Automatic Piloted Vehicles: the Kalahari border crash hoax

What was reported

Hind explains why she has long rejected the claim, engineered by James van Gruenen, that a SAAF pilot shot down a UAP which crashed near the Botswana border. His documents were badly formulated, with fourteen spelling mistakes by her count, inaccurate information, wrong officer rankings and mixed metric and imperial units; having served with the SAAF she knew its documentation standards. She says she has proof he was merely selling to the highest bidder. Manchester lawyer Harry Harris claimed 90 pages of Mossad documents on the incident. Van Gruenen's assertion that the naval vessel Tafelberg first spotted the object at sea collapsed when a former government insider told her the ship was in dock. Puzzling over what triggered the story, she notes Kentron admitted in 1994 to building a triangular unmanned aircraft and wonders whether one crashed into Botswana and had to be retrieved fast.

What Hind made of it

A hoax perpetrated for fame and money; the underlying trigger may have been a Kentron unmanned aircraft crashing on the wrong side of the border.

Explanation offered
Hoax; possibly a crashed unmanned Kentron drone

In their words

• inexcusable spelling mistakes (I counted 14), completely inaccurate information, incorrect ranking of officers, and mixing of metric and imperial measures

• pause a moment and reflect before you decide to report a UFO!

Cross references

• UAP-BC Quarterly, Fall 1998 Vol 3 No 4
• Kentron Flowchart 2 stealth target drone
• Kalahari crash TV documentary (mentioned by Kerry)

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 20 (July 1999), spread 13