Case · UFO Afrinews No 1, July 1988
Rosmead tennis court: physical trace case
1972 · Rosmead, a small village in the Karoo, Middelburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa
What was reported
Hind's best physical-trace case, taken from her book. Returning from a weekend away at about 20.25 on 12 November 1972, headmaster Harold Truter saw an odd light with a beam angled to the ground, then found the school's nearly new tennis court viciously torn up along one side. Four soldiers lying outside the military camp 200 metres away had watched silent red lights, like tail-lights without headlights, circling inside the court at 20.15 about 1.5 metres up. At 21.20 two policemen in Middelburg saw a colour-changing object moving about; Sgt Goosen, sent to Rosmead, saw a streak of light above the court towards the moon. He found the gate locked and fence intact, five holes over a metre wide each paired with a smaller hole, tar edges pressed down as if under weight, scorched bluegum leaves, tar fragments driven into the garage wall and into trees four metres up 200 metres away, and a large stone Truter had never managed to shift gone overnight, leaving a hole.
What Hind made of it
Hind concludes an unidentified object landed on the softened tar, became stuck, jumped five times to free itself and flung tar by rapid rotary motion; she calls it her best trace case, rejects the whirlwind, lightning, heat-explosion and pick-axe explanations, and notes Col van Heerden called it the most puzzling case of his police career.
Explanation offered
whirlwind (a Wits professor), then lightning despite a clear-sky Met report; heat of the day melting and exploding the tarmac; pick-axe marks and absence of radioactivity (Col Neethling of the Police Laboratory)
In their words
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My assessment is that an unidentified object landed on the tennis court and then found itself embedded in the softened tar.
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The pressed-down tarmac edges (photographic evidence) were not taken into account!
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Therefore, he said, nothing strange had happened in Rosmead!!!
Cross references
- UFOs: African Encounters by Cynthia Hind (footnote 1)
- Strangeness Factor and Familiarities in UAP patterns, spread 7
Connected
Rosmead Tennis Court UAPCase fileSame witness
The two full accounts of the same night. Both carry Harold Truter, Sgt Johannes Goosen, Col B J van Heerden and Col Neethling; both give 20:15 soldiers / ~20:25 Truter / 21:20 Goosen / 21:35 phone call; both give five large holes plus five small ones, scorched bluegum leaves and tarmac driven into trees 200 m away. Published 12 years apart (issue 1, July 1988; issue 21, January 2000). Details drift between them: tar embedded at 4 m (01-05-1) vs 2 m (21-04-1); Truter returning 'from a weekend away' vs 'home from Port Elizabeth'; holes 'over a metre' vs 'about 1.5 m'. Same event, same witnesses, not two reports.
The Rosmead Tennis Court Affair revisited: 'of course, it was a whirlwind'Case fileHind follow-up
Issue 1 (July 1988) sets out the case; issue 2 (June 1989) revisits it as 'The Rosmead Tennis Court Affair revisited'. 02-23-1 explicitly refers back to chapter 13 of her book and to 'Case 5 comments (Rosmead as a Karoo case)'. No new observation is added, only her two days on site, the Chief of Police remark and later return visits.
Rosmead tennis court damage (editorial reference)Case fileHind follow-up
Issue 3 (May 1990) editorial recalls the same case in a mock-sceptic voice. It adds one quantitative detail found nowhere else: the hamlet's population, 300. No date is printed, so the record carries year 0.
Rosmead Tennis-Court Case: whirlwind, then lightningCase fileHind follow-up
Issue 4 (March 1991) cites the case again inside her guide for investigators, as an example of 'armchair professors' (a term she credits to Paul Norman of VUFORS). No date or witness details given; the case is used purely as polemic.
Rosmead tennis court landing and the vanished stone (Final Comment)Case fileHind follow-up
Issue 5 (January 1992) Final Comment returns to one element only, the vanished stone, prompted by John Keel's FATE article of September 1991 on mysterious holes. The trigger is external reading, not new fieldwork at Rosmead.
Rosmead burnt leaves (editorial recollection)Case fileHind follow-up
Issue 20 (July 1999) recalls 'the 1975 Rosmead case' and the scorched leaves taken to the University of Zimbabwe. Direct conflict with 01-05-1 and 21-04-1, which both date the event to 12 November 1972. Loxton/van Graan, the other Karoo trace case Hind constantly pairs with Rosmead, is dated 1975 across nine records; the 1975 here is most likely contamination from it (and 14-03-2 in turn dates Loxton to 1972, so the two dates appear to have swapped).
The Rosmead tennis courtStorySame place
The map story is the rendering of this same case: red lights over a Karoo railway village, cracked tennis court, dying gum trees. Its slug, 'bloemfontein-1972', is a mislabel: its own coordinates put it 1.6 km from Grootfontein outside Middelburg and 288 km from Bloemfontein. Its language also drifts from the source records ('zigzagged' for circling; 'molten' court; 'gum trees were dying' where 20-03-1 says only two trees had scorched leaves and the rest were untouched).
Rosmead tennis court landing and the vanished stone (Final Comment)Case fileSame place
Identical coordinates (-31.4939, 25.0067). This point is in Middelburg town, 10.7 km west of the actual Rosmead tennis court. Three cases (01-05-1, 05-23-1, 20-03-1) plus the story point sit here, so half the cluster is misplaced by about 10 km.
Source
Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 1 (July 1988), spread 5-7
In the archive
This case became a story on this site.
