Tzaneen Mountain Case

What was reported

Returning north from South Africa at 10.30 on the morning of 5 September 1983, Harare kennel owners Tony and Janet Creed, 20 km south of Tzaneen, noticed two objects about 60 km ahead and some 700 m to the right of cloud-topped mountains. They looked like small, darker grey clouds but had unusually well-defined edges and appeared to move against the overcast. Dropping just below the cloud they showed three-dimensional, 'woolly' solidity and drifted towards the couple, the nearer one larger. They turned left and the larger took the outline of an old airship, passing between the witnesses and the mountain so as to stand out sharply against the dark green slope, then rose back into the cloud. The whole episode lasted about 16 seconds. Hind notes a nearby SAAF base but rules out ordinary aircraft in daylight.

What Hind made of it

Witnesses are educated and unlikely to hoax, but after Hilary Evans' talk on balls of light she is wary: the movement was not swift and the witnesses were in a moving vehicle, which may have exaggerated the motion; conventional aircraft ruled out in broad daylight.

Explanation offered
Possible misperception of clouds from a moving vehicle; nearby SAAF aircraft considered and rejected

In their words

• They had a very strange 'woolly' appearance.

• The whole sighting lasted for approximately 16 seconds.

Cross references

• Hilary Evans BOL talk
• The Herald report of West Rand objects, 5 February 1984
• South African Air Force base nearby

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 3 (May 1990), spread 10-11