'Bob' and the Alouette helicopter photograph, Chingola

What was reported

An anonymous caller, 'Bob', told Hind he had been with Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland forces in an Alouette helicopter practising landings at noon on a bright day near the Zambia-Zaire border. Flying at about 200 ft and 190 km/h, the crew saw a silver-chrome object come up from behind a hill at tremendous speed, climb straight up over the helicopter and vanish over the opposite horizon in about ten seconds, silent, without lights or protrusions and reflecting the sun throughout. Bob took one photograph with a £20 Agfa camera; the creased, faint print, with the object ringed in ball-point, was analysed for MUFON's Joe Brill by Bill Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch as a genuine metallic disc. The crew first thought it a secret UN craft. Bob placed the date shortly after Hammarskjold's fatal crash.

What Hind made of it

Hind accepts Spaulding's contemporary analysis as genuine despite his later discrediting, and pointedly links the date to the Hammarskjold crash of 18 September 1961, 'never solved' as far as the public know.

Explanation offered
Crew first thought it a highly secret United Nations craft, but its shape and speed negated this

In their words

• We observed it for about 10 seconds

• There was no sound, and no extensions on the craft, nor lights.

• A mystery crash which was never solved.

Cross references

• Dag Hammarskjold air crash, 18 September 1961

Source

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No 21 (January 2000), spread 7-8