IncidentFather Gill / Boianai Sighting (26-27 June 1959, Papua New Guinea)

On the nights of 26-27 June 1959 at the Boianai Anglican mission in Papua New Guinea, the Rev. William Booth Gill and about 25 co-witnesses reported a large, structured, hovering disc with four landing-leg-like protrusions and four humanoid figures on top who moved about as if working a deck. On the second night the witnesses waved and one or more figures waved back; when more people waved, the figures reciprocated, and Gill’s flashlight signals seemed to draw a response. About 25 witnesses signed Gill’s contemporaneous written statement. The case’s strength is human testimony at scale - an educated, sober clergyman, many co-witnesses, an apparent interactive element, hours of observation. The principal skeptical counter (Donald Menzel’s claim that the near-sighted Gill mistook Venus) struggles against the multi-witness detail and against Gill’s own statement that he saw Venus separately that night.