The Umvuma Car-Pacing and Teleportation Encounter, Rhodesia (1974)

The road from Salisbury, now Harare, to Durban runs south through Umvuma, now Mvuma, and Fort Victoria, now Masvingo, to the Beit Bridge border post on the Limpopo River. On the night of 30 to 31 May 1974, a married couple made that drive in a Peugeot 404. The accounts call them Peter, 24, and Frances, 21. Both names are pseudonyms. John Spencer's World Atlas of UFOs later gave the surname MacNorman.

About 2:30 in the morning. Peter was driving well over the speed limit. He slowed for what he took to be a policeman on the road, a figure in a "metallic-looking suit." Then Frances saw a light off to the left, keeping pace with the car. It had a bluish tinge. It was "bright and steady, on for five seconds, off for two seconds."

The headlights began to fade. The radio played on. Peter realised he was doing more than 145 km/h and lifted his foot. "The car, however, continued at the same speed. He tried the brake, and nothing happened." Both felt remarkably cold and wrapped themselves in coats and blankets. Beyond the radio, there was total silence.

As Fort Victoria came into view, the light turned away. They stopped for petrol at about 04:30. Just past town, it returned, and Peter lost control again. A road known as very curved and twisted ran absolutely straight, through what they described as flat, marshy terrain with water on the surface.

At Beit Bridge, the numbers stopped adding up. Their watches read 07:30. The border clocks read 08:30. An hour of missing time. Only 22 cents of petrol was needed. By one account the speedometer showed about 10 miles for a stretch of some 180. A 1991 retelling adds that four worn Michelin retreads had become brand-new steel-belted radials.

Journalist Bill Faill of the Natal Mercury broke the story. Durban researcher Carl van Vlierden investigated for Flying Saucer Review and MUFON and arranged a regression with Dr Paul Obertik of the South African Society for Psychical Research. Under hypnosis, Peter said an entity "beamed into" the back seat and the car was "levitated into a large silver-gray saucer." He saw the Peugeot in an on-board hangar between "two small silver discs," with large-headed occupants working on the engine. "They are time travelers, not space travelers," he said.

There is no official record, no photograph and no third witness. The accounts disagree on distances, times and fuel, and the new tyres appear only in the later retelling. Skeptics note that hypnosis can create false memories. UFO Insight calls the case inconclusive and suggests route confusion, mechanical anomalies or dream-like perception.

MUFON's Skylook catalogued the case in March 1975. That June, Flying Saucer Review ran Charles Bowen's "Car Teleported By UFOs In Rhodesia." Cynthia Hind gave it a chapter in her 1982 book. Peter had seen something strange before. In July 1964, near Shabani, he and his father had watched a disc hovering above the ground. Today the drive is remembered as the Beit Bridge teleportation case.