Case file · Close encounter
Rosedale water-tank landing
Early on 30 September 1980 a farm worker near Rosedale, Gippsland, said a domed object hovered over an open 10,000-gallon water tank, then landed nearby; the tank was later found almost empty.
1980 CE · -38.16, 146.79 · status: account
The account
The witness, reported in the Gippsland Times as George Blackwell, said the object's noise and hot blast nearly knocked him over. A dark ring was left in the paddock, stock avoided it, and investigators noted that draining the tank by its pipe would have taken days. A similar ring and missing reservoir water were reported at nearby Bundalaguah that December.
The sceptical view
The water loss rests on the witness and local reporters; no independent measurement or soil analysis was published, and rings in pasture can be fungal.