became an obsession for Martin Plowman, but that didn't mean he had to become a believer. 
IN 1956 -- the year Melbourne
hosted the Olympics -- our fair city was in a flap over an iron-shaped UFO.Flap, by the way, is the collective noun ufologists use for a cluster of UFO sightings.
Martin Plowman was a precocious four-year-old recovering from open-heart surgery in the Royal Children's Hospital at Parkville when he read about the flap of 1956 in a children's book.
Dinosaurs abandoned, little Martin started scouring Melbourne's skies for the fabulous Flying Iron.
His growing obsession eventually, controversially, led in August 2008 to the University of Melbourne conferring him with a PhD in Cultural Studies tracing the history of UFOs.
From there, the sky was the limit for our very own Dr Who . . .
