Strange thing!! This sighting, I have recited to my family many, many times over the years. I was about 14 then and am now 43. ( probably 78 / 79 as we left the country about 2 months after Independence in 1980 from my recollection it was about a year before as I was 15 when we left - April was the month, not forget it as Easter weekend was coming up and we went camping at Mazowe dam chalets next weekend it was long weekend spent every night looking skywards that trip.)
We lived out at Aspindale, on the Rhodesia Fertilizer property for years, my brother & I grew up there. My late Father worked there for over 20yrs. It has a small housing estate, 10 houses, golf course and club on the premises. It used to be very popular in the 1970-1990's, sort of out of Town get away for people living in Salisbury then.
Memory's of then, made one feel that we where a long way out of Town and the Factory was massive compared to what is around today. The Fertilizer plant was massive back then, still is. But,back then it was a remote area, farm land on one side of the railway and a high density suburb being behind the the golf course some 500mtrs from the sighting area. Otherwise it was dense blue gum forests around us and believe it or not the game was prolific around us then, only 20kms out of Town.
Being secluded back then, us kids had limited things to do, our past time was basically all outdoors stuff and horsing around on the fertilizer dumps at night in the factory over weekends, when the folks where drinking in the pub on the premises. We frequently walked out of the main security entrance gates down to the railway lines at weekends, day or night. This was about 1km from the houses, but only about 100mtrs outside the main entry complex gates to RFC back then. Our past time fun was putting old coins on the railway tracks and the Bulawayo, Gweru & SA bound trains used to go directly past us then very frequently, not like these days.Yes, on the odd occasion we did more than just place coins, simply being young teenagers.
One evening on a Saturday night, myself, Nigel and the eldest of us Claude then about 17, went down to horse around the factory dumps and slide down the fertilizer banks then to the railway track. It was after 8pm we were on the track listening on the railway line with ears for sounds of on coming trains, easy way to tell if a train is coming but still quite far away. Claude stated he had seen lights on a few occasions but nothing was coming, we saw the lights, very different to usual, but nothing coming towards us and no sound on the track? You must understand its not a straight line of sight, so we walked around a bend on the line towards the Byo direction of the track about 300 mtrs or so we walked, we came round the bend and there before us this ship / plane / thing was..... huge... round lights.... saucer shaped thing was.......Needless to say we did more than leave ''brown tracks'' in our pants. We stood gazing for what seemed ages, but can assure you it was probably seconds. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen in my life and have never forgotten the detail to this very day.
The craft was about 30 mtrs off the ground directly on the track, it was next to the switching box, for the track locater, a small un-occupied building still there on the line today.It is basically the control room for railway trains coming in and out of Harare.It was silent, round, centre raised dome, about the size of the average 5 bed roomed house in diameter.It was not silver, but not white, really hard to define the colour of the body but metallic probably closest description but still not that. The lights were amazing, they where so large and not synchronized at all when coming on and ''off'', bright rotating lights around it, with larger beams from below, shining down from below its belly. The door was open on the right side, no stairs and nobody in sight, just bright lights in the door area and what we could see in. No door handle steps anything, just an open space on it. The weirdest thing was the silence of it and the size.
We bolted back to the main security gate, panicked, told the 2 gate guards what we had seen on the track, used their extension phone at the main gate to phone the club to tell our parents. This took about 3 -4 minutes. Whilst we waited for one of our parents to come from the Club house to the main gate, the object then raised itself and came straight over the factory, lit it up quite seriously from above and vanished in an instant.
Nobody in the factory saw it, the factory worked 24 / 7, but its all under huge roofing out there about 1km of factory. But the 2 gate guards witnessed it with us when it came above the factory. What we clearly saw was the entire bottom of it, the centre was ''hollowish' to a degree,' with white blinding light and I mean serious light coming from the centre down to the ground, aside from the side round lights.Yes it had reds, greens and white side lights, but the colours where strangish...but it was totally silent. As is said earlier then it was gone and I mean gone, not there it goes, it moved from there to gone in 20 seconds up into the sky.
When the folks arrived, mine and Claude's Dad, we told them the story and the guards supported what we saw. They said it was an army training excursive probably and that it was a helicopter or something of that nature. They thought we where making this up.That evening we where mocked by the whole bar and told Ja Ja what have we been drinking!!!
We all knew what we saw was nothing of that nature they explained and we had never seen before, it was not a plane, train, boat, helicopter or to this day seen anything like it, except heard of various sightings on DSTV similar to ours. Inside I know that this is / was a true UFO. We where not more than 100 mtrs from it, we saw it, felt it and it will always be with us in our minds till we leave here.
I have never followed UFO sightings seriously since then, it is not in my mind 24/7 neither do I have a fascination about it / them, simply because I know they exist and saw it. Who they are and what they where doing that night I got no idea, but they exist. 5 of us saw it, 3 at close range and later 5 of us from about a KM above the ground to our right of the gate. When we lived out there the factory had a compound that housed about 250 workers or more, the following week all the African workers spoke about to us kids was what the Guards had seen with us. They believed us and at least someone believed us, aside from our folks back then who thought we where MAD making it up!!!
We lived out at Aspindale, on the Rhodesia Fertilizer property for years, my brother & I grew up there. My late Father worked there for over 20yrs. It has a small housing estate, 10 houses, golf course and club on the premises. It used to be very popular in the 1970-1990's, sort of out of Town get away for people living in Salisbury then.
Memory's of then, made one feel that we where a long way out of Town and the Factory was massive compared to what is around today. The Fertilizer plant was massive back then, still is. But,back then it was a remote area, farm land on one side of the railway and a high density suburb being behind the the golf course some 500mtrs from the sighting area. Otherwise it was dense blue gum forests around us and believe it or not the game was prolific around us then, only 20kms out of Town.
Being secluded back then, us kids had limited things to do, our past time was basically all outdoors stuff and horsing around on the fertilizer dumps at night in the factory over weekends, when the folks where drinking in the pub on the premises. We frequently walked out of the main security entrance gates down to the railway lines at weekends, day or night. This was about 1km from the houses, but only about 100mtrs outside the main entry complex gates to RFC back then. Our past time fun was putting old coins on the railway tracks and the Bulawayo, Gweru & SA bound trains used to go directly past us then very frequently, not like these days.Yes, on the odd occasion we did more than just place coins, simply being young teenagers.
One evening on a Saturday night, myself, Nigel and the eldest of us Claude then about 17, went down to horse around the factory dumps and slide down the fertilizer banks then to the railway track. It was after 8pm we were on the track listening on the railway line with ears for sounds of on coming trains, easy way to tell if a train is coming but still quite far away. Claude stated he had seen lights on a few occasions but nothing was coming, we saw the lights, very different to usual, but nothing coming towards us and no sound on the track? You must understand its not a straight line of sight, so we walked around a bend on the line towards the Byo direction of the track about 300 mtrs or so we walked, we came round the bend and there before us this ship / plane / thing was..... huge... round lights.... saucer shaped thing was.......Needless to say we did more than leave ''brown tracks'' in our pants. We stood gazing for what seemed ages, but can assure you it was probably seconds. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen in my life and have never forgotten the detail to this very day.
The craft was about 30 mtrs off the ground directly on the track, it was next to the switching box, for the track locater, a small un-occupied building still there on the line today.It is basically the control room for railway trains coming in and out of Harare.It was silent, round, centre raised dome, about the size of the average 5 bed roomed house in diameter.It was not silver, but not white, really hard to define the colour of the body but metallic probably closest description but still not that. The lights were amazing, they where so large and not synchronized at all when coming on and ''off'', bright rotating lights around it, with larger beams from below, shining down from below its belly. The door was open on the right side, no stairs and nobody in sight, just bright lights in the door area and what we could see in. No door handle steps anything, just an open space on it. The weirdest thing was the silence of it and the size.
We bolted back to the main security gate, panicked, told the 2 gate guards what we had seen on the track, used their extension phone at the main gate to phone the club to tell our parents. This took about 3 -4 minutes. Whilst we waited for one of our parents to come from the Club house to the main gate, the object then raised itself and came straight over the factory, lit it up quite seriously from above and vanished in an instant.
Nobody in the factory saw it, the factory worked 24 / 7, but its all under huge roofing out there about 1km of factory. But the 2 gate guards witnessed it with us when it came above the factory. What we clearly saw was the entire bottom of it, the centre was ''hollowish' to a degree,' with white blinding light and I mean serious light coming from the centre down to the ground, aside from the side round lights.Yes it had reds, greens and white side lights, but the colours where strangish...but it was totally silent. As is said earlier then it was gone and I mean gone, not there it goes, it moved from there to gone in 20 seconds up into the sky.
When the folks arrived, mine and Claude's Dad, we told them the story and the guards supported what we saw. They said it was an army training excursive probably and that it was a helicopter or something of that nature. They thought we where making this up.That evening we where mocked by the whole bar and told Ja Ja what have we been drinking!!!
We all knew what we saw was nothing of that nature they explained and we had never seen before, it was not a plane, train, boat, helicopter or to this day seen anything like it, except heard of various sightings on DSTV similar to ours. Inside I know that this is / was a true UFO. We where not more than 100 mtrs from it, we saw it, felt it and it will always be with us in our minds till we leave here.
I have never followed UFO sightings seriously since then, it is not in my mind 24/7 neither do I have a fascination about it / them, simply because I know they exist and saw it. Who they are and what they where doing that night I got no idea, but they exist. 5 of us saw it, 3 at close range and later 5 of us from about a KM above the ground to our right of the gate. When we lived out there the factory had a compound that housed about 250 workers or more, the following week all the African workers spoke about to us kids was what the Guards had seen with us. They believed us and at least someone believed us, aside from our folks back then who thought we where MAD making it up!!!
Great story. I am envious because I have always wanted to see a UFO, but never have. Perhaps one day before I die I will have that opportunity.
ReplyDeleteHi there, something that has lived with me for years. Around 1977 my mother and step father had just gotten divorced and I went to live with my father and step mother in Salisbury just after I had turned 5. Then somewhere in 1978 my father was away in the R.L.I. and I spent alot of time then with my step mother as my father was involved in the war that was happening at that time.
ReplyDeleteOne night after supper I was in the lounge and was making those paper cutouts with people holding hands after being taught at school(Halingbury) on how to do this. I had just drawn the outline of the people and needed scissors and asked my mom where the scissors were, she told me they were in the drawer in the study. I made my way down the passage and did not even switch on the light in the study as it was lit up enough from the passageway. I got to the desk which was right infront of the ony window in the room. I opened the drawer and saw the scissors, while closing the drawer I looked up at the window and saw there looking in was what I can only describe as a kind of little funny head peering in that looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was a creamy kind of greyish colour with weird eyes and small cheeks, nose and mouth. In the few seconds that I took in looking at it I then let out a scream as it freaked me out completely.
Taking off the down the passage I met my mom 3/4's towards the lounge where we were sitting previously. She asked what was wrong and I tried to explain what I had just seen. She was freaking out still with just hearing me scream.
It was not long afterwards our gardener came to the door and spoke with my mom saying he had heard me scream and had rushed from his quarters and noticed a smallish thin man run from the back of our house around to the front and scale our front yard fence the dash into the veld across the road from us.
I somehow quickly forgot about this incident and for some reason in the next month or so my mother moved my room from closer to the lounge to now in this study, which was doorway to doorway(next to, not directly across, like L shape if that explains it) with my parents room. I still did not think about this incident but found myself after sometime in this new room of mine, like clockwork almost everynight for I'd say about 2 weeks(it felt like) as soon as the lights went off for my mom and I to go to bed within minutes even with my door aswell as their door slightly open I would see little silhouettes of thin people walking directly into my parents room. They would make no sound and would always walk past, bout 5, 6 maybe 7 at a time and into their room and I'd fall asleep wthin seconds of seeing this. It went on like this almost every night for about that period of time.
I never mentioned this until I was an adult until in 1999 when it came back to me after seeing a UFO in South Africa where I now live. This encounter also did not register properly until the next morning and only when a lady phoned in to our local radio station saying she had seen something in the sky where she was staying a good many kilometers from my house and described exactlty the shape and lights I had seen the night before.
NJS