18th Aug, 2026 10:00
Out of the Ordinary
44
A letter detailing a flying saucer encounter
circa 1953,
a typed Airmail letter, with handwritten addresses, from Barbara Graves, in Durban, South Africa, to Miss Muriel Armfield, of Chertsey, Surrey, detailing her account of seeing a 'flying saucer' over the skies of Durban, on Sunday 8 March 1953:
'I hope you don't think I've taken to the bottle when I tell you that on Sunday the 8th March, Tom and I saw a Flying Saucer over Durban. We were taking photographs in the Botanical Gardens and Tom asked me to look up to get the sun on my face when I spied a round object in the sky, very high and moving - I drew Tom's attention to it and we both agreed it definitely wasn't an aeroplane - it was a perfectly cloudless, blue sky, otherwise we would never have seen it at the height it was. We watched it travel a good distance, and then it seemed to remain in the same spot for quite a long time - then went higher and higher until it was lost from our sight.'
19.5 x 26cm
Footnote:On Sunday 8 March 1953, two South African Air Force flying officers also reported seeing UFOs in the skies above Durban and a newsreel crew was dispatched to interview them about the sighting, including the nature of the objects and the circumstances, which were documented in the newsreel. The incident was part of a broader wave of UFO sightings reported in South Africa from late March to mid-April 1953. The witnesses are understood to have contacted the local press at the time, who printed the story.
In the wider climate of the early 1950s, particularly following the US Air Force's 'Project Blue Book' investigations, official approaches to UFO reports frequently sought to reduce sightings to misidentifications, hysteria, or 'hallucination', and witnesses who spoke publicly often risked ridicule or being portrayed as unreliable or eccentric. Against this background, many such personal accounts were never preserved, suppressed from wider circulation, or simply discarded.
The survival of a privately sent contemporary letter carrying such information from South Africa to England, therefore, represents a notably scarce and evocative documentary survival from the formative years of the modern UFO phenomenon.
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Witches, Monsters and Mysteries
Browse the selection of lots in the 'Witches, Monsters and Mysteries' category featured in our 18 August 'Out of the Ordinary' auction.
£300 - £500
Buyer's premium: 32.40% (inclusive of VAT, where applicable)
Condition Report
A tear to the side of the letter, dark tape silhouette. With the usual folds to the letter.
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Auction: Out of the Ordinary, 18th Aug, 2026
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Sunday 16 August, 10am - 1pm
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