The Tully Saucer Nest

On 19 January 1966 George Pedley was on his tractor near Horseshoe Lagoon, on Albert Pennisi's property near Tully in far north Queensland, when he heard a hissing noise and saw a silvery-grey saucer rise about fifteen metres above the trees and vanish. Moments later a mat of reeds surfaced in the lagoon, swirled clockwise and around thirty feet across, reportedly thick enough to support many men. It became known as the saucer nest. Pennisi recorded it, along with smaller circles nearby swirled the opposite way.

What is on the record

The witnesses resolve to two: Pedley for the sighting and Pennisi, the landowner, for the account of the nest. A single video on a single channel carries the case, so the testimony is one narrated retelling rather than statements in the men's own words. No document sits in the archive for this case; the record rests on that telling alone. The archive holds no photographs of the nest itself, no soil or reed analysis and no statement from anyone else who stood at the lagoon.

Why it sits where it does

Tully grades L3 in this archive, independent witnesses, on the strength of two claimants rather than on any document. The tier speaks to the class of the sourcing and nothing more; the witness side here is two men and one video, with no paperwork behind them. What the record holds is a reported sighting and a landowner's account of the mark it left. What rose from Horseshoe Lagoon is not resolved here.