Case · UFO Afrinews No 1, July 1988
Metallic bullet-shaped object over Mount Kilimanjaro
1951 ยท above Mount Kilimanjaro, Seen from a Lodestar aircraft twenty minutes out of Nairobi, Kenya, and reported to Eastleigh; Kilimanjaro lies in Tanzania (then Tanganyika), Tanzania
Outside the region. Hind reprinted this case from elsewhere; it has a file here but no place on the map.
What was reported
Sent to Hind by Paul Norman of VUFORS in Australia; she did not investigate it herself. Captain Jack Bicknell's Lodestar left Nairobi at 07.00 on 25 February 1951. At 07.20 Radio Officer D W Merrifield pointed out a bright star-like object hanging motionless some 10,000 feet above Kilimanjaro. After watching for three minutes the crew told the passengers and radioed Eastleigh. Through binoculars Bicknell made out a dull silver, metallic, bullet-shaped machine he put at 200 feet long, with a square-cut vertical fin at one end and dark vertical bands at regular intervals along the fuselage, its outline sharp and unhazy (Figure 3). It then moved east, rising, and disappeared at about 40,000 feet, leaving no vapour trail and showing no means of propulsion. The story appeared in the Nairobi Sunday Post; Hind could neither verify it nor reach Bicknell.
What Hind made of it
Hind could not verify the Nairobi Sunday Post report or contact Bicknell, but argues it was hardly a meteor or a balloon and doubts any rocket could hover motionless for three minutes.
Explanation offered
rocket, meteor or balloon considered and rejected by Hind
In their words
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Through the glasses I saw a metallic bullet-shaped object which must have been 200 feet long.
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The machine left no vapour trail and it had no visible means of propulsion.
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Hardly a meteor, or a balloon.
Cross references
- Nairobi Sunday Post
- VUFORS, Australia (Paul Norman)
- Figure 3, spread 4