Southern Africa Unexplained

Case No 134 · UFO Afrinews No 17, February 1998 (cover); masthead printed as January 1998

One of the Earliest Recorded UAP Cases: Johannesburg 1946

1946 · Delvers Street and the Luthjes Langham Hotel, corner Kerk and Von Wielligh Streets, Johannesburg, South Africa

What was reported

Reprinted from Flying Saucer Review (24 May 1979): John Judge's interview with Vida Goldsworthy, then 78. Around 12:15 am on a warm night early in 1946, Vida and her sister Mrs Naudwin, back from the cinema to their Delvers Street flat, let their dog onto waste ground. A loud thud made them look up: a rounded saucer with brownish rim, white centre and a golden ball set through it hung silently about 50 ft up over the Luthjes Langham Hotel, 200 yards away. After a click the ball dropped below the rim, clicked again and rose on two dark pillars above the saucer, revealing two identical 7 ft fair-haired figures in white belted tunics leaning on a rail, watching. The dog sat calmly. Rotating anticlockwise, the object drifted behind the hotel within two minutes. The sisters assumed a secret military craft and told no one.

What Hind made of it

Hind finds it fascinating, corrects the hotel name and street from a 1948 library map, suspects 'Naudwin' is a distortion of an Afrikaans name, doubts Judge ever reached Mrs Naudwin, plans to trace her descendants for another angle, and accepts Judge's suggestion (via Bloecher and Hopkins) that the thud and clicks were stage-managed to draw attention.

Explanation offered
Witnesses assumed a secret military vehicle

In their words

  • It was totally silent, just hovering.

    John Judge, FSR report, spread 11

  • They looked exactly alike, appeared to be about 7ft tall and were fair complexioned, like Scandinavians.

    John Judge, FSR report, spread 11

  • We will report further on this fascinating case as information becomes available.

    Cynthia Hind, spread 12

Cross references

  • Flying Saucer Review, 24 May 1979
  • Daily Express UAP series (prompted Vida's story)
  • Budd Hopkins, Witnessed (Linda Cortile case)
  • 1948 Johannesburg map from Greater Johannesburg Library Services

Connected

  • Gamida (A Story of an Abduction)Case fileSame behaviour

    Thud then two clicks at Delvers Street 1946; click like a key in a lock for Gamida 1987-92. Independent witnesses 46 years apart; Hind accepts the 1946 clicks were 'stage-managed to draw attention'.

  • Whose Face Wore the Smile?Case fileSame place

    Delvers Street and a Joubert Park hotel are about 450 m apart, the only two street-level addresses in the cluster; both are a small craft with visible occupants over a central Johannesburg hotel at night, 1946 and 1973.

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 17 (February 1998 (cover); masthead printed as January 1998), spread 10-12

In the archive

This case became a story on this site.

1946 · South Africa

The golden ball over the Langham Hotel

Two sisters walking the dog after the cinema heard a thud and saw a saucer with a golden ball hanging over the Langham Hotel, and two tall men watching them.

LIFTLift
Single witness

Nearby

Stories within 60 km