Mystery and subterfuge shroud 'The Kalahari UFO Crash'.

The incident has been reported in daily newspapers and UFO magazines alike. Some sources date the crash as 7th May 1989, others sources quote the same date for 1988. The UFO was allegedly shot down by a South African Air Force Mirage jet and crashed near the border between Botswana and South Africa.

Quest International, a well known UK magazine printed a Special Edition devoted to the subject in May/June 1993. According to their reporter a joint S.A.A.F.-U.S.A.F called OPERATION SILVER DIAMOND was mounted to recover the occupants and debris. A former Lieutenant-Colonel of the U.S.A.F. is quoted as saying..."My contacts in naval intelligence have informed me that we [The United States] have given the South Africans advanced technology in exchange for a U.F.O.".

Among the threads of evidence is a printed photocopy of a faxed response to a query from Wright-Patterson Airforce Base which refers to a satellite re-entry on 7 th May 1988 and a confirmation of a 'fireball or satellite re-entry' in the same area on 7th May 1988. A researcher at Quest claims to have phoned N.O.R.A.D. and asked the duty officer to provide any information relating to this date and location. The officer allegedly replied that 'an unknown object was tracked on entering the region'. The magazine goes on to state that ..."two totally independent researchers made their way to South Africa to conduct their own enquiries into the case". Each reported that a crash landing of some kind had taken place in the Kalahari Desert. The one report was from Dr. J.J. Hurtak, an American ufologist and Professor of Science, the other was from J. Von Buttlara, a German researcher. Both were able to confirm Military sightings of an 'object' over South African airspace. There are also reports of a nameless researcher who travelled into the Kalahari region where he spoke at length with local tribesman who confirmed having seen strange aerial objects in the area.

A report during 1993 in 'The Argus', a Cape Town daily newspaper, told of claims of an international 'cover-up' and 'disinformation exercise' that is blocking attempts by researchers to uncover the 'truth'. It also named Botswana's Environment Minister, Dithoko Seiso, as confirming the incident.

Cynthia Hind of Zimbabwe, a world famous UFO researcher and author of a book on UFO's in Southern Africa subsequently wrote an article that was published in the 'UFO Times'. It was titled;

"Anatomy of a hoax. The UFO crash on the South African/Botswana border".

This article exposes one, James Van Greunen, as the originator of an extremely elaborate hoax. She points out inconsistencies and discrepancies in the alleged documents as proof. Amongst these are 14 spelling mistakes in what claimed to be an official document. When Van Greunen was confronted he admitted he had faked some details but still insisted it was a true story about a downed object on the border repeated to him in confidence by a friend of his, Hendrik Greef, a pilot in the S.A.A.F, who had overheard it at an officers mess.


From all this it is clear to see that case has been fraught with controversy and bizarre reports continue to add to the confusion. There have recently been claims that a French Intelligence officer was murdered whilst investigating the case.


Additionally, when the author attempted to track the sources of the above newspaper article he was told by the librarian at the Argus. "The file has been 'borrowed' and is now 'missing'"

Further to this there is also speculation about a South African underground military research base simply called Camp 13.
Located in the Kalahari desert it is rumoured to have been used as a laser weapons research facility and was responsible for shooting down the UFO after Mirage jet fighters "herded" it in the general direction of the camp as they could not keep up with it.

Anyone got more info for me?


[edit on 6/20/2007 by kinglizard]

Jut thought I'd bump this thread, has anyone heard heard any follow up at all on this? Anything about Camp 13 of USAF interactions with the SAAF?

Anyone interested in finding out more about this "crash" might find the following references I've noted useful. They range from a 40 page discussion by Tony Dodd to numerous shorter discussions.

Clark, Jerome in his “The UFO Encyclopedia: 1st edition: Volume 1 – UFOs in the 1980s” (1990) at pages 69-70 of the Apogee hardback edition in an entry entitled “Crashes of UFOs”.

Clark, Jerome in his “The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon from the Beginning - 2nd edition” (1998) in Volume 2:L-Z at pages 870-871 (in an entry entitled “South African Crash Hoax”) of the Omnigraphics hardback edition.

Dodd, Tony in his “Alien Investigator” (1999) at pages 33-42 and 46-75 (in Chapter 2) of the Headline paperback edition.

Randle, Kevin D in his “A history of UFO crashes” (1995) at pages 211-212 (in Appendix A, “The UFO Crash Data Base”) of the Avon paperback edition.

Randle, Kevin D in his “Case MJ-12” (2002) at pages 276-286 (in the Appendix generally) of the Harper Torch paperback edition.

Randles, Jenny in her “UFO Retrievals” (1995) at pages 151-154 (in Chapter 7) of the Blandford softback edition.

Redfern, Nick in his “A Covert Agenda” (1997) at pages 248, 250-251 (in Chapter 17) of the Simon & Schuster hardback edition.

Redfern, Nick in his “Cosmic Crashes” (1999) at pages 191-192 (in Chapter 9) of the Simon & Schuster hardback edition.

Salter, Daniel M in his “Life With a Cosmos Clearance” (2003) at pages 29-30, 32, 33-34, 35, 36 (in Chapter 3) of the Light Technology softcover edition.

Kind Regards,

Isaac

The originator of the Kalahari hoax was one James Van Greunen a multiple UFO hoaxer

He tried to sell his story to among others the late Cynthia Hind, and the late Tony Dodds,

His 'story' was debunked and he was also arrested for impersonating an Officer. He later

under went a sex change procedure and is now hoaxing under the name of Judy Faltskog.

For more detailed information 'google' James Van Greunen

What Greunen dubbed the 'Thor 2 laser weapon' in his reproductuion of the official document shown to him, has been speculated to have been a MASER weapon. The damage done to the craft in the shady report mirrors the effect of maser weapon systems.

The maser weapons systems were known to have been in trial use by the states, and apparently such weapons systems were sold to two other Politicians, nameley those of France, and South Africa. Maser weapons systems are known to be compatible with Mirage craft.

With subjects such as this, i find it a good idea to neither scream hoax or truth. While the original doc is known to be fake, there is evidence that correlates with the story.

Kevin Randle does a good job of debunking this silly story in his UFO Crashes book IIRC...