Purnong, South Aust being encounter — March 13, 1959

At around 2:10 a.m. on 13 March 1959, Percy Briggs and Claypans postmaster Carl Towill were travelling by truck from Purnong toward Mannum with vegetables. After cresting Cournamont Hill near the Purnong ferry, they reportedly saw a huge dome-shaped object over a field beside the road. Accounts describe eight or nine red and blue lights widely separated along it; the imported catalogue estimates a diameter of about sixty metres. The object rose from the field on a shallow course and moved away toward the southwest. As the distance increased, its separate lights appeared to merge into one. The witnesses watched its recession for approximately ten minutes. These are visual estimates, rather than instrument measurements. The accessible account does not describe someone leaving the object or an occupant visible through its lights. The source history includes Australian Saucer Record, Flying Saucer Review and Keith Basterfield’s catalogue. A separate report at Purnong Landing on the preceding night concerns six-year-old Kim Marks and an alleged bedroom figure. Sharing a locality does not make that figure part of Briggs and Towill’s observation. This record retains the large illuminated dome and truck witnesses, while treating the imported entity code as unresolved and keeping the two events separate.