Unexplained Balls of Light: Yolanda Craig, Mazvikadei Dam

What was reported

Yolanda Craig and a friend's family were playing tennis on a floodlit court at a Mazvikadei Dam lodge on the weekend of 14 to 16 June 1991. About half an hour into the game, between 20:30 and 21:00, they saw an object like a fireball running parallel to the ground and the court's high rail. It was about twice the size of a tennis ball, a very bright electric blue with a small yellow flame for a tail. It travelled silently for roughly 15 metres and then, without dropping, simply went out in a small yellow flame. They ruled out a firework because a steep hill at the end of the court would have made a level launch impossible, no capsules, burnt paper or plastic were found, and no young people were about. She asked Hind what it could have been.

What Hind made of it

Hind groups it with the same night's blue light in Harare; the Meteorology Office and Geof Calvert had no record of any event.

Explanation offered
Firework, meteorite and comet raised by the witness and rejected

In their words

• It travelled silently for about 15 metres and then, without descending, it just died out with a small yellow flame.

• If this had been a meteorite or comet, how could it have come down in such a parellel line?

Cross references

• Margaret Barnes and Richard Lockie, Harare, 14 June 1991, spreads 7-8

Source

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