UFO; but no official report was ever made. Helen is trying to contact others to verify the sighting and piece together the whole story. Please email Helen or myself if you are one of these people.

My question is, what was this giant UFO doing there? Logically, it would not be just studying the weather. It would have a definite purpose. Maybe it was saving and/or abducting people. They would never be missed; presumed killed by the cyclone. Food for thought...

Following is the letter:

Dear Robert,

It was with great interest that I read your essay on the web regarding your experiences off Darwin during the time of Cyclone Tracy, and in particular your experience with UFOs in the region.

I was living in Darwin when Cyclone Tracy hit and both my partner and I, together with next door neighbours, witnessed a large craft hovering over the city during the height of the storm. Whilst we realised that no normal aircraft would be able to survive such horrendous weather conditions the incident was never reported to the authorities.

I can no longer recall the names of our neighbours in whose house we took shelter but the memory of the encounter has stayed vivid in my mind over the years.

A search of the internet revealed only your article as making any reference to what appeared to be extra-terrestrial life in the region at that time.

Therefore I would be very interested to hear if you have had contact with any other people who had similar experiences at the time or know of any other documented accounts of the event.

I look forward to your reply.

Best Regards,

Helen Muir-Richardson
CANNINGTON, 6987,
Western Australia.
Email: "Helen" muir_richardson@iprimus.com.au