An Interview with Leonie Ras regarding South Africa Crash Sighting
© 2007 Academy For Future Science, South Africa
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In the area of Lephalale, South Africa, near the Botswana border,
many people were awaken on December 30th, 2006 by a loud noise from an explosion. Leonie Ras was different. She doesn't sleep well and was already awake [around 4:33 a.m.] when she
noticed a strange light filling the dark sky and heard a strange sound. As she looked out her bedroom window the house started to rumble and the eerie sound became louder. Others who heard the sound
talked about vibrations that shattered and broke windows, a sudden wind and described a 'shock wave'.
Since Leonie was already awake, at first she thought it was a very low flying plane that had lost its way – but as it came closer the noise grew quickly to what she described as standing next to thousands of airbus turbines all together increasing in intensity of sound. There were strong vibrations – the windows of the house started shuddering as it went by. The noise was extremely loud and intense – she felt it pressing down, like a pressure wave, and it made her feel claustrophobic and she couldn't breathe.
But it wasn't just the noise that made her feel it was more than a meteorite; her florescent lights went out for about 4 minutes. And when she later walked around her house she discovered that the power went out as well and she had to reset her microwave and other electronic devices.
With her lights out, it made her peer even more strongly through the window and what she saw was an object she describes as "coming from the universe". Although there were clouds in the night sky, they had turned a 'bright pink and then bright orange and bright red'. She thought to herself what beautiful colors just before she could see the object breaking through the clouds.
What she saw she described to The Academy in South Africa's investigators as "as elliptical in shape with a large pillar above it, in bright orange and red".
She described it as very large. From her window she could see it above the trees which were about 9 meters tall and about 500 meters away. From this distance it appeared as about 70 cm in diameter – and with her friend, Janie's help, they estimated the object passed by her house at about a 40 degree angle (and not directly overhead).
As she watched It hit the ground in the distance just beyond her horizon, there was a huge bang – an explosion. From the time she first heard the noise until
the time of the explosion about 3 or 4 minutes passed; too slow to be a meteorite. The explosion sent the debris flying high into the air in a narrow plume – not spread out like usual explosions.
It continues to colored the clouds and the sky with orange and red colors.
The Lephalale community is composed of mainly fairly conservative Afrikaans farmers. Although the crash was the topic of much discussion in the days afterwards, most did not see the explosion and only saw the bright sky outside their windows and heard the sound.
Since Leonie saw the object crashing, she affirms it to be more than a meteorite and tried to phone many of the South African newspapers – none of which had a reporter on call to discuss what had happened. It was only on the 2 nd January that she spoke to Fanie Van Royen of the Beeld newspaper who did the first report followed by a few radio interviews.
Janie Pretorius story: A friend's confirmation
Janie Pretorius, Leonie Ras's friend, has been living for many years in Lephahale and has a large game farm outside the town and also grows grapes. He appeared to be a credible witness, but was cautious in his statements.
"We [he and his wife and son] didn't see it coming down but we heard the explosion which was huge and almost threw us out of bed – it was the same time as when Leonie heard it. At first we thought it was lightening – but that felt very unreal for us as there was no heavy rain at the time.
"[Later] we went to Leonie's house and she explained exactly where she was standing when she saw the object – she indicated the direction she saw it go down. I took a line from her – just left of North – say North. We went to Google earth and plotted coordinates on Google earth and extended the line to Botswana."
Judging from the direction of her bedroom window and where she saw the object crash, Janie hired a helicopter to find the object, but could not get one until two weeks later. Also since the border with Botwana was so nearby and the helicopter pilot was not legally able to go too far beyond the South African border, they came back empty handed. Jan and Leonie both felt the search had not been adequate.
The terrain is bushveld – the first part is ravines, then sandy and then to the Limpopo hard ground. They also plotted a course based on the direction from her window and where other people in the vicinity heard the explosion and so they think it was in this area [see map], but they could not verify the exact location.
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Click on the icon to hear some of the interview