Southern Africa Unexplained

Case No 71 · UFO Afrinews No 8, Sept. 1993

Ping-Pong Lights over Bromley

1992 · Bromley, Harare, Zimbabwe

What was reported

A farmer at Bromley, outside Harare, was kept awake after midnight on 1 August 1992 by his dog barking furiously. At 12:15 by his bedside clock he saw what looked like a very bright yellow moon above the bluegum and msasa trees, then realised from his east-facing workshop window that the moon could not be where it appeared. Small yellowish lights the size of ping-pong balls came bouncing through the air from the north-west and north-east, each trailing a string of light, and merged one after another into the large sphere. At one o'clock exactly the big ball moved south over the plantation and was hidden by trees. His maize was undamaged next morning. Hind notes that only a sliver of moon was up that night and compares the report with Brazilian pilots' 1986 ping-pong lights.

What Hind made of it

Hind checked the lunar calendar and found only a sliver of moon on 1 August, so the object was not the moon; she compares the merging ping-pong lights with the 1986 Brazilian Air Force encounter.

Explanation offered
Witness initially took the large light for the moon; Hind rules this out by lunar phase

In their words

  • I saw a small light, like a ping-pong ball, bouncing in the air, leaving a 'string' of light behind it as it danced

    M. Patterson, spread 10
  • The full moon was on the night of August 12/13th. Only a sliver of moon would have been visible on the 1st August.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 10

Cross references

  • Brazilian Air Force 19 May 1986 case
  • MUFON UAP Journal No 223 Nov 1986

Connected

  • Lights and TracksCase fileSame place

    Bromley district, 38 years apart: Bunty was 'a well-known Bromley farmer' (Nyambuya Farm) and Patterson's farm is at Bromley. Both were woken after midnight by a dog, both saw a large bright sphere or fireball over farm trees, both checked the crops at dawn and found nothing.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 8 (Sept. 1993), spread 10

Nearby

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