Southern Africa Unexplained

Case · UFO Afrinews No 1, July 1988

Fireball and three shining men at La Rochelle

1981 · La Rochelle, a Forestry Commission Station, 9 km from Mutare (8 km in the body text), Mutare, eastern Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

What was reported

At 18.00 on 15 August 1981 twenty labourers coming in from the fields at La Rochelle, a Forestry Commission station outside Mutare, saw a fireball about 1.5 metres across roll across the lawns, climb the wall of an observation tower on the main house, enter the top window and flare up. Foreman Clifford Muchena rang the warning bell for the game wardens; the fire drew into a ball, came back down the wall past him and flared again at the Fantasy, an outbuilding that housed the former owner's orchids. Running to put it out he found three figures in shiny overalls with their backs to him, took one for his supervisor Andrew Connolley and called out. When they turned, light poured from them so strongly he dropped to his knees and stayed there until it went out; then fireball and men were gone. The compound women fled into the bush with their children. Everyone Hind interviewed took the figures for ancestral spirits, probably a Shave.

What Hind made of it

Hind records that all the witnesses she interviewed were convinced they had seen ghosts or ancestral spirits, probably a Shave, had never heard of UAPs and were openly sceptical about men landing on the moon; she offers it as a multi-witness CE III.

Explanation offered
ghosts or a Shave, a lost ancestral spirit whose descendants have not done their duty by him (the witnesses' own interpretation)

In their words

  • I couldn't see their faces because there was so much light shining from them

    Clifford Muchena, spread 7

  • All the time I was very frightened,

    Clifford Muchena, spread 7

  • They had never heard of UFOs nor of men from Outer Space.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 7

Cross references

  • UAPs 1947-1987, edited by Hilary Evans, page 93 (footnote 2)

Connected

  • La Rochelle recap and Clifford Muchena on the 'ancestors'Case fileNamed person

    Same event, La Rochelle 15 Aug 1981, foreman Clifford Muchena and supervisor Andrew Connolley/Connolly in both. 02-06-2 is Hind's own recap in Afrinews 2 as background to the sawmill case, not a second account; it adds 'dull, overcast' weather and a paralysing force. Its coordinates are the Mutare city-centre default, the event site is 01-07-1's (Imbeza valley, Penhalonga, c.9 km NNE).

  • La Rochelle forestry workers and the fireball (editorial recap)Case fileNamed person

    Same event; Clifford Muchena and Eunice Kachiti named in both. 15-04-2 adds Kachiti's detail of two men studying the fireball with narrow elongated torches, and records Hind correcting a farmers' magazine that garbled the case after her Harare talk. Recap, not independent.

  • La Rochelle: Clifford Muchena and the silver-suited beings (paralysis recap)Case fileNamed person

    Same event; Muchena struck to the ground by three silver-suited beings. Cited in Afrinews 17's paralysis section as Hind's second African paralysis example alongside Stuart of Mutare (17-05-1).

  • Clifford Muchena and the men in silver suits, La RochelleCase fileNamed person

    Same event; footnote in Afrinews 21 using Muchena's 'spirits of my ancestors' answer as typical of African witnesses reading beings through ancestral belief. Undated back-reference.

  • An Extension of La Rochelle? Sawmill motor failure near MutareCase fileHind follow-up

    Hind titles the sawmill motor failure 'An Extension of La Rochelle?' and dates it to the week after 15 Aug 1981 (weekday, c.10 am) by inference from the sawmill's working week and the freshness of the story. The two sites are c.9 km apart. Niewergelt gave his statement when 'flying saucers' were 'the talk of Mutare', so the link was made after the La Rochelle story had already spread locally.

  • An Extension of La Rochelle? Sawmill motor failure near MutareCase fileSame window

    15 Aug 1981 (18:00) and a weekday c.17-21 Aug 1981 (10:00): two events within one week, the only week in the cluster with two independent witnesses of separate incidents. Different phenomena though: a ground-level fireball with figures versus a high overhead flash with an electrical effect.

  • CLOSE ENCOUNTER IN MUTARECase fileSame behaviour

    Witness immobilised in the presence of the object or beings: Muchena felled and unable to move until fireball and figures had gone (1981); Stuart unable to speak or move, with a hum 'inside him', until the object left (1988). Independent events seven years apart, but Hind explicitly pairs them in Afrinews 17, and Stuart came forward in 1998 when both were in print.

  • Unexplained Balls of Light: 1990, St Augustine MissionCase fileSame place

    St Augustine's Mission and La Rochelle both lie in the Penhalonga valley c.4 km apart (by 01-07-1's coordinates), nine years apart. Both witnesses are Shona workers/pupils reporting through white intermediaries (Hind's interpreters; the school Principal, who dismissed it). Both are titled or described as balls of light/fire that lit up the surroundings and left the witness on the ground.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 1 (July 1988), spread 7

In the archive

This case became a story on this site.

1981 · Zimbabwe

The fireball at La Rochelle

A ball of fire rolled across the lawns and up the tower of the Courtaulds' old house. Then three men in shiny overalls turned round, and the foreman went down.

LIFTLift
Documented

Nearby

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