Watchers UFO Archive

UFO case file · UFO-0086

Hwange National Park encounter

CE3Zimbabwe1983-01-01

Hwange National Park, Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe

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Illustrative reconstruction • Watchers Project — Hwange National Park encounter
Illustrative reconstruction • Watchers Project — Hwange National Park encounter

Case description

The Hwange account concerns four men walking home toward their village through thick bush after returning from Zimbabwe's capital. The narrative dates the episode to an unspecified evening in 1983, around 8 p.m. A later French catalogue page has a contradictory 1986 heading, although its text and information table say 1983. The source trail attributes the story to Cynthia Hind and Phenomenon: 40 Years of Flying Saucers, edited by John Spencer and Hilary Evans. The men reportedly stopped to watch a brilliant light descend toward them. They moved behind trees as it came lower and said they could then distinguish a luminous disc landing nearby. An opening appeared, and two light-skinned, human-looking men stepped outside and seemed to float down toward the ground. The four observers panicked and ran toward their village, ending their observation before any departure was seen. No witness names, exact date, surveyed dimensions or detailed descriptions of clothing and faces survive in the recovered account. Ordinary-looking people are not evidence of an extraterrestrial identity, and the sparse description does not exclude an aircraft or helicopter landing interpreted unusually. The plate retains the reported disc, two figures and four observers while leaving unreported details unresolved. Its scene is an illustrative reconstruction of the claim, not a photograph or independently verified landing.

Recorded details

Witnesses
4 men
Craft description
Not fully captured in seed index
Entity description
Entity report in URECAT index
Coordinate precision
Site/area approximate
Date precision
Year only

Sources and further reading

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