The Engineer and the Alien (Hind's Portsmouth interview with 'Henry')

What was reported

Hind lunched with 'Henry' in Portsmouth on 1 September 1991. Around Christmas 1951 a stranger asked him for water and he drove him up a narrow road at du Toit's Kloof, filling a washed-out oil can at a stream; he now admits it took four or five turns to bring the car round. Henry saw a craft ringed with lights and a well-lit entrance high off the ground, and felt compelled to climb seven or eight rungs inside. The stranger took the water to an injured colleague, repeatedly refusing a doctor and blaming a window that cracked on entering the atmosphere; Henry saw no damage. He describes rounded square windows, grey seating around the wall, a slippery nodular floor, a bright interior with no visible lights, and pumps below the floor whose power, from gyroscopes and a mercury-like liquid, drove the craft.

What Hind made of it

Hind calls it one of the most important cases in ufology because of the witness's excellence as an observer and his very high qualifications; she is determined to pursue it and asks readers to suggest further lines of inquiry.

Explanation offered
Henry sometimes thinks it was all a dream, but reminds himself he physically drove his wife's car up the pass and found marks on the ground next day

In their words

• If I had my time over and knowing what I know now, I don't think I would have mentioned this to anyone.

• on entry into your atmosphere, when one of the windows cracked.

• The liquid we use is not available on your planet.

Cross references

• UFO Afrinews No 2
• UFO Afrinews No 3
• BUFORA Conference, Sheffield, mid-August 1991
• Professor Stephen Salter, Edinburgh University (gyroscope research)

Connected

• CE III in the Drakenstein Mountains above PaarlCase fileHind follow-up

  Portsmouth lunch interview 1 Sept 1991; new details (compulsion, seven or eight rungs, mercury-like liquid, grey seating) surface forty years after the event.

• Jack van der Merwe: orange glowing object on Table MountainCase fileSame behaviour

  Compulsion to climb toward the object: Henry 1951 (the rungs), Jack van der Merwe (a rock on Table Mountain). Independent witnesses.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 5 (January 1992), spread 13-15

In the archive

This case became a story on this site.

1951 · South Africa

The engineer and the stranger on Du Toit's Kloof

Near midnight on the pass a stranger asked an engineer for water. He filled an oil can at a spring and, he said, was led into a craft with four men inside.

Single witness