Southern Africa Unexplained

Case No 49 · UFO Afrinews No 7, January 1993

Followed by an 'Intelligence'? Jack Jones

Road from Bloemfontein via Kroonstad to Vanderbijlpark, Road House past the Experimental Farm outside Bloemfontein; Kroonstad river and railway bridges; Air Force Station beyond Kroonstad; Vanderbijlpark garage near a sub-station, South Africa

What was reported

Jack Jones, a wartime South African Air Force pilot, told Pamela Puxley of a night drive home from Bloemfontein with a young apprentice, in an undated year. Past the Experimental Farm a red glow appeared beside the car: a perfectly round ball 8 to 12 metres across, its surface a shimmering mass of red flames, about 20 to 25 metres up and 50 metres off the road. It kept station at any speed, in total silence, for roughly 240 km, vanishing at the river bridge into Kroonstad and reappearing beyond the railway bridge near an air station. He nearly shot at it with his Luger but the boy wept. At his Vanderbijlpark garage, beside an electricity sub-station, it hung behind gum trees, then moved along the road as he walked, keeping height over a rise. Hind rules out a meteor and finds neither Corliss's nocturnal lights nor earth lights fit.

What Hind made of it

Hind rules out a meteor, weighs Corliss's low-level nocturnal lights and Devereux's earth lights, notes size, colour and behaviour do not fit, wonders about vehicle electromagnetism but asks why it vanished at Kroonstad, regrets scientists avoid such cases, and rates Jones as highly trained, observant and not gullible; a further Jones experience is promised for No 8.

Explanation offered
Meteor (ruled out); Corliss low-level nocturnal lights; earth lights; attraction to the car's electromagnetism; Jones himself wondered whether it was flame, lights or something electrically controlled

In their words

  • It was like a ball, perfectly circular, and the outside of this ball was a mass of red flames

    Jack Jones, spread 12

  • it was there all the time, in the same position over the car

    Jack Jones, spread 12

  • I am absolutely certain, 100 percent, that it was controlled by an intelligence which I had never seen before.

    Jack Jones, spread 14

Cross references

  • William Corliss, Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights
  • Paul Devereux earth lights
  • UFO Afrinews No 8 (Jones's further experience promised)
  • Air Force Station near Kroonstad
  • electricity sub-station at Vanderbijlpark

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 7 (January 1993), spread 12-14