TWENTY YEARS TO THE MINUTE: beam returns to the Big Dam on Beryl's anniversary

CONFIRMEDENHANCED ×212

I have kept the vigil every year since 1995. Same spot on the bank of the Big Dam, same folding chair, same thermos, same Panasonic. Nineteen years of nothing. Nineteen years of Noreen bringing out a blanket at 3 am and saying “Warren, come in, it’s not coming”, and nineteen years of me saying “it’s not an it, it’s a they”.

On the twentieth anniversary, they came.

The conditions

Clear night. No rain, which worried me, because they like the rain. Light westerly. Moon about a quarter. Dogs quiet, which worried me more, because the dogs have not been quiet on 14 March since Beryl went. I had the camera on the tripod this time because Dr Faraday said the 1994 footage “suffers from operator emotion”.

At 2:44 am the dogs started humming. B flat. Same note. I have the Collective’s casio keyboard in the ute now for exactly this purpose and I confirmed it on the spot.

2:47 am

A column of light came down from a point directly above the dam. No craft visible, just the beam, which Dr Faraday says means the craft was “cloaked, or very high, or possibly both, or shy”. It was the width of a cattle grid and the colour of a servo at night. It touched the water and the water did not ripple. I want that on the record. The water did not ripple.

It held there for between forty seconds and four minutes depending on whether you believe me or the camera. It swept slowly across the dam from the reed bed to the pump, like a torch going along a shelf looking for something, and then went straight back up.

They were looking for her. I know what looking for something looks like. I have been doing it for twenty years.

The vehicle

At roughly the same time a vehicle was seen on the Wandoona road about two kilometres off, headlights on, moving slowly, stopping, moving again. Shane says it was “obviously a chase car”. Noreen says it was Brett Taggart doing the rounds because she had rung him earlier and asked him to “keep an eye on Warren tonight, he’s been building up to it”.

I asked Senior Constable Taggart directly whether he had been on the Wandoona road at 2:47 am on 14 March. He declined to comment. Which tells you everything.

Analysis

Dr Faraday reviewed the tape at the CWA hall on the Tuesday in front of the support group. He enhanced the frame 212 times, which is the standard, and reports the following:

• Beam width 3.1 metres, “consistent with a cattle grid”.
• Colour temperature “servo”.
• No ripple, “consistent with a gravitational rather than photonic beam, or with a very still dam”.
• Duration “between forty seconds and four minutes”.
• Target “the dam, or something in the dam, or something that used to be in the dam”.

Cheryl says the beam had “Gary’s energy” and that it was “a bit half-hearted, to be honest, like he knew she wasn’t there but had been told to check”.

What it means

For twenty years they have told me Beryl went to Roma. The receipt, the saleyards, the eleven other cows, the bore pump. Fine. Then explain to me why, on the twentieth anniversary, to the minute, a column of light came down out of a clear sky and went along the Big Dam like it had lost its keys.

They came back. They were looking for her too. Which means they do not have her. Which means somebody else does.

I have written to the Bureau. I have written to the Department. I have written to Roma saleyards and asked them to check their records for March 1994 for a Droughtmaster with ear tag QLD-0447-B and to confirm, in writing, that she arrived. They have replied that they do not keep records that far back. Of course they don’t.

The gate is still open. The chair is still on the bank. See you next year.

Keep watching the paddock.

— Warren

Document U8MC-14-0200. Status: CONFIRMED. This file is retained indefinitely, or until the Men in Beige ask for it, whichever is never.

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