Southern Africa Unexplained

Case No 29 · UFO Afrinews No 4, March 1991

Bruce of Harare

1989 · Harare, Zimbabwe

What was reported

Bruce, 22, a black Zimbabwean government worker studying engineering part-time at Harare Polytechnic, reached Hind through Theresa, a friend of Maria Sullivan's who works with him. One November 1989 night, alone after a bath, he lay paralysed in a dense darkness hearing a sound like a fast-turning dynamo; he has had night paralysis since about age six and a medical check found nothing. In late July 1990 he woke with burning skin on face, ears, shoulders and arms, swollen eyes and a raw throat; the skin later peeled. Another night a pale, non-human figure rose from a garden chair by the door, glided to him, pulled his hair, threatened to kill him if he told anyone, especially his mother, and pushed him back into bed. He also found child-sized footprints crossing his locked room to the wardrobe, and once woke with sore genitals and a dark scar.

What Hind made of it

Hind is not sure this is an abduction but the essence lies in the many factors that recur in abduction cases even without a craft; she underlined them and asks whether it belongs to psychical research. She plans further interviews and a hypnotic regression he wants, but hypnosis is illegal in Zimbabwe unless a physician orders it. On p.39 she calls him the first black African abductee she knows of.

Explanation offered
Bruce first thought a ghost, in keeping with the African folklore he was raised on, but now rejects this because one does not fight a ghost and forget afterwards; sleep paralysis since childhood; a medical check found nothing

In their words

  • I tried to move my feet, my legs and my hands; but I couldn't.

    Bruce, spread 06

  • a very white face; a pale face with features that were not human.

    Bruce, spread 07

  • The curious thing was that the footprints were very small, too small for a normal sized person.

    Bruce, spread 07

Cross references

  • p.39-40 investigator questionnaire cites the Bruce case for dynamo sound, unaccountable scars and peeling skin
  • Budd Hopkins, Missing Time and Intruders (not read by Bruce)
  • Theresa lent him a book called 'Close Encounters' or 'Direct Encounters'

Connected

  • Bruce of Harare: soreness and scar after night figuresCase fileSame witness

    Bruce of Harare. No 7 quotes Afrinews No 4 p 9 on the genital soreness and dark scar and sets it beside Jacobs's Secret Life.

  • Isabel's StoryCase fileSame behaviour

    Two Harare bedroom cases: paralysis, dense darkness or falling sensation, non-human figures or big-eyed faces, recurring from childhood. Not independent in provenance: both witnesses came to Hind after exposure to Budd Hopkins (Bruce via a lent book, Isabel via Missing Time and Intruders), and both were kept from hypnosis by the Zimbabwe ban.

  • UAP or 'Phantom' Car at Featherstone?Case fileNamed person

    Maria Sullivan, Hind's Harare co-investigator, appears in four entries: Bruce reached Hind through Sullivan's friend Theresa (04-06-1), she was in the car on the Lomagundi Road in 1975 (06-03-1), she is listed among the 1994 flap's names (11-05-1) and she visited Featherstone (15-05-1). The cases follow the investigators' social reach.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 4 (March 1991), spread 06-08

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