Southern Africa Unexplained

Case · UFO Afrinews No 2, June 1989

Harare, Chisipite: orange pulsating sphere over the shops

1974 · Chisipite Shopping Centre, off Enterprise Road, Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe

What was reported

Mrs N C, driving alone at about 11 pm on New Year's Eve 1974, was turning off Enterprise Road into Harare's Chisipite Shopping Centre when she found cars pulled over and people staring upward. Over the shops to the right hung a huge orange sphere, the size of a small house, pulsing and glimmering without a sound just above the rooftops. It stayed put for some ten minutes, then drifted grandly over the watchers towards a line of fir trees, lifted gently above them and abruptly accelerated, dwindling to an orange dot before vanishing straight up. One woman gave her a thumbs-up as they left. She nearly reported it but was too shy; Hind adds that nobody else ever did, and hers is the only account.

What Hind made of it

Hind notes that no one reported the matter until recently and that Mrs N C's is the only account she has.

In their words

  • an enormous orange pulsating sphere hovering just above the buildings

    Mrs N C, spread 20

  • I nearly did, but felt too shy.

    Mrs N C, spread 20

  • No one reported this matter until recently, and the only story I have is from Mrs N C herself.

    Cynthia Hind (Ed), spread 20

Connected

  • The orange light over the Lomagundi Road (Hind's own 1975 sighting)Case fileSame behaviour

    Orange light over Salisbury drifting slowly, rising above trees, then dwindling to a dot: New Year's Eve 1974 over Chisipite (11 pm, crowd watching) and winter 1975 on the Lomagundi Road. Hind accepted a confessed schoolboy prank balloon carrying a light for 1975; nobody has tested it against the Chisipite sphere seven months earlier, on a night when fireworks and pranks are routine.

  • Letter from Norbert Kazingizi: red ball over Waterfalls, HarareCase fileSame behaviour

    An orange or red ball hovering just above suburban rooftops or treetops, drifting, watched from the ground by a family or a stopped crowd for one to ten minutes, then leaving: Chisipite 1974 and Waterfalls 1993. Neither was reported to anyone at the time.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 2 (June 1989), spread 20

Nearby

Stories within 60 km