by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
South Africa has had its share of UFO reports, and thanks to Zimbabwe-based researcher Cynthia Hind, who put out UFO Afrinews from July 1988 to July 2000, we have a record of many of them. In the 1970s, Charles Bowen, the editor of London-based Flying Saucer Review, also had his eye on South Africa, and in the January-February 1973 issue, he mentions a flap there that, according to him, began in July 1972. Along with other reports, he presents a newspaper account of a dramatic case involving a UFO that seemingly damaged a tennis court in the town of Rosmead in the Eastern Cape Province. Hind gives details of the case in the first issue of UFO Afrinews, calling it “perhaps my best case” when it comes to physical trace cases and references her book, UFOs: African Encounters, as the source.
Tennis 2The flap seems to have begun with a case discussed by Bowen in part 2 of his article covering the flap in the September-October 1972 issue of FSR. The case was deemed worthy of its own article in that issue (page 10 of the pdf) and was written by Ivan Clark and headlined “The Fort Beaufort Police Officers: An Interview.” Clark interviewed Warrant Officer P. van Rensburg and Sergeant P. Kitching, both from the Fort Beaufort Police, and the following is the story as told by Clark. At around 8:00 a.m. on June 26, 1972, Bennie Smit, the owner of farm Braeside, was approached by some of his workers who had seen a light in the bush that they thought might be a fire. Smit, concerned that poachers might be responsible, grabbed his .303 rifle and headed for the area.
When Smit got there, he saw a glowing egg-shaped object hovering behind some trees. He watched for a while and eventually became concerned enough to call the police, and van Rensburg and Kitching arrived at the scene at 9:00 a.m. Kitching said “It was hovering length-ways, just partially hidden behind some bushy trees. The colour of the object was gun metal blue-black, and after we watched it for a while, it started to glow a coal-red all over, the same as when Mr. Smit saw it early on. Then we noticed a vivid, bright, star-like light to one side of the object; this was flashing at intervals.”
After failed attempts by the workers and Smit to get close to the object (which moved out of sight when the workers were heard shouting, convincing Kitching that it was under intelligent control), Smit and the officers fired fifteen rounds at it, reportedly hitting it with the seventh, which produced a dull thud. The object rocked back and forth, turned green, and then yellow.Tennis 1
After an hour, Kitching and van Rensburg left while Smit remained. The object eventually turned 90º, and with its long axis vertical, rose up, and then moved off until Smit could no longer see it. He said it made a humming noise that he and his family later heard over their house. Kitching and van Rensburg returned the next day and found three 2 1/2 inch impressions where the object might have landed.
In his two-part article on the flap headlined “South African Mini-Wave, 1972” published in the September-October 1972 (page 6 of pdf) and November-December 1972 (page 15 of pdf) issues of FSR, Bowen gives summaries of 25 cases, most of them from South African newspaper accounts, after describing the Fort Beaufort case and the controversy generated by the shooting. The majority of the cases involve lights in the sky, and there is one instance where a car was reported to have stalled when the driver attempted to get close to one known as “Die Lig” (The Light) that is described as being seen “every year” in broad daylight and at night in the area of Mariental and Keetmanshoop.
A case not mentioned by Bowen, that involved multiple reports from witnesses of a bizarre floating humanoid, also got individual treatment. According to Philipp J. Human in his article headlined “The ‘Flying Spectre’ of Natal” in the November-December issue (page 18 of the pdf), people in the Province of Natal reported seeing a strange apparition that had what looked like a head (one witness described it as “square like a machine”) over a smoky body. Human provides details that were reported in the August 22, 1972, issue of The Natal Mercury and includes an illustration based on drawings by the witnesses.
The case involving the tennis court is detailed in the article by Charles Bowen in the January-February 1973 issue (page 13 of the pdf) of FSR headlined “Landings and Humanoids Reported in Cape Province.” Bowen presents an account he got from an article in the Sunday, November 16, 1972, edition of the Johannesburg Rapport. According to him, Human sent him a translation of the article from the Afrikaans, and the editor of the Rapport “kindly” sent him photos of “the site of the alleged landing.”
According to Bowen, at around 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 12, three army trainees who were part of a detail guarding petrol tanks “at the military base” saw what looked like a pair of rear car lights “circling” in the area of Rosmead. At the same time, Sergeant John Goosen and Constable Koos Brazelle of the Middleburg Police were at the station watching a light in the same area that “was changing colour all the time.”
At 8:30, Harold Truter, the principle of Rosmead Primary School, came home and saw that the tennis court next to the school was damaged. There were large holes in the tar court, but the gate was locked and the fence surrounding it was undamaged. He also saw a “long vertical light in the sky” that then disappeared. He called the Middleburg Police Station and it so happened that Goosen and Brazelle were watching their light through binoculars when the phone rang. They quickly responded and travelled the 18 km to Rosmead. There, they saw a horizontal light hanging in the sky that then moved vertically and disappeared.
The damage is described this way: “There are five large holes in the tennis court which have a distinct pattern. At the bottom end of the court there are two almost oval-shaped holes of about 3 metres in diameter with a tail and a smaller hole. In the centre of the court is a circular hole about two metres wide. At the top end again there are two near oval-shaped holes with a tail and smaller holes. There are also two small holes that seemed to have been caused by a spike.”Tennis Creature
Pieces of tar from the court are reported to have been picked up 50 metres away and none was seen on the fence. While the tar layer was damaged, the ash layer it was sitting on is said to have been intact. According to the Rapport “There was no indication that spades or shovels had been used, nor that the tar had been melted or scorched in any way.”
In addition to the holes, a bluegum tree is said to have been “slowly dying from the top end,” while trees nearby were undamaged. According to the Rapport, C. S. I. R. (The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) scientists were examining twigs and leaves from the tree, and tar from the court.
Hind’s account is similar but has additional details. According to her, when Truter got home, he saw “an unusual light in the sky with a beam pointing down towards the ground.” She says there were two bluegum trees with their leaves “badly burnt” and that “the edges of the tar were pressed down, as though a weight were resting on them.” She says that a large rock that Truter had tried to “remove once or twice” was gone and that there was a hole left behind where it had been, and that tar was found embedded approximately 4.6 metres up on the trunks of bluegum trees around 200 metres from the court and was also found “deeply embedded in the garage wall as though flung there with considerable force.”
Hind provides the following speculation:
My assessment is that an unidentified object landed on the tennis court and then found itself embedded in the softened tar. In an effort to free itself it virtually jumped from one point to another (5 movements) and then managed to free itself. Some form of rapid movement of the craft flung pieces of tar so that they became deeply embedded in the trunks of the trees and the garage wall.
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