The Trichardt cylindrical light

Trichardt is a small town on the N17, next to Secunda, in the current western Mpumalanga province. It was founded in 1906 as a Dutch Reformed Church settlement. About 9 km to the south-southwest stands Sasol's Secunda plant. Sasol II was built there in 1980. Sasol III followed in 1984.

It is a quiet place. In 1997 it became, briefly, the setting for one of South Africa's stranger sightings.

Around the end of July 1997. Around 6:50 am.

In the sky above the town, Andreas Mathios saw a hovering, cylindrical light. Or a shiny cloud. He filmed it. Three other persons observed it independently.

It hung there. Then, in the words preserved from the account, "the light suddenly dropped and rose again before disappearing."

The record says nothing of its colour, its size, its distance or any sound. Nobody wrote down how long it stayed. What survives is the shape, the hovering, and that sudden drop and climb before it vanished.

The light was not the only odd thing reported that day. Sasol 2 and 3 allegedly had a temporary power outage that morning. The word "allegedly" is part of the original account, and no Sasol statement confirming it has surfaced.

Mathios did not leave it there. He phoned air traffic control to get information about any objects detected in the airspace. What they told him is not recorded.

19 August 1997. Beeld, page 6. Journalist Philna Henriët published the story under the headline "4 sien VVV wat soos sigaret lyk". Four see UFO that looks like a cigarette.

That article is the root of everything known about the case. Its only known online copy sat on an old Media24 archive server that no longer answers. Mathios's footage has never been found online. No still frame, no broadcast, no copy.

No official investigation is on record. Nothing shows that the air force, the police, aviation authorities or Sasol ever commented. The call to air traffic control is the only official contact anyone knows of.

No published source offers an explanation, and no one has alleged a hoax. Later retellings grew more cautious, saying Mathios "claimed to film" the light rather than that it "was filmed". That is an editor's hedge, not an accusation. The early hour, close to a winter sunrise, and the industrial plant nearby are open questions that nobody has yet tested against the witnesses' words.

The case lives on as a short entry in lists of South African sightings, between Sgt Nico Stander's 1996 chase in Pretoria and Inspector Kriel's orange oval near Warden in 2000. Those lists also note that Trichardt was the scene of a 1985 sighting, with no further details.

A cylinder of light. A shiny cloud. A drop, a climb, and an empty sky. Four witnesses, one newspaper page, and a piece of film still waiting to be found.