By Parker McKenzie
One of the hills most persevering legends — it was even mentioned on X-Files revival —is the 1993 abduction of Kelly Cahill, which took place as she drove back through the Dandenong Ranges.
UFO enthusiasts were instantly drawn to the story for what they said was a unique amount of evidence, with claims of verifying testimony from witnesses and other victims of the abduction who were left with scars matching Ms Cahill’s own marked body.
The story, detailed in her 1994 book Encounter, began when Ms Cahill and her husband Andrew decided to head into the hills to meet with a family friend.
Ms Cahill — whose real name is unknown and operated under a pseudonym — claimed her first encounter with the UFO occurred just outside of Belgrave South, in a field before you enter the township.
“I saw a row of orange lights in the paddock: unusual lights that were produced by an object on the ground. A fluorescent mist surrounded them and they weren’t natural, that was instantly obvious,” she said.
“This object was like nothing I had ever seen before — it was a couple of hundred metres back from the road and low on the ground, and the lights were large,
“What I saw had a distinct circular shape, and the outside was rimmed with the lights. By the time this thing caught my attention, I had maybe two or three seconds to look at it, then it disappeared from view behind the trees as we drove on.”
After spending the evening with friends in the hills, Ms Cahill said on her trip down the mountains — near Monbulk — she once again saw the strange object.
“I could then see that the orange lights were really windows, because they seemed to have a glassy appearance and I could make out figures standing behind portals,” she said.
“The figures were silhouetted in a contrast of black shadow against orange light. There was something solid above the row of lights, so that the craft had structure and form, even though not all of it was visible,
“We were getting closer, and it was hovering at about twice the height of the trees.”
After driving down to near Eumemmerring Creek in Narre Warren following the second sighting, the UFO shone a spotlight-like beam onto the road in front of the vehicle, which triggered a blackout when her husband drove through the beam.
She claims she and her husband came to consciousness, driving down a different stretch of road.
Weeks later, Ms Cahill achieved a complete recollection of the abduction through hypnosis — which she said left her with scars and marks all over her body — and decided to tell the world of her experiences.
After her husband stopped the car to investigate the amazing flying object, a psychic voice warned her before she was taken, marked and delivered back into her car, driving 40km/h towards home.
For UFO hunters and believers, what sets this encounter apart from the rest is the alleged number of witnesses and physical evidence of the abduction. One person claiming UFOs landed in a field and abducted her is unbelievable, but if half a dozen witnesses collaborate her story, it is harder to explain.
But for all these claims of collaborating witnesses, where actually are they?
Phenomena Research Australia, who allegedly conducted the research, found the witnesses and collected physical evidence at the scene of the encounter, has never made any of their evidence public. Their claims of witnesses with matching scars with Ms Cahill cannot be verified or proven true and the alleged witnesses have never made their stories public, making these claims completely useless to anyone in search of the truth.
If there is no physical evidence, what about the testimony of those who experienced the abduction?
Ms Cahill herself admits her husband — who was driving the car when the alleged encounter took place — doesn’t support her version of events and in her book even wrote he told her what happened was in her imagination.
“Although Andrew was with me during the encounter, I think he didn’t cope with it as well as I seem to have done,” she said.
“At first he didn’t deny what he’d seen, but he claimed to have no conscious recollection of many of the events that I remembered.”
Ms Cahill writes in her book the toll of the alleged abduction led to divorce, and her account of the way her husband and her speak to each other during the alleged encounter reads like poorly written X-Files fan-fiction. Ms Cahill proves herself a poor witness to her own story as she details her first extra-terreristrial experience, the result of six weeks of near starvation, and with no one else able to verify her claims they amount to little more than a fever-dream.
The events of Ms Cahill’s extra-terrestrial suffer the same fate as any other alleged abduction: a lack of evidence aside from fanciful claims leads the to the logical conclusion of despite how much she believes to be the victim of an abduction, the truth is probably much more mundane and earthly-bound.
In the 1990s, there was money to be made on the UFO-crazy circuit. Talking spots, books, and appearances at conventions made the life of an abducted individual more lucrative than being a stay-at-home housewife.
Was Ms Cahill lying about the events to escape the boring life of a housewife? Or did she have a psychotic break, given she details many cases before and after the alleged abduction where she describes having out-of-body and out-of-mind experiences?
We can’t say for sure, however, both of those explanations make far more sense than what she details.
Her recollection of events weeks after they occurred makes the story even murkier, as hypnosis can result in false memories becoming seemingly lived experiences.
Her story has lasted in the public zeitgeist for so long because of the unique nature of it being witnessed by others according to Ms Cahill and Phenomena Research Australia. Once scrutinised though, neither could ever produce any collaboration or evidence.
There is no surviving physical evidence of the encounter, and Ms Cahill has returned to live in Gippsland. Really, there is no evidence the encounter ever took place, despite what believers of the story say.
Unless the alleged witnesses – who were discovered when Phenomena Research Australia placed an ad in a local newspaper, creating even more doubt of their authenticity — or the researchers make their remarkably unbelievable research available to the public, Ms Cahill’s story should be banished back into myth and legend, just as easily as it was conjured into reality.
