Cynthia Hind ( - 2000) was born and grew up in a remote part of the Northwest Cape, in Namaqualand, South Africa and received her initial education at Good Hope Seminary. She attended Cape Town University in 1942, studying for a B.A. in English and a minor in Psychology. Before completion of her degree in 1944, she joined the South African Women's Army Air Force (W.A.A.F.), where she served three years in the Movement Control and Radar section until the end of World War II. She married an R.A.F. pilot and went to live in Northern England for eleven years where her two children, a son and a daughter, were born.

Cynthia and her husband, Norman (an engineer), emigrated back to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1957. With her father, the three started a furniture factory in Salisbury (now Harare) where Mrs. Hind was a director in the company and responsible for buying all fabrics. After building their furniture factory up to the largest in the country, they sold it in 1983, allowing Cynthia to devote full time to pursuing her hobby of free-lance writing. Although her interest was mainly short stories and articles, an interest was aroused in UFOs and the paranormal.

Mrs. Hind visited the MUFON offices in Quincy, Illinois after joining MUFON in 1974 in the dual role of Representative for Zimbabwe and Field Investigator. In 1981, she was the featured evening speaker at the MUFON 1981 UFO Symposium held at M.I.T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her paper was titled "African Encounters: Case Investigations". (Dr. J. Allen Hynek was the keynote speaker). She was also appointed Continental Coordinator for Africa in 1981, a position she faithfully held in MUFON's global organization until her death.

Cynthia's first UFO book titled UFOs - African Encounters was published by Gemini, Salisbury, Zimbabwe in 1982. Some of her best UFO investigations in Africa have been published in the MUFON UFO Journal over the intervening years. When an important UFO case warranted, she did not hesitate to fly or drive to the site and carry out a full scale investigation, with the assistance of local qualified scientific advisors.

Mrs. Hind was a member of the Soroptimist, serving as President of the Harare Club in 1979-1980, and National President of Zimbabwe in 1984-1986. Starting in 1988 as Editor of UFO AFRINEWS, she had mailed her newsletter worldwide to interested people. Cynthia had seven newsletters issued since 1988, and various articles on UFOs published in Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, South Africa, U.S.A. and Zimbabwe, including the MUFON UFO Journal. She contributed chapters on African UFOs to the following books: UFOs 1947 - 1987, edited by Hilary Evans and John Spencer; Phenomenon, edited by John Spencer and Hilary Evans; The UFO Story 1990, edited by Timothy Good; and UFOs - The Definitive Casebook by John Spencer.

Her last book, UFOs Over Africa, was published in June 1997. It sums up, in detail, a lifetime of work spent in careful investigation of a host of the most unusual cases, including the strange appearance of silvery-suited aliens and unique light phenomena at the La Rochelle estate, the abduction chronology of two Johannesburg women and, for the first time, tells the complete story of the Ariel school UFO landing with first-hand accounts by over a dozen young students. Many cases highlighted feature Cynthia Hind's special extended-interview technique.

The UFO Afrinews series of booklets were first published in July 1988 and the final copy (No.22) published in July 2000 just before her passing. This eminent researcher - the leader in Africa - passed away during the latter part of August 2000. According to the press reports, she - (like so many other UFO researchers!) - was a victim of cancer. She is survived by her two adult children who live in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Her husband, Norman, died in 1986.

To view all 22 UFO Afrinews issues, which Cynthia Hind published from 1988 to 2000, go to: http://www.ufoafrinews.com/resources.html

 

Sources:

http://www.amazon.com/Ufos-Over-Africa-Cynthia-Hind/dp/1881852156
MUFON 1993 International UFO Symposium Proceedings
MUFON 1997 International UFO Symposium Proceedings