Pretoria-Bronkhorstspruit Road Police Flying Saucer Landing and Burned Tar

In 1965 the road east out of Pretoria toward Bronkhorstspruit ran past the suburb of Silverton, in what was then the Transvaal. At night it was quiet. Around midnight on 16 September, two constables of the South African Police were patrolling it. John Locken, spelled Lockem in the wire reports, was one. His partner was Koos de Klerk.

The patrol car's headlights picked out an object resting on the road surface. One account says it sat astride the white middle line. Another says the spot had been deserted five minutes earlier.

The constables described a shiny, copper-coloured craft, shaped "like a giant spinning top," about 30 feet in diameter. Later accounts add a small dome on top and two tubes on the underside.

After about ten seconds it moved. "As they approached, it belched flames and took off at great speed," a Cardiff newspaper reported. The craft rose straight up, flames shooting from what the constables believed were twin engines. The flames reached around three feet high. "Its lift-off was quicker than anything I have ever seen," Constable Lockem said.

After the object had gone, the tar kept burning, and the road surface was described as caved in under great weight. The wire reports describe a charred, buckled imprint about 6 feet wide. A later retelling gives a circular scorch about 3 metres across, and another speaks of a large hole in the bitumen. One account says the patrol car cut out as the craft climbed, though the 1965 press does not mention it. Authorities closed the road to investigate.

Lt. Col. J. B. Brits, District Commandant of Pretoria North, confirmed the incident. He called it "of a highly secret nature" and said an inquiry was being conducted "in top circles." Police and scientists worked the scene. Samples of the road surface went to a leading South African scientific agency, which context suggests was the CSIR, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.

The results were never made public. NICAP later said it had been unable to obtain copies of the analysis reports. According to one write-up, the scientists who examined the imprint ridiculed the saucer explanation. No alternative explanation was ever published, and no one ever alleged a hoax. The case was never officially solved.

The story went out on the AP wire and was printed abroad, in the South Wales Echo and Evening Express on 17 September 1965. Charles Bowen's Flying Saucer Review special issue The Humanoids carried it in 1966. Richard Hall's NICAP book UFOs: A New Look followed in 1969. Its closest parallel is Socorro, New Mexico, in April 1964. There, too, a police officer saw a landed craft leave on a column of flame, and burned ground was left behind.

Pretoria did not forget. The Flying Saucer Roadhouse, built near the site, ran from about 1965 to 1975, and its design was reportedly inspired by the press reports. It was later sold and rebuilt at a church in Oranjeville, where it serves as a Sunday-school classroom. The N1 and R21 interchange is still called the Flying Saucer Interchange. In 2026 the Friends of Tshwane Heritage Research Centre shared historic photos online, and the case reached a new audience.