ASTRONOMER GEORGE DODWELL & THE 1902 ADELAIDE OBSERVATORY UFO UAP SIGHTING

At 9.27 am, November 20th, 1902, "a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed in the heavens by Mr. Griffiths, the assistant astronomer, and others," at the Adelaide observatory in South Australia. "Two officers were taking weather observations, when they noticed a brilliant globular light having a planetary disc. It appeared SSE, at an altitude of about 45o. It moved slowly northwards, passing within 15 or 20o of the sun, and was brightly visible till 9.31, 4 minutes in all. Mr. Griffiths, who observed it for a minute, states that it covered about 20o of an arc in that time. The object appeared like Venus does when it is at its greatest brilliancy soon after sunset. Mr. Griffiths lost sight of the meteoric object at an altitude of 45o above the horizon.

Other observers say it travelled at least 90o, and was lost sight of, in the great glare of the sky. When it was near to the prime vertical it became elongated and took an elliptical form, the long axis lying south to north". It seems that during November, 1902, eastern Australia hosted an incredible array of "fireball" reports. Much of it may have been related to dust storm "devils" or related natural electrical phenomena.

I first described this event in my 1978 research paper “Historical reports in Australia” and also included it in my 1996 book “The OZ Files.”

In the Adelaide newspaper “The Register” the November 21, 1902 edition under a headline “A BALL OF FIRE” quoted Sir Charles Todd, the SA government astronomer reporting that at 9.27am, Thursday, November 20th, 1902, “a remarkable phenomenon was witnessed in the heavens by Messrs. Griffiths (the Assistant, the Assistant Astronomer, Chettle and Dodwell, of the Adelaide Observatory. The two last-named were taking weather observations when they noticed a brilliant globular light having a planetary disc. It appeared in the south-south-east at an altitude of about 45 deg. It moved slowly northwards, passing within 15 or 20 degrees of the sun, and was brightly visible till 9.31 - four minutes in all. Mr Griffiths, who observed it for a minute, says it moved over about 20 deg. of an arc in that time. The object appeared like Venus does when it is at its greatest brilliancy, soon after sunset. Mr Griffiths lost sight of the meteoric object at an altitude of 45 deg. above the horizon. It therefore travelled at least 90 deg. and was lost sight of in the great glare of the sky. Messrs Chettle and Dodwell state that when it was near to the prime vertical it became elongated, and took an elliptical form, the long axis lying south to north.”

During November, 1902, eastern Australia hosted an incredible array of "fireball" reports. Much of it may have been related to dust storm "devils" or related natural electrical phenomena, but “the meteoric object” was strange indeed – a slow moving meteor or “fireball” of at least 4 minutes duration.

By 1909 George Dodwell was appointed SA Government Astronomer, a position he held until 1952, when he retired at the age of 73. An excellent paper “The Adelaide Observatory after Todd” by P.G. Edwards, published in the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Proceedings ASA, 1994, 11 (2) 206-10, focuses on astronomer Dodwell’s legacy.

His legacy had a hidden dimension that came to the attention of then “Adelaide Advertiser” journalist Keith Hooper in October 1952. Hooper did not reveal the full story until he wrote an article entitled “My Flying Saucer” published in the Sydney Morning Herald on March 13, 1965. George Dodwell had passed away in 1963, so Keith Hooper felt he could reveal a fascinating secret. Keith Hooper and other independent witnesses had reported seeing a flying saucer on October 18, 1952 in the Adelaide area and a wider region in South Australia. Dodwell accepted Hooper’s observation, calculating an acceleration to 72,000 miles per hour from his testimony.

Keith Hooper wrote, “Mr. Dodwell – recognised as one of the most able astronomers Australia has produced – also told me, but asked me to keep his confidence (a promise I no longer feel bound to hold, for he died some years ago), that he was convinced that flying objects from outer space did exist. He said his research indicated that they had been visiting the earth for centuries. Much literature told of strange objects seen in the sky which could be attributed now, because of man’s awareness, only to visitations from beyond the earth’s atmosphere. Since then I have never doubted that UFO are real.”

As astronomer Dodwell had asked for Hooper’s confidence we can assume that George Dodwell was referring to a belief in intelligent “flying objects from outer space”- in other words here was a leading Australian astronomer expressing his belief in alien UFOs and who had a very early Australian UFO sighting back in 1902.