More Strange Lights in the Sky: b) Lake Kariba

What was reported

Caroline, twenty, was staying at a Kariba hotel with her parents while visiting her grandmother in Zimbabwe, the country of her birth. Around three in the morning something woke her and she saw a bright light shining through her window. Looking out she saw a box-shaped object quite high in the sky, travelling straight over the lake. It suddenly swerved noticeably to one side, then straightened and continued on its course until it disappeared. The whole episode lasted about five minutes. She thought a meteorite unlikely because of the trajectory. Four lights, green and red, were visible, with an overall white glow surrounding the object.

What Hind made of it

Reported without comment.

Explanation offered
Meteorite considered and rejected by witness because of the swerve

In their words

• it suddenly swerved to one side quite noticeably, then straightened and continued its journey forwards until it disappeared

• Caroline thought it unlikely to be a meteorite because of its trajectory.

Connected

• Lake Kariba reports: fishermen, warden, video and the Cutty SarkCase fileSame place

  1997, three years later, 'a Kariba hotel', the file does not say it is the Cutty Sark and the two should not be assumed to be the same building. The only firm link is the town and the fact that both witnesses were hotel guests rather than residents.

• Zimbabwean Flap of September 1994: Lake Kariba houseboatCase fileSame behaviour

  In both, a meteorite is raised and then rejected on the grounds of a manoeuvre: Caroline because the object swerved and straightened, Hind because hers rose over hills and descended over water. The same argumentative move, made independently three years apart.

• Jo Hensman and the torch on the Kariba shoreCase fileNamed person

  The investigator is inside her own sample. Jo Hensman is described as 'a friend of Hind's', and Cynthia Hind appears in 16-12-1's own list of named people. Two of the six cases reach the record through Hind's personal presence or acquaintance rather than through an independent report channel.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 16 (July 1997), spread 12

In the archive

This case became a story on this site.

1994 · Zimbabwe

Lights over Kariba

Two nights before Ariel School, a fireball with a tail crossed the whole country. In Kariba, people said it stopped and hovered.

LIFTLift

Press report

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