Southern Africa Unexplained

Case 4 · UFO Afrinews No 2, June 1989

Silver Object over Ntabazinduna, 1956

1956 · Ntabazinduna, flat-topped hill two or three miles due east of the witness's home, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

What was reported

A correspondent recalls a morning in 1956, probably a Saturday, when he, his mother and his friend Bryan Targett were setting off for Bulawayo. Glancing east he spotted a silver object hanging low above Ntabazinduna, the flat-topped hill two or three miles away. He first took it for sunlit power wires until he remembered those were behind him. His mother, Targett and the family's gardener all saw it. He hunted vainly for binoculars; on his return it was still there, gleaming more strongly, and the group watched for roughly fifteen minutes in all. Rather than speeding away it faded out where it hung, as if slipping into another dimension. He recalls a saucer with possible portholes; Targett thought it cylindrical. A year later, aboard the liner Southern Cross, a Reader's Digest piece described a UAP over that very hill.

What Hind made of it

Recorded without comment as an old case gathered through press and radio appeals; the writer asks Hind for the date from her records because a Reader's Digest article, and reportedly one of Hind's own books, mention the same sighting.

Explanation offered
Overhead electric wire shining in sunlight (rejected by the witness as the wires were behind him)

In their words

  • there to my astonishment was a silver object hovering low over Ntabazinduna

    the letter-writer, spread 04

  • it seemed to dissolve into the atmosphere, giving the impression that it had passed into another dimension.

    the letter-writer, spread 04

  • Obviously someone else had also seen it and had reported it.

    the letter-writer, spread 05

Cross references

  • Reader's Digest article on Flying Saucers read July 1957 aboard the liner Southern Cross
  • a book by Hind herself, which a workmate says mentions the sighting

Connected

  • Bulawayo: fat oval with a brilliant blue lightCase fileSame behaviour

    A silent object hangs for 10-15 minutes in daylight or at dusk, is watched by the household, is first noticed or also watched by the gardener, then vanishes (faded out where it hung in 1956; jumped, passed overhead and shot straight up in 1980). 24 years apart, and in reality 35 km apart, because the 1956 object was over Ntabazinduna hill, not the city where it is geocoded.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 2 (June 1989), spread 04-05

Nearby

Stories within 60 km