Flying eggs - Port Augusta 1947 - main witness was interviewed in 2006

Hi readers,

There has been renewed interest of late, in an event which happened on 5 February 1947, at Port Augusta, South Australia. The case recently featured as chapter 21 in "Return to Magonia" by Chris Aubeck and Martin Shough (2015. Anomalistic Books. San Antonio.) You might care to refresh your memory of the details I published in an earlier post before reading further.

Main witness interviewed

 

Adelaide based researcher Jeff Fausch conducted his own "cold case" investigation into the Port Augusta event. One previously unknown aspect, is that the main witness, Ron Ellis was located and interviewed in 2006 by a researcher whose first name is Mishelle.  In a recent email to me, Jeff informs us:

 

"After I had been to the State Library in June 2006 to view the Adelaide newspaper article for myself and to make copies, I contacted Mishelle to give her a copy of the original accounts. She told me that the man interviewed in the article from February 7th 1947, Ron Ellis was alive and only lived a couple of streets away.

 

Mishelle interviewed Ron Ellis in June 2006 sending me a couple of updates, but in September 2006 told me that her husband was being transferred to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. When she moved to Kalgoorlie I lost contact with her and have not heard from her since. The information I am using for my project is from emails sent to me before loosing contact with her.

 

In an email sent to me on June 29th 2006 Mishelle said that she had interviewed Ron Ellis who was at the time, 86 years old. His report of the incident conflicts with that of the media article in terms of what he witnessed, who was spoken to etc. Mr Ellis first told Mishelle he saw nothing at first, then changed his story, and was then adamant that what he witnessed was a weather/observation balloon. This is as told to him by unknown benefactors after the article was published.

 

During a phone call, Mishelle told me that Ellis was approached by two men who told him that it was a weather balloon and to leave it at that. Mishelle felt that there was much more to this sighting than met the eye. I believe when Mishelle approached him, he had been taken by surprise as no one had brought this up for nearly sixty years. Unfortunately I lost contact with her after this email so I have not seen the finished report on the interview with Ron Ellis.

 

In Mishelle's last email she also mentioned that she had contacted the department of Meteorology, specifically the climate services section, and was informed that the closest area to Port Augusta in which weather balloons were launched was Woomera, but interestingly, upper air observations did not begin at Woomera until March 1st 1949, two years after the Port Augusta incident."