About

Southern Africa Unexplained collects stories of the unexplained from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho and Eswatini, and puts each one on a map. UAP sightings, strange lights, river creatures, hitchhikers who vanish from the back seat, and the older stories people have told for generations.

Every story is retold in our own words from public accounts, and every one lists its sources. We are not claiming any of it happened the way it was told. We are interested in where and when people say it did.

The categories

Each story is filed under one category, marked by a glyph on its card and its pin.

• UAP: a craft, object or shape in the sky that the witness could not place.
• Cryptid: a creature not known to science, from river monsters to the things seen crossing a road at night.
• Ghost: an apparition, a haunting, or a hitchhiker who was not there when the driver looked again.
• Folklore: a story told for generations, with no single dated event behind it.
• Lights: lights in the sky with no shape reported, moving, hanging or splitting.
• USO: an unidentified submerged object, reported in, entering, leaving or beneath water.
• Other: anything that fits none of the above.

Alongside the stories sit the case files from Cynthia Hind's UFO Afrinews, every case she printed between 1988 and 2000, filed by issue and searchable with the stories.

How credibility works

Each story carries a stamp so you can tell a case that was investigated at the time from a tale told around a fire.

• Documented Multiple independent accounts, official or academic attention, or investigated when it happened.
• Press report Reported in a named newspaper, broadcaster or established outlet.
• Single witness A single account, including stories sent in to this site.
• Folklore Traditional or widely told, with no single dated event.

The heat map weights stories by that stamp, so a documented case glows harder than a single account.

What's nearby

The map can show the verified installations and features that stand near the reports: airfields and military bases, nuclear and power sites, dams and lakes, mines, observatories and radio installations, terrain. Switch on "What's nearby" and zoom in. Every entry carries a source you can check, and story and case pages list what lies within 50 km. Proximity is laid out for you to weigh. It is never asserted as the cause of anything.

How we classify what was seen

Many stories also carry a classification: the five observables, a Vallée code, and for UAP type accounts a Hynek class. This describes what the account says happened, not what the object was.

The five observables

Where a story describes an object behaving in a specific way, we tag it with one or more of five observables.

• Acceleration. Sudden or instantaneous acceleration, a dead stop, or a turn no aircraft could make without slowing.
• Velocity. Speed well beyond a conventional aircraft, estimated from radar, timing or a known comparison.
• Low observability. Hard to see, track or photograph: no engine noise, no exhaust, or it resisted radar.
• Trans-medium. Moving between air, water, ground or space with no visible transition or loss of control.
• Lift. Hovering, rising or hanging in place with no wings, rotors, balloon or engine to account for it.

The Vallée scale

The Vallée scale sorts an account by its shape. Anomaly (AN) is a light or object seen at a distance with nothing else reported. Fly by (FB) is an object that passes without stopping. Manoeuvre (MA) is an object that stops, hovers, circles or otherwise behaves as if under control. Close encounter (CE) is an object at close range, with or without occupants described.

A digit from one to five is added for what else the account reports: one for no lasting effects, two for physical effects such as marks or damage, three for beings seen, four for reality altered or a witness taken, five for injury or lasting harm. A manoeuvre with physical effects is written MA2.

The Hynek scale

The Hynek scale was written for UAP sightings, so we apply it only to that kind of story. A nocturnal light (NL) is a light seen at night with no shape reported. A daylight disc (DD) is a solid, shaped object seen by day. A radar visual (RV) is confirmed by both an instrument and a witness.

Close encounters run from CE1, the object seen at close range with no other effect, through CE2, an object that leaves a physical trace, to CE3, an object with an occupant or being described.

Corrections and removals

If a story names you, gets a place wrong, or you have a better source, use the form and start your message with the word CORRECTION. Stories about private living people are removed on request, no questions asked.