Danielle O'Neal

1 month ago | abc.net.au | Jessica Ross |Danielle O'Neal

Michelle Smith is a wary driver who doesn't mess around with flood water, so it came as a shock when she found herself trapped near Nambour on the Sunshine Coast in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. It was the worst of situations, but in perhaps the luckiest of places for it to happen.

Dec 15, 2024 | abc.net.au | Danielle O'Neal

When I started seriously looking into a decades-old UFO mystery, I expected my colleagues would giggle and raise their eyebrows at the topic. I never could have predicted the scar tissue I would find. The first clue was a phone call. I had tracked down a farmer who was seven when this all started on his family sugar cane farm in far north Queensland, and who still lives on the very same property. Shane Pennisi sounded kind, warm and very firm: he didn't talk about this on the phone.

Dec 6, 2024 | abc.net.au | Danielle O'Neal |Piia Wirsu

It's 1982, and a young UFO researcher is sitting in a director's office at the Department of Defence headquarters in Canberra eager to get his hands on information he's been dreaming of for years — the Australian government's UFO files. Wearing slacks and a tie, with a tidy short haircut, Bill Chalker wants to demonstrate this is a serious scientific endeavour. Then he sees two postal sacks full of files being dragged into the austere government room. There they are. Loading...

Nov 29, 2024 | abc.net.au | Danielle O'Neal |Piia Wirsu

Cutting-edge observation facilities, rigorous scientific research, and peer-reviewed data are among the aims for an Australian institute wanting to better understand unidentified anomalous phenomena – UAP. The Non-Human Intelligence Research Institute (NHIRI), based in Australia, is funding independent scientific research projects into UAP. "It's asking the biggest question of all: Are we alone?" NHIRI head of projects Ross Coulthart said.

Nov 23, 2024 | abc.net.au | Chris Calcino |Danielle O'Neal |Daniel Franklin |Grant Wolter |Dominic Cansdale |Piia Wirsu | +1 more

Loading... There's a sugar cane farm in far north Queensland. It feels isolated, private. About five minutes' drive from the farmhouse is a lagoon. These days bullrushes just cling to the edge of the murky brown water. But 60 years ago it was thick with them. Something happened in those bullrushes that is still unanswered today. In fact, the questions it raised ended up becoming so much bigger than the mystery itself.