Case · UFO Afrinews No 20, July 1999
Out of Africa: disc lands on a school playground, Bandarawela
1998 ยท Primary school playground, Bandarawela, Diyatalawa, Sri Lanka
Outside the region. Hind reprinted this case from elsewhere; it has a file here but no place on the map.
What was reported
Reported from the Sri Lankan Sunday Times and UFO Magazine, and printed because, like Ruwa, the witnesses were schoolchildren in a remote place. Arriving early, Indika heard a slight noise, went outside and found a large disc standing on legs on the playground; it flashed red and yellow, turned once, flew sideways over a tree and shot into the sky. Harsha, unlocking classrooms, saw the flashing disc vanish before his eyes and reappear in the sky a second later, climbing over the mountains. He put it at eight feet across and seven high; both heard a soft purring as it lifted, then silence. Pupils had nicknamed the object Korka, the stork, from earlier sightings. Small feet trampled the site before adults arrived, but the principal photographed flower-shaped marks; shoe-shaped and churned marks had faded. A dead white locust-like insect was lost. Police had no explanation and dismissed the nearby military camp.
What Hind made of it
Hind notes the boys' consistency and the loss of landing traces to small feet; the children seem unchanged by the event and busy with schoolwork.
Explanation offered
Military activity from Diyatalawa camp, dismissed by police
In their words
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It turned round once and flew sideways above the jak [Jacaranda] tree and went into the sky
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A second later I saw it in the sky.
Cross references
- Sunday Times, Sri Lanka, 5 May 1998
- UFO Magazine UK Vol 17 No 3, Sept/Oct 1998
- Ariel School, Ruwa, UFO Afrinews Nos 11 and 12