Zimbabwe’s highest peak already had a reputation for swallowing hikers, and now a retired Army remote viewer says it also hides a UFO repair base.
Mount Nyangani, also spelled Inyangani, rises 2,592 meters (about 8,504 feet) in the Eastern Highlands, inside Nyanga National Park. Hikers love it. Locals treat it with caution. For decades the stories have centered on sudden fog, missing people, and rules you are supposed to follow before you set foot on the slopes.
Now there is a new layer. Lyn Buchanan, a veteran of the U.S. Army’s Stargate remote viewing program, says the mountain is one of four UFO bases on Earth. Local pastors say the real culprits are fallen angels. Elders say you probably skipped asking permission. Everyone is explaining the same mountain, and none of them agree.
A Mountain With a Record
Since 1980, accounts of dozens of hikers lost in sudden fog have been recorded on Nyangani, according to reporting by journalist Calvin Manika for Religion Unplugged. Some visitors also describe strange experiences. Search teams and local communities have mounted large operations over the years, and some missing people were never found.
The best-known case dates to 1981, when two young daughters of Tichaendepi Masaya, a former government minister, vanished on the mountain and were never located. Archaeologist and heritage specialist Taurai Mudzudza, who is also a local villager, brings up the Masaya twins too, but he dates their disappearance to 1984. Most other accounts say 1981, so the year is worth treating with care.
Another case came in January 2014, when a 31-year-old tourist left his hiking group on the trail one afternoon and did not return. News reports said more than 60 people joined the search, including park rangers and relatives, with a military helicopter helping. His family said mist kept rescuers off the mountain for days. Mudzudza places a tourist disappearance in 2013, so accounts differ on the details.
Mudzudza also describes a 2020 incident in which members of an African Independent Church were praying on the mountain. He says three of them died after heavy mist rolled in, the temperature dropped fast, and congregants could no longer tell each other apart. That account comes from Mudzudza alone, and it is presented in the article as something that is said to have happened.
The Remote Viewer’s Claim
Buchanan made his claims on the American Alchemy podcast. He is a retired Army intelligence veteran who took part in Stargate, the Cold War program that tried to use remote viewing for intelligence work. Remote viewing is the claimed ability to describe distant places, people, or events without using ordinary senses.
According to Buchanan, remote viewing sessions flagged four mountains as sites of unusual activity. They sit in Alaska, Australia, the Pyrenees, and Zimbabwe. He says the Nyangani site works as a repair and maintenance center for extraterrestrial craft, and that remote viewers observed beings and craft using the hidden facility. He also says the site is heavily guarded, and that people who see too much end up disappearing.
Stargate itself was real, and Buchanan has written a book about his time in it. That part is not in dispute. The claim about the mountain is another matter. The Religion Unplugged article notes there is no publicly available evidence from Zimbabwean scientific studies or archaeological findings that confirms alien activity or underground bases at Nyangani.
What the Elders Say
Local leaders were not thrilled with the attention. Mudzudza worries that global fascination with alien theories could trivialize what the mountain means to the people who live around it. He describes Nyangani as a sacred place where nearby communities hold rainmaking ceremonies, and where oral histories urge respect and caution. Some locals call it “the mountain that swallows people.”
Cultural researcher Tinashe Muchuri links the mountain to the Simboti people, who claim the power to speak with the underworld associated with it. He describes it as a shrine where the people of the area communicate with nature and nature communicates back. According to Mudzudza, climbers who go up Mount Muozi, one of the peaks in the area, without asking permission from the local chief, Saunyama, will usually disappear.
The area has deep human history too. Iron Age ruins have been found on Little Nyangani and on a hill west of the summit. Archaeologists have also linked the Saunyama people to hilltop settlements on nearby Mount Muozi, though that link is described as incomplete and based partly on oral tradition.
Christians Push Back
In recent years, Christians in the region have challenged the traditional explanations. Many Pentecostal and evangelical believers read the legends of ancestral spirits, strange creatures, and vanishings as spiritual warfare described in the Bible. They do not credit ancestral guardians.
Godfrey Mutara, a pastor based in Nyanga, says mountains are a gift from God and should be enjoyed without appeasement rites. He believes the occult activity reported on high mountains and in dense forests comes from fallen angels. Christian teaching in the area now tells believers to rely on prayer, faith, and the authority of Jesus rather than local customs. That is a real shift for the Nyanga community.
Even so, Muchuri says Nyangani does not tolerate the fasting pilgrimages Christians make to other sacred mountains, so believers there tend to climb it as tourists. Mudzudza adds that some independent churches now hold prayer sessions on the mountain to cleanse what they see as evil spirits. Local leaders have started granting them permission, as long as they follow the mountain’s taboos. In his words, people are folding traditional ethos into their own Christian model.
The Skeptical View
Rescue experts point to plain explanations for the missing hikers. The weather on Nyangani changes quickly, with dense mist, steep ground, deep ravines, and low visibility. All of that makes navigating hard, even for experienced hikers.
One hiker who climbed the peak in 2016 noted that the summit sits above the treeline, that clouds roll in and out, and that it can turn chilly enough for the occasional snowfall. In his view, it is easy to believe a hiker could get turned around. He also reported that park authorities began requiring hikers to go up with a licensed guide in 2014. That is a detail worth confirming before anyone plans a trip.
As for Buchanan, the U.S. government’s own review of Stargate reportedly concluded that remote viewing results were too inconsistent to be useful for intelligence work. A claim from a remote viewing session cannot be checked against anything on the ground, which leaves it as one man’s account.
Why Nyangani Keeps Its Hold
The mountain is a rare spot where several explanations pile onto the same set of facts. A fog bank can explain a lost hiker, a traditional rule can explain why locals ask permission, a pastor can explain the unease, and a retired psychic spy can explain the lights. Each version fits a little, and none of them fully closes the case.
What stands out most is how many people agree on one thing. Elders, pastors, and researchers all say the mountain deserves respect, even when they disagree on why. Whether the answer is weather, spirits, fallen angels, or a hangar inside the rock, the people who live near Nyangani have been cautious for a long time.
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