Case · UFO Afrinews No 5, January 1992
A Vintage Case, West Africa (Mary Kingsley, Lake Ncovi, 1895)
1895 ยท Lake Ncovi, between the Ogowe and Rembwe rivers, printed as Niger/Gabon, West Africa, Gabon
Outside the region. Hind reprinted this case from elsewhere; it has a file here but no place on the map.
What was reported
Hind reprints a passage from Mary Kingsley's Travels in West Africa, supplied by R. Coltman. Bathing and canoeing alone at night on Lake Ncovi in 1895, Kingsley watched a violet ball of light about the size of a small orange come down through the forest on the opposite bank and hover to and fro along the sand close to the ground. Within minutes a second ball of the same colour came from behind an islet and the two wavered over the beach, sometimes circling one another. She paddled towards them, thinking them a new kind of luminous insect. When she reached their beach one went into the bushes and the other out over the deep water; as she nearly caught it, it sank glowing until it vanished. Local people told her it was an 'Aku', a devil.
What Hind made of it
One might dismiss it as an insect except for the underwater dive; Kingsley was a trained observer not given to flights of fancy.
Explanation offered
A brand new kind of luminous insect (Kingsley's own guess); an 'Aku' or devil according to local people
In their words
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it went down into the water and I could see it glowing as it sank until it vanished in the depths.
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the two wavered to and fro over the beach, sometimes circling round each other.
Cross references
- Travels in West Africa (Virago Press, 1982 edition)