UFO seen over Prospect Harare

In Salisbury (now Harare) on the 16th July Mrs Mickey Burgess and her husband watched an orange 'sphere' the size of a large beach ball from their front garden.

Their house was in Smuts Road, Prospect and they saw the sphere as a brilliant light travelling from South to north - it was a bright orange colour.

Suddenly a small orange object broke away from the larger body.

Mrs Burgess thought the object was at tree top level and about 300 meters from their garden.

The object finally disappeared over the Makabusi River.

Sightings in Bulawayo

At 8:30 pm on the 16th of July 1975 David Burgess, prison officer, and a friend saw an object hovering over Khami Prison which was about 2-3 km from their car.

It was orange, almost circular but with a flattish bottom and round at the top.

It appeared to be stationary at first but as the men drove on it disappeared towards the east.

On the following night another prison officer saw the same object and Mr and Mrs Rossiter and their three children together with Mr and Mrs Lombard saw a bright round object 4km north-east of Khami at about 7:30pm.

It appeared as stationary for a few moments and then again moved of rapidly in an easterly direction.

On the 15th July 1975 a young man, Wayne Burger - who was 23 years old at the time, and Noeleen, his wife, found that twice their lights and TV flickered on and off. At the time they thought nothing of the occurrence.

At 7:15 pm he went outside to lock the front gates to the house.

His German Shepherd went with him as he always did. However, on this occasion, the dog would not go past the front veranda of the house.

Wayne claimed he had a sudden, terrible feeling that someone was watching him and he called to the dog. When the dog refused to move Wayne closed the gates as quickly as he could.

It was then he saw a light in the sky. it was a bright colour, approximately 9 metres across and shaped a bit like a ruler, long, straight and rounded at either end.

He stood there frozen. The object then moved away rapidly at tree level, only about 45 metres from where he was standing.

He claimed the object was surrounded by an aura of brilliant white light.

He ran to the front door and called for his wife to come out. She came out just in time to see the object disappeared beyond the trees. it was moving at a fast speed and there was no sound coming from it.

Karoi sighting

On 06 July 1975 a Mrs Una Weincler and her husband were driving home from Karoi - a town to the north of Harare. They noticed an object about the size of an orange with a jagged tail and a pointed front. it was about 8:15pm.

She noted that the object was a very bright orange-yellow colour.

When they stopped the car the object stopped as well. when they moved off the object did as well. Within minutes it had descended to the level of the surrounding tree tops. The object was moving far too quickly to have been a plant or a star.

When it drew near he husband drove of quickly as they became really frightened of what they had seen.

Subsequently it was seen by the Weinclers and several other people in the area on many evenings.

It seemed to appear after 8pm - moved east to west and was visible for about 40 minutes on each occasion.

The Start of the Flap of 1975 in Zimbabwe

There were a spate of sightings in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) during July 1975. On 04 July 1975 and Mr and Mrs W Houghton reported the first evident to show that the country was being investigated by beings from another world.. For a period of six minuted the observed and orange UFO hovering near their home which was about 25 km from Harare. on the 8th of July Mrs Houghton again saw the object. The local papers reported that the Met office had strongly denied its identification as a weather balloon as they did not fly these at night. There was no further comment made . This sighting was followed up by others in the same area. This was the beginning of an interesting period in surveillance of the country

UFO over Mocambique

It has always been unusual for the local paper to report UFO sightings but on 10 February 173 they reported that a Boeing 737 No CR-BAC of the Mozambique domestic airline Deta was followed by something for 20 minutes on a night flight between Beira and what is now Maputo. Pilots do not make reports of objects that they feel unimportant and there is little doubt that this sighting was genuine.

Sighting in Bulawayo

On the 18th of may 1958, at 5, Kirkaldy Road, Famona in Bulawayo Ray Burl's wife, heard a rustling noise at about 10:30 pm. It sounded like paper being swished about. Ray turned over in bed and dismissed the noise.

At 1:15 am they were awoken by their neighbours knocking on the window. The neighbours had been entertaining and when they went outside to see one of their guests off they had seen a 'peculiar object' in the sky. It was low over the Burl's house. The Burl's looked out of their window and were able to see the object. They ran outside for a better look. What they saw was roughly a rectangular object about 1.5 meters by 91 cms in dimension. It hovered over the house and moved swiftly in both a horizontal and vertical plane and all the time was making the strange rustling noise that had been heard earlier. The object disappeared and then reappeared again emanating the 'swish - swish' noise. the thing came down in a spiral movement and hovered over the house not more than 15 to 18 meters up.

Ray put the beam of his torch onto the object and lit it up slightly. The belly was a dull metallic grey and faintly luminous. as soon as the torch light struck it the object shot off on a horizontal direction. It then rose vertically and finally disappeared in a southerly direction.

One lady was ill and spent the rest of the night being sick - probably nerves.

The Burl's baby daughter became ill. the family doctor found that she was thoroughly dehydrated and there seemed no logical explanation. The burls reluctantly told the doctor of the experience of the night before. the doctor became alarmed as he thought the symptoms could have arisen from radiation from the mysterious object. the reason for the illness was never pinpointed and the child recovered. i do not know if Gillian ever experienced any after effects from this illness and would be interested to hear from anyone who knows anything further.