Hobble Creek Review
| Gary Nolan |
Oz78
Tasmania - October, 1978
Tullah: Landed a ride out from the hostel with an aging pensioner on
holiday from the mainland. He was off to see his relatives in Burnie,
a northern coast town west of Launceston, and insistent on putting
me up for the night (or at least volunteering his brother to do so).
Though we pulled up to a very modest bungalow, I was soon treated
to a near banquet of roast lamb and endless amounts of hard cider.
The entire family seemed fascinated having a "real Yank" in their
house and insisted I stay.
In spite of the headache from the cider, I started out early from
Burnie and caught a few short rides down the Zeehan Highway, the
main (only) road which runs south to a few towns in the western
interior. After a few wet hours at the side of the road, a local in an
aging Ford pickup offered me a ride down to Tullah. Traffic soon
withered away to nothing as we drove through the rain along
tortuous, winding roads surrounded by almost impenetrable woods.
After an hour or so, it all began to feel like a dream as we cruised
through a misty, almost primordial looking, forest without end.
Steep banks sloped off on one, sometimes both sides of the truck, and
I traced the unending outlines of mossy, fallen timber beneath the
towering trees. This landscape was wet, cloudy, dark – foreign and
opposite to anything I had experienced on the mainland of Oz.
The driver was, perhaps, in his mid-thirties and his accent was
different, one that I couldn't place in spite of visiting just about
every corner of this country. It was Australian without a doubt, but
had striking drawls and a strange inflection reminiscent of the
American south. The rifle in the window rack behind us made me
draw a few other comparisons to back home. After a long stretch of
silence and no sign of anything resembling civilization, he looked
out into the vast expanse of trees and, without much expression,
said, "Ya know mate, I reckon you could cark someone out here,
throw ‘em in those woods there and no one would ever find 'em." I
looked over at him for some hint of a smile or a laugh, but then
slowly gripped the handle of the door after seeing no emotion at all
on his face. I knew there was nowhere to go, except down into a
steep ravine studded with the arms of hundreds of protruding
branches. Jumping out would be suicide. I stole another glance and
waited for some hint or twitch in his movements, convinced that
something was going to happen, but he just kept driving with both
hands on the wheel. I sat back uneasily and slowly felt around in my
pocket for the Swiss Army knife, but he just stared ahead at the
highway and never spoke or moved an inch.
We drove on in silence for about another half hour before spotting a
few cars and then an occasional house near the road. I saw a sign for
Tullah and leaned back in the seat, hoping I could get out as soon as
possible. He stopped without much warning in the center of town
and waited for me to get out, but said nothing and did not even look
my way. I stared back for a moment, still unsure about him and the
whole disturbing ride. It was the first time since arriving in Oz
almost nine months ago that I felt threatened, afraid.
* * *
Queenstown: Experts say the Tasmanian wolf (or tiger as some call
it) is extinct, though people claim to spot them on a semi-regular
basis. Given the hundreds of square miles of impenetrable forest on
this side of the island, it's not entirely clear how anyone could
proclaim this large mammal gone. From what I've seen, it wouldn’t
surprise me a great deal if they found relatives of Bigfoot in the
vicinity. Still, this large marsupial has done a damn good job of
hiding since the 1930s, when it was probably hunted into oblivion.
I think it is fairly sure bet, however, that all the Tasmanian
aborigines are now extinct. They were exterminated by these chin-
up, cheerio Brits who now call themselves Australians and, I
suppose, "native" Tasmanians to boot. Back in Armidale, Todd had
shown me a photo of the last full-blooded male aboriginal
Tasmanian. He died around 1870. The last full-blooded aboriginal
female died shortly after that, effectively wiping out the entire
indigenous population on this island. The Australian treatment of
these people, even on the mainland, seems to have surpassed the
most brutal acts of violence performed against Indians in the United
States. The colonial pomposity and prejudice of the British seems to
have a more ingrained tolerance of cultural racism, so deep that the
natives here were totally trivialized and expendable.
This mining town (I presume from the denuded hills in the distance)
has all the makings of a movie set from the Old West. One street
lined with wooden buildings, each with a flat, squared facade, and
the requisite raised wooden walk with a handrail, though at the
moment, no horses are to be found. I am now in search of the saloon
and more strangely gruntish sounding beer names.
* * *
Hobart/Huon Valley: On our return trip from the Huon Valley, Brett
stopped suddenly at a nondescript house with an small sign out front
that stated, simply, "Apple Art". He claimed to have heard
something about this provincial "art form" and decided we must go
in. I was willing to take a look, but his wife Angie appeared
disgusted by the delay getting back to Hobart.
We knocked politely at the door and waited for a few moments before
a kindly looking woman, perhaps in her late 40s, greeted us and
asked us in. Just inside the door, we viewed a large world map with
multiple pushpins protruding from various continents and then, as
we turned the corner into the living area, we viewed shelves filled
with what appeared to be shrunken heads. As the woman bantered,
we each snuck looks at one another, wondering if this had been such
a great idea. As we neared her work area, it became clear that the
withered human heads were indeed apples somehow tortured into
rather grotesque cranial forms and shapes. The woman was at no
loss for words and began a non-stop ramble about her unique
methods for carving apples into human likeness and then
dehydrating the fruit. With the passage of time, the withered apples
begin to shrivel (but not rot) and contort along lines that mimic
human aging. She showed us many (and I mean many) examples of
disgusting male and female "appleheads" that had undergone her Dr.
Moreau-like experiments.
Brett sighed repeatedly and shot us high signs that he wanted to get
the hell out of there. However, the "artiste" was now on a roll and
soon brought out tea and cake, though she could not shut up about
her wonderful creations even while she was in the kitchen.
Ironically, Angie warmed up to all the bullshit and suddenly seemed
to find these horrific heads "cute". I had this vision of being drugged
with the tea and then being taken out back to have my head removed.
The pins in the map, as it turned out, were the locations of many of
the fruity progeny born from her cornucopia of talent. I viewed it
more as a possible pod seeding of the world. We too could become a
"pin" for only $4.00, unless we wished to buy one of the "old ones" for
a significantly higher price. Angie, sliding downhill during this
whole pitch, broke down and actually purchased a young male head
that had a vague resemblance to Brett. We finally left, poorer but
wiser in the arcane and mystic ways of the cult of the apple.
Back at the car, Brett berated Angie for blowing the money, saying it
was a very sick art this woman practiced. I added that they were
probably human heads and not apples anyway. Brett actually made
her place the thing in the boot before agreeing to drive back to
Hobart.
Port Arthur: Got the final ride here from a very old woman driving
faster than she had any right to. Her vision was also suspect, since
she kept tilting her head and squinting as if to focus on the road. I
was just happy to get a lift. Apparently, she "loved" giving rides to
young folks traveling around and telling them about the prison
where her grandfather had been a guard. As we zoomed past
Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow strip of land connecting the mainland
to the old prison grounds, she cackled about the sharks and vicious
guard dogs preventing any escape. As I peered out into the churning
seas on either side of the road, she started to describe in detail how
the prisoners were often flogged for bad behaviour. The heavy,
swirling gray skies framed ominous skeletons of massive, sandstone
prison buildings when we finally began to slow down. There were
high winds and a stinging rain when I got out of the car and said
farewell, but my benefactor of the moment had dropped me off right
at the door of the hostel.
* * *
The great room in this large, Victorian styled house has a working
fireplace and plentiful bookshelves. For the last two mornings, I
have explored the dead buildings out front in spite of the rain and
then retreated here to read or write while glancing out a large
expanse of windows toward the prison ruins and the sea. I suspect
this place is quite a bargain at $1.40 a day, in spite of the rather
bizarre assortment of hippies and simpletons staying here at the
moment.
* * *
Yesterday afternoon, I retreated from the rains to the hostel hoping
someone had already started a fire, but the great room was empty
when I entered. I got a fire going in short order and then sat back to
watch the rain pound the windows. The wind smeared the water
across the glass and blurred trees bending down to the sea. I must
have been staring for a few minutes, trying to get warm, when I
realized someone else was in the room with me. A young blonde was
seated behind me in the corner of the room with her backpack on.
She was soaked through and had an impassive gaze on her face,
focused somewhere on the wall behind me. I had not seen or heard
anyone come in and was suddenly disturbed by her ghostly and silent
appearance. After a few uneasy moments, I said hello, but she did
not acknowledge. Perhaps she was just very stoned or on some other,
more potent, drugs (I had seen that before too), but as I approached, I
could see she was shaking and clenching her knees. I shouted
toward the kitchen hoping someone was there and luckily the
proprietor's wife responded and came in. Her quick consensus was
that she probably OD’d on something and thought it best to call the
hospital. I didn’t disagree. It wasn’t long before a small ambulance
rolled up the long drive and ushered the girl out on a stretcher.
* * *
The proprietor's wife stopped up at the hospital this morning and
later told me that our strange female visitor yesterday had been
raped, repeatedly, possibly by a couple of men who had given her a
ride out of Hobart. The story was hazy and how she had actually
managed to get to the hostel was unclear. After hearing this, I felt
violated too, as if some boundary of civility had been finally crossed
after these many months. It did not bode well for any traveler, let
alone women going it alone (of which I had met a few across Oz). I
have come to the unfortunate conclusion that Tasmania is the "deep
south" of Australia, filled with only appleheads and convicts.
* * *
Bicheno: It took me some time to get a ride out of Port Arthur. I
guess that, like all good prisons, it's easier to get in than out. There
was very little traffic – only a few lorries from local shops – and the
weather was still miserable. I was nearly ready to give up and go
back when I got a lift from some Jesus freaks heading down the
happy highway toward Launceston. The temptation to bail on this
entire island tour weighed on me after I heard their destination. All
the strange forebodings and negative intimations have made me
want to leave. The ghoulishly grinning driver and passengers would
have been more than willing to take me all the way (provided I
supplied some gas money), but after about two hours of hearing the
"good word" I was again ready to jump out of the mini bus, much as I
had on the other side of the island not long ago. More appleheads.
There was no amount of logic or reasoning that would make these
people shut up. My rather mild dissension just primed their mad
preaching pumps even more. One wide-eyed girl was excitedly
telling me about the "Bear" of Russia and "Eagle" of America spoken
of in Revelations. Some wiry guy on my other side was telling me
about his personal guardian (angel, I guess), present in the van at
that very moment. They apparently had all thrown out their hash
pipes for a hit of Messiah and seemed farther gone than any junkies I
had ever encountered. I quickly scanned the hostel guide and found
a place not far up the road at Bicheno, so I was able to get off the
magic bus and bid them godspeed to their ethereal futures.
It is amazing at what lengths people go to externalize the spirits and
vapours that exist within them. They look everywhere else, from
"sacred" books to ghosts sitting beside them, instead of focusing on
the truth within. Saints get created from impulse and desire - gods
from orgasms. Demons are crafted from what's left over and
unwanted – that way we can attribute it all to something or someone
else and feel (oh so) righteous brother. The unconscious (or barely
conscious) gets projected in a blurred manner, from within, like the
pinhole images of the camera obscura. The world literally gets
turned upside down.
* * *
It was fortunate I didn't head back to the mainland the other day.
There is a small hostel here, sitting alone on the beach, complete
with a large stone fireplace and a mountain of firewood around
back. It also seems there are about eight women staying here along
with one (presumably happy) fellow from England.
Though it is moderately cold, the sun has been out since my arrival.
Other than momentary breaks in the cloud cover, I have not seen
this much blue sky since stepping foot on this island, making me
wonder if the gray wash across this island has been some symptom
instead of a meteorological effect. Everything appears a bit more
sane and tangible at the moment.
* * *
Apparently, Tasmania may also be a haven for UFOs – possibly they
have followed me here form the red, barren interior and Pine Gap.
Perhaps my holy brothers and sisters in the mini-bus have
summoned them to destroy this wicked unbeliever. More likely, the
alien visitors are performing experiments on Tasmanians, which may
help explain their general madness. Of late, there have been a
number of UFO "sightings" around the island and just a few days
ago, a plane disappeared over Bass Strait, en route from Victoria to
Tasmania. A number of other witnesses supposedly saw strange
lights and movement in the sky that night and the newspaper
reported:
'Pilot Frederick Valentich took to the skies in his Cessna 182 light
aircraft from Moorabbin Airport, Victoria bound for King Island,
Tasmania. At 7:06pm he contacted Melbourne Flight Service Unit
about an object closing on his plane. At 7:10pm his last transmission
was that a "strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again ...... it is
hovering and it's not an aircraft..." Despite an intense and ongoing
air, land and sea search of the area, neither pilot or aircraft have
been heard from since.'
Usually, these stories have some other logical explanation, yet the
rumblings (at least in the local pub) seem curious, almost paranoid.
Out here, where the starscape tends to dominate the night view, it
has made me wonder as well.
Tasmania - October, 1978
Tullah: Landed a ride out from the hostel with an aging pensioner on
holiday from the mainland. He was off to see his relatives in Burnie,
a northern coast town west of Launceston, and insistent on putting
me up for the night (or at least volunteering his brother to do so).
Though we pulled up to a very modest bungalow, I was soon treated
to a near banquet of roast lamb and endless amounts of hard cider.
The entire family seemed fascinated having a "real Yank" in their
house and insisted I stay.
In spite of the headache from the cider, I started out early from
Burnie and caught a few short rides down the Zeehan Highway, the
main (only) road which runs south to a few towns in the western
interior. After a few wet hours at the side of the road, a local in an
aging Ford pickup offered me a ride down to Tullah. Traffic soon
withered away to nothing as we drove through the rain along
tortuous, winding roads surrounded by almost impenetrable woods.
After an hour or so, it all began to feel like a dream as we cruised
through a misty, almost primordial looking, forest without end.
Steep banks sloped off on one, sometimes both sides of the truck, and
I traced the unending outlines of mossy, fallen timber beneath the
towering trees. This landscape was wet, cloudy, dark – foreign and
opposite to anything I had experienced on the mainland of Oz.
The driver was, perhaps, in his mid-thirties and his accent was
different, one that I couldn't place in spite of visiting just about
every corner of this country. It was Australian without a doubt, but
had striking drawls and a strange inflection reminiscent of the
American south. The rifle in the window rack behind us made me
draw a few other comparisons to back home. After a long stretch of
silence and no sign of anything resembling civilization, he looked
out into the vast expanse of trees and, without much expression,
said, "Ya know mate, I reckon you could cark someone out here,
throw ‘em in those woods there and no one would ever find 'em." I
looked over at him for some hint of a smile or a laugh, but then
slowly gripped the handle of the door after seeing no emotion at all
on his face. I knew there was nowhere to go, except down into a
steep ravine studded with the arms of hundreds of protruding
branches. Jumping out would be suicide. I stole another glance and
waited for some hint or twitch in his movements, convinced that
something was going to happen, but he just kept driving with both
hands on the wheel. I sat back uneasily and slowly felt around in my
pocket for the Swiss Army knife, but he just stared ahead at the
highway and never spoke or moved an inch.
We drove on in silence for about another half hour before spotting a
few cars and then an occasional house near the road. I saw a sign for
Tullah and leaned back in the seat, hoping I could get out as soon as
possible. He stopped without much warning in the center of town
and waited for me to get out, but said nothing and did not even look
my way. I stared back for a moment, still unsure about him and the
whole disturbing ride. It was the first time since arriving in Oz
almost nine months ago that I felt threatened, afraid.
* * *
Queenstown: Experts say the Tasmanian wolf (or tiger as some call
it) is extinct, though people claim to spot them on a semi-regular
basis. Given the hundreds of square miles of impenetrable forest on
this side of the island, it's not entirely clear how anyone could
proclaim this large mammal gone. From what I've seen, it wouldn’t
surprise me a great deal if they found relatives of Bigfoot in the
vicinity. Still, this large marsupial has done a damn good job of
hiding since the 1930s, when it was probably hunted into oblivion.
I think it is fairly sure bet, however, that all the Tasmanian
aborigines are now extinct. They were exterminated by these chin-
up, cheerio Brits who now call themselves Australians and, I
suppose, "native" Tasmanians to boot. Back in Armidale, Todd had
shown me a photo of the last full-blooded male aboriginal
Tasmanian. He died around 1870. The last full-blooded aboriginal
female died shortly after that, effectively wiping out the entire
indigenous population on this island. The Australian treatment of
these people, even on the mainland, seems to have surpassed the
most brutal acts of violence performed against Indians in the United
States. The colonial pomposity and prejudice of the British seems to
have a more ingrained tolerance of cultural racism, so deep that the
natives here were totally trivialized and expendable.
This mining town (I presume from the denuded hills in the distance)
has all the makings of a movie set from the Old West. One street
lined with wooden buildings, each with a flat, squared facade, and
the requisite raised wooden walk with a handrail, though at the
moment, no horses are to be found. I am now in search of the saloon
and more strangely gruntish sounding beer names.
* * *
Hobart/Huon Valley: On our return trip from the Huon Valley, Brett
stopped suddenly at a nondescript house with an small sign out front
that stated, simply, "Apple Art". He claimed to have heard
something about this provincial "art form" and decided we must go
in. I was willing to take a look, but his wife Angie appeared
disgusted by the delay getting back to Hobart.
We knocked politely at the door and waited for a few moments before
a kindly looking woman, perhaps in her late 40s, greeted us and
asked us in. Just inside the door, we viewed a large world map with
multiple pushpins protruding from various continents and then, as
we turned the corner into the living area, we viewed shelves filled
with what appeared to be shrunken heads. As the woman bantered,
we each snuck looks at one another, wondering if this had been such
a great idea. As we neared her work area, it became clear that the
withered human heads were indeed apples somehow tortured into
rather grotesque cranial forms and shapes. The woman was at no
loss for words and began a non-stop ramble about her unique
methods for carving apples into human likeness and then
dehydrating the fruit. With the passage of time, the withered apples
begin to shrivel (but not rot) and contort along lines that mimic
human aging. She showed us many (and I mean many) examples of
disgusting male and female "appleheads" that had undergone her Dr.
Moreau-like experiments.
Brett sighed repeatedly and shot us high signs that he wanted to get
the hell out of there. However, the "artiste" was now on a roll and
soon brought out tea and cake, though she could not shut up about
her wonderful creations even while she was in the kitchen.
Ironically, Angie warmed up to all the bullshit and suddenly seemed
to find these horrific heads "cute". I had this vision of being drugged
with the tea and then being taken out back to have my head removed.
The pins in the map, as it turned out, were the locations of many of
the fruity progeny born from her cornucopia of talent. I viewed it
more as a possible pod seeding of the world. We too could become a
"pin" for only $4.00, unless we wished to buy one of the "old ones" for
a significantly higher price. Angie, sliding downhill during this
whole pitch, broke down and actually purchased a young male head
that had a vague resemblance to Brett. We finally left, poorer but
wiser in the arcane and mystic ways of the cult of the apple.
Back at the car, Brett berated Angie for blowing the money, saying it
was a very sick art this woman practiced. I added that they were
probably human heads and not apples anyway. Brett actually made
her place the thing in the boot before agreeing to drive back to
Hobart.
Port Arthur: Got the final ride here from a very old woman driving
faster than she had any right to. Her vision was also suspect, since
she kept tilting her head and squinting as if to focus on the road. I
was just happy to get a lift. Apparently, she "loved" giving rides to
young folks traveling around and telling them about the prison
where her grandfather had been a guard. As we zoomed past
Eaglehawk Neck, the narrow strip of land connecting the mainland
to the old prison grounds, she cackled about the sharks and vicious
guard dogs preventing any escape. As I peered out into the churning
seas on either side of the road, she started to describe in detail how
the prisoners were often flogged for bad behaviour. The heavy,
swirling gray skies framed ominous skeletons of massive, sandstone
prison buildings when we finally began to slow down. There were
high winds and a stinging rain when I got out of the car and said
farewell, but my benefactor of the moment had dropped me off right
at the door of the hostel.
* * *
The great room in this large, Victorian styled house has a working
fireplace and plentiful bookshelves. For the last two mornings, I
have explored the dead buildings out front in spite of the rain and
then retreated here to read or write while glancing out a large
expanse of windows toward the prison ruins and the sea. I suspect
this place is quite a bargain at $1.40 a day, in spite of the rather
bizarre assortment of hippies and simpletons staying here at the
moment.
* * *
Yesterday afternoon, I retreated from the rains to the hostel hoping
someone had already started a fire, but the great room was empty
when I entered. I got a fire going in short order and then sat back to
watch the rain pound the windows. The wind smeared the water
across the glass and blurred trees bending down to the sea. I must
have been staring for a few minutes, trying to get warm, when I
realized someone else was in the room with me. A young blonde was
seated behind me in the corner of the room with her backpack on.
She was soaked through and had an impassive gaze on her face,
focused somewhere on the wall behind me. I had not seen or heard
anyone come in and was suddenly disturbed by her ghostly and silent
appearance. After a few uneasy moments, I said hello, but she did
not acknowledge. Perhaps she was just very stoned or on some other,
more potent, drugs (I had seen that before too), but as I approached, I
could see she was shaking and clenching her knees. I shouted
toward the kitchen hoping someone was there and luckily the
proprietor's wife responded and came in. Her quick consensus was
that she probably OD’d on something and thought it best to call the
hospital. I didn’t disagree. It wasn’t long before a small ambulance
rolled up the long drive and ushered the girl out on a stretcher.
* * *
The proprietor's wife stopped up at the hospital this morning and
later told me that our strange female visitor yesterday had been
raped, repeatedly, possibly by a couple of men who had given her a
ride out of Hobart. The story was hazy and how she had actually
managed to get to the hostel was unclear. After hearing this, I felt
violated too, as if some boundary of civility had been finally crossed
after these many months. It did not bode well for any traveler, let
alone women going it alone (of which I had met a few across Oz). I
have come to the unfortunate conclusion that Tasmania is the "deep
south" of Australia, filled with only appleheads and convicts.
* * *
Bicheno: It took me some time to get a ride out of Port Arthur. I
guess that, like all good prisons, it's easier to get in than out. There
was very little traffic – only a few lorries from local shops – and the
weather was still miserable. I was nearly ready to give up and go
back when I got a lift from some Jesus freaks heading down the
happy highway toward Launceston. The temptation to bail on this
entire island tour weighed on me after I heard their destination. All
the strange forebodings and negative intimations have made me
want to leave. The ghoulishly grinning driver and passengers would
have been more than willing to take me all the way (provided I
supplied some gas money), but after about two hours of hearing the
"good word" I was again ready to jump out of the mini bus, much as I
had on the other side of the island not long ago. More appleheads.
There was no amount of logic or reasoning that would make these
people shut up. My rather mild dissension just primed their mad
preaching pumps even more. One wide-eyed girl was excitedly
telling me about the "Bear" of Russia and "Eagle" of America spoken
of in Revelations. Some wiry guy on my other side was telling me
about his personal guardian (angel, I guess), present in the van at
that very moment. They apparently had all thrown out their hash
pipes for a hit of Messiah and seemed farther gone than any junkies I
had ever encountered. I quickly scanned the hostel guide and found
a place not far up the road at Bicheno, so I was able to get off the
magic bus and bid them godspeed to their ethereal futures.
It is amazing at what lengths people go to externalize the spirits and
vapours that exist within them. They look everywhere else, from
"sacred" books to ghosts sitting beside them, instead of focusing on
the truth within. Saints get created from impulse and desire - gods
from orgasms. Demons are crafted from what's left over and
unwanted – that way we can attribute it all to something or someone
else and feel (oh so) righteous brother. The unconscious (or barely
conscious) gets projected in a blurred manner, from within, like the
pinhole images of the camera obscura. The world literally gets
turned upside down.
* * *
It was fortunate I didn't head back to the mainland the other day.
There is a small hostel here, sitting alone on the beach, complete
with a large stone fireplace and a mountain of firewood around
back. It also seems there are about eight women staying here along
with one (presumably happy) fellow from England.
Though it is moderately cold, the sun has been out since my arrival.
Other than momentary breaks in the cloud cover, I have not seen
this much blue sky since stepping foot on this island, making me
wonder if the gray wash across this island has been some symptom
instead of a meteorological effect. Everything appears a bit more
sane and tangible at the moment.
* * *
Apparently, Tasmania may also be a haven for UFOs – possibly they
have followed me here form the red, barren interior and Pine Gap.
Perhaps my holy brothers and sisters in the mini-bus have
summoned them to destroy this wicked unbeliever. More likely, the
alien visitors are performing experiments on Tasmanians, which may
help explain their general madness. Of late, there have been a
number of UFO "sightings" around the island and just a few days
ago, a plane disappeared over Bass Strait, en route from Victoria to
Tasmania. A number of other witnesses supposedly saw strange
lights and movement in the sky that night and the newspaper
reported:
'Pilot Frederick Valentich took to the skies in his Cessna 182 light
aircraft from Moorabbin Airport, Victoria bound for King Island,
Tasmania. At 7:06pm he contacted Melbourne Flight Service Unit
about an object closing on his plane. At 7:10pm his last transmission
was that a "strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again ...... it is
hovering and it's not an aircraft..." Despite an intense and ongoing
air, land and sea search of the area, neither pilot or aircraft have
been heard from since.'
Usually, these stories have some other logical explanation, yet the
rumblings (at least in the local pub) seem curious, almost paranoid.
Out here, where the starscape tends to dominate the night view, it
has made me wonder as well.
Gary Nolan lives in Ohio and works as a multimedia developer at NASA
Glenn Research Center. He has worked in the digital imaging field for over
twenty years. His recently completed work, Oz78, is a written and visual
record of a year-long trek around Australia in 1978.
Glenn Research Center. He has worked in the digital imaging field for over
twenty years. His recently completed work, Oz78, is a written and visual
record of a year-long trek around Australia in 1978.
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