The Pretoria Police Helicopter UFO Chase

Wednesday, 28 August 1996. Pretoria, before dawn. The story begins at the Adriaan Vlok police station, where Sgt Nico Stander was on duty. Accounts place the object over Erasmuskloof, in the east of the city. One 1996 post puts the station in Centurion instead.

Shortly before 4 AM, a light appeared. Johan Becker saw it. Some accounts call him a sergeant at the station. Others call him an independent witness who lived in Pretoria. He said the craft travelled "silently and in a undulating fashion."

Police filmed it. The footage showed "a disk-shaped object which seems to be lightly pulsating," with "lights flashing on the disk." It "looked like a saucer." Later summaries of the newspaper reports added stranger details. The pulsating disc contained a red triangle. At one point it emitted bright green tentacles.

At 05:25, or 05:30 in some accounts, a police Bo-105 helicopter took off. At the controls was Supt Fred Viljoen, a veteran of many dangerous chases involving dangerous criminals. Four others flew with him. They found the object over Mamelodi. "A bright light was above Mamelodi, a township near Pretoria, at 70 degrees above the horizon," Viljoen said. "I followed the white disk, with the unusual flight pattern, in the direction of Cullinan. It moved at a high speed."

It rose and fell and moved from side to side, like a falling leaf. The helicopter flew at its maximum, some 270 km/h, and still fell behind. About 200 police officers reportedly joined the pursuit on the ground. The tower at Waterkloof Air Force Base told Viljoen its radar showed "clutter" where the disc was flying.

Over the Cullinan area, at 10,000 feet, fuel ran low. "We could not keep up with it and eventually had to give up when lack of fuel became a problem." As the chase ended, the object made a vertical ascent.

That evening the footage aired on SABC TV news. Viljoen appeared in uniform. It was "NOT an aircraft," he said, but a "genuine UFO." All five people on board agreed. "It is the first time in my life that I have seen anything like this." The craft had "outran me with ease and as it wished."

In the early hours of 31 August and 1 September, lights were seen over Pretoria again. On 2 September a Beeld headline by Antoinette Pienaar read "Opgewondenheid oor VVV het nog nie gaan lê." The excitement over the UFO had not yet died down.

On 1 September, Rapport put the question in capitals: "WAS IT A HOAX OR WAS IT LITTLE GREEN MEN?" The paper linked the sighting to the release of Independence Day. Vonda Morgenrood, PR officer for the distributor Sterland, denied any involvement. Becker could not imagine anyone "spending the huge amount of money it would take to construct a craft like that, just to perpetrate a hoax." No one ever confessed. No hoax was ever shown.

No formal inquiry by the police or the South African Air Force has come to light. No radar data was ever published, and the original tape has not been found. Even the names shift between tellings. Rapport credited the film to a "Sgt. Nico Bekker," while other accounts name Stander or Becker. A later online retelling said skeptics suggested flares or experimental drones, but it named no one. The case still rests on the pilot's own words.