UFO. South Africa

On June 26, 1972, a UFO was spotted by several workers at a farm called "Braeside" in the city of Fort Beaufort in the Eastern Province of South Africa. The owner of the farm contacted the local police, who arrived at the scene around 10:30. 

The UFO was spotted when he was hovering at the level of a tree top in a dense forest. According to eyewitnesses, the UFO continued to change color. 

Police officers who visited the scene saw a UFO. One officer fired several shots at the object. The owner of the farm also shot. 

During the shot, the UFO stopped changing color and remained the dark color of the weapon metal. He disappeared behind the treetops, then appeared again. The color changed to grayish white before disappearing. A total of fifteen shots were fired at the object. 

As far as I know, this is the only incident when police officers shot at UFOs. This event was reported in several newspapers and books. 

The owner of the farm still resides in Fort Beaufort, where he has a hotel. Both policemen are now retired. These gentlemen are doing well, and if anyone wants to deal with this incident, they should do it now while the witnesses are alive.

I was working at Fort Beaufort during the surveillance and did not personally witness the incident. However, I saw all the journalists and investigators who arrived in the city the next day.

A few months later, the city was visited by investigators of the US Space Agency, who interviewed everyone who witnessed the incident. 

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Newspaper (N.Z. Press Aesn) JOHANNESBURG, September 18, 1972.


Notification for unidentified flying objects: Try to avoid South Africa.


Gunshots, not a red carpet greeting, greeted a UFO that landed without warning on Smith's farm near the remote village of Fort Beaufort.


No one disputes the fact that Mr. Bernardus Smith, several of his workers and two policemen saw something, but the national debate concerns the proper protocol for receiving extraterrestrial guests.


The police insist that they had every right to shoot at Fort Beaufort. Scientists say the shooting was stupid, if not dangerous. And one newspaper complained that an unfriendly reception could scare off messengers from another planet. Mr. Smith, who is 40 years old, says that one of his farm workers noticed a UFO around 8 a.m., and he took out his rifle and called the police.

"It seemed to glow red in the bushes, and as I watched, it turned from bright red to dark green, and then to whitish yellow," Mr. Smith said.

After the police arrived, several farmers tried to drive the UFO out of the bushes as they drive away cattle.

"As they approached, it veered towards the trees," Mr Smith said. "At the right end of the oval-shaped object there was a protrusion similar to a star - it seemed that it was increasing in size as the intensity of the white light emitted by it increased.

We couldn't shoot at it at that stage because people were in the line of fire, but when the object disappeared below, I shot at the star." Mr. Smith used his rifle, and the police fired their pistols from a distance of 7 meters."

About 15 shots were fired, while the UFO stood in the bushes under bright sunlight for more than four hours.


Mr Smith said the object, which was about a metre wide and two metres long.


The UFO eventually flew away, crashing noisily through the undergrowth. A dozen more hastily assembled police officers combed the area. They photographed and made plaster casts of several triangular prints on the ground and sent soil samples for laboratory analysis.


According to one of the policemen, the prints indicate that the object had three legs arranged in a triangle, like a tripod for a camera, and that it touched the ground several times.


Now there is a debate about what to do when a UFO comes. "I do not know of a law that prohibits shooting at an invader from outer space," says the deputy police commissioner.

"Anyone who shoots UFOs should be warned against it," says Professor Arthur Bleksley, former director of the Johannesburg Planetarium.

What is surprising about these aliens, who are supposed to have traveled millions of miles to see us. They always land in strange, wild places like Fort Beaufort, where they hide until the police shoot at them," he says.

Mr. Wil Resnick, an astronomer and psychologist, claims that the shooting was dangerous because the UFO could explode.

"But," he told reporters, "the creatures who sent UFOs to Fort Beaufort are more likely to be amused than angry. Many South Africans consider the UFO a fake because it was so small. But why? Is it funny? We're sending capsules filled with tiny instruments to explore outer space, aren't we?

Obviously, it was an unmanned space laboratory sent to study conditions on Earth or, possibly, to establish contact with us."