By Anél Powell
Thanks to Hollywood and the X-Files, most people know something about unidentified flying objects.
But few people would know how, or where, to report a sighting.
Cristo Louw, a "ufologist" from Bellville, discussed this and other issues about extra-terrestrials at a UFO conference, held at the University of Cape Town on Saturday.
| SA Air Force allegedly shot down a UFO near Botswana's border |
About 50 people who claim to have had close encounters with aliens and mysterious objects attended the Unbind Your Mind conference, held to mark World UFO Day, celebrated internationally on Sunday.
"The most interesting discussion was about 'star kids' or children who are born wise beyond their years," said Louw.
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He said star kids were "highly evolved" beings who knew they had come to Earth from somewhere else and often have the solutions to global problems.
Louw said other topics discussed included the history of UFO sightings in South Africa and the proposed Open Contact law that would permit people to make contact with extra-terrestrials.
Louw also told the group about a letter written to President Thabo Mbeki asking him about his knowledge of UFO sightings.
Despite having made more than 20 calls, he continued to await a response from the president, Louw said.
But an amused Louw said Mbeki's office did say that the department of environment and tourism would handle UFO-related queries.
Louw, who has been interested in all things celestial since he was a child, is one of the few South Africans who can legitimately claim to be a UFO "expert".
He is the country's only dedicated UFO researcher and heads the South African UFO Resource (Saufor) organisation.
Louw's fascination with UFOs has been "a growing passion" since he fell in love with the study of astronomy as a child.
But it was only when Louw began to research UFOs that he realised that South African sightings of aliens and other objects were not that uncommon.
"Many people had seen something, but said that they did not know whom to tell."
Louw decided to remedy this by founding a number of research groups.
"My job is to make the information available."
Louw has spent the past three years compiling a database of local UFO sightings.
"There have been waves of sightings through the decades. There are sightings literally everywhere."
The Eastern Cape has been identified as a UFO hot spot, "although we are not sure why".
In May this year, several people reported seeing an unidentified object land in - or plunge into - the Indian Ocean near Port Shepstone.
Although Louw said witness accounts of the "emergency landing" suggested that the object was probably a meteorite rather than an alien craft, there had been other "highly credible" sightings around the country.
In 1989, the SA Air Force allegedly shot down a UFO near Botswana's border.
Although the object had left a deep crater of more than 12 metres surrounded by a powerful magnetic field, authorities covered up the incident, Louw said.
While more South Africans are coming forward to share information about their alien sightings, Louw said, there continued to be much scepticism about whether there was life "out there".
But Louw's response to these naysayers is always the same.
"Be sceptical, but not irrationally so."
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on July 04, 2006
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