Just a typical night in Australia’s UFO capital

On a desert highway in Australia’s flat, dry centre is a petrol station by a watering hole where extraterrestrials have been stopping off for millennia, or so “witnesses” say.

If truck drivers or passing tourists find themselves nodding off on the long drive between Alice Springs and Darwin, a pitstop at Australia’s self-proclaimed UFO capital might just revive them.

While filling up the tank or their stomachs at Wycliffe Well’s roadhouse, they might notice little green men holding out their hands or staring out at them from nearby walls.

That may be no cause for concern because these are probably just statues and paintings put there for the visitors’ benefit. But according to locals the real thing is so common around here that people hardly even blink when they see them.

“When I came down here it was just a common occurrence. It was just one of those things. Even the previous owner just mentioned it to me in passing,” said Lew Farkas, who has run the Wycliffe Well roadhouse and caravan park for 23 years and claims around half a dozen sightings of his own.

This tiny dot on the map, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Alice Springs, surrounded by scrubland, now attracts international visits from “experts,” occasional UFO conventions and constant local media coverage of the unusual sightings in the vicinity.

“It is recognised throughout the world UFO industry,” said Farkas.

Suggestions that the sightings could be caused by such normal phenomena as birds and aircraft landing lights are promptly dismissed by the UFO watchers.

“You take that with a pinch of salt. It’s a lot of rubbish,” said Farkas.

But the night time visitations are more than enough to liven things up, he says, describing the most memorable of his own encounters.

There were lights doing manoeuvres in the sky, little ones dancing around the big ones, doing figures of eight, he said.

Recently, a group of Aboriginal women in a local community reported their own close encounter. They were sitting around playing cards when a big beam of light appeared.

UFOs apparently also land in the nearby Tanami desert, according to the believers.

“There is no airport so they have got to land somewhere,” said Farkas.

It used to be easy to tell when there was UFO activity, he said. The electronic banking and telephone lines would go out. But with a change to fibre optic technology that problem has disappeared.

Farkas dismisses claims that he might want to drum up interest in UFOs to boost business at his roadhouse, saying he has plenty of business from the constant stream of motorists passing by.

Wycliffe Well, Sunday, AFP