Vanishing 'bus' on the Shabani strip road (Authers and Sealy)

What was reported

Retold by Hind from her book UFOS-AFRICAN ENCOUNTERS as the only other 'bus' report she knows. On 17 August 1975, during the Rhodesian UAP flap, bank manager Henry Authers and his father-in-law L. Sealy were driving fast on a strip road from a prospecting site near the Ngesi River toward Shabani at about 18:10. Some 14.5 km from town they saw what looked like a bus ahead and Sealy sped up to catch it. Authers saw a domed vehicle with panoramic windows and narrow black pillars, a brilliant white interior light silhouetting one standing figure and one seated in an otherwise empty bus. It went round a bend and was gone: ahead lay a level 1.5 km stretch, no dust, no diesel smell, and the only turn-off led to a rifle range behind locked gates.

What Hind made of it

Hind places it in the 1975 Rhodesian flap and cites it as the only prior bus-shaped report; no explanation offered.

In their words

• There was a very strong white light inside which appeared to throw the person they could see into silhouette.

• Both men had witnessed the same scene of a bus travelling in the direction they were going, which suddenly vanished into thin air.

Cross references

• UFOS-AFRICAN ENCOUNTERS (Gemini, 1982)
• Case No 78 (09-14-1)
• 1975 Rhodesian UAP flap

Connected

• Aubrey and Russell: car stops on the Selukwe strip roadCase fileSame behaviour

  The only two strength-4 close encounters here, both from August 1975, both on strip roads south-east of Gweru: occupants silhouetted against a bright interior light seen through windows, then the object gone in place. Authers and Sealy and Aubrey and Russell are wholly independent witnesses.

• An Early UAP in Zimbabwe: the R. family and the Vampire jetsCase fileSame window

  09-14-3 is firmly dated 17 August 1975 at 18:10; 11-16-2 is only 'one evening in August 1975'. They may be the same night or three weeks apart, Hind never fixes the R. family date, so the apparent August 1975 wave rests on one dated account plus one undated one.

• Letter: orange ball follows car from Selukwe to ShabaniCase fileSame place

  Both on the Selukwe/Shurugwi-to-Shabani road corridor, 28 km apart, a year apart (mid-1974 and August 1975), both at dusk or after dark with the object accompanying a car until the town lights. Different witnesses, reported decades apart.

• Letter: orange ball follows car from Selukwe to ShabaniCase fileHind follow-up

  Hind works backwards from later material in both: she ties Griffiths' newspaper memory to the Peter and Frances Fort Victoria sighting of 1 June 1974 printed next, and she retells the Authers/Sealy bus from her own 1982 book UFOS-AFRICAN ENCOUNTERS to gloss Case No 78.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 9 (February 1994), spread 14-15

In the archive

This case became a story on this site.

1975 · Zimbabwe

The bus that vanished on the Shabani strip road

Two men sped up to catch a bus at dusk outside Shabani. Domed, lit white inside, one figure standing. Round the bend there was no bus, no dust, no diesel.

LOLow observability

Single witness