The first book about UFOs in Africa was published as early as 1955, just after the great worldwide wave of sightings in 1954. “Flying Saucers uber Sudafrica” was written in German by Edgard Sievers and reported about local witnesses and observations of the mysterious flying objects.
Sievers remained active in ufology for many years, even publishing a monthly newsletter in English, “Approach”, mixing his philosophical ideas and UFOs. Other mimeographed publications came from Rhodesian and South African branches of an organization called “Contact International”, based in the United Kingdom, in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Another little known book, titled “Let the People Know” and containing local reports, was published by South African journalist Oliver Knagg in 1966. But the best known African ufologist was Cynthia Hind. Born in South Africa but long living in Zimbabwe (formerly called Rhodesia), she was a writer and began collecting testimonies from that country in 1969. A longtime representative of the American organization Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), when her book “UFOs: African Encounters“ was published in 1982 she became famous all around the world, though she had already been invited to speak about African UAP sightings in the USA, Brazil and Europe since the late’70s. Following her several interviews in local newspapers and radio, she became the most known people all over the Continent to tell UFO stories to. She collected a lot of reports and published them in her own periodical, “UFO Afrinews” (22 issues going from 1988 to 2000), and in her second book, “UFOs Over Africa” (1997). She was the first investigator of the world-famous case of the Ariel school encounter, when several Zimbabwe children were confronted with a landed object and strange humanoid beings (which they thought were Tokoloshe demonic entities), in 1994.
On the opposite side of Africa, Ruy Castel-Branco began receiving flying saucer reports from his fellow airplane pilots in Mozambico and Angola in the early ‘ 70s, but soon found sighting testimonies from ordinary people, too, which he collected for his book “OVNIS em Africa” (written in Portuguese, published in 1987).
Unfortunately, most of those African reports came from white people, which may be conditioned by Western world news and culture about flying saucers and UFOs. Few studies were conducted about non-white people’s beliefs and observations. The most relevant one took place in Gabon, when a French teacher interested in UFOs, Bertrand Méheust, came to work there and had a field study about the interpretation local people gave to typical UFO images, which was published in the Belgian journal “Inforespace” in 1981.
Two other French ufologists authored studies on Northern African countries: Thierry Pinvidic had a long paper published about “Connaissance des motifs de l’imagerie soucoupiste dans les populations rurales de l’est algerien” (1983), replicating Méheust’s study; while Gérard Lebat wrote a book-length catalogue of UAP reports from Morocco (“OVNI au Maroc”, 2014).
Along the decades, all local representatives of international UFO organizations and nearly all the local UFO study groups were created by white Africans. One important exception was CREDO (Centre de Recherche et d’Etude des Objets volants non identifiés), which was founded in Madagascar in 1988 by Louis Rakotoarijaona, a policeman who had a UFO sighting in 1959, and even published at least two issues of its own bulletin in French, “Mad-Ovni”.
A few chapters about UAP reports from Madagascar and the Reunion Island were included in the book “Les ovnis dans l’Océan Indien”, by French UFO historian Manuel Wiroth (2021).
The most recent and original collections of African UAP sightings are: “La Question des Ovnis en Afrique Centrale (Gabon, République du Congo, République Démocratique du Congo)”, by French-Gabonese musician Jann Halexander, who is trying to offer a perception of the phenomenon from the viewpoint of local witnesses, published in 2023; and “Les Ovnis en Afrique: Quand les extraterrestres visitent le ciel africain”, by Togo writer Samson Mawulolo Ahlijah, in 2024.
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The above text was prepared as a poster for the exhibition “UAP en Afrique”, organized by UAP Afrique & UAP Check in Paris (France), from July 2 to July 9, 2024
Acknowledgements: Gilles Durand, Mikhail Gershtein, Bruno Mancusi