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On New Years Day 1954, a commercial pilot with more than 14,000 flying hours and 17 years experience reported seeing a metallic mushroom-shaped object flying at high speed and low altitude through suburban Melbourne.
As it developed, the flying mushroom sighting would have all the ingredients of a typical UFO case; a credible witness, sensational headlines, an investigation, implausible explanations, a healthy dose of scepticism and ridicule, denials by so-called experts and finally, a witness who regretted having ever come forward with his incredible story.
With many Melbournians waking to a hangover from New Years Eve celebrations, the sober veteran A.N.A pilot, Captain Douglas Barker, looked skyward from his home in East Kew and saw what he described as a semi-transparent “mushroom with a stalk” flying over the Templestowe Brickworks at 10.15 am.
Melbourne’s The Argus, on 2 January 1954 broke the story with the slightly mocking headline: Airman sights a ‘mushroom’ in the clouds. Flying mushrooms are with us!....
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