Rosmead tennis court damage (editorial reference)

What was reported

Still in the mock-sceptic voice, Hind recalls the Rosmead tennis court case: severe damage to the court's tramlines attributed to an unknown object, four servicemen who saw a spinning object with red lights all round it sitting on the court, and a huge stone the headmaster had never managed to shift that vanished, leaving a smooth-edged excavation. The debunker's answers she parodies are that four or five disturbed children from the 300-strong hamlet did it with pickaxes, the servicemen were drunk on duty, and the stone was never there in the first place. No date is printed. She uses the case to show how absurd it is to wave away physical trace evidence.

What Hind made of it

Presented as a case whose physical evidence a sceptic would wave away with absurd explanations; Hind plainly regards the traces as real and the explanations as ridiculous.

Explanation offered
Mock-sceptical: disturbed children with pickaxes; servicemen inebriated on duty; the stone was never there

In their words

• hand them a few pickaxes and they'll destroy a tennis court in less time than it takes to say 'UFO'.

• It must surely have all been a hoax. The stone, I mean, it obviously wasn't even there to begin with.

Cross references

• Editorial, printed pp.2-5
• Danie van Graan case

Connected

• Rosmead tennis court: physical trace caseCase 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 landing and the vanished stone (Final Comment)Case fileSame behaviour

  Both centre on the large stone the headmaster had never managed to shift, gone overnight, leaving a smooth-edged, spoil-free excavation. 05-23-1 adds that more than half lay buried and that not a scrap of surrounding earth was disturbed.

• Rosmead Tennis Court UAPCase fileSame behaviour

  Both describe the four servicemen and a spinning object with red lights all round it sitting on / circling above the court. 03-03-2 gives it as 'sitting on the court'; 21-04-1 as circling 1.5 m above it, then vanishing silently. Same witness group, two descriptions of contact with the ground.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 3 (May 1990), spread 3

Nearby

Stories within 60 km

• The Rosmead tennis court 1972 · 11 km