Trevor and Stella Decker: the upside-down dessert plate on the road to Bloemfontein

What was reported

Driving home to Bloemfontein from their honeymoon in the first week of January 1958, in late afternoon, Trevor saw from his side of the car a grey-silver object moving low over the ground on the eastern side of the road. He slowed, got his wife to look, then stopped, and both crossed the road for a closer view, staying outside the fence because she was afraid. The object was about the size of a fifteen-seater minibus and no more than 300 metres away, like an upside-down dessert plate with no markings or windows, yet a distinct light seemed to shine through its entire body. After half to three-quarters of a minute it rose up and backwards very fast until out of sight, the acceleration taking only a moment. There was no sound, not even a swish. He regrets never reporting it to The Friend newspaper.

What Hind made of it

Hind is reminded at once of the 1972 Fort Beaufort case (an object only about 75 centimetres across) and repeats the speculation that some such objects may be robotically controlled probes, while allowing that they might be a sophisticated government experiment unknown to the public.

In their words

• There was no sound, not even a 'swish'.

• it looked like an upside-down dessert plate.

Cross references

• Fort Beaufort case, 1972 (UFOs-African Encounters, page 44)
• The Friend newspaper, Bloemfontein
• Radio 702

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 6 (July 1992), spread 15