#6 The Lesotho Incident
Joachim Koch
On behalf of the authors, we, Joachim Koch and Hans-Juergen Kyborg,
feel previleged to publish the following important report.
______________________________________________________________________
*Was the Lesotho Crash Really Exposed As Hoax?*
*by*
*Alexander Stein & Andreas v. Retyi*
Regarding the "Lesotho UFO Crash" there has been a lot of
discussion in different ways, so in some magazines as well as on
the internet. There was and is a lot of speculation and false
reasoning going around, including claims there has never been a
crash of a so far unknown object in Lesotho/southern Africa on
September 15, 1995.
There are controversial documents that report about such an
incident - documents which consist of a police report, a
military report and a medical report on alien beings; there are
also several other listings and correspondence that suggest a
crash/retrieval of an alien/extraterrestrial craft in the
Kingdom of Lesotho.
Especially one German author, Mr. Michael Hesemann, made many
efforts to convince the public that this case is nothing than a
hoax. With the remarks to follow, it is in no way our intention
to attack the person or to provide a polemic text. However, we
have to react now, since our long-lasting extensive research
into the matter and a thorough examination of several claims
stated so far, of claims not only uttered by Mr. Hesemann, show
a not negligible number of clear aberrations from proven results
of our investigation. So we feel indebted to present them to the
public. We also want to stress that in our eyes the high demand
to clear up such a case, to receive all information necessary to
prove this true or false, seems absolute illusionary.
Mr. Hesemann made a very quick visit to Lesotho. We believe it
is well justified to doubt that he or anybody else would be able
to really solve the puzzle of a complex case (including possible
extraterrestrial technology) within a time frame of only some
hours or days. We also wish to stress that, to the contrary of
what has been circulated by some others, we are yet in the
process of investigation, we have neither reached any final
conclusion nor claimed that the documents in question are
genuine. However, we have discovered quite a couple of stunning
details and facts; we have faced situations and events that
prove there is a serious background to this case.
But let us come to the claims of those opposed to the case and
let us, on the other hand, introduce the facts. We will
concentrate only on a couple of definitely false statements,
even if there are many other intended or unintended
misinterpretations known to us from different sources.
According to the documents the object crashed at a location
about 8 miles (twelve kilometers) west of Madibamatso River near
the town of Lejone in Lesotho. It was claimed that in such a
rural region "no cover-up or secrecy could ever prevent local
talk and rumors about such an obvious incident"
First of all, this is a speculative statement, which deserves
nothing more than a speculative answer, an answer however that
without any question bears some logic in it: If something
happens that brings fear to people and could be followed by
events that may endanger their lives, this could - no question -
prevent them from talking. Mr. Hesemann states: "You can
silence a person, you can let him disappear, but you will always
find people who remember him"
We believe, it is quite doubtful, if such remaining people will
give information to an unknown white person who suddenly arrives
and asks questions, when those people themselves have witnessed
what happens to others when they say too much! Remember, the
region of the crash is a very remote one. Lejone is more than
ten kilometers away from the crash site, and if somebody comes
to Lejone to look for crash witnesses there, it is not so sure
if he will succeed. In this context it is important to mention
that according to the alleged secret files the explosion that
occurred in connection with the crash was not a "loud", but a
"dull" one. It is also stated in the files that the object
seemed to come down quite slowly.
Mr. Hesemann claimed he could not find witnesses of the
incident. If he would have invested more time, he should have
found some. We got independent confirmation from an absolutely
reliable source: Our inquiry regarding unusual sightings on
September 15, 1995, was forwarded by the South African
Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), a renowned astronomical
institution, to Cederberg Observatory. All anomalous
observations of objects like huge fireballs (bolides), etc., are
stored there. Cederberg is no large institution and supervised
by avid amateur astronomers; a proof for their reliable and
serious work is the cooperation with SAAO.
At this point, we have to remark that one of us (Andreas v.
Retyi) is specialized in meteoritics and has some insights into
astronomical matters. He has done bestselling books on
astronomy.
From Mr. Bill Hollenbach, associate of Cederberg, he received
some very interesting info on the "Lesotho Fireball" - Indeed,
there was a very bright object that streaked across the skies
over southern Africa on September 15, 1995. It reached a maximum
brightness of magnitude -6 to -8 which is between the apparent
intensity of Venus (-4.4 maximum) and of our half moon (-10).
The object lost several smaller fragments and, according to
Hollenbach, was witnessed by thousands of people. However, the
South African government is not willing to release any data on
that object; an aspect which is hardly understandable if that
object was nothing else than a bright meteor. It is also
interesting that Hollenbach used to add quotation marks while
calling the phenomenon "meteor".
Also something is not correct with the claim that "neither
Leribe Police Chief Major Letunja" - who (thoroughly?) checked
his files after Mr. Hesemann's request - "nor Lejone Station
Commander Sgt. William Selli Mosili knew of an incident on the
15th of September..."
With respect to the highly secrecive nature of the matter (and
within this statement we will supply some further proof for a
serious background of the case discussed here) no private
investigator can expect that he will receive answers from
official sources. Hesemann also claims there is neither a
Constable Nandi as mentioned in the files nor an Abe Lochwela of
the Lesotho government. However, one of us (Mr. Stein) made a
call to the Leribe Police Department and received confirmation
that a Constable Nandi exists. Mr. Stein's call was carried out
in a way that it seemed absolutely unrelated to the case. As far
as possible, we always strictly followed the principle of making
inquiries in such a way that no relationship to the incident
could be established in case any official agency or institution
was contacted.
Regarding Mr. Abe Lochwela, to the contrary of Mr. Hesemann, we
received confirmation of his very existence. Mr. von Retyi made
a call to the government of Lesotho, introducing himself with a
pseudonym, and asked for the man. He was told that Mr. Abe
Lochwela can be reached the next day between 8 and 12 a.m. (this
is on tape). And the next day there came the surprise: When
calling again, Mr. Lochwela was denied! There is also the claim
that there is no "Department of Defence", only a "Ministry of
Defence" in Lesotho, and that the documents must be fake, since
the letterhead of Mr. Abe Lochwela's fax to the South African
National Defence Force says "Department ..." (by the way, this
fax is to inform the mighty neighbor of an aircraft of unknown
origin, maybe "an experimental aircraft from the South African
Air Force").
In that context one has to take into account that exactly those
lines of the letterhead are written by Abe Lochwela himself. Now
it is interesting that the Military Report (which was done in
South Africa) mentions the "Lesotho Ministry of Defence",
obviously the correct term, whereas South Africa for itself uses
the term "Department". So it is rather kind of politeness than
error when Lochwela used "Department" (with respect to the
addressee).
Mr. Hesemann explains that he checked the names of the policemen
who were on duty at the day in question (Sept. 15, 1995) and
that there is neither Sergeant Thobo, who is also mentioned in
the controversial files, nor the above mentioned Nandi. The
problem with this is that Hesemann checked the Lejone Police
Station; Thobo and Nandi, however, were from Leribe Police
Department! It is impossible to find them in Lejone.
Then he often repeatedly mentions a nocturnal helicopter
invasion. This is a story in itself, which needs to be
explained, especially, since there was no such invasion and it
is not stated in the files, too. Therein is only mentioned o n e
PUMA helicopter which was sighted in that region "approximately
30 minutes before the a l l e g e d incident took place"
(please observe the wording, stressed here by the authors
A.S./A.v.R.) and of t w o ALOUETTE rescue helicopters. So we
consider it exaggerated to speak of an invasion. This "invasion"
seems to be necessary as argument against the case, because of
course it appears paradox that such a lot helicopters fail to be
observed widely.
Another conclusion that seems to long for more helicopters is
the Hesemann interpretation that the quoted "3 Bataillon" are
three Bataillons, whereas the true meaning is "third Bataillon".
To make the situation even stranger, Hesemann creates a "loud"
explosion out of a "dull" one - as mentioned above. By the way,
it is not necessary to fly in that Bataillon by countless
helicopters.
As also mentioned in the controversial documents there was a "1
Para Bataillon" in action, the First Parachute Bataillon,
stationed at Tempe/Bloemfontein, SA. The personnel is known as
"tough guys", and the bataillon gives advanced parachute
training and instruction for the Special Forces units of the
SANDF (the South African National Defense Force). For their
operations they use not only the Transall, but also C-130s (used
even for low altitude para-dropping night operations), C-47
Dakotas (which are also used for casuality evacuation, night
operations and paratrooping) or the Spanish Aviocar C.212.
There are a lot of other statements by Mr. Hesemann that as a
whole suggest the strong - but wrong - impression that nothing
with this case and the contents of the documents is correct.
However, a closer look shows that these opposing statements by
him are not correct. He explains that "according to the Report
the crash happened 12 kilometres (8 miles) west of the
Madibamatso River in the Lesotho Foothills" And immediately he
adds "Indeed there are no foothills west to the mighty river"
The difference is that in the documents it is stated that the
object was heading on a course towards the Lesotho Foothills,
there is no mention of a crash i n the Lesotho Foothills.
The implications are obvious.
They are also obvious with the situation for Mr. Peter Lachasa,
who is quoted as the primary witness and farmer on whose land
the unknown object did crash according to the documents. Well,
it is stated that Lachasa heard the detonation at 9.17 p.m. and
arrived at the Leribe Police Department at 10.20 p.m.; this is
also the time frame quoted by Mr. Hesemann who writes: "The
document indicates that it took about 50 minutes to go there"
First of all, the time difference is 63 minutes. Second, it is
not correct that "it takes much longer to drive the 87
kilometers (54 miles) to Leribe, since the only road there is a
serpentine road over a mountain pass." The distance between
Lejone and Leribe is about 60 kilometers. Since the crash region
is some 12 kilometers west of Lejone, Mr. Lachasa had to travel
about 50 kilometers. So an average speed of 48 kilometers per
hour is sufficient to make it. Of course, you have to consider
bad condition of the streets. And it is true that there is a
road over a mountain pass and that this road is about 87
kilometers long. However, it is not the only road in that
region. There is a far more direct way to Leribe, and so the
problem with the time frame does not exist.
There is another non-existing problem. Mr. Hesemann claims that
the Lesotho Ministry of Defence is closed at night. This is
simply not true - and also not to be expected. One of us (Mr.
Stein) called the Lesotho Ministry of Defence at a Sunday night,
11.00 p.m. (the day of the incident was a Friday). By the way,
he called the number of Abe Lochwela.
The phone rang only once and immediately someone answered. Mr.
Stein ("S") asked: "Are you the officer on duty?" - the man
("MOD1") replied: "No, I am not.". Then there was a short
dialogue:
S: "Who are you?"
MOD1: "You should not ask me my name!"
S: "I need an urgent communication to the officer on duty"
MOD1: "I put you through".
Then a second man ("MOD2") was on the phone:
S: "Is this the Department of Defence?"
MOD2: "Pardon?"
S: "Is this the Department of Defence?"
MOD2: "Yes"
S: "Are you the officer on duty?"
MOD2: "Yes, you are right".
We believe it to be reasonable to suppose that if the Department
of Defence is not closed at a Sunday night it was also not
closed on that certain Friday night. So, Abe Lochwela would not
have to be too quick to inform a "sleeping" government. And when
you get a prepared text - and the one in question is quite short
- it is not impossible to fax it within two minutes to another
bureau.
There are so many other false claims regarding that case that
sometimes we wonder if there is some deeper reason for certain
people to attack this case in the public as they also did with
the Kalahari case of 1989, where some investigators stuck in
their own contradictions. It would be quite important to make an
abstract of all those events and claims with a thorough
discussion, however even such an abstract would be a paper on
its own. The above shall be sufficient at least for this moment
to demonstrate that there are circulating countless unfounded
claims against the case.
One of the main problems with both cases, Kalahari as well as
Lesotho, is directly connected to the main source, James/Judith
van Greunen.
Like all the others involved in the network of those South
African UFO cases, we are very skeptic about this person and
know that no question van Greunen does not hesitate to lie,
especially on her own person, and often mixes up facts and
fiction.
However: First, we should not forget that she was the one who
brought the information on Kalahari to the UFO public; and it is
not us, who state that there was a real UFO crash in the
Kalahari, but Mr. Anthony Dodd of England who did very serious
research into that matter and found evidence for that SA UFO
crash. Of course, all that does not prove that van Greunen is
the original source of the information or that the documents (if
Kalahari or Lesotho) are genuine. But all results show that the
contents are genuine. This is especially true for Kalahari, and
we have to proceed with further serious research on Lesotho,
where we up to now have been also able to dig up proof that
something very strange happened on that very day and that the
contents of the documents can be estimated far more trustworthy
than the claims by certain skeptics.
Second: van Greunen is not the only source of our information.
There are several other persons in the background, one of them
was dubbed even by Michael Hesemann as genuine intelligence
agent and who now confirmed the van Greunen statements regarding
Lesotho when we had him flown to Germany in 1996.
Without question, this does not prove a UFO crash, but is a
statement given by a source generally accepted as genuine. By
the way, please bear in mind that Mr. Hesemann himself published
the Kalahari incident in one of his books as the best-documented
UFO crash.
However, it was "bandwaggon-jumper and hoaxer" van Greunen who
brought this to the public. We really cannot understand these
contradictions. It is not our intention to defend van Greunen or
van Greunen's behaviour. Everyone is right when he is careful
regarding several of van Greunen's claims.
But up to these days we would obviously not know about both
incidents if van Greunen would not have contacted UFO
investigators in Europe. So, one can hardly dub van Greunen a
"band-waggon jumper".
Third: We ourselves regarded the contact and meetings with van
Greunen important, of course. You cannot investigate Kalahari or
Lesotho without getting into touch with van Greunen. However, we
have opened other channels and are also working on contacts not
related to van Greunen for further investigation - to repeat,
for us, the case is not closed at all!
Instead, we are in the planning stage of a very thorough on-site
investigation at several locations in South Africa and Lesotho,
where we intend to stay for longer time to carry out detailed
research into every aspect of the matter, since only a most
extensive investigation will help to clear up what really
happened there.
One of our sources explained to us that Mr. Hesemann
unfortunately visited the wrong location, not the crash site.
This source also explained to us some important aspects of the
political situation in southern Africa.
He told us there were several nuclear weapons that were given to
South Africa in exchange for the alien spacecraft that was
retrieved by the U.S. in 1989. Today, South Africa's (black) ANC
government is as mighty as the Apartheid regime earlier was. Of
course, there was a political turnaround, and SA cancelled
relationships to western oriented countries like Taiwan to join
communistic counterparts. This dangerous shift could become even
far more dangerous, so the source, when they could become able
to get into possession of the alien technology stored,
administered and researched by the secret (white) shadow
government of Illuminated Nine. This would also be one important
reason for the sources to bring info on crashed and retrieved SA
UFOs to the public and to direct attention to the situation as a
whole.
It was stated that the Lesotho scenario was rather improbable
because of the political relationships. However, without any
question, the opposite is the case. There was claimed that it is
also improbable that the Lesotho Government would contact the
competing South African government for help regarding a
retrieval of the crashed object. But what else should Lesotho
do? Lesotho is economically absolutely dependent from South
Africa; it is absurd to claim there is some kind of competition
between those two very different countries. The relationship can
be demonstrated with the fact that even King Moshoeshoe of
Lesotho was reinstated in 1994 on Nelson Mandela's orders.
Mr. Hesemann claimed and criticized that we allegedly did not
contact other researchers for exchange of information and
coinvestigation of the case. This is not correct.
However, at least in the first stage of research, we decided to
carry out independent research for two interrelated reasons:
First to receive independent results and to come to own
conclusions that would later be of more value for comparison.
Second, to avoid to be accused of having been influenced by
"prejudiced" investigators from the very beginning of our
involvement.
However, of course, we are in contact with other researchers,
and it is most important for us to be in exchange with Anthony
Dodd who in our eyes is the leading expert regarding the
Kalahari UFO crash. He also was severely attacked by uninformed
opponents who did not know the details of the case. Even today,
most researchers think of a hoax when they hear of Kalahari.
With respect to Lesotho, September 15, 1995, Tony Dodd wrote us
that it is very difficult to gather any hard information about
the true nature of that incident. From his sources in South
Africa however, Tony Dodd received the information that the
crashed object was a secret missile test which went wrong. They
also told him "that it was dangerous to pursue the event because
of the sensitive nature of the weapon."
This could be at least a reasonable explanation for what
happened and also for the fact that we were warned by a German
intelligence agency that it could become very dangerous to deal
with this matter. However what is important to us, among other
aspects, is that there was that certain fireball in the skies,
and we hope to receive government data on this event soon, since
only these data can clear our minds up if a missile could really
cause a phenomenon like the one observed over southern Africa
and Lesotho on that September day - a correlation that seems
quite strange. But how does Mr. Dodd's as well as our own
research square with Mr. Hesemann's statement that he could not
find witnesses for a crash in that region at the time in
question and that nothing happened there?
It is at least our personal opinion that all the facts presented
here supply sufficient proof that Mr. Hesemann was a bit too
quick - and superficial - with his investigation.
None of us is in the only possession of the whole truth, we do
not claim to have hard evidence for a UFO crash in Lesotho, and
against some accusations we have never claimed that the
documents we published in the UFO-KURIER magazine in January are
proof for such a crash.
We presented them as a preliminary info on what happened and
what is going on, and we were able to confirm a number of
interesting aspects of their contents. However, we are in the
process of researching this matter, which we consider as having
a serious background with possible UFO involvement.
______________________________________________________________________
Herzlichst
Joachim Koch
Internet: ko...@wad.berlin.fido.de
oder: 10652...@compuserve.com
Homapage der Internationalen Roswell Initiative, Deutschland:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/Homepages/JKoch1