Letter: G V Longstaff's steady light over Fern Valley, Mutare

What was reported

Graham Longstaff of Crystal Park writes that in the mid-seventies his father saw what he was certain was a UAP over the mountains around Fern Valley outside Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe, and offers him as a practical man who can be contacted. His father, G V Longstaff of Mutare, confirms it: a strange, steady, non-twinkling light, unlike the normal lights of the sky, about due east and up from the horizon, which stayed in the same position for an hour or more and then simply disappeared. As a keen stargazer he says it was not Venus or the like. He adds that he admires Hind's work and suspects it is an uphill battle. Year is approximate.

What Hind made of it

Hind prints the letter without assessment beyond agreeing that the work is an uphill battle.

Explanation offered
Venus or a star, rejected by the witness

In their words

• It was a strange, steady light, not twinkling like a star

Cross references

• Graham Longstaff, co-director of ENIGMA

Connected

• Lights in the hills at Fern Valley (Umtali Post report)Case fileSame place

  Both are night lights over the hills around Fern Valley in the mid-1970s. G V Longstaff's steady light due east for an hour or more (year approximate) and the Umtali Post couple's coloured lights on a Saturday night could even be the same evening, but neither report carries a date that would settle it. Independent sources (Longstaff letter 1997 via his son; Maureen T. letter).

• The Irene Township Sighting, 1975Case fileSame window

  Both mid-1970s Mutare-area reports from white residents who reject friends' mundane explanations (bird/balloon; Venus/star). Only the approximate year and the reporting habit connect them.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 7 (January 1993), spread 16

Nearby

Stories within 60 km

• The horses on Hospital Hill 1988 · 3 km
• The fireball at La Rochelle 1981 · 9 km