The Ariel School, Zimbabwe UFO sighting - has it ever been debunked?

In the same video you linked to Randall makes the claim at [35:05] that the environmental message that the children claimed to receive was "amazing" in place like Ruwa. This dubious claim is very often repeated in interviews about the Ariel School event.

However here's a random radio phone in with a woman from Ruwa, on ZBC (the corporation that later interviewed the Ariel kids) from 1993. She tells the host she likes listening to the radio and watching television. So it's hardly the isolated backwater that it gets painted as.

There are literally hundreds of potential sources of the "environmental message" theme, from the 1960s, onwards in popular culture that these kids could have absorbed via the radio or TV or their presumably well-to-do parents.
Article:
At independence in 1980, the Government of Zimbabwe established the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, which was mandated with protecting Zimbabwe’s natural resources and promoting tourism in the country. In the early 90s, the Ministry was renamed the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
 
Well of course I've never been in rural Ohio, but think of this: if any of you children happened to fall, knock his head on a step and die, who would have been jailed? Are you sure really noone was looking after you? Did it ever happen an adult came out of nowhere to stop you when you were overstepping (this happened frequently to me in my infancy)?

Then they might have been left alone after all, that's not impossible, of course. The last paragraph of my previous post refers to this possibility.

One of my memories of living in Finland (2000s), in western Espoo, a pretty built up part of the country, is heading to the bus stop some mornings walking past a primary school (ages 7+). The children were permitted, probably encouraged, to, literally, play on the rocks, climb the trees, and all that stuff that helps you prepare for life, basically unsupervised. The single most enduring memory of that school was one day where there were 4 kids in the actual playground area, at the swings, designed for 2 people. Two girls were happily sharing one of the swings. Two boys were fighting over the other swing, neither of them managing to actually get on it. It was a mental kodak moment.

So it's not necessarily times that have changed, but it's certainly culturally relative.
 
So it's not necessarily times that have changed, but it's certainly culturally relative.

Indeed. But in my country we call the current generation of kids the "rubbertegel generatie". ;)

(sorry, being off topic)
 
So it's not necessarily times that have changed, but it's certainly culturally relative.

You (and @Ann K) are certainly reason.


So I tried to improve my knowledge about the conditions in Ariel School, this was quite easy to find:
... Harare has always been the nation's economic center. A 15-minute drive down the R5 highway and you soon get into agricultural regions, and right about at this transition is where you'll find the Ariel School. Their neatly uniformed students have active programs in many sports, clubs, and other extracurricular activities. They have a competition swimming pool, tennis courts, and a golf course.
...English is the language spoken in schools, so all the students — then as well as now — are perfectly fluent. Ariel was the most expensive private school around, and the students were generally from wealthy families in Harare who wanted to send their children someplace nicer than the crowded urban schools.
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4760

I really doubt pupils could be left unattended in that kind of school, but as already said, that is not impossible of course (in which case the principal was veryy, very lucky that they were aliens coming in, not one of the child of a wealthy family dying after an accident while playing).
 
the principal was veryy, very lucky that they were aliens coming in, not one of the child of a wealthy family dying after an accident while playing
I can't imagine that happens very often at all. Do you have data?

The one child I heard of dying while playing drowned; and there's traffic. Not a problem on most school grounds.
 
I can't imagine that happens very often at all. Do you have data?

The one child I heard of dying while playing drowned; and there's traffic. Not a problem on most school grounds.
No data about deaths, I'm sorry. I already reported of an accident I remember personally though: my mother was a primary school teacher, in the early 1960s a child from her class happened to fall and beat his head against a low wall during recreation time, being knocked unconscious and then hospitalized (luckily he suffered no permanent damage). The children were being attended by the staff (including my mother), nonetheless she had a lot of troubles, being investigated for 'lesioni colpose' before being finally acquitted without trial. I'm not sure what's the exact legal term in English for 'lesioni colpose', I guess 'injuries due to negligence', which basically means your actions indirectly caused harm and is the lower level of culpability in Italy, the same case as someone driving along a road, respecting all the driving regulations, and then suddendly a pedestrian crosses in front of him and is hit. Had the children been unattended it would have been 'lesioni dolose', the next level of culpability (gross negligence, maybe?): this is the same as someone driving under the influence and hitting a pedestrian as above, a big difference.

I'm sure deaths of children while playing at school are pretty rare, luckily, but one just need to fall from a stair while chasing his classmates to kill himself.

Edit: I just remembered this case

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https://milano.corriere.it/notizie/...lo-d6354fd4-8f2a-11ec-af55-d575edc6dd9d.shtml

"Milan, Leonardo, 5 years old, died falling from a staircase: the teacher has been acquitted on appeal, 1st degree sentence overturned.

Drama at school.
On October 18, 2019 at 9:30 am the child was allowed to go to the bathroom. Probably "intrigued by chattering voices he heard" from children of another class he climbed onto a revolving, wheeled chair which had been left in the corridor, he leaned from the handrail losing his balance and fell to his death from a height of about 13.5 meters in the school of Via Goffredo in Bussero [a small Italian town]."

The janitor was sentenced to two years jailtime and she was surely held responsible for at least a hefty part of the damages, possibly together with the school (civil liabilities are set in a different, subsequent trial in Italy. Yeah, it's silly). The teacher had been sentenced to one year before being acquitted on appeal (and, even if acquitted, she had to pay her lawyer fees, for two trials).

Notice the child was technically unattended when the accident happened: he was going alone to the bathroom. The janitor took an objectively small risk by not following him, how many children kill themselves going to the bathroom, after all? It probably was a 10 meters walk along the corridor. But she paid dearly for that and the poor Leonardo payed dearly too for her mistake. Leaving 250(!) children to play alone on wide premises for a substantial amount of time in the 'most expensive private school' of the capital city, well, borders on crazyness. That said, it's not impossible, just very improbable.
 
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Were there really 250 kids outside, when it happened?
Why then only say, 50 of them saw it? Was it not that big of an event? The other 200 kids preferred to play
marbles?

These details matter IMO. I cannot imagine any kid to say "ufo you say? Meh, I continue with my hoola-hoop".
 
Were there really 250 kids outside, when it happened?
Why then only say, 50 of them saw it? Was it not that big of an event? The other 200 kids preferred to play
marbles?

These details matter IMO. I cannot imagine any kid to say "ufo you say? Meh, I continue with my hoola-hoop".
Like I said at #81, apparently there were not just the 62 pupils who saw something. Apparently, there were more and younger pupils. „Grade 1 and 2“. Who were not asked to draw. The 62 drew their pictures.
 
Like I said at #81, apparently there were not just the 62 pupils who saw something. Apparently, there were more and younger pupils. „Grade 1 and 2“. Who were not asked to draw. The 62 drew their pictures.

Ok thanks.
Wondering how the "selection process" went, choosing which kids may draw.... Perhaps only the ones that want to draw aliens? Just throwing it in here.
 
Wondering how the "selection process" went, choosing which kids may draw.... Perhaps only the ones that want to draw aliens?
It kinda feels like the investigation was set up not to find out what happened, but to find aliens.
 
Ok thanks.
Wondering how the "selection process" went, choosing which kids may draw.... Perhaps only the ones that want to draw aliens? Just throwing it in
They choosed by age. Grade 1 and 2 not, because these grades are too young and they did not want to scare them again by asking them to draw. That is the way I ve understood the source around 45.50 and Later on. So maybe the 62 belonged to „grade 3“ and „grade 4“?
 
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It kinda feels like the investigation was set up not to find out what happened, but to find aliens.
I totally disagree. Why should somebody do that? Not because of economical reasons, and not because of avoiding trouble with parents and so on. Alien enthusiast in general? I can not Imagine that in that scale.
 
Ok thanks.
Wondering how the "selection process" went, choosing which kids may draw.... Perhaps only the ones that want to draw aliens? Just throwing it in here.
you're listening to a documentary maker who doesnt even name his source. Cynthia Hind was there 3 days after the event and John Mack 2 months later. Cynthia says Mack interviewed children 6-12 (page 25) and she while she says "more than 60", there is nothing to suggest the documentary maker is right.
(not to mention the idea of denying the littlest ones psychiatric therapy (like art therapy) is a bit silly and unbelievable)

Cynthias booklet Feb 1995
https://www.metabunk.org/attachments/zimbabwe-flap-1995-pdf.44629/

Magazin2000 March 1997
Article:
in the a� ernoon of September 16th, a hot spring day, she received a phone call from Tim Leach, BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe and a friend of hers. “Cynthia, have you heard of the UFO landing this morning?” he asked excitedly, and the UFO lady denied. “Yes, this morning at 10:15 a.m., immediately next to the private elementary school of Ruwa, 20 kilometers East of Harare! 62 children report to have seen a spaceship and its passengers. They are off for the weekend now, but on Monday I’ll go there. Will you join me?”


I doubt by afternoon the school (who even LET the children be interviewed by UFO researchers) had decided to keep the littlest ones out of the numbers.
 
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I totally disagree. Why should somebody do that? Not because of economical reasons, and not because of avoiding trouble with parents and so on. Alien enthusiast in general? I can not Imagine that in that scale.
Investigators were all biased. Even Tineke de Nooij, the Dutch TV show host that visited the school children, was very much into the paranormal and everything related..
 
you're listening to a documentary maker who doesnt even name his source. Cynthia Hind was there 3 days after the event and John Mack 2 months later. Cynthia says Mack interviewed children 6-12 (page 25)
First of all, thx a lot for that source. But in that source, the sentence says something about John there, spending time, at a school with pupils around 6-12.

Nothing about who was Interviewed by him. Even if there were pupils around 6-12, being interviewed by him, there is no information about the Distribution. (Maybe 95% grade 3/4 =59, grade 1/2, others = 3) It would be very fine to see the raw data here.

At all, i think we should give the source a little bit of credibility. Before we dismiss him at once without any reason. :D


and she while she says "more than 60", there is nothing to suggest the documentary maker is right.
 
in 1997 magazin report:

Article:
. Professor Mack spoke, among others, with three children who had left the playground, ventured into the thicket and come very close to the spaceship – “up to three or four meters”,



45:30
Podcaster:"selma she said she could have reached out and touched the being, that's how close it was too her. Did other students actually report the same? i mean was this thing very close to a lot of them?"

Documentary guy Randall: "yup. a large group yes. a very large group."


Source: https://youtu.be/UPOafeaLkDw?t=2745
 
But in that source, the sentence says something about John there, spending time, at a school with pupils around 6-12.
"John spent two days at Ariel School in Ruwa with the children, aged from six to 12/13. He also spoke to the Headmaster Colin McKay, the teachers and some of the parents"
 
At all, i think we should give the source a little bit of credibility.
why? he's not a source he is a documentary maker.

Did one of the kids 13 years later tell him that? i dont find that assumption not credible. Do i believe the BBC did not interview the youngest ones (since the youngest in the BBC interviews were 10 years old)? i absolutely do. It's creepy enough they did this to the older kids ie. filming them.

but Hind, Hesemann and Mack were big time UFO believers. i can absoultely see them not including stories of the littlest ones (esp Mack he is supposed to be a child psychiatrist for GOds sake and he already had Harvard threatening to fire him before this incident), but they absolutely would have said "80 or more children saw" if there were 80 or more children. <out of almost 250 on the playground.

The documentary guy in that same segment @ 46 mins also says the little ones were on the playground earlier.. which is completely unsupported even by the alleged child witnesses. I'm not saying he is lying about what someone else maybe told him, i'm saying he is wrong to repeat that because it is not supported by any early data.
 
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yea micheal might be younger, if he is one of the "two boys" in 1997 he would have been 7. but pics so small hard to tell. micheal does seem younger than 10.

and if Emily is one of those girls (hard to tell) she would have been 9ish at that time.

i was getting ages from Hesemanns article but forgot that was 2.5 years later.
 
yea micheal might be younger, if he is one of the "two boys" in 1997 he would have been 7. but pics so small hard to tell. micheal does seem younger than 10.

and if Emily is one of those girls (hard to tell) she would have been 9ish at that time.

i was getting ages from Hesemanns article but forgot that was 2.5 years later.
Agree, we should also not get too hung up on the witness's age thing.
 
Yet despite the fact that she says her mother always believed her she was not interviewed by Mack about this extremely close encounter. Was it a parental consent issue?
my guess is yes. i imagine you can contact Salma and ask her to ask her mother.
 
Even if she met Mack and they discussed what she saw without a formal interview is there any write-up of that in Mack's work, even an anonymised version?
 
even an anonymised version?
i didnt pay to watch Randalls documentary, but even if you do pay to watch it, how can you really tell if an anonymized story would be hers or not? The kids had 2 months to all talk with each other (share and swap details etc) before Mack's interviews.
 
Leaving 250(!) children to play alone on wide premises for a substantial amount of time in the 'most expensive private school' of the capital city, well, borders on crazyness. That said, it's not impossible, just very improbable.
I have been unable to find the statistics on just how many lawyers there are in Zimbabwe today, let alone the number in past decades, but their current population is about fifteen million. Perhaps the relative litigiousness of that society at that time would provide a key to the supposed "improbability" of letting kids be kids without constant supervision.
 
i didnt pay to watch Randalls documentary, but even if you do pay to watch it, how can you really tell if an anonymized story would be hers or not? The kids had 2 months to all talk with each other (share and swap details etc) before Mack's interviews.
I was referring only to Mack's body of work. You'd think that such an amazing first hand account *1m away from an alien* would be referred to somewhere, but I don't know if it is.
The same point you make about the 2 months passing and contamination of memory would also apply to the 12 interviews that did get recorded.
 
such an amazing first hand account *1m away from an alien* would be referred to somewhere, but I don't know if it is.
she claimed 1 meter? ive only heard about the 3 who left the school grounds and were a few meters away.
 
I ve searched for a scientific paper from John Mack about his work at ariel school. He was a harvard Professor with reputation, doing some work about a so called UFO encounter accompanied with bbc and so on, and he published nothing? Is that possible? There are just Interviews, nothing else?
 
You'd think that such an amazing first hand account *1m away from an alien* would be referred to somewhere, but I don't know if it is.



Interviews with Nicole Carter (SABC) sept-oct 1994​

Article:
SALMA S

What did the spacemen look like?

He looked like, definitely not a human, I don’t know really. He had a big head and big black eyes and was dressed in a black bodysuit, tight fitting.

And what were his arms and hands and legs like?

Like a human’s but he definitely didn’t look like one, his head was much too big.

[cut]

How far away were you when you saw him?

Uh, not very far. Not very far. About a meter away.

A meter away? That close?

Yes.



and her drawing
1659124512714.png
 
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Interviews with Nicole Carter (SABC) sept-oct 1994​

Article:
SALMA S

What did the spacemen look like?

He looked like, definitely not a human, I don’t know really. He had a big head and big black eyes and was dressed in a black bodysuit, tight fitting.

And what were his arms and hands and legs like?

Like a human’s but he definitely didn’t look like one, his head was much too big.

[cut]

How far away were you when you saw him?

Uh, not very far. Not very far. About a meter away.

A meter away? That close?

Yes.



and her drawing
1659124512714.png
I mean in Mack's writing.
 
I mean in Mack's writing.
not that i know of. I think all his books are about abduction but you could look into it further.

Article:
Validating the myth
I wrote to the John Mack Institute (June 2022) in the hope of getting full transcripts of the children's interviews. The response from their archivist indicated there were none, unless Randall Nickerson generated transcripts while researching his film (Ariel Phenomenon, 2022). So, aliens landed their flying saucer at a school and communicated with children... yet the full account of the extraordinary event, as relayed to a renowned psychiatrist, was not transcribed and the full videos are hidden from view. Astonishing.
 
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