Trudie's Story: the fireball that vanished into the Port Nolloth dunes

What was reported

Sitting on their stoep one evening, Trudie and her husband watched a large round fireball come over, well beyond the road, lighting up everything, and drop into the Port Nolloth dunes with a hissing sound and no explosion. Their doctor neighbour had been behind his house and missed it, and a search of the dunes found nothing. Fearing an aircraft had crashed, they rang Silver Mine, which said it was nothing of theirs and refused to alert the Air Force, then Alexander Bay, which has an airstrip and was then mooted as a military base, and Oranjemund, which both denied any light aircraft. The newspaper mocked Port Nolloth people for smoking dope, so they dropped it. Hind suggests a small meteorite.

What Hind made of it

Possibly the crash of a small meteorite in the sand dunes.

Explanation offered
small meteorite; aircraft ruled out by Silver Mine, Alexander Bay and Oranjemund

In their words

• It was beautiful, it was a round thing when it came over, and it sounded like sh-sh-sh, and went into the dunes.

• We know you Port Nolloth people, you smoke a lot of dope and that's what made you see things.

Cross references

• Case No 143

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 18 (July 1998), spread 5-6