Close encounters are the field's term for sightings up close, where a witness meets something at short range. Sometimes the object leaves traces behind. In 1979, Steuart Campbell of BUFORA called forester Robert Taylor the most reliable witness of a close encounter the organisation had ever had, after the incident in Dechmont Woods. In 1988, Basterfield first saw the Knowles family's Nullarbor ordeal as an extraordinary close encounter with physical traces. He later changed his mind. The film Close Encounters of the Third Kind came up in the debate over the Valentich disappearance over Bass Strait. Brian Dunning noted how closely the pilot's radio exchange echoes it.
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