Case No 21 · UFO Afrinews No 5, January 1992
Almost Final Report on the Botswana/South African Alleged UAP Crash
1989 · Kalahari, Botswana/South African border, Botswana
What was reported
Hind's fourth instalment on the alleged Kalahari crash keeps Case 21 open to ask whether investigators are too gullible or whether a real event underlies James van Greunen's tale. An angry letter from a friend accuses her of ad hominem attack and bad journalism; she answers by re-quoting her earlier remarks, all grounded in bounced cheques, fraudulent documents and money collected illegally, and suspects van Greunen wrote the letter himself. The friend's anecdotes, a missed Radio 702 interview with J. J. Hurtak and a staged café phone call in Hillbrow, strike her as naive. Mrs van Greunen told David Powell that James had been executed by the Air Force, yet he was later seen in Cairo. Michael Hesemann reports that van Greunen admitted he was never a SAAF captain. Prier Wintle likens the affair to Maury Island and suspects deliberate disinformation.
What Hind made of it
Hind believes van Greunen, a good reader, borrowed from many ufologists to build his story and hoaxed it, yet keeps the case alive in case a genuine event happened in a different context; she suspects the defensive letter came from van Greunen himself and says the affair will show future hoaxers what not to do.
Explanation offered
Hoax by van Greunen, admitted to Hesemann; Wintle suggests a secret missile crash or deliberate disinformation; Dodd's SADF rumours of a downed UAP were not confirmed by Powell's high-ranking SAAF sources
In their words
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it will show future hoaxters what NOT to do in trying to perpetrate an imaginary UFO event
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perhaps this letter was not written by James' friend at all. Perhaps it is written by James himself.
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Something certainly happened, even if it was only the crash of a secret missile.
Cross references
- UFO Afrinews No 3
- UFO Afrinews No 4
- UFO Afrinews No 3, page 12 (Prier Wintle phone call from Munich)
- Tunnel Visions
- Magazin für Neues Bewußtsein (Hesemann)
- QUEST (Tony Dodd article)
- FATE Magazine (Jerome Clark)
- Maury Island, June 1947
- NORFIN talk, Johannesburg
Source
Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 5 (January 1992), spread 17-20, 21-22
In the archive
This case became a story on this site.
