THE GREAT
CHASE
CRAZY TALK OF UFO`S AND BOGEYS
Back in 1989 i was stationed at air force
base Waterkloof in Pretoria(FAWK). My job was as an ops clerk and it was my job to not only task squadron aircraft( prepare flight plans ) and pass them onto the air traffic controllers (ATC) but also to monitor all military aircraft in our sector and FAM( friendly air movement), basically civvy aircraft flying in our monitored air space. I also initiated SAR( search and rescue) and CASEVAC (casualty evacuations) procedures in the event of a military or civvy aircraft going missing in our area. We used signals and procedures called DETRESFA and so on to name the severity of the missing plane. We followed a list of acronyms ending with DETRESFA which basically meant wake up the bloodhounds and mobilise everyone in the “rollerdex”. If a DETRESFA was announced and signalled it meant that a plane was definitely embedded into the ground. My security clearance was a mere “restricted” level when i left air force college, however due to my personality type and keenness for the flag of the country i was on many occasion tasked with drafting “topsecret” signals. This started in my time on the “border” in the then SOUTH WEST AFRICA ( now Namibia) where during the time of the UNTAG (united nations crowd) we were all getting busy pulling out of the country under the supervision of the UNTAG`ians. They were making sure
we weren’t getting all belligerent and donning our war faces so to speak. I was
given the express task of duplicating and altering flight plans to bamboozle
our foreign friends. So i merrily tasked a Hercules c130 transport plane filled
with 80 fully armed pax(passengers) for an apparent “team building “ exercise at the bush base called buffalo in Sector 20, the same sector as the base i was stationed at in Rundu(FARU). However the C130 Hercules headed in the opposite direction toward sector 10 and bypassed air force base Ondangwa (FAOA)and belched its cargo of parabats over the Angolan border passed a place called Ruacana. There they proceeded to get busy with whatever it is they had to do.
However the board in the ops room showed the C130 safe at Buffalo and readying for its return journey to the Republic and home to 28 squadron at Waterkloof(FAWK). We did tell fibs from time to time but i felt justified as it was my duty and i was following orders. I received various certificates that were not generally issued to national service men and i still have these and am very proud of them. I was also entrusted with the “destruction” of all paperwork from the ops room and destroy anything that was not bolted down. We were not going to leave anything for our foe to use when they moved into the vacated bases after our redeployment to the republic. My keenness to adhere to army / military rules made me the favoured “top secret” signal writer as they could depend on me for my willingness to do what i am told without being loose with sensitive info. I tasked many flights for the then person known as “spyker”(nail) a one Dr Jonas Savimbi and this carried on well into my time at air force base Waterkloof. The ops room was adjoined to the air traffic control tower and a departure area known as “vip moves” basically the departure area for general staff up to and including the state president, including the little bloodless “coup” that we had when De Klerk waltzed into power. I was at the vip moves one evening and was surprised to see some strange dude (De Klerk) getting off the stat prez`s (P W Botha) plane. ZSCAQ (zulu sierra Charlie alpha quebec), the other presidential bus was ZSCAS. DA50 Falcon`s of 21 squadron also based at
Waterkloof.
So here i was now finished with my tour of duty on the border and getting busy with getting bored in Pretoria. The dreary day to day life of Waterkloof can be mind numbing. Planes coming , planes going, faxing, phoning for safe times, trekking out to the mess hall for shitty food and wondering when we will be re
tasked and sent to a bush outing. May the 7th proved to be a very interesting day at the “office”. It was a Sunday an d i was on my 24 hour shift along with an ops officer( pilot or officer staff) that was on rotation to do duty at the ops room as officer on duty for the base. It was evening when the teletype machine began going ape and the phone started ringing. Immediately i assumed it was a DETRESFA coming through and got busy
reading the signal. It was headed as ‘top secret” so i immediately called the
ops officer who had zero idea how to read a signal. He was a pilot and didn’t
really care for boring paper work. We were instructed to immediately ready flight plans for a pair of serviceable Mirage F1 CZ`s that were based at Waterkloof to be on standby for intercept of a “bogey” over the area around the northern cape area. We found this strange as Silvermine had already ordered air force base Ysterplaat (FAYP)to send two Mirage fighters up already and they are way closer than us. We then noted that
air force base Hoedspruit (FAHS)and air force base Pietersburg(FAPB) were also ordered to launch Cheetah fighters. I was duly confused as to why so many air force bases were readying intercepts of what we surmised must be a Russian Mig entering our air space, there is no way the Mig could fly that fast and cover distances so vast requiring bases from all over South Africa to mobilise. I sent the signals to the squadron and prepped the flight plans regardless. Conflicting signals were coming in as the various radar and monitoring posts so to speak were giving new co ordinates that were simply impossible for any plane we ever encountered. The
signals were confusing as “fog” set in and ops officers from HQ in Pretoria and Silvermine in the Cape were frantically trying to lasso this bogey. After a
long and stressful time the fax machine, telephone and computer become very quiet. A signal was transmitted for outlying bases to stand down as the “bogey” was reported intercepted and shot down. We went back to sleep and forgot about it. Later on Monday i was called to attend the Colonel`s meeting. I was worried shitless that i had made a fuck of procedures or something and was in for an arse chewing. At the meeting in the Colonel`s office were the ops officer from Sunday , the base ops officer Major Wellman and a major from intelligence, he was army not air force. We were told to keep the events from the previous day quiet and basically not repeat the story to
anyone else. We were told that a craft was destroyed and it was a matter of
urgency that we do no speak of it to anyone off base. Naturally i agreed and
was happy that i was not in the shit. all entries in the ops book (much like today`s security occurrence book) were removed . and day shift was told to basically mind their business. It obviously was not long before stories started popping up all over the place about a suspected UFO having been shot down and all kinds of fascinating shit found at the crash site. The Yanks were also sniffing around with much interest. The leak we were told was believed to come from an officer out at Silvernmine so i needn’t worry about
being court marshalled for telling people that we had apparently shot ET down.
So this was my big excitement and tiny part in what has become South Africa`s Roswell. Whatever happened out there, one thing is for sure. A whole pile of planes were scrambled and put on the flight line, there was a “bogey” in our air space and it was shot down, whether it be a Mig or UFO is all still
speculation. It is just “odd” that so many far flung bases so far from each
other were placed on standby that evening, then being told by officers to not
relay the events to anyone.
So did we shoot down a UFO on may 7th
1989? That answer is somewhere in military intelligence`s files and paper work
at the bottom of some filing cabinet at either army or air force HQ next to the
obligatory bottle of brandy stuffed away at the back of the drawer. I believe
it is entirely plausible that we did shoot down a UFO over the Kalahari that
day. Only the smallest brained person on the planet still believes that we are
the only beings in the universe. It was not possibly the best PR for South
Africa as a whole for us to shoot ET down but it does send the message that we
wont take rambunctious shenanigans from anyone , not even our inter planetary
pals. Moral of the story? Post a flight plan and get your visa before racing
around in controlled air space especially in a country at war.
Michael B Da Silva
Ex SAAF 85639201bt lance corporal national
service 1988-1990. (camps 91 AFB Piestersburg . 92AFS(air force station)
Nelspruit.
http://michaelbdasilva.blogspot.com
THE DA SILVA CODE
yes michael, to think that we are the only form of intelligent (and i use this word loosely) life in the universe, is absurd.
with hubble in the past few years, having discovered more than 10 000 galaxies, and most of them bigger than our milky way galaxy, the number of civilizations are legio.
the fact that the americans are the ‘most technologically advanced’ nation and this the reason the space visitors frequent their continent could carry some weight, but does not mean that extraterrestrial life and alien ufo’s do not cross the planet and other continents.
the fact that some alien ufo’s have crashed or even been shot down – your story, begs the proof that even their technology is failable.
i also believe that roswell was not the first incident of crashed alien ufo’s and believe that area 51 was the first base used for reverse engineering of alien technologies.
apparently leaps and bounds have been made by the u.s. in propultion systems and the latest flying triangles – circuit 1984, are used as alternative space vehicles. nasa is the biggest front organization formed to hide the real secret space programmes.
also, the u.s had technologies which they took, together with the scientists at the end of the second world war, which also added to their research and development programmes.
There has been some speculation that some sort of new fangled super duper secret new type of “laser cannon” may have been deployed from the mirage/ cheetah that shot the “bogey” down. i however have serious suspicions about this particular take of events. it is most likely just serious mental gymnastics at work. thanks for taking the time to comment. regards: mike da silva