Southern Africa Unexplained

Case · UFO Afrinews No 5, January 1992

Unexplained Balls of Light: Friday 14th June 1991, Harare blue light (Margaret Barnes and Richard Lockie)

1991 · Blue Kerry complex, Chisipite/Highlands, and Alexandra Park, Harare, Zimbabwe

What was reported

At about 20:50 on a winter night, Mrs Margaret Barnes, 83, stood at the door of her cottage in the Blue Kerry complex and saw the ground around her glowing a shimmering blue. Overhead was a round but wobbly object, like an inflated balloon, intensely blue with some red, about the size of a full moon, passing silently and fairly fast from the south towards the north-east. Her family doubted her until a friend of her grandson reported the same thing at the same time elsewhere. Across town in Alexandra Park, nine-year-old Richard Lockie, beside his grandmother's pool before 21:00, saw everything turn shiny blue as a big blue light passed overhead with red and orange fire behind it and vanished behind trees without a whisper. His grandmother's questioning found the two accounts matched on every important point.

What Hind made of it

Hind notes the two accounts tally in all important aspects; the Harare Meteorology Office and Geof Calvert of Bulawayo, who reports to the Smithsonian, knew nothing of it, and she appeals for further witnesses.

Explanation offered
Meteor or balloon not raised here; Met Office unaware of any event

In their words

  • I saw that the ground all around me was a shimmering blue.

    Margaret Barnes, spread 7

  • I will never forget that shimmery blue all around

    Margaret Barnes, spread 7

  • Then, when it went past, there was like red and orange fire from the back, and it disappeared behind some trees.

    Richard Lockie, spread 8

Cross references

  • Yolanda Craig, Mazvikadei Dam, same weekend, spread 8
  • Dartmoor Estate report, spreads 4-5
  • HELP! item (ii), spread 13

Connected

  • Unexplained Balls of Light: Thursday 14th February 1991, Harare (Mrs D.G.)Case fileSame window

    Filed together as 'Unexplained Balls of Light' in No 5, exactly four months apart (Thursday 14 February and Friday 14 June 1991, both evenings). An orange ball breaking into black fragments with a pop; a blue ball with red fire behind lighting the ground blue, seen independently from Chisipite and Alexandra Park. Both read as bright bolides; the Met Office knew nothing of either.

  • UAP Flap in ZimbabweCase fileSame behaviour

    Ground and surroundings lit up by a passing coloured fireball with fire behind it, silent, fast, disappearing behind trees (1991); the 1994 object also trailed fire and was seen across Harare. Hind appealed for witnesses for the 1991 event and cross-referenced a Mazvikadei Dam report the same weekend.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 5 (January 1992), spread 7-8

Nearby

Stories within 60 km