Southern Africa Unexplained

Case No 93 · UFO Afrinews No 11, Feb. 1995

Aubrey and Russell: car stops on the Selukwe strip road

1975 · Strip road short cut from Gweru to Selukwe, Selukwe (Shurugwi), Zimbabwe

What was reported

Aubrey and Russell reached Mr R.'s house at 22:00 the same August 1975 evening, visibly shaken; Russell was violently sick in the bathroom. They had left Gweru about 21:00 by the strip-road short cut to Selukwe and spotted a large blue light hovering in the trees, a bubble with a skirt about 150 ft across, giving off a high-pitched hum. As they drove closer the car went dead; the object moved off and the car revived; they followed and it died again. Looking up, Aubrey saw a figure watching them through what seemed a window, blinked, and the object was gone, the car lights very dim. Both were nauseous and Aubrey's head pounded. They refused to report it. Aubrey, then an electrician at Selukwe Mine, is now in South Africa; the Bulawayo group is trying to trace both men.

What Hind made of it

Hind records that both men refused to report it for fear of ridicule and that the Bulawayo UAP group is trying to trace them through Mr R., whose parents are still in Bulawayo.

In their words

  • As they moved closer to the object, the car went dead.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 17

  • Aubrey described it as a large bubble with a skirt.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 17

Cross references

  • 11-16-2 R. family sighting, same night
  • Vic Forward, Matabeleland UFO Research Group

Connected

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

    Mr R. is the hinge of both. Aubrey and Russell arrived at his house at 22:00 on the same August 1975 evening, three hours after his family's own sighting on the Gweru-Selukwe road. The two reports are 29.8 km apart and reached Hind as one package.

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

    Same evening, August 1975: the R. family home by 19:49, Aubrey and Russell leaving Gweru about 21:00. The tightest temporal link in the cluster, but the two accounts are not independent of each other, the second exists only because the first household was already talking about it.

  • An Early UAP in Zimbabwe: the R. family and the Vampire jetsCase fileNamed person

    Both came to Hind through Vic Forward's Matabeleland UFO Research Group in Bulawayo, 150 km away, not through a Midlands source. The routing, not the Midlands, is what these two have in common.

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

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

    An object keeps station with a moving car and then vanishes without receding: Marianne Griffiths' orange ball holding distance round bends, Aubrey and Russell following the blue bubble until it was simply gone. Independent witnesses about 40 km apart.

  • Bright light near 'The Poort', Gweru (letter from Mrs W.)Case fileSame place

    18.7 km apart on the same Gweru-Shurugwi night-driving axis, roughly two years apart, both cars leaving the road to chase a light. The proximity is real but both are located by road description rather than by a fixed point.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 11 (Feb. 1995), spread 16-17