At approximately 7.30pm on 29 September, Cameroonian national Robert Bissela’s wife frantically called him to see what the family are convinced were either an unidentified flying object (UFO) or a sign heralding the end of the world.
The Florida family, including two children, stood amazed as they witnessed a white round shape with a star in the middle crossing the evening sky.
Meanwhile reports of the same phenomena were streaming in across the country.
UFO Research RSA’s (UFORSA) official report read, “a white light appearing to be a satellite but moving irregularly, travelling slow with a big bright halo of bluish white light around it extending to about the size of a full moon, moved north east for a while and then south slowly fading into the distance”.
Other West Rand sightings included anonymous residents from Wilgeheuwel who described their sighting as follows: “At approximately 7pm my husband thought he was staring at the moon until it moved and came around the cloud with almost what looked like a spot light…he called me and I tried my best to get pics.. it changed into the size of a night star within seconds but had a small haze around it. But as it moved the haze got bigger and bigger and dimmer… I tried my best to get it on camera… see attached. …when we came back inside DSTV was jumping channels on its own… ? Did anyone else see what we saw?” (sic).
Indeed similar sightings were reported by the public.
The truth was less exciting than the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse announcing their arrival.
According to Greg Roberts, a retired astronomer from Cape Town, “At 6pm our time on the day, a rocket called Falcon was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying several satellites. The rocket was designed by a company called Spacex, which has (South African-born-and-raised) Elon Musk as founder and chief designer.
“Shortly after 7pm it apparently vented or released rocket fuel in its fuel tanks as the basic mission of placing several satellites in the orbit had been achieved while over the Antarctic region and this produced the large halo-like object that people saw.”
One newspaper reported that social networks were abuzz with people from KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, the Free State, North West and Gauteng claiming to have sighted the object.
