Woomera Rocket Range UFO Encounter
In May 1954, Woomera Rocket Range security officer Sydney Baker sighted a dark-grey translucent disc flying at three times the speed of a Canberra bomber, then hovering stationary. Staff Sergeant George Trotter corroborated the sighting on radar.
Background
The Setting
The Woomera Rocket Range, in South Australia, was in the 1950s the largest rocket and weapons test range outside the United States — a joint Anglo-Australian facility where Britain tested ballistic missiles and early space launchers. Its airspace was among the most tightly controlled in the world.
The Sighting
In May 1954, Woomera security officer Sydney Baker witnessed a dark-grey, perfectly circular and translucent object moving across the range at approximately three times the speed of an English Electric Canberra jet bomber. The object then decelerated abruptly and hovered stationary directly in the flight path of the Canberra.
Radar Corroboration
Staff Sergeant George Trotter, on duty in the range's radar room, picked up the object on his scope simultaneously with Baker's visual sighting. The combined radar-visual testimony made the incident unusually hard to dismiss.
Secrecy
Baker, Trotter and other witnesses were briefed to silence under the UK Official Secrets Act given the sensitivity of the range. The case entered public knowledge only decades later, when Coulthart and other researchers obtained declassified Australian Department of Defence papers.