Fort Beaufort police shooting at a UFO, Braeside farm (1972)

Braeside farm lay about 14 kilometres outside Fort Beaufort, in South Africa's Eastern Cape. A wooded hillside of thorn trees and dense bush, beside the Fort Fordyce bush. Its owner, Bennie Smit, also owned the Savoy Hotel in town.

26 June 1972. A Monday morning. Around 09:00, farm worker Boer de Klerk saw something near the farm reservoir. A large ball of fire, by one account. He fetched Smit to see "the ugly thing".

Smit took his .303 rifle and fired. "The eighth shot seemed to hit him," he said. "A thud was heard." The bullets had no effect.

Around 10:00, Warrant Officer Philip van Rensburg and Sergeant Piet Kitching arrived from town. Van Rensburg saw "a round, glossy, black object emerging behind the trees." It changed from black to red and then to yellow. In the sergeant's account it hovered just above the vegetation, moved slowly to the right, sank behind the bush and emerged again. The police fired too. After each hit, a sharp bright light flickered on the edge of the craft.

Then, as Smit told it: "The object turned upright and became a greyish white in colour before it veered off making a whirring sound. It just disappeared." The police watching the spot never saw it take off.

Descriptions differed most on size. Just over a metre, said the sergeant. Around 3 meters, said Van Rensburg. Several accounts describe the shape of an oil drum, resting on three legs, with something like an aerial on top. In the soil were nine circular imprints, about 10 cm across and 25 to 30 mm deep in hard clay, "as if the legs were spiraled in the ground." Police photographed them and made casts. Soil samples were sent to the CSIR laboratories. Apparently they never reached them.

On 28 June 1972, Brigadier A. Vosloo of the South African Police came to Braeside. A team of 12 men searched about 5 km² and found nothing. The uneven spacing of the marks troubled him. "This makes me doubt the whole matter," he said. Yet the four witnesses, two of them police officers, were adamant, and their descriptions matched except concerning size. A local later recalled soldiers from the Grahamstown army base holding the site for two days. No records of that have been produced. No official finding was ever announced.

The sightings did not stop. On 3 July park ranger R. L. Brown watched an object for about 20 minutes. That evening Alicia Smit saw a coloured object of her own. Town engineer Dr D. Verschoor interrupted a council meeting to report one flashing in colours. On 8 July, two explosions at daybreak shattered Smit's reservoir, throwing chunks of concrete 20 to 25 m. No source explains it. Fort Beaufort was one of about 25 Eastern Cape sightings that year, alongside Rosmead.

Ball lightning was proposed. Ufologists rejected it because of the metallic look and the legs. In 1997, Smit himself said he believed it was a top-secret military aircraft rather than something from another world.

The Cape Times ran "Police and Farmers Open Fire to Flying Saucer". New Scientist quipped that little green men "may very well be on the prohibited list". Charles Bowen wrote "A Hot Reception at Fort Beaufort" for Flying Saucer Review, the APRO Bulletin followed, and Cynthia Hind gave the case a chapter in UFOs: African Encounters. Smit's bar became the UFO Bar. In 2022, Piet Kitching told the story on camera for Beyond the Light Barrier.