Was a UFO shot down over the Kalahari?

In the autumn of 1989, newspapers published a sensational message: fighter jets shot down a UFO over South Africa!

The first information about the crash was received by the English ufological organization YUFOS from Henry Azadehdel, who arrived from South Africa. At the same time, he allegedly called the names of officials and scientists of South Africa and the United States associated with the event, and said he was ready to pass a lie detector test.

After a while, James van Groenen contacted YUFOS. He presented documents addressed to a South African intelligence officer and said that he had additional information about the UFO crash, as he and American representatives were investigating the incident.

Van Groenen forwarded to YUFOS a copy of a document printed on a South African Air Force letterhead marked "top secret", which described the incident in detail:

At 13.45 on May 7, 1989, the South African Navy frigate "SA Tafelberg" transmitted to the Naval headquarters in Cape Town a message about a UFO that was recorded on the Frigate's radar screens and was flying in a northwesterly direction towards the African continent with an estimated speed of 5746 nautical miles per hour.

The Naval Headquarters confirmed that this object was detected by aircraft radar and ground radars of the Air Force and the O. F. Malan International Airport in Cape Town. The object invaded the airspace of South Africa at 13.52. Attempts to establish radio communication with it were unsuccessful. The Valhalla Airbase was notified, and two Mirage F11S fighters were flown into the air to intercept the object. Suddenly, the object at high speed changed the direction of flight in a way impossible for an airplane. At 13.59, squadron commander Gozen reported that he was observing the object visually and on the radar screen.

The order was given to open fire on the object from the experimental onboard laser gun "Tor-2", which was done. Squadron commander Gozen reported that the object emitted several blinding flashes and lost stability, continuing to follow in a northerly direction. At 14.02 it was reported that the object was losing altitude at a speed of 3000 ft/min. Then he took a bite at high speed and crashed into the ground at an angle of 25 degrees 80 km north of the border of South Africa with Botswana, in the central part of the Kalahari Desert. Squadron commander Gozen was ordered to barrage over the crash area until the object was captured. To investigate the incident and retrieve the object, a group of Air Force intelligence officers with medical and technical personnel was promptly delivered to the crash site.

Quote:

The following was found:

1. A funnel with a diameter of 150 m and a depth of 12 m.
2. A disc-shaped object of silver color, crashed into the slope of the funnel at an angle of 45 degrees (Fig. 39).
3. Around the object, sand and rocks were melted as a result of strong thermal effects.
4. Strong magnetic and radioactive radiation around the object led to the failure of the electronic equipment of the group.
5. The head of the group decided to deliver the object to a secret Air Force base for further research, which was done.

The disaster area was filled with sand and rubble to hide all traces of this incident…

Notes:

1. The hydraulic landing gear was fully extended, possibly due to a malfunction in the electronic system of the facility. This could also happen due to the firing of the Tor-2 laser cannon at the object.
2. At a secret Air Force base, a group of researchers heard a loud sound in the object and saw a hatch in its lower part slightly open. The resulting gap was then expanded by researchers using mechanical equipment.
3. From this hatch appeared two humanoid creatures in tight-fitting gray suits. They were taken to an improvised Level 6 medical center at a classified Air Force base.
4. Various objects inside the facility have been taken for analysis, and we are still waiting for the results of the investigation of what was discovered…

Due to the aggressive nature of the humanoids, it was impossible to get samples of their blood and skin. They did not eat the various types of food offered. The way to communicate with each other is presumably telepathic. Humanoids are being held in custody at a secret Air Force base awaiting the results of further research. A request was made to move both humanoids to Wright Patterson Air Force Base to provide a higher level of research… Date of transfer June 23, 1989.

At a conference in England on September 23, 1989, Anthony Dodd and Henry Azadehdel provided additional information about the incident. The UFO had only one telescopic support extended. On the upper part there was a sign in the form of an arrow pointing upwards under an arc, the same as seen by policeman Lonnie Zamora in 1964 at an object that landed near Socorro. One of the two aliens who came out of the facility was apparently seriously injured. The helicopter, flying at an altitude of 500 m above the object, stopped the engine, and it crashed, and five crew members were killed. UFOs and both aliens were sent to America on Galaxy C2 planes. By the way, an object of this size does not fit into the cargo compartment of the Galaxy aircraft in width, unless it somehow managed to be disassembled…

By that time, ufologists had accumulated a lot of experience in studying documents with mysterious contents, and Van Groenen's papers immediately came under suspicion. In South Africa, all official documents are written in Afrikaans, and these papers are written in poor English with a lot of grammatical errors, and metric units in it are mixed with feet and yards. Even the name of the desert — Kalahari — is misspelled in the document! The time there is indicated everywhere by Greenwich Mean Time, although in South Africa the military uses the universal time system (UT).

The frigate "SA Tafelberg" was also not part of the South African Navy. Under the name "Tafelberg" there was only a tanker A-243 built in 1959. The document says that the ship radioed about UFO sightings in Cape Town, although the headquarters of the Navy is in Simonstown. The Valhalla Air Force Base from which Gozen allegedly took off is a training and administrative center from which combat sorties are not carried out. The Kalahari region where the object crashed is not a sandy open desert, but the so—called tornweld, on the territory of which farms are scattered. Why has no one seen such a significant operation to extract and transport this object? Why was the government of Botswana silent about this, on whose territory the object shot down by South Africa fell, with which Botswana is far from friendly relations? Finally, if the "aliens" refused water and food, then how did they live from May 7 to June 23, when they were transported to the United States, to the Wright-Patterson base?

The biggest contradiction, of course, was the mention of a laser cannon that shot down a UFO. Even at the beginning of the new millennium, the most advanced energy source for an aviation laser gun weighed 20 tons and measured 2.5 x 2.5 x 10 meters. It can only be carried by a heavy transport aircraft. To this, we need to add almost the same amount of tons and volume to accommodate the laser itself, the cooling and control system.

At 13.45 on May 7, 1989, the South African Navy frigate "SA Tafelberg" transmitted to the Naval headquarters in Cape Town a message about a UFO that was recorded on the Frigate's radar screens and was flying in a northwesterly direction towards the African continent with an estimated speed of 5746 nautical miles per hour.

The Naval Headquarters confirmed that this object was detected by aircraft radar and ground radars of the Air Force and the O. F. Malan International Airport in Cape Town. The object invaded the airspace of South Africa at 13.52. Attempts to establish radio communication with it were unsuccessful. The Valhalla Airbase was notified, and two Mirage F11S fighters were flown into the air to intercept the object. Suddenly, the object at high speed changed the direction of flight in a way impossible for an airplane. At 13.59, squadron commander Gozen reported that he was observing the object visually and on the radar screen.

The order was given to open fire on the object from the experimental onboard laser gun "Tor-2", which was done. Squadron commander Gozen reported that the object emitted several blinding flashes and lost stability, continuing to follow in a northerly direction. At 14.02 it was reported that the object was losing altitude at a speed of 3000 ft/min. Then he took a bite at high speed and crashed into the ground at an angle of 25 degrees 80 km north of the border of South Africa with Botswana, in the central part of the Kalahari Desert. Squadron commander Gozen was ordered to barrage over the crash area until the object was captured. To investigate the incident and retrieve the object, a group of Air Force intelligence officers with medical and technical personnel was promptly delivered to the crash site.

An employee of the Central Research Institute of Aviation Engine Building A. Zlobin found another miscalculation::

The speed of the UFO is indicated exactly — 5746 nautical miles per hour. This is about 177 km/min. Let's use simple arithmetic and get that he could have been in the sky over South Africa for no more than 5-6 minutes. But if you believe the documents, the object "entered the airspace of South Africa at 13.52. Fell after 14.02 — at this time, the pilots reported that the UFO steeply went to the ground. In other words, he flew for at least 10 minutes. This is the first and obvious contradiction.

But perhaps the object sharply reduced speed before the crash? No. The "documents" indicate the parameters of the formed funnel and the weight of the fallen body. There are well-known formulas that allow you to determine the speed of a body crashing into the ground. They give a value strikingly similar to the original speed of the object — 5746 miles per hour.

Further, UFOs were chased by Mirage planes. The object was seen at 13.59, when the commander of the aviation unit received the command to fire at the "plate" from an "experimental laser cannon". The UFO was observed visually at 11.02, when the commander reported that the object began to sway, continuing to move in a northerly direction. The speed of the "Mirage" is three times less than that of a UFO. With such a difference in three minutes, the object would have moved away from the plane by about 400 km. At this distance, it is impossible to see a disk with a diameter of 20 yards.

British ufologists also calculated that, given the speed of the UFO and the time of its detection, the Mirage aircraft could intercept the object only if the pilot was in his cockpit in full combat readiness. But May 7, 1989 was Sunday, and 14.00 GMT is the height of the heat, three o'clock in the afternoon local time!

The journalists asked the Ministry of Defense of South Africa for clarification. The response of the head of the Public Relations Department , Colonel Rolt , was as follows:

I have no desire to comment on the "flying ducks" that regularly appear on the pages of the press.

Quote:

When it became clear that the documents were fake, it was time to look at their distributors — James van Groenen and Henry Azadehdel. Cynthia Hind from Zimbabwe said that van Groenen, who called himself an intelligence officer and a helicopter pilot, is actually an amateur ufologist:

As far as I know, he is of Dutch origin, born in South Africa. At the age of 16, he became interested in UFOs and became a member of MUFON. Then, after living in Canada for some time and joining (according to him) the Canadian ufo group, James returned to South Africa and created his own group with the same name — NUFORIN. In 1989, speaking on South African television, he told about his band and invited him to join it. Undoubtedly, there were a lot of applicants, since van Groenen is a pleasant young man (26 years old), and the annual contribution of the group members is only about $ 100.

she wrote.:

Alas, the "nice young man" soon deceived his fellow citizens, taking money from them for a failed lecture by Cynthia at the Johannesburger Hotel. Around the same time, van Groenen bought $544 worth of books and paid with a check, which the bank returned as insolvent.

As far as I know, he is of Dutch origin, born in South Africa. At the age of 16, he became interested in UFOs and became a member of MUFON. Then, after living in Canada for some time and joining (according to him) the Canadian ufo group, James returned to South Africa and created his own group with the same name — NUFORIN. In 1989, speaking on South African television, he told about his band and invited him to join it. Undoubtedly, there were a lot of applicants, since van Groenen is a pleasant young man (26 years old), and the annual contribution of the group members is only about $ 100.

she wrote.:

 

James van Groenen

Upon arrival in Europe, van Groenen lived with Azadehdel for a while, but then the accomplices quarreled. Henry Azadehdel tried to ruin his life and, when van Groenen moved to Germany, accused him of espionage. German police visited James, but found nothing suspicious. In retaliation, he told Cynthia Hind on the phone that Azadehdel was a drug addict and a former KGB agent.

In Germany, van Groenen began by begging for money from Michael Hesemann and Johann von Buttlar. To prove the seriousness of his words, James handed them copies of a "secret document intended for South African President F. W. de Klerk." An elementary check showed that van Groenen forged these papers using the seal from the passport of South Africa and the logo from the birth certificate! At the same time, it turned out that he was not 26 years old, as he told everyone, but 24. Disappointed, van Groenen went back to South Africa, abandoning the bride he was going to marry in Germany. Soon YUFOS received an anonymous message that he was shot by the military authorities for disclosing top secret information on February 27, 1990. However, South Africa does not provide for the death penalty for military personnel, so Hesemann was not surprised to hear the voice of a living van Groenen on the phone. He said that he wanted to "finish off" the ufo community with his actions.

Dr. Henry Azadehdel also turned out to be a man with a dark past and a criminal present, who used several aliases — Julian Philips, Armen Viktoryan, Mr. Scanlon, Dr. Alan Jones and even Kassaea N'tumba. In 1986, he was arrested at Heathrow Airport for attempting to smuggle orchids into the UK. The police found out that Azadehdel's activities put orchids of some rare species on the verge of complete extinction. He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 20,000 pounds. After six weeks in prison, Azadehdel filed an appeal and, oddly enough, was released.

On July 14, 1994, Henry and his wife were arrested for illegally connecting to telephone lines through which they conducted expensive international negotiations, stealing more than 10,000 pounds from British Telecom. And this time Henry got out, but his wife, who admitted her guilt, received a short sentence.

On June 21, 1996, German ufologist Hans-Jorgen Kaiborg received an anonymous letter with secret documents about the UFO crash — this time and Lesotho:

"On September 15, 1995 at 22.20 local time, a black farmer, Mr. Peter Lachasa. I notified Sergeant Tobo from the Lorib police station that I had found a very strange-looking ship on my farm. The farm is located 12 km west of the Madibamatso River, Lesotho.

According to Mr. Lachas, at 21.15 local time, he heard a strange sound coming from the sky near the farm. The sound scared his cattle and pets. About two minutes later, there was a dull explosion. He went out of the house to find out what had happened. Friends of Mr. Lachas, who live on the territory of his farm, said they saw a bright fire in the sky. It was slowly descending towards the ground towards the foothills of Lesotho. According to eyewitnesses, this object exploded upon impact with the ground, emitting a series of blinding flashes.

Mr. Lachasa, who will be referred to as the "main witness", went with his friends to the site of the fall of the object. According to him, an electronic buzzing sound was heard from the ship, after which the surrounding glow weakened and the ship became a dull gray color. The intense heat emanating from the ship made it impossible for the main witness to examine it at close range. This heat also set fire to the dry grass at the crash site. Fearing that there might be injured passengers inside the ship, the main witness decided to report the incident to the local police station in Lerib…

At 22.34 local time, Sergeant Tobo and Constable Nandi, accompanied by an eyewitness, went to the scene to investigate the statement. Upon arrival, the police officers noted the following in their incident report.

There is a large, round, disc-shaped object on the territory of Mr. Lachas' farm.

The dimensions of the object are approximately 18 m in diameter and 3 m in height.

The object's color is a dull gray.

There are no windows, portholes, any entrance or exit visible on the ship.

In appearance, the ship does not have any breakdowns or damage from the outside, although the surrounding soil has been heavily dug up.

Sergeant Tobo radioed from the scene about his observations and received instructions to return to the station and make an official report..."

Judging by the following document, the military immediately began to act:

«ULTRA SECRET. Department for the Study of Foreign Technologies of the Department of Aviation and Space Research, Valhalla/Svartkol Air Force Base, Pretoria 001

To: General Patrick Dwight

Priority: 1 SAI/Intelligence service/Counterintelligence Department,

Tempe, BloemfonteinOES 54722-7,

September 16, 1995

General Dwight, we hereby confirm receipt of your report to our Department this morning and that your evacuation team is being put on alert and sent to the scene of the incident. Here are the instructions about the procedures to be carried out in connection with this aviation accident.Due to the fact that we are dealing with a possible [crossed out] technology, you need to follow these instructions.a. Remove or arrest all civilians within 1 km of the crash site.b. Create and protect an absolutely sterile zone with a radius of 150 m around the ship and the crash site.c. Arrest or destroy anyone who enters a protected or sterile area.d. Use all counterintelligence measures to refute the facts and/or eyewitness accounts of the crash.D. Wait for further instructions.Please note that this operation, codenamed ROLD TSR, begins immediately. We expect the evacuation team to arrive at 05.35 local time."

Two documents contain references to the incident in the Kalahari. One of them read: "In May 1989, we were forced to comply with the wishes of the United States Government when the spacecraft was shot down by the South African Air Force..." Another said: "For many officers of the SAM Intelligence Agency, this case had the same features as a similar incident that occurred in the Kalahari Desert (Botswana) in May 1989, and it was decided to act the same way..."

Further, suspicious papers reported that three living aliens were extracted from UFOs, which were taken to the Svartkol Air Force Base in Pretoria for research. They were humanoids who possessed some reptilian features and had a skeleton with obvious signs of underdevelopment.

After learning about the new documents, on March 10, 1997, Michael Hesemann went to South Africa and, after visiting Lesotho, found out a lot of instructive things:

The "fax" of the Ministry of Defense of Lesotho to the intelligence service of South Africa in Bloemfontein, which is contained among the documents, is undoubtedly an absurd forgery. His hat contains the inscription "Royal Government of Lesotho — Ministry of Defense" and the flag of that country. Nevertheless, there is no "Royal Government" in Lesotho. Although the country is a kingdom, it uses only the title "Government of Lesotho". The inscription "Ministry of Defense" is also incorrect: the word "Department" is used in it, as in the USA, whereas in Lesotho the word "Ministry" is used, as in the UK, The caps of government documents never include the flag of the country — only the coat of arms with the image of a crocodile. Moreover, "Abe Lokhvela", who allegedly signed the fax, is unknown to the Ministry of Defense of Lesotho.

"Tobo" and "Nandi" are first names, not surnames. "Sergeant Tobo" and "Constable Nandi" turned out to be unknown to the police station in Lerib and the police department in Leyon. Neither Major Letunja, the chief of Police in Lerib, who checked his files at my request, nor the head of the police department in Leyon, Sergeant William Mosili, knew anything about the incident on September 15 and had not heard anything about "Peter Lacasa". The incident log of the Leyon branch, where all incidents from June 14 to November 30, 1995 were recorded, does not mention anything about the crash or anything related to it. The policemen who were on duty that day were called Lebas. Rampa, Moroyele, Mekings Paruane.

Personally interviewing about 30 residents of Leione. including the village headman, I can say with confidence that no one here has even heard of the farmer "Peter Lachasa". No one has heard any rumors about the mysterious crash in the mountains at the end of 1995, although almost everyone still remembers the helicopter crash 15 years ago, No one heard any explosions or night flight of helicopters. Since Leione is the closest village to any point 12 km west of the Madibamatso River, there is no doubt that any farmer living there should regularly come to Leione at least once a week to buy supplies.

The "report" says… that "Lachasa" went to the "police station in Leribe", clearly meaning the city, and not the province of Leribe, of which Leione and the "crash site" itself are part. It follows from it that "Lachasa" got to Lerib in 50 minutes: at 9.17 he heard an explosion, went with friends to the scene and at 10.20 was already in Lerib. But in reality, the 87-kilometer road to Leribe takes much longer, since the only way is along the mountain road going through the pass. In addition, it is surprising why "Lachasa" did not go to the police station in Leyon, which is only 12 kilometers away.

Another reason to be surprised is the speed of "Abe Lokhvela" from the Ministry of Defense, who, having received the news of the crash "at 0.15 local time", was able to inform the sleeping government in two minutes, get instructions from him, write a two-page report and already at 0.17 send it to the intelligence service of the South African Air Force in Bloemfontein…

It is not difficult to forge "Documents from Lesotho" using a conventional computer with a scanner and a cheap color printer. All telephone numbers in the "documents" are switchboard numbers, they can be found in any telephone directory. The map of the crash site attached to them was even copied from a regular road map in an atlas that can be bought at any gas station in South Africa…

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About author:

Serg Toporkov Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me

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UFO  aliens  ufo sightings  1989  Kalahari  Cape Town