Southern Africa Unexplained

Case · UFO Afrinews No 8, Sept. 1993

Pinetown four-witness time discrepancy (cited under Case No 75)

Pinetown, Durban, South Africa

What was reported

Commenting on the half-hour gap between Franz Schmidt's sighting and the Esigodini villagers' reports, Hind recalls an earlier case at Pinetown, outside Durban, in which four people saw the same event. Two lived in almost adjoining streets and the other two were only two to three kilometres away, yet all four made a point of noting the time: the first pair put it at 06:00 and the second pair at 06:20. No date, description of the object or issue reference is given; Hind raises it only because such timing discrepancies over short distances strike her as something that deserves investigation.

What Hind made of it

Hind cites it as an unexplained twenty-minute discrepancy between witnesses only a short distance apart, which she finds whets the appetite.

In their words

  • The first two reported the sighting at 06:00 and the second two gave the time as 06:20.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 18

Cross references

  • Case No 75 Esigodini

Connected

  • Bright light with a blue tinge over DurbanCase fileSame behaviour

    Almost certainly the same event retold. 01-03-2 (Afrinews 1, July 1988): 25 June 1986, Durban area, four witnesses within ~5 km, two say 05:40 and two 06:08. 08-18-3 (Afrinews 8, Sept 1993): undated Pinetown case, four witnesses 2-3 km apart, two say 06:00 and two 06:20, no description or issue reference. Pinetown is in the Durban area; the drift in times and distances is what memory does over five years. Treat as one event with two printings, not a repeated pattern.

  • Bright light with a blue tinge over DurbanCase fileHind follow-up

    Hind raised the Pinetown recollection only because the Esigodini, Zimbabwe case of April 1992 (08-16-1, 'Case No 75') showed a 30-minute gap between witnesses; she reached for a Durban precedent from memory rather than from her files.

  • Edwin of Pinetown: the men with police badges and the confiscated radioCase fileSame place

    Both Pinetown, and they share a default Pinetown coordinate, hence 0.0 km apart in the data. Edwin lived in Pinetown by the time of 19-04-2; there is no evidence he was one of the four Pinetown witnesses in 08-18-3. Coincidence of town only.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 8 (Sept. 1993), spread 18

Nearby

Stories within 60 km