Father Gill, Boianai
An Anglican missionary and dozens of people at his Papuan mission watched a lit craft with figures on its deck, who appeared to wave back.
1959 CE · -10.13, 149.70 · status: unexplained
The account
On 26 June 1959 Rev. William Booth Gill and 38 people at the Boianai mission watched a four-legged disc hover with four human-like figures moving on its deck; Gill wrote a report signed by 25 witnesses. The next evening, when Gill and others waved, the figures seemed to wave back. It came during a run of more than 60 sightings in the area noted by J. Allen Hynek.
The sceptical view
Astronomer Donald Menzel argued the witnesses saw the planet Venus, viewed by a short-sighted Gill; critics reply that Venus could not explain the figures or the movements.
The researched reading
A large, sober group watched a light they described as a craft with people on it, and wrote it down at the time. A bright planet seen by a short-sighted observer accounts for some of it, shared interpretation for more, but a real residue remains.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Something known, misidentified | 35% | Venus was bright in the western evening sky and Menzel argued the light was the planet seen through Gill’s uncorrected short sight; but Gill’s notes describe Venus as a separate object, and a planet does not show a deck with moving figures, so the planet answer covers the light better than the details. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 28% | Many witnesses, notes written on the spot and a second-night repeat make this one of the stronger close-encounter reports, and no ordinary explanation fits all of it; but there is no instrument record to test it. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 18% | A group watching together under a missionary’s lead can converge on one reading; figures on a deck and returned waves are exactly the kind of detail that expectation and shared interpretation add to a distant light. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 6% | A long-lived luminous atmospheric phenomenon would explain a hovering light over the bay, though not the shapes described. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 5% | Refraction over warm sea air can stretch and distort a low light source, but the object was reported high and for hours. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Gill was a careful, sober witness who never profited, and 25 people signed his report; invention is unlikely. |
| Secret human technology | 3% | No known aircraft or programme could hover silently over a remote Papuan mission for hours in 1959. |
Official position: No official investigation reached a verdict; the Royal Australian Air Force filed the reports, and Menzel’s Venus explanation became the standard sceptical answer.