Just after 4:00 AM on January 20, 1988, the Knowles family — Fay Knowles and her three adult sons Patrick, Sean, and Wayne, driving from Perth to Melbourne in a 1984 Ford Telstar — were crossing the Nullarbor Plain on the Eyre Highway approximately 25 miles east of Mundrabilla, South Australia. The landscape was flat saltbush scrub and the night was moonless. Suddenly a bright rectangular object roughly three to four metres wide appeared directly ahead on the road. As Sean, at the wheel, attempted to steer around it, the object lifted vertically, hovered above the car, and appeared — in Sean's description — to 'pick up' the Telstar from the road surface.
While the family was temporarily lifted, the interior of the vehicle filled with thick grey smoke that carried a burning smell; all four Knowles experienced physical symptoms including altered voices, ringing ears, and unusual warmth. Fay Knowles reached out of the passenger window and said she touched something 'warm and spongy' that deposited a black powder on her hand. The vehicle was then dropped back onto the highway with enough force to blow out the rear right tyre. They drove seven miles to Mundrabilla roadhouse, where truck driver Graham Henley saw them arrive in shocked condition and confirmed dents and black ash on the roof of the Telstar.
Several corroborating witnesses came forward within hours: truck driver Graham Henley himself reported a bright light behind him on the road; tuna boat Roman Knight's captain Frank Borkovic radioed a Mundrabilla report of a similar light over the Southern Ocean; and a fishing vessel off the Eyre Peninsula reported anomalous radar contacts the same night. South Australia police, the Department of Transport, and Royal Australian Air Force personnel examined the vehicle and collected samples of the black residue for chemical analysis. The case was formally investigated by then-CSIRO scientist Dr. Tony Cook, who classified it as unresolved. The Knowles Nullarbor incident is one of the best-documented multiple-witness vehicular UFO encounters on record.