In July 1989, newspapers published a sensational report: South African fighters allegedly shot down a UFO over South Africa in May. The first information about the incident was received by the English ufological organization YUFOS from Dr. Azadehdel, who arrived from South Africa. At the same time, the doctor allegedly named the names of officials and scientists of South Africa and the United States associated with the events and said that he was ready to undergo a lie detector test. After a while a certain James Van Groynen approached YUFOS. He presented documents to the South African intelligence officer and stated that he had additional information about the UFO crash in the Kalahari, because he was allegedly investigating this incident with American representatives. Van Groynen sent YUFOS a copy of a document, printed on South African Air Force top secret letterhead, detailing the incident.received the code name "Silver diamond" ("Silver diamond"). The document reported that on May 7, 1989, the radar of the frigate "Sa Tafelberg" belonging to the South African Navy, and a number of other radars detected an unknown object approaching from the south to the African continent at a speed of about 9000 km / h. Two Mirage fighters under the command of squadron commander Goosen took off to intercept it from Valhalla airbase. Suddenly, the object changed its direction of flight in a manner impossible for an aircraft. Since it was not possible to identify the object, the fighters were ordered to open fire on it from the experimental Tor-2 laser cannons. Direct hits were indicated on the surface of the object with several flashes. The unknown object began to lose altitude at an angle of 25 'and at high speed fell into the Kalahari Desert 80 km north of the South African border with Botswana. A group of Air Force officers and specialists arrived at the scene and found a silvery disc-shaped object crashing into the ground at an angle and forming a crater 150 m in diameter and 12 m deep. Sand and stones around the object were melted by the high temperature. Strong magnetic and radioactive radiation in the fall zone disabled the group's equipment. The object was taken to one of the South African air bases for study, and the funnel was covered with sand and stones to hide the traces of the incident. Further in the document the results of the preliminary investigation were reported. The diameter of the object is about 18 m. The height is 8.5 m. The weight is about 50 tons. No seams were found on the body of the device; 12 oval-shaped windows were located around the perimeter. The landing gear was extended. Determine the composition of the material from which the object is made,the source of the thrust for his movement and the place where he came from - failed. Experts have suggested an extraterrestrial origin. And then the incredible happened. A strange sound was heard, a sort of hatch opened at the bottom of the mysterious apparatus, the resulting gap was widened by experts, and two humanoid creatures in tight-fitting gray suits emerged from this hatch. The growth of the creatures was from 120 to 150 cm, the color of the skin was grayish-blue, the hair on the body was absent. The heads are disproportionately large. The eyes are large, slanting, without pupils, thin arms, reaching the length of the knees, had three fingers with membranes and claw-like nails. Legs are thin short, also with three toes. The way beings communicate with each other is supposedly telepathic. It was not possible to take samples of skin tissues, blood for analysis - due to the aggressive behavior of the aliens. They showed no interest in the food offered.
On June 23, 1989, the object and two entities were flown to the United States at Wright-Patterson AFB.
In publicizing the UFO shootdown, Van Groynen said he signed five documents, according to which the disclosure of any information about this top secret operation would be considered an act of treason by South Africa. Despite this, he decided to disclose this information to the public, believing that "not disclosing this information would be an act of treason in relation to all of humanity." At a conference in England on September 23, 1989, E. Dodd and G. Azadehdel provided some additional information about this incident. The object that fell in the Kalahari had only one telescopic support extended. On the top of the object was an upward-facing arrow under a dome, similar to the one seen by police officer L. 3amora at the site that landed in 1964 near Soccoro. One of the two aliens that left the facilityapparently was seriously wounded.
The helicopter, flying at an altitude of 500 m above the object, stopped the engine, and it crashed, and 5 crew members were killed. Object and both aliens were flown to the United States on Galaxy C2 aircraft.
The first information about this incident appeared soon in the English ufological journal "Quest International", published by YUFOS, and in October, YUFOS member Anthony Dodd, who served 25 years in the police, made a report on it at the international conference on UFOs in Frankfurt am Main.
Soviet readers learned about this event from S. Bulantsev's article “Shot Down Over the Kalahari” in Komsomolskaya Pravda on March 22, 1990. The article was immediately reprinted by many local publications.
And in the fourth issue of the magazine "Quest International" for 1990, the secret document of the South African Air Force was published in full.
YUFOS, having obtained classified information, decided to check its reliability. As reported by UFO Brigantia magazine, YUFOS representatives contacted another South African intelligence officer, who confirmed the authenticity of the incident, adding that he himself had seen an 8-by-10-inch photograph of a shot down object and a telex from Wright AF Parterson, in which recommendations were given for the investigation and opening of the object. It was also reported that YUFOS representatives contacted squadron commander Goozen by phone and allegedly received confirmation that the pilot had indeed fired at the UFO. The Air Defense Command of the North American Continent (NORAD) allegedly confirmed that an unknown object was being tracked in this. the area, and telephone calls with inquiries about this allegedly caused panic among specialists in the United States and South Africa,associated with a mysterious incident.
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Meanwhile, sensational descriptions of the incident went for a walk around the world. Details were presented on the pages of newspapers, radio and television. Naturally, there were some fantastic fabrications. The magazine "Nar" claimed that this UFO was made by the Americans together with aliens and inside the apparatus, in addition to humanoids, there were two employees of the US Air Force. Another magazine wrote that the car was manufactured by General Electric. The third said that the United States received an object from South Africa in exchange for two intercontinental missiles! In the fourth, Dr. Azadehdel turned out to be a KGB officer!..
At the same time, more and more doubts crept in among British UFO researchers about the reliability of the document transmitted by Van Groynen.
The British ufological organization IUN declared that this document of the South African Air Force was fake, and the whole story was made up. In support of this, she cited the following arguments of her correspondent in South Africa:
1. The document has a large number of grammatical errors, and it mixes the metric systems of measures and weights with those adopted in England.
2. There are still no fighters in the world with laser cannons capable of shooting down even airplanes, let alone UFOs.
3. All frigates of the South African Navy were decommissioned two or three years ago and are now used as targets for firing from submarines.
4. The term "Squadron Leader" mentioned in the document is not used in the South African Air Force, where the ranks of the British Air Force are used and there is hardly a Squadron Leader Goozen.
5. The sending of these creatures from South Africa to the United States to the Wright Patterson base is questionable, firstly, because the United States imposed sanctions against South Africa and cooperation between them in any areas is unlikely, and, secondly, because according to American ufologists, all UFO studies on this base have long been discontinued.
6. The Kalahari region, where the UFO 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 is the government of Botswana silent about this, on whose territory an object shot down by the South African Air Force, with which Botswana is far from friendly, fell?
7. It remains unclear how it was possible to remove such a heavy object from the territory of Botswana. Since the planes cannot land there, it must have been transported by ground. But why, then, there are no traces left from transportation, which in the desert can persist for up to 30 years?
8. How to reconcile that the object and the aliens remained unharmed after the strongest impact on the ground and at the same time could not evade the beam of the laser cannon?
9. If the secret services of the United States and South Africa were interested in keeping this incident in deep secrecy, why did they allow information about it to spread freely around the world?
So far, only the existence of an experimental laser installation weighing several tons is known on board an American transport aircraft.
In contrast to some other points, counter-arguments can be given.
The Wright Patterson base could only be a transit point for the facility sent to the United States.
As for the relationship between South Africa and the United States or South Africa and Botswana, the understanding of the extreme importance of this event for the whole world could put it above the insignificant contradictions between these countries.
There were other doubts about the authenticity of the document transmitted by Van Groynen.
Some critics drew attention to the fact that the Mirage could not catch up with a UFO moving at a speed of 9000 km / h, although the document indicated that the object had such a speed when it approached the African continent, but then it changed direction (and maybe the speed) of its flight.
Others asserted that seismologists from South Africa and Zimbabwe allegedly did not note the earth vibrations in this area on May 7, 1989, which should have inevitably occurred when an object hit the ground with the formation of such a large crater.
But the coordinates of the supposed place of the fall of the object were not known to seismologists, and hundreds and even thousands of earthquakes are recorded on the ground every day.
The absence of names of eyewitnesses (except for Goosen) both in the document itself and in the articles of the magazines "Quest International" and "UFO Brigantia" also does not contribute to confidence that this incident really took place. Although the Blue Book published in the USA and Stringfield's book UFO Crash Syndrome also carefully removed the names of eyewitnesses.
Unfortunately, the document, allegedly drawn up by the South African Air Force, does not indicate either the position or the names of its executors, in connection with which, of course, it is less credible than, for example, the document on Operation Majestic 12, drawn up by General Hillenkotter. an appendix to which President Truman personally signed.
In the magazine "Quest International" 4 for 1990. it was pointed out that as a result of a thorough study of this document, the YUFOS organization came to the conclusion that Van Groynen was a cunning liar who collected fragmentary information he heard in different places, falsified it and used it all to generate large incomes during his travels to different countries …
Ultimately, Van Groynen returned to South Africa, and soon YUFOS received an anonymous report that he was allegedly executed by the military authorities of this country on February 27, 1990 for divulging top secret information, and his wife confirmed this.
However, when trying to verify this fact, it turned out that South Africa does not provide for the death penalty for military personnel, in connection with which there was a suspicion that there was no execution, and Van Groynen deliberately spread this fabrication in order to get rid of the compromised name of Van Groynen and continue to live under another surname.
Although it is well known that the special services, when they need it, remove people who could not keep their mouths shut without any lawsuits.
It is also interesting that YUFOS, despite the accusations against Van Groynen, insists that there was a UFO crash in South Africa and claims that it has additional documents proving this from other South African military sources.
YUFOS claims, in particular, that it has information from these sources about two eyewitnesses, who first reported to the police and then to the military authorities that they observed the decline of the object before it fell.
And for people who doubt that the South African Air Force has Mirage-IIC fighters, YUFOS recommends reading the latest issues of Flight International and Jané to make sure they are.
YUFOS also says it received official confirmation from the South African military authorities via telex that they have Colonel Goozen serving as squadron commander.
Interested in the news of the UFO shootdown over South Africa, reporters from a number of newspapers asked the South African Department of Defense for clarification. The answer of the head of the public relations department, Colonel Rolt, was as follows: “I have no desire to comment on these 'flying ducks' that regularly appear in the press” (Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1989, October 17).
However, the denial of this fact by the official authorities cannot be taken on faith, because it is obvious that even with the absolute reliability of such an event, the answer for the public would be the same, since it is the detection and investigation of crashed or shot down UFOs that is the most closely guarded secret.
Based on the analysis of all this information, one of four conclusions can be drawn:
1. Either on May 7, 1989, a UFO crash really occurred over South Africa, and the South African Air Force document in which it is described is genuine, and all attempts to refute this data are being made by the South African and US authorities deliberately to hide this incident.
2. Either the whole story of the UFO shootdown (including the South African Air Force document) is fictional from start to finish.
3. But it may be that a UFO crash over South Africa did happen, but the document presented by Van Groynen is a fake, containing details he invented to sensationalize the story and cash in on it.
4. It also cannot be ruled out that the crash really took place, but after the leak of information about it, the US and South African intelligence services deliberately prepared this document and "threw" it to the media in order to then expose this fake and thereby convince the public that that there was allegedly no crash.
British ufologists said that they would continue to investigate this case through various channels and would definitely send their informants to the area of the alleged fall of the object in order to obtain additional testimony and, ultimately, to achieve complete clarity.
And until reliable confirmation is obtained, this case can hardly be considered reliable.