On 20 January 1988 the Knowles family were driving at night across this treeless plain in southern Australia when, by their account, a bright light appeared ahead on the highway. Then, they said, the car was lifted off the road, the cabin filled with black dust and a burnt smell, and their voices went unnaturally high; after a while the car dropped back onto the surface and they drove on with a blown tyre. At the roadhouse at Ceduna the police examined the car: dents in the roof, a black film inside and out. Samples of the film were analysed; the results disagreed. One explanation is a pressure surge from an oncoming truck on an empty road combined with panic. The family never withdrew their account.

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Portage County and the Cruiser Chase

Early on 17 April 1966 two Portage County deputies stopped beside an abandoned car on the shoulder and watched a brightly lit object rise from behind the trees. It hung over them, then moved off east — and they followed. The chase ran eighty-six miles, across the state line into Pennsylvania, at speeds up to a hundred and thirty; other departments joined it over the radio, and at least two more officers saw the object themselves. The Air Force announced that the officers had chased a satellite and then Venus. The police chief of one of the towns, who had also seen it, replied publicly that he knew what Venus looked like.