Looking through old newspapers

Hi all

Long-term readers of this blog will be aware that one of my current projects is the examination of "cold cases" e.g. Port Augusta, South Australia 1947 (click here.)

This project has been aided in recent times by the availability of digitised newspapers in the Trove collection of the National library of Australia (click here.)

I have been able to locate some 20 reports of "flying saucers" reported in old South Australian newspapers dated between 1950 and 1954, of which I was previously unaware. Details of these have been added to the catalogue of South Australian UFO reports which I have been compiling for several years.

In addition, I have been searching earlier South Australian newspapers, using the keyword "meteor" as that was the only description for unusual sky phenomenon prior to 1947. Between 1861 and 1950 I have found about 50 newspaper accounts of meteors, some daylight, some extremely bright nocturnal ones. Almost all of these accounts are readily identifiable as meteors. However, there are some oddities such as a 1932 report.

On 22 December 1932 a man named Harvey was driving a harvester at 3.30pm. He looked up into the cloudless sky and saw "...a comet shaped mass of brilliant flame apparently falling away from the Sun...this huge ball of electric-like fire rushing towards the earth at a terrific pace...about 200 feet from the earth it suddenly broke into shower of fragments and disappeared." (Source: The Adelaide Advertiser newspaper Monday 26 Dec 1932 page 10.)