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

[JMartJr]

I've driven through Alabama and Georgia when cotton fluff (not, I think, the seeds) lined the roadways, and I've swept huge rolls of cottonwood seeds out of my garage, the rolls getting bigger and bigger as the wind swept them side to side. Either seems possible.

Living down here, I've seen cotton all along the side of the road too, during the harvest season when it comes off the trucks carrying it away from the field, or where it came off of the harvesters as they moved from one field to the next. I've never seen it aloft, blowing around in the wind, that I recall.

Which, at the end of the day, may not matter much -- other than if it helps refine a search for whatever it was the sheriff said people might be seeing.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Possibly a similar thing re. Farmington, 1950. The local newspaper reported "Crafts Seen by Hu[n]dreds", up to 500 UFOs at a time, over a three-day period. And recorded that three people contacted the local newspaper. (My views in post #66, "Major UFO experiences are specific to the observer" thread).
We have a handful of accounts, one from a man who worked for the Farmington Times and who might have penned the newspaper story, who saw up to 500 craft. He estimated the UFOs altitude, but couldn't estimate their size or speed- so how did he estimate altitude?

Other witnesses gave significantly different estimates of speed and altitude and accounts of numbers seen.
A man who was 8 years old at the time claims he saw UFOs from "horizon to horizon", "too many to count" - in daylight, during school hours- but he was at Aztec Elementary School, Aztec, NM, 11.5 miles (18.5 km) from Farmington- where no-one else appears to have seen anything.
His account might be dramatic, but it must be unreliable: The fact that this account is repeated by UFO enthusiasts might be evidence that there aren't many reliable accounts from the supposed hundreds of witnesses who were actually in/ near Farmington.

And despite sometimes hundreds of UFOs, putting on a display over three days, not a single photo. No evidence that there was any attempt to contact state or federal authorities, not even on the second or third day. No arrivals of out-of-town reporters or camera crews.
No evidence whatsoever that anything other than normal life continued.
I think I've read that the local Sherriff thought some people were seeing windborne cotton seeds, but can't find a source for this.

I've already speculated that floating spider silk (from ballooning/migrating spiders) is a better fit than cottonwood fluff in this case.

Here: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/ma...ific-to-the-observer.13027/page-4#post-293579

A collection of spiderweb videos - both floating and static.:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/a-...a-objects-would-be-helpful.14353/#post-349042

 

[John J.]

Possibly it was cottonwood tree seeds? In my experience, cotton seeds don't fly much.

Thank you for that, I wouldn't know one from the other! (I've got a vague mental image of cotton being harvested but that's about it).

Found a NICAP article that says a State Patrolman (not the local sheriff as I said earlier) claimed that what the witness saw "...could have been small pieces of cotton fuzz floating in the atmosphere",
I've posted about it here (post #205) in the "Major UFO experiences are specific to the observer" thread which already has some discussion of Farmington 1950.

 

[Ann K]

I've already speculated that floating spider silk (from ballooning/migrating spiders) is a better fit than cottonwood fluff in this case.

The word for that stuff is "gossamer", from the term "Goose summer". But gossamer, like cotton or cottonwood tree fluff, is a phenomenon of late summer, yet the Farmington sightings were in March. I understand, the seasons in New Mexico may not line up with the seasons in the east, but that seems to give a problem in identifying the sightings with something blowing in the wind.

 

[xavierf100]

One of the other notable things is the accounts of an alien sitting on the side or on the UFO. Apparently there was another running on the top. This doesn't make much sense to me, why an alien would just be hanging out on the side or sitting on a UFO, much less running on one. It would make way more sense if it was a tanker, truck, or rock and an actual human happened to be sitting or walking on it.

 

[Giddierone]

One of the other notable things is the accounts of an alien sitting on the side or on the UFO. Apparently there was another running on the top. This doesn't make much sense to me, why an alien would just be hanging out on the side or sitting on a UFO, much less running on one. It would make way more sense if it was a tanker, truck, or rock and an actual human happened to be sitting or walking on it.

This was observation was of something more than 100m away. There's at least one mundane but unusual thing — humanoid puppets— that move in that way and have a reason to be "on top of" something.
(edited for clarity)

 

[xavierf100]

View attachment 88715

This was observation was of something more than 100m away. There's at least one mundane but unusual thing — humanoid puppets— that move in that way and have a reason to be "on top of" something.
(edited for clarity)

I think this and other explanations for the actual sightings of "aliens" works. The only additional thing to explain is how they saw it land and take off.

A few reasons this does not matter:

1. Students claim seeing it rise 1 meter and disappear in air. There are very few other accounts of it taking off and most are just that the object left suddenly
2. There is barely any information of seeing the object land. Most of the accounts just describe seeing people and an object with lights.
3. A few even said they didn't see a spaceship, one says it was a rock, and another just drew a very bright sparkling light.
4. Out of around 200 kids outside the vast majority didn't report seeing or hearing anything take off or land

With all of this in mind, it eliminates the narrative that "60 kids saw a UFO land, aliens get out, and then take off".

All you are left with is testimony about one or two people walking or acting weird outside. Easily explained by things like puppets, costumes, or bright reflections making an otherwise normal person appear to look weird.

Again, @Charlie Wiser had information that was extremely valuable in organizing the testimony that gives a much better picture than what was reported. Once you read the testimonies the sensational story about the incident really goes away.

 

[Mendel]

2. There is barely any information of seeing the object land. Most of the accounts just describe seeing people and an object with lights.

That seems plausible, as most wouldn't have been paying attention to it then.
Not seeing it take off is more significant.

 

[Giddierone]

I think this and other explanations for the actual sightings of "aliens" works. The only additional thing to explain is how they saw it land and take off.

A few reasons this does not matter:

1. Students claim seeing it rise 1 meter and disappear in air. There are very few other accounts of it taking off and most are just that the object left suddenly
2. There is barely any information of seeing the object land. Most of the accounts just describe seeing people and an object with lights.
3. A few even said they didn't see a spaceship, one says it was a rock, and another just drew a very bright sparkling light.
4. Out of around 200 kids outside the vast majority didn't report seeing or hearing anything take off or land

With all of this in mind, it eliminates the narrative that "60 kids saw a UFO land, aliens get out, and then take off".

All you are left with is testimony about one or two people walking or acting weird outside. Easily explained by things like puppets, costumes, or bright reflections making an otherwise normal person appear to look weird.

Again, @Charlie Wiser had information that was extremely valuable in organizing the testimony that gives a much better picture than what was reported. Once you read the testimonies the sensational story about the incident really goes away.

Yes, the testimony about seeing an object land or take off is very thin. It's only years later that we hear reports from witnesses who say they saw something flying in the sky above them (see Luke Nel video clip below from Ariel Phenomenon 2022). Other testimony seems consistent with seeing a reflective object change its angle of observation to the children and "disappear" — like a flaring satellite. So a reflective surface like a vehicle might be responsible.

Other things to consider: one witness told me there was a track around the perimeter of the cross country field that was navigable by a vehicle - if a child wandered off the school grounds they would use this track to look for them.
Also, the loud sound of the object is what scared the children, ending the encounter. A witness told me it was like the sound of a modern day drone.

 

[John J.]

Hi @xavierf100,
Perhaps like you, I think it's very, very unlikely that events at Ariel school had anything to do with alien spacecraft.

The only additional thing to explain is how they saw it land and take off.

A few reasons this does not matter:

1. Students claim seeing it rise 1 meter and disappear in air. There are very few other accounts of it taking off and most are just that the object left suddenly
2. There is barely any information of seeing the object land. Most of the accounts just describe seeing people and an object with lights.
3. A few even said they didn't see a spaceship, one says it was a rock, and another just drew a very bright sparkling light.

It might matter, though.
People who take a sceptical view about UFO reports etc. are sometimes accused of "explaining away" claimed sightings or dismissing them without due consideration.

I feel we might be making that mistake if we were to say something like
"there were only a few accounts of seeing a flying object land, so we don't need to attempt to explain them."

(And a sizeable physical object reportedly rising into the air and disappearing is anomalous! The fact that some of us think it is highly unlikely doesn't explain or invalidate the claim, whatever our personal views on the accuracy of that claim).

Looking back through the thread, and the linked-to sources, it's clear a number of children claimed to see a flying object (or objects) land.
A much larger number claimed to have seen something unusual, descriptions given to Cynthia Hind include "...like a saucer", "...a kind of ship", "spaceship". Some of the children's drawings are clearly meant to represent structured artefacts of some kind.

The majority of children using the same recreation area saw nothing unusual, which I think is highly relevant (though others have suggested there was a relatively small area from which the "aliens" could be seen). The descriptions of the "UFOs" vary a lot, which might also be relevant, perhaps indicating that there wasn't an actual object present that was mistaken for a UFO (or UFOs, up to three or four depending on the account). The dramatic differences in the descriptions/ drawings of "aliens" supposedly seen has been discussed earlier in the thread.

Probably the majority of posters here are confident that the claimed sightings at Ariel Primary School were not caused by ETI/UFOs.
But it's interesting to try and understand what took place and why; what might have caused the claimed sightings.
Deciding that something doesn't matter because only a minority reported it doesn't help explain why that minority reported what they did
(though again, the fact that the sightings were made by a minority, and various aspects of the event were reported by smaller subsets of that minority, sometimes conflicting with other accounts, might be important).

 

[John J.]

It's only years later that we hear reports from witnesses who say they saw something flying in the sky above them

That might not be entirely accurate,

...Fifi (10) later told her that they had seen a small whitish object land...

Tertia N. said the light was a golden, shiny object with a little light switching on and off. When she first saw it, it was like a pencil in the sky with a shiny light at the back.

Barry D. told me he had seen the craft come into the school grounds along the electricity lines. ...Barry D. said he had seen three objects flying over, with flashing red lights... ...Then they came and landed near some gum trees...

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No. 11, February 1995, PDF attached to post #201.
This was published 5 months after the event (and before the involvement of John Mack and new "interviews" of the children).
IIRC Hind spoke to some of the children not many days after the claimed sightings, and determined the number of witnesses.

 

[Giddierone]

That might not be entirely accurate,

...Fifi (10) later told her that they had seen a small whitish object land...

Tertia N. said the light was a golden, shiny object with a little light switching on and off. When she first saw it, it was like a pencil in the sky with a shiny light at the back.

Barry D. told me he had seen the craft come into the school grounds along the electricity lines. ...Barry D. said he had seen three objects flying over, with flashing red lights... ...Then they came and landed near some gum trees...

Cynthia Hind, UFO Afrinews No. 11, February 1995, PDF attached to post #201.
This was published 5 months after the event (and before the involvement of John Mack and new "interviews" of the children).
IIRC Hind spoke to some of the children not many days after the claimed sightings, and determined the number of witnesses.

You're right, but the quotes from Cynthia Hind need to be taken with a large pinch of salt because she frequently embellished testimony to make it fit UFO lore. What I was trying to say is that kids at the time reported only a glinting light in the distance, not above their heads, not moving, not "landing" or "taking off". This changes in later interviews were people start to recall much more detail like seeing an object land. E.g. Emma, as an adult, says she saw a huge flying saucer and several smaller ones landed in an area of the school grounds—something that no one else saw (see the Netflix show Encounters).
There is Guy Gibbon's testimony to Tim Leach, before Hind arrived at the school, that he thought he saw a "disc" that "just went" away down the valley. There's no real follow-up from Leach, but it seems this too could have been a reflective object that just changed it's angle to the observer, rather than "flying away" from the observer.

EDIT: Luke's remarks to Hind are here at [5:10] He says "I didn't see the spaceship"... whereas as an adult he says he saw a "UFO...in the sky." (see #329 above).


Source: https://youtu.be/eBqKJHSrYZg?si=IXjARObf4qTcuHm5&t=310

 

[John J.]

You're right, but the quotes from Cynthia Hind need to be taken with a large pinch of salt because she frequently embellished testimony to make it fit UFO lore.

I'd agree that Cynthia Hind was an imperfect, and certainly not impartial, investigator. Her description of an "alien", bottom of page 20, UFO Afrinews 11, appears to be a composite of features from very different reports and drawings.
But I'm not confident that we can go as far as to say that she fabricated e.g. Barry D.'s account.

What I was trying to say is that kids at the time reported only a glinting light in the distance,

We know some of the children reported a light and little else, and most of the children saw nothing unusual at all.
(For the sake of clarity, I don't think it's likely there was anything exciting to be seen, and certainly not assorted aliens and UFOs, but we're discussing what was claimed to have been seen by some- I wouldn't want to go down a path of rejecting the more extraordinary claims because they're the minority; they're the very claims we should try and understand/ debunk if appropriate).

UFO Afrinews 11 included a number of descriptions and these drawings,

...as far as I can make out, the drawings were done in the school week after the sighting (which was on a Friday) at the behest of the headmaster.
It must be probable that some of the children talked amongst themselves about what was seen before this exercise, and the resultant drawings might not be representative of what was there to be seen.

We know different children claimed to have seen very different things (and most saw nothing unusual), some did report just seeing a flash of light or something glinting.
But is there evidence that all the claimed witnesses reported only a glinting light in the distance prior to Mr Mackie asking for their descriptions/ drawings?

 

[Giddierone]

But is there evidence that all the claimed witnesses reported only a glinting light in the distance prior to Mr Mackie asking for their descriptions/ drawings?

Have you watched the full video of Hind talking with the children posted above? And the clips of Tim Leach talking with some of the children on the Monday? That's all there is in terms of actual footage of the earliest recorded testimony. The rest is filtered through Hind's interpretation, then later other TV interviewers and then Mack, much later. We know Hind spoke with some of the children on the Saturday by phone (before they drew any pictures), but we don't have any records of how that conversation went and if she suggested certain things or not (I suspect she did).
Hind also wrote this in Afrinews 11:

The light from the objects was so bright, it was difficult to discern a shape,
although several of the children saw disc-like objects coming in along
the power lines and finally landing in the among the trees.

The problem with this is that the power lines in question are in the valley that the children are looking across and the landscape rises up above them. So "flying along the power lines" need not mean flying in the sky. (see this post in a related Ariel School thread #41).

 

[JMartJr]

I wouldn't want to go down a path of rejecting the more extraordinary claims because they're the minority; they're the very claims we should try and understand/ debunk if appropriate

If the majority saw nothing, or nothing much, and a minority saw unusual and amazing things (but not all the same amazing and unusual things) isn't that what would be expected of a hypothetical case where some children got excited over something perhaps unusual but not extraordinary, given that 1) people observe things through their own points of view, which distorts what is seen, 2) memories are fungible, and 3) they were children, children often lead a pretty rich life in terms of imagination?

Add to that 4) adults who were very eager for the children to report seeing what the adults fervently hoped was there question the children later.

That would seem to me to be sufficient to understand a minority of witnesses reporting seeing amazing things, even if nothing amazing was present to be seen.

 

[Giddierone]

Add to that

They also had some help from the TV journalists who showed them images of spaceships.

...like that kind of spaceship you showed me...

 

[John J.]

If the majority saw nothing, or nothing much, and a minority saw unusual and amazing things (but not all the same amazing and unusual things) isn't that what would be expected of a hypothetical case where some children got excited over something perhaps unusual but not extraordinary, given that 1) people observe things through their own points of view, which distorts what is seen, 2) memories are fungible, and 3) they were children, children often lead a pretty rich life in terms of imagination?

Add to that 4) adults who were very eager for the children to report seeing what the adults fervently hoped was there question the children later.

That would seem to me to be sufficient to understand a minority of witnesses reporting seeing amazing things, even if nothing amazing was present to be seen.

Yes, agree with all of that. And the majority seeing nothing unusual is probably an indication that that there wasn't anything dramatic to be seen.
I'm not sure that there needed to be anything unusual at all to be present to explain the children's behaviour in the context (the classroom discussion about UFOs earlier in the week, the coincidental bolide/ space junk re-entry and subsequent UFO flap after, the kids being unsupervised).

I was getting concerned that we might be heading toward a sort of, "not many reported [some specific aspect of the claim], so it doesn't matter", as opposed to thinking about possible underlying causes of the extraordinary claims of some of the children.
(I'm not convinced that there would have been no UFO claims without Hind's participation, though it must be a possibility).

Maybe an element of counting angels on the head of a pin on my part.

 

[Giddierone]

Yes, agree with all of that. And the majority seeing nothing unusual is probably an indication that that there wasn't anything dramatic to be seen.
I'm not sure that there needed to be anything unusual at all to be present to explain the children's behaviour in the context (the classroom discussion about UFOs earlier in the week, the coincidental bolide/ space junk re-entry and subsequent UFO flap after, the kids being unsupervised).

I was getting concerned that we might be heading toward a sort of, "not many reported [some specific aspect of the claim], so it doesn't matter", as opposed to thinking about possible underlying causes of the extraordinary claims of some of the children.
(I'm not convinced that there would have been no UFO claims without Hind's participation, though it must be a possibility).

Maybe an element of counting angels on the head of a pin on my part.

A witness told me that they immediately considered it a UFO sighting and that some of the children were "talking to an alien" — so neither Leach nor Hind brought UFOs to the party, but rather ran with it.

 

[xavierf100]

I was getting concerned that we might be heading toward a sort of, "not many reported [some specific aspect of the claim], so it doesn't matter", as opposed to thinking about possible underlying causes of the extraordinary claims of some of the children.

You're right. I should have clarified that I didn't mean the testimonies 'don't matter.' I meant that this specific argument ('you must explain how they saw it fly in/land/take off') shouldn't be treated as a trump card, because the underlying claim of a craft landing/taking off is itself contested and has multiple reliability problems. So I'm not dismissing witnesses—I'm saying that particular framing doesn't settle anything.

Additionally, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the "power lines" detail later believed to be from a separate sighting on a different day (and not the main incident everyone discusses)? My understanding is that this part may have gotten mixed into the story afterward, and that the original "power lines" account involved far fewer students on a different day. I'm not 100% sure—just flagging it in case I'm misremembering and someone can confirm.

 

[Giddierone]

Additionally, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the "power lines" detail later believed to be from a separate sighting on a different day (and not the main incident everyone discusses)? My understanding is that this part may have gotten mixed into the story afterward, and that the original "power lines" account involved far fewer students on a different day. I'm not 100% sure—just flagging it in case I'm misremembering and someone can confirm.

There were sightings of things in the sky the day before and on the Weds. But, these were the Russian rocket reentry and possibly just aircraft — since everyone started looking for things in the sky from Weds onwards — there was a UFO flap.
As for powerlines it's a familiar trope in ufology that UFOs are attracted to powerlines. I think Hind made more of the proximity of the glinting object to the utility poles near the school than she should have - another way in which she influenced the testimony. This gets spun into the notion that there were giant transmission towers lines near the school (which there were/are not) and that alien spacecraft somehow need our utilities to charge up. This then gets incorrectly visualized by YouTubers who want to make the story more dramatic, and the myth grows:

It goes back books like the Lorenzen's Flying Saucer Occupants, 1967:

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Looking back through the thread, and the linked-to sources, it's clear a number of children claimed to see a flying object (or objects) land.

There are no children claiming they saw a flying object land. They only saw a landed object. Cynthia Hinds paraphrased some children she interviewed over the weekend using phrases like that they saw "a small 'white-looking' object land about 100 metres from where they were. (Later estimates said it was 200 metres away)." and "they saw more than one disc-like object coming in to land (or so they thought)", and "then they came and landed near some gum trees" [UFOs over Africa (1996), Hinds, p222]. We don't have any direct quotes from the children saying this (and Hind provably mangled and misrepresented the children's words in other cases when she wrote up the case, including infamously changing the height of the "creatures" from ~5'6" to 3"/1 meter).

On Monday:

Leach (BBC): And it landed? Something landed? Did you see it land?
Guy: No, it was in the trees over there, like in the trees like glinting.

Source: Leach for BBC, 3 days after the event (timestamped)

On Tuesday, Hind interviewed the grade 7 children:

Hind: What did you see?
Nathaniel: I saw a sort of like ship, landed on the ground. [Note, landed not landing]

Source: Hind's interviewers on her assistant Gunter Hofer's YouTube channel [timestamped]

In the interviews 1.5 and 2.5 years later, a couple of children are speaking as if they saw the ship land - for example a Dutch interviewer asks a child this leading question:

Tineke de Nooij: Okay, one landed, the big one landed and two aliens came out?
Child: Yes.

Source: Tineke de Nooij, March 1996 (timestamped)
These later interviews (like the adult ones decades later) are becoming worthless because the story has evolved into a "consensus" opinion in some respects.

A couple of children saw a UFO in the sky (from their description it sounds like a plane) and one boy saw UFOs flying along the powerline, but these were all from the day before.

There are similarly no accounts of the object ascending to a high altitude and flying off. It just vanished or faded. Emma says it lifted one meter then disappeared. It would have to lift a lot more than one meter to clear the trees, so the impression from this is that it faded after (apparently) lifting - which could also just mean "moving". The children were overlooking a valley so the object might seem to disappear if it moved to lower ground (or just went behind trees).

Hind: Now did you see these coming down?
Emma: No.
H: Or did you see them in the sky?
E: I saw them disappear. They went 1 meter up from the ground and then they just disappeared.

Source: Hind's interviewers on her assistant Gunter Hofer's YouTube channel [timestamped]

 

[xavierf100]

I am stuck on the claim that the incident lasted 15 minutes. When I first read about this case, I assumed it was closer to 1–2 minutes. And while 15 minutes might not sound long, it's actually an extremely significant timeframe.





Over 15 minutes, I'm surprised only 30–60 out of ~200 students reportedly saw anything at all. Even if it was "only" 30—are we really supposed to believe that no one else noticed a group of kids staring for an entire 15 minutes and walked over to see what was going on?


It's also a very long time for aliens to be talking about being "over technologied" and needing to save the environment. Was that really the entire conversation for 15 minutes straight? Are we seriously saying that over a full 15 minutes there wasn't more that happened, or more variation in what people observed? Go watch a 10-15 minute YouTube video discussing a topic and see how much dialogue there is.

I don't know how long recess was where you went to school, but mine was likely around half an hour or less. If recess was on the high end of ~30 minutes, how does a 15-minute incident fit? It doesn't seem likely there would be time for a 15-minute "meeting" with extraterrestrials before having to go back inside—especially without adults noticing.


And again: are you telling me other students didn't wonder what a group was doing just staring for 15 minutes straight—or that a teacher didn't notice? Also, among the 30–60 kids who supposedly witnessed it, did all of them just stand there watching? None of them got scared and ran away, or told other kids, or alerted a teacher (yes, I know there was supposedly only one teacher who was busy, but still)?


So we're saying at least ~30 kids stood there for 15 minutes straight, didn't move to get help or warn anyone, nobody else came over, and it ends with them primarily reporting a warning about saving the Earth?


That's why I think the 15-minute number seems heavily exaggerated. The more I read about this case, the more questions I have—because it makes less and less sense.

 

[Montauk]

@Charlie Wiser

I thought you might like to see this. This video just showed up in my recommended:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIwyW83-riA

Not too keen on the title myself, but clickbait is still the name of the game I guess. lol.

Looking at the description it seems they've sourced your work, but I don't know their general thesis. It seems this is their general worldview on "aliens", taken from the description of their video "Either We're Alone In The Universe...Or We're Not." I've bolded the relevant parts:

As the quote goes, both prospects are equally terrifying...Even though these stories are intriguing and I'd love to see first contact in my lifetime, I'm a proponent of a Rare Earth hypothesis, as I say in the video; that said, I'm definitely not an expert in any of this, and doing the research for this video has moved me closer to being a believer. If you want to go further down the rabbit hole, check out the channels Event Horizon and Astrum which cover a lot of topics similar to the ones I covered in this episode, much more in-depth, with just the right balance of open-mindedness and scientific skepticism. Be aware that there are a lot of crackpots in this corner of the internet, though. Be open-minded - but not so open-minded your brain falls out.

Interesting....

They seem to playing up the "consistency" angle with the thumbnail text that all the true believers in this case say proves it to be "real". These comments, from this video that Tor also uses as a source, are good examples:

I wouldn't want this guy working on my case:

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for the link. I just wrote a long comment on there pointing out all the errors he made (ugh). Although, he does say he doesn't think they saw aliens. He strawmans the puppet hypothesis and gets lots of other details wrong, unfortunately.

And of course, the kids' testimonies and drawings were certainly not consistent!

 

[Montauk]

Thanks for the link. I just wrote a long comment on there pointing out all the errors he made (ugh). Although, he does say he doesn't think they saw aliens. He strawmans the puppet hypothesis and gets lots of other details wrong, unfortunately.

Thanks for checking it out! I'll read your comment when I can.

And of course, the kids' testimonies and drawings were certainly not consistent!

It's been a while since I've read your analysis so could you give a refresher? I wonder if you could also speak to the some of the comments I provided, especially from that "former law enforcement" bloke.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Thanks for checking it out! I'll read your comment when I can.

It's been a while since I've read your analysis so could you give a refresher? I wonder if you could also speak to the some of the comments I provided, especially from that "former law enforcement" bloke.

The comments are about the kids not lying. I don't know anyone who thinks the kids are lying, so they're attacking a strawman there.

 

[Giddierone]

This video just showed up in my recommended:

At least he gave some background on the political / cultural environment. But didn't mention that what they observed was over 100m away. Oh well.
These kinds of videos are popping up frequently since AI visualizations have become so easy to do. Expect more of them!

 

[Mendel]

It's been a while since I've read your analysis so could you give a refresher?

See https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-school.html for Charlie's analysis.

 

[Giddierone]

These comments, from this video

Well, I really wasn't expecting this one.

 

[Ann K]

All I can see from this is
(1) Artemis-r3e inadvertently shoots holes in the "consistency" claim and explains what happens when adults try to reconcile the claims by asking them again and again.
(2) leejee88 has never had children.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

This is my (edited) comment on that YT video, addressed to the host - I'm putting it here because it covers some of the misconceptions about the case and the debunks. I've summarized each claim he made, followed by my comment. (Note: he doesn't believe the kids saw aliens - he says he has no theory about what they saw but was especially derisive of the puppet hypothesis.)

1. The kids described 4'-tall beings.
Nobody said the beings were 4' tall. One reported them as the size of a Grade 7 child and another described them as about 5'6". They were frequently described as "men".

2. Mackie said: "I don't believe that I don't believe."
He never said this. He was asked: "Do you think it's possible that one imaginative child had a story and kind of stirred the rest of them?" and answered: "THAT I don't believe." The host failed to point out that Mackie did not think the kids saw aliens.

3. The kids all described the event similarly.
Untrue. Their descriptions of the sighting (craft and beings), and their drawings, varied wildly. On my site I documented every word that's been recorded and released from the children, in strict order, so you can follow both what they said and how their stories started to merge into a single exaggerated version by 2 years later.

4. Kokota said it was mass hysteria like other cases in Africa.
In Kokota's 2011 paper on mass hysteria he does not conclude this was a case of mass hysteria. He simply lists it with other possible cases (including why it does and does not conform to a case of mass hysteria) and provides no conclusion. The part the host quoted comes from the conclusion of the paper and does not refer to this sighting specifically.

5. Puppet hypothesis: The hypothesis loses credibility by suggesting the UFO was a van. And why would the troupe put on an impromptu performance for the kids?
It's not implausible that the children mistook a van for a craft. Remember, no child saw the "UFO" flying or landing or taking off. It was simply there - a glinting thing with (according to some) a row of windows, hidden by long grass, 200 meters away. It's pretty easy to see how it could be mistaken for a craft once the idea of "Aliens!" had taken hold.
Also, the idea the troupe was putting on an impromptu performance is (as you say) not credible but who says they were doing that? More likely, they were just rehearsing or messing around in an empty area of brush.

6. A "consistent detail" is that the beings were "small" but the puppets are huge.
Untrue. As above, the kids said they were normal height. Hind took it upon herself to write up that they were 1 meter tall. And not all the puppets in the troupe were abnormally tall. But again, if the kids did see tall puppets, it was at 200 meters in tall grass so the height wouldn't have been easy to judge.

7. Skeptics say (among other things) that the kids were lying.
Strawman. The comments too are full of people saying the kids clearly weren't lying. From what I've seen of skeptics' opinions of this case, they don't think the kids were lying. They acknowledge the kids saw something.

8. Dallyn's testimony was in line with the others at first, then he changed it to a shiny rock.
Dallyn's testimony was never the same as the others. He said in a documentary, as an adult, that he saw flashes in the sky. That's all. In the more recent appearance he told the shiny rock story. I don't believe the kids were deceived by a rock or that Dallyn is responsible for accidentally causing the UFO story, but, again, his story was never in line with the others in the first place.

 

[Giddierone]

2. Mackie said: "I don't believe that I don't believe."

Speaking with Tineke DeNooj in '96 he said: [English remarks start around 0:30]

I've changed my mind slightly I, I believe the children did see something

Not aliens, but not a made up event.

Mackie has not responded to interview requests since he spoke with Michael Heseman in '97. Who quoted him saying:

Tom, Cynthia and her companions
I were welcomed ty Headmaster
Colin Mackie, who had taken action
himself and asked the children to draw
pictures of their sighting. "I really don't
believe in UFOs, but these children don't
lie. They wouldn't lie to me", he explains
to the researchers.

4. Kokota said it was mass hysteria like other cases in Africa.

There's a total of one short paragraph in Kokota's paper about Ariel School. The problem is it's almost entirely incorrect. See sentences in bold. His citation for this information is Cynthia Hind, who we know was an unreliable narrator.

Zimbabwe

In 1994, 62 school children all reported seeing an alien craft land and extraterrestrial creatures emerge14​. Virtually every single one of the 62 children iterated the exact same story with same details and none of them had gone against his/her story. Many dismissed the 1994 incident as mass hysteria affecting the children. But when the children were found to not have much prior knowledge to UFOS or popular UFO perceptions, many other people believed that what the children witnessed could have been real. The children were asked to draw what they have encountered the day prior.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3588562/

Especially egregious is Hind's claim that the children had no awareness of UFO culture. When in fact they immediately interpreted the figures they saw as "aliens".

5. Puppet hypothesis: The hypothesis loses credibility by suggesting the UFO was a van. And why would the troupe put on an impromptu performance for the kids?

He's clearly not read it properly. I address this problem here:

Although there are many features of theatre for development and puppetry that arguably match the ArielSchool testimony, some aspects don't align in an obvious way, such as the reports of objects or lights in thesky. However, Initial testimonies only referred to glinting or flashing light from across the valley, and after a weekend away from school many of the children knew the gist of Friday's event - and of course some of them had spoken with UFO researcher Cynthia Hind. They drew the familiar form of a 'flying saucer' when asked to write their report about the sighting on Monday. Later interviews included reports of a light or object in the sky flashing different colours, but this was not as widely reported or offered in as much granular, or freely offered, detail as that of the figures that were seen. This is why the descriptions of the figures are the focus of this article. While travelling theatre shows brought mobile generators and loudspeakers there don't appear to have been the need for any kind of additional lights since performances are during daylight. One suggestion is that the lights described were caused by objects - possibly a vehicle and theatrical equipment - reflecting sunlight back across the valley towards the children's position.

https://revue.comitepara.be/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Scepticisme_Scientifique_12_2024_SI.pdf

But also, since publication of the above journal article I have been told by a pupil/witness that the track around the perimeter of the school cross country course - in the direction of where the children were looking - was suitable for a vehicle. So a reflecting vehicle at a distance is the hypothesis. This is idea is similar to what is visualised in the Tineke video above:

 

[Giddierone]

Also, the point about the puppetry troupes used at that time is that they toured village to village in rural areas, arrived, communicated with locals and then left without returning. They toured Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. The strategy was to "leave seeds."

 

[John J.]

I'm not confident about the puppet hypothesis (while accepting others might be).

The area of the sighting wasn't impassable terrain, but it was pretty rugged scrub and the children were forbidden from going there because of possible hazards. Why take a van off-road and take out puppets there?
(Was writing this when this was posted-

But also, since publication of the above journal article I have been told by a pupil/witness that the track around the perimeter of the school cross country course - in the direction of where the children were looking - was suitable for a vehicle.

-which might nullify my concerns about the terrain. But, did any children or adults at that time say whatever they saw was near the cross-country track? When Mackie and co. check out the presumed area of the sighting, it doesn't seem to feature. No-one mentions it. I would guess that a "cross-country" track for primary school children, in a bush setting, would be quite close to the school and easily observable?)

I get the impression that the school recreation ground would have been reasonably visible from approx. 100 metres away; it was a substantial area of open ground, there were perhaps more than 200 children present, some possibly wearing brightly-coloured sun hats. They would have made some noise. Wouldn't the school be noticeable? Puppeteers would surely be aware they might get attention.

There are no reports of anyone seeing a vehicle leaving and an engine would be audible at 100 metres. It seems improbable that a human-sized puppet could be seen in considerable detail, but that the puppeteers couldn't be seen and recognised as such, nor could their vehicle.
Some of the children present were old enough to recognise large anthropomorphic puppets, even if they hadn't seen them before (if their view of the hypothetical puppets was sufficiently clear- maybe it wasn't).

The issue of different groups of pupils drawing very different types of "aliens" -polka-dotted long-haired types, large-headed bald or short-haired types- but not both* poses the same problem for the puppet theory as for the (admittedly much more unlikely!) alien visitor theory:
In a relatively short space of time (several minutes) in a small area (the vicinity of a van or similar vehicle), distinctly different things are supposedly seen by different groups of kids. There's no overlap. Even if different puppets were revealed at different times, no-one reports type "A" and then type "B". Yet the kids think they're seeing aliens/ a spaceship; it's hardly the sort of thing the first witnesses would wander away from in order to play football or whatever.
(Leaving the scene to get the attention of teachers/ other school staff would be understandable, but this doesn't seem to happen for several minutes).

The claimed sighting appears to have got significant publicity at the time. The puppet troupes of the type Giddierone has told us about were educational; I think it's reasonable to guess that at least some of those involved would have been in touch with current news stories. Probably they were broadly responsible, socially aware people. But no-one came forward:
Any puppeteers involved might not have realised that they were responsible for the sightings if they were reported in terms of UFOs etc., but they would be aware that they had been in roughly that area, and saw nothing. They might have put two and two together. Though the reaction of the schoolchildren might have been unfortunate, the responsible thing to do (it seems to me) would have been to come forward.
Though driving into the bush to give puppets a few minutes air seems odd to me, it's not as if the puppeteers had done anything wrong.
Many years have passed, but no-one has come forward to say "It might have been us".

Just my musings, and appreciate others have different views about this.


*There is a possible exception,

As it happens, @Giddierone (post # 187) found filming by Michael Hesemann, March 1997, which included this which might be seen as containing both "types",

but this was about 2 years 6 months after the event, and it isn't clear if the drawing was made c. Sept. 1994 or for Hesemann's film.

Do we know if there were any contemporaneous (September 1994) descriptions of two types of "alien" from the same child?

 

[Giddierone]

The claimed sighting appears to have got significant publicity at the time.

Just wanted to quickly respond to this point. While several journalists came to the school and there was obviously significant amounts of chatter between children teachers and parents, it's not clear what media actually got broadcast at the time and whether it constituted "significant publicity".
Virtually everyone I've spoken to who lived / worked in Zim had never heard of the Ariel School UFO landing case—even today.
Although I haven't see it yet a show called AGENDA, on SABC shown on Tuesday, 22nd November, 1994 was possibly the first locally broadcast TV show to have a segment on whatever the disturbance was at Ariel School. But, the TV coverage appears to have been fringe paranormal-type shows, like Sightings which didn't get broadcast until the following year.
Perhaps it was talked about on regional Radio but there were no mainstream news or newspaper reports about it even after Mack's visit.

 

[Giddierone]

*There is a possible exception,

We just can't put much stock in the images the kids drew for Michael Heseman they were made several years later.
However, one of the earliest drawings is significantly different to the grey alien image that's become the standard in retellings.

https://gideonreid.co.uk/ufos-alien...ng featured in Hind's UFOs Over Africa (1996)

 

[John J.]

We know Tim Leach, a BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe, covered the story fairly soon after, but I don't know how much publicity it got.
Brian Dunning states that Leach heard of the sightings from Cynthia Hind after 'phoning her re. the UFO flap caused by the fireball a few days earlier, Hind had heard about Ariel School on ZBC Radio.

Tim Leach, the BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe, picked up the phone and called his friend Cynthia Hind, knowing that UFOs were her jam. Two things transpired from their conversation: first, Hind learned of the Ariel School event, as someone had phoned it in to ZBC Radio; and second, Hind recommended that Leach call John Mack.

"The Skeptoid" website, "The 1994 Ruwa Zimbabwe Alien Encounter", Brian Dunning 29 Dec 2020 https://skeptoid.com/episodes/760

Cynthia Hind also mentions a girl being interviewed by "SATV", South African TV? (UFO Afrinews 11, Feb 1994). Maybe that was for the Agenda program mentioned by Giddierone. If a neighbouring country is covering the story on TV- not many channels back then- it might indicate coverage was quite widespread (more than e.g. local radio).

 

[John J.]

However, one of the earliest drawings is significantly different to the grey alien image that's become the standard in retellings.

Yes, several of the drawings are of long-haired figures. Cynthia Hind's sort-of composite description in UFO Afrinews 11 involved long hair.
The pics in the second row below, particularly the 2nd and 3rd, might be "grays" from UFO lore (which as you've explained some of the children might have had some exposure to).
Even between the long-haired cousins, the details (diagonal stripe, polkadots) vary a lot.

(Orig. posted in # 277, all credit to those who found the pictures including @Charlie Wiser).

 

[Giddierone]

Brian Dunning states

He needed a little adjustment.

Source: https://x.com/giddierone/status/1573954599182110725?s=20


Tim Leach's involvement raises all kinds of questions. Although a war reporter he was incredibly panicked from the outset and was following what he thought was a UFO mothership landing story when he arrived at the school. But we know this was the rocket reentry.

• Also, while there are examples of his camera work for ITN and the BBC reporting on conflicts he remained behind the camera, yet for Ariel school he gave up that relative anonymity. It's not even clear if his BBC report was broadcast, I've never seen it in its original format.

The first time I heard about Ariel was likely this short clip on the BBC in 1994 that uses some of Nicky Carter's footage. I think this threadbare coverage (they also get the month wrong) was probably typical, rather than it gaining "significant publicity" (there's not much evidence of that).

Source: https://youtu.be/g6CvsmO4CsM?si=JewOWnJQZQTP6NUU&t=313