Stars that bunched and chattered over Bapota village

What was reported

As a child of about three in 1976, Stuart was with his mother at her open-air cooking fire in Bapota village, his brothers and sister being away at boarding school in town, when over two or three days they watched a group of stars gather into a cluster with a chattering noise, break apart, and repeat the process again and again. The next evening the lights did the same but silently, then stopped as the night wore on. He has since associated the memory with the Pleiades. Stuart later studied astronomy and, knowing that stars are light years away and neither make noise nor move in organised ways, concluded the event happened inside Earth's atmosphere. Years afterwards his mother, seeing him with a book on the universe, asked what the stars that bunch and scatter were called and said they no longer behaved that way. He remains puzzled.

In their words

• Today I am still puzzled as to what those playful specks of light could have been.

• At least I know that I was not alone when I observed this unusual phenomenon.

Cross references

• Case 41 companion account: brother at Njelele
• Pleiades

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 6 (July 1992), spread 05

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