My First UFO Experience

I am often asked what started my interest in UFOs and definitely it was an experience which I had in Ghana in the 1960s. However I have come to realise that my first UFO experience may have been years before. It was only recently that I recalled what must have been an encounter which occurred earlier in my life. As this happened 50 odd years ago I will recount what i remember of that late afternoon.

I lived with my parents in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. We were returning along the 'Sunshine Highway' from a small town called 'Hollywood' north of Lauderdale when my father found that the car was coming to a stop on the highway. He was of the opinion that the vehicle had run out of gas and cursed the fuel tank display for not showing the correct level of fuel!

Everything was very still and silent - no others cars around. He tried to start the car repeatedly but had no luck and got out of the vehicle to try and ascertain where we were and how far it might be to the nearest gas station. I was looking out of the car window and saw something in the sky which I presumed was a plane travelling away from us in a southerly direction.

My father by this time realised that we were far from any source of fuel and got back into the car and turned the key in the ignition. The car started up immediately! He made a remark about probably having flooded the engine and we we were on our way. the fuel gauge showed that we had more than enough fuel to get home but he stopped and filled up the tank at the first gas station we came to.

I did not think about this incident for many years until I was reading reports of sightings on this part of the Florida highway - and realised that the reported incidents were very similar to what I had experienced.

Did we have a fuel problem or was it something more?

UFOs OVER MANA POOLS

This story comes to me from the owner of a well known tour operator in Zimbabwe.

On the morning of 14 September 1994 a number of objects were seen in the Mana Pools area near the Zambezi River. They were travelling from Zambia to Zimbabwe. They were also seen over Harare and then later in Durban at four or five minutes past nine in the morning. They appear to have been travelling very quickly and were very high in the sky.

Mana Pools,a World Heratege Site and game reserve, is a wild and undeveloped area taking up a large percentage of the northern part of Zimbabwe.

This was a very interesting sighting and similar to one still being investigated in Canada. Here in 1913 objects were seen to proceed along the coast of Brazil at high altitude and at high speed.

The Zimbabwe Mana Pools sighting was just two days before the Ariel School landing in Ruwa and could have been connected.

LOST TIME - STRANGE ROUTING

Mr H was driving from Harare to the north sometime late one afternoon in September 1985. It was a road he knew well and had travelled many times before. The route he was taking took him through undulating country with hills on both sides of the road.

He was concentrating on the winding road when suddenly he realised he was no longer on the road he had started off on. The road he was then travelling on was straight and flat!

He stopped the car and tried to find out where he might be. He looked at the clock and at his watch and realised that a space of time of an hour and a half had gone by since he had last checked the time. He decided to turn the car around and head back the way he had obviously come from in hopes of finding out where he was. Within a short time he found himself at the junction to the road he should have been travelling. It was by now nearly dark.

On returning to his home he checked his mileage records. (He always kept a note of what mileage he travelled on every trip he did.) To his amazement he had twenty eight miles that he could not account for on this particular journey.

Was he abducted? Why the extra mileage? What happened in that hour and a half?

OBJECTS SIGHTED NEAR BINDURA

The following case was related to me by a friend who used to live in Glendale a farming community north of Harare. He was on his way back from Bindura to Glendale driving along the main Bindura/Harare road. In the car were his wife and two young sons. He noted a reddish light behind the car - his wife also noted the strange object. Within a few minutes it was seen over the car and appeared to be keeping up with the vehicle, which by this time, my friend (who we will refer to as Mr P), was driving at considerable speed. It was joined by a number of other, similar objects - he estimated about 12 in total. Unable to get away from them he stopped the car and he and his wife got out of the vehicle to get a better view - the objects hovered above the scene and then sped off towards Bindura. He could not remember the exact date but estimates it was probably some time in August 1985.

My source is a very reliable person not prone to exaggeration and with a very open mind.

STRANGE GLOW AND SKY BOOMS RATTLE ZIMBABWE

So went the headlines - what did we really experience?
The report read:

"On Thursday, May 21, 1998, at 10:20 p.m., a brilliant white glow lit up the eastern horizon in Zimbabwe, a nation in southern Africa. The strange glow was seen from Harare, the capital, to Glendale, a distance of 75 kilometers (45 miles).

In Glendale, the mysterious glow persisted for 20 minutes, and "the light was strongest" there.

Immediately following the light's appearance, a serious of explosive sky booms was heard in Harare and towns to the east, including Rusape, Murewa amd Macheke.

The glow was also seen in Goromonzi, near Ruta (RUWA), approximately 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Harare. In 1996, a UFO reportedly landed on the playground of an elementary school in Goromonzi, and about a dozen aliens spoke for 15 minutes with the 60 children playing there.

The case is being investigated by Cynthia Hind, Zimbabwe's foremost ufologist. (Many thanks to Jeroen Wierda of Picard UFO Research International and Odette for this report.)"

What we experienced has never been fully explained. My husband and I woke to a rumbling which appeared to come from below the earth and following a path below our property. The light flash was seen through closed curtains and lasted for some minutes. The sound was like that of an atomic explosion and seemed to run along the ground. Quite amazing.

We have had reports from Messina in South Africa and Mutare on the Mocambique border that they also experienced this strange phenomenon.

What ever it was there appears to have been no 'remains', no local sightings, no damage done. There were no reports of earthquake activity and surely this would not have been accompanied by a flash of light that lasted for some time in the sky.

What was it?