Meteorite lands beside a farmer in Masvingo Province

What was reported

Stevens Sipho Ndlovu of the Battalion Battle School at Nyanga, who obtained Hind's address through a friend, wrote asking about a Bulawayo newspaper report of 26 August 1990 that an unknown rock had landed somewhere in Masvingo and what her organisation was doing about it. Hind answers that it was a fist-sized meteorite that fell five metres from a rural farmer in Masvingo Province, arriving with two loud bangs as it passed through the sound barrier and frightening him into calling the police. It was black outside and inside like rough grey cement (iron sulphide) studded with shiny crystals (lepidolite), and was later broken open with a badza (hoe). Peter Lowenstein, a geologist attached to the British Embassy in Harare, dated it at about 4.5 billion years.

What Hind made of it

Hind identifies it plainly as a meteorite, dated by a geologist at about 4.5 billion years.

Explanation offered
Meteorite

In their words

• The farmer had a terrible fright when the meteorite landed with two loud explosions

Cross references

• Voronezh, USSR sightings (Hind sent Ndlovu cuttings)

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 4 (March 1991), spread 24