Geologists take bearings on the fireball, Mberengwa

What was reported

Dr Euan Nisbet, a Zimbabwean geology professor at London University, and colleague Kathy Silva, working in the Mberengwa area, took compass bearings on the largest light from their Zvishavane camp. It rose due north, peaked 65 to 70 degrees above the eastern horizon and set about 20 degrees east of south, its path angled roughly ten degrees off the north-south line, taking about a minute though it seemed longer. The fireball was a fifth of the moon's diameter, the shower a band several moon-diameters long and one to two wide. A sonic boom two to four minutes later put the debris at least 50 km up. Nisbet saw white debris turning orange; Silva saw deep orange. It faded so abruptly they wondered whether the meteors had skipped out of the atmosphere. Printed in The Herald on 17 September.

What Hind made of it

Hind reports the scientists' bearings without criticism; Nisbet's later visit to the Royal Observatory near London led to the revised identification as a jettisoned Russian satellite nose cone.

Explanation offered
Meteorite at the time; later a Russian satellite nose cone jettisoned on 14 September

In their words

• the light faded abruptly and this made them wonder if the meteors could have skipped out of the Earth's atmosphere

Cross references

• 11-05-1 umbrella entry for Case No 95
• The Herald, Harare, 17 September 1994
• Royal Observatory near London

Connected

• Lyn Devres' report from ZvishavaneCase fileSame window

  Both are 14 September 1994 from Zvishavane, Devres at 20:55. Two parties in one town describing one object, a north-to-south pass of about sixty seconds, which is corroboration of an event, not of anything unexplained: it was resolved as a jettisoned Russian satellite nose cone.

• Lyn Devres' report from ZvishavaneCase fileSame place

  Geocoded to identical coordinates, 1.5 km from the Zvishavane synoptic weather station and 2.2 km from the town substation. The shared point is the town anchor, not a shared vantage: Nisbet and Silva took compass bearings from a field camp, the Devres watched from home.

• Lyn Devres' report from ZvishavaneCase fileHind follow-up

  Both sit under Hind's umbrella entry 11-05-1 for Case No 95, and Hind carries the identification forward: meteorite at the time, then a jettisoned Russian nose cone after Nisbet visited the Royal Observatory near London.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 11 (Feb. 1995), spread 06

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