Three decades ago, a quiet New Year's Eve celebration on the Central Coast was dramatically interrupted by an event that would become etched in Australian UFO lore. Over Brisbane Water at Gosford, more than 200 reliable witnesses reported encounters with a massive, unexplained object, creating one of the nation's most significant and enduring mysteries.
The Night the Coast Was Awoken
As the clock approached midnight on December 31, 1995, residents across Gosford, Point Frederick, St Huberts Island, Woy Woy, Ettalong and Umina were jolted from their sleep. A brilliant white light pierced bedroom windows, beds and windows vibrated unnaturally, and family dogs began to howl. A loud, persistent humming sound filled the air.
Those who looked outside described seeing a large silver disc, roughly 30 metres in length, hovering above the water. The object, which many said resembled a huge, shiny chrome ball, emanated a white light with a reddish glow underneath. Several independent witnesses reported seeing four or five beams of white light shining down from the object, penetrating the water's surface and causing it to froth and splash violently.
One woman, then in her late teens, was driving near the top end of Brisbane Water close to midnight. She reported seeing the disc hovering above the water near the then Aquatic Club, an area later known as Iguana Joe's and now Drifter's Wharf.
Police Chase and Official Silence
For over four hours, local police were inundated with calls. Gosford Sergeant Bob Wenning later confirmed police received "three dozen telephone calls on the night," with all callers describing the same terrifying object. Police cars were dispatched to multiple locations around the waterfront in response to the flurry of sightings.
In a chilling detail revealed at the 1996 Australian International UFO Symposium, investigator Moira McGhee stated that police vehicles came within about 50 metres of the object. Each time they approached, the object would "turn off its lights and take off," a cat-and-mouse game that continued for much of the night.
McGhee, the director and field investigator of the Mutual UFO Network NSW at the time, conducted thorough inquiries in the aftermath. She contacted military and aviation authorities, but no records of any unusual aircraft or activity in the area that night were ever produced. Her research also uncovered that parts of the region had radar blind spots due to the local topography, a factor that could explain the lack of official data.
A Legacy of Questions and Global Context
The incident, splashed across the front page of The Sun Weekly with the headline "Wake in Fright," was far from an isolated event. McGhee, author of The Gosford Files, said public meetings held in Gosford afterwards attracted hundreds of people, many of whom disclosed their own UFO experiences. Sightings of mysterious objects in the sky continued throughout January 1996.
This 30-year anniversary arrives amid a significant shift in global discourse on the topic. The term UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) is now preferred in official circles over the historically stigmatised "UFO". In September 2025, the US Congress held hearings into "UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection," where Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna argued that such reports deserve serious investigation, not ridicule or secrecy.
The Australian connection to this renewed interest was highlighted in June 2024, when the Canberra Times reported that Australian intelligence officials met with US counterparts at the Pentagon in May 2023 to discuss "unidentified anomalous phenomenon collection planning" as part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
Despite this high-level attention, the Australian Defence Force has historically maintained a position of disinterest. In 2024, it told the Canberra Times it did not collect UAP reports, as "there was no scientific or other compelling reason" to devote resources to their investigation.
The Gosford event remains a cornerstone case in Australian paranormal history. As McGhee herself concludes, the object was definitively unidentified. "We do not know what they were and we've never had a plausible explanation as to their origin or nature," she states, leaving the mystery over Brisbane Water as compelling today as it was thirty New Year's Eves ago.
