Ariel School UFO - glinting reflections through vegetation how to visualise?
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
Dallyn Vico said on Encounters (2023):
It's odd he can no longer see the rock - if it was as big as the one in that picture, not easily moveable - especially as the land is now more cleared than it was then, with presumably fewer obstructions. Have you tried matching up the view to compare the 1994 footage with 2022 (Ariel Phenomenon, filmed 2015) to see if that rock is still there? (The Encounters 2023 footage is probably less useful since the witnesses on-scene were claiming the UFO was in a totally different place.)External Quote:
Giddierone
Senior Member.
If only just one of the three film crews to visit Ariel in the past 5-10 years would try to recreate the children's viewpoint!
The big rock in #41 appears to be on the hillside. The diagram that one adult witness drew shows the UFO down in the valley on the far side of the (now) sports field about 100m away where there appear to be some rocks.
(the vegetation is very different obviously)
It's a rocky area. It's known (famed) for it's rocks.
(also note the witnesses said from their pov that the UFO was between the 3rd and 4th utility pole)
The big rock in #41 appears to be on the hillside. The diagram that one adult witness drew shows the UFO down in the valley on the far side of the (now) sports field about 100m away where there appear to be some rocks.
(the vegetation is very different obviously)
It's a rocky area. It's known (famed) for it's rocks.
(also note the witnesses said from their pov that the UFO was between the 3rd and 4th utility pole)
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
So that's the orange-circled rocks in this Google map. The UFO was (I believe) another 100m further away, which is the top mid-to-left of your image. (I believe the running track did not exist in 1994, though it's there in 2005?)
I don't know how that ties in with the power lines though. Or why Hind thought it was 100m away at first, then revised that to 200m. When she went into the bush during her visit, was she 100 or 200m from the logs? Was she 200m but thought she was 100m away? Or was she 100m away, then later realized she didn't go out far enough?
This path (orange below, and parallel to the white arrow in my pic above) is presumably the access road for those houses. One rebuttal to the idea the UFO was a vehicle that drove away is that nothing could drive in or out of the area, but unless those houses weren't built in 1994, it would seem a a vehicle could. The kids may not have realized that, if they never crossed the boundary logs and if the area was a lot wilder than the map shows.
MyMatesBrainwashed
Senior Member
It's fortunate they chose kids without the concept of aliens cos otherwise their environmental message would probably have been perceived as a threat.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
It appears to just be unimproved ground / scrub in the BBC footage.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-57749238
They appear to be standing in line withe the utility line, about 20m from the track running parallel (if it existed in 1994).
I mention the powerlines becuase Hind says she heard the object flew in over the powerlines, and others make awful visualisations using the wrong kind of pylon (metal transmission towers - nope!) to suggest powerlines at great height above the playground.
e.g.
However, this description doesnt really indicate something flying in the air - since the utility lines are in the valley strung between (likely at most 18m tall) utilitiy poles, they are looking over. It could have been an object/vehicle moving on the ground.
What do you mean "without the concept of aliens"? That's an obvious falsehood so why say that?
John J.
Senior Member.
Tim Leach links the September 14 events with those at Ariel School, September 16; maybe this coloured his perception of the latter.
Cynthia Hind also links the September 14 "fireball" sightings with UFOs, arguably for longer than seems justifiable.
In UFO Afrinews, February 1995 (PDF available above) Hind writes in "UFO lap in Zimbabwe" (pgs. 4-18) about the Zenit-2 re-entry, the highly probable cause of the sightings of Wednesday September 14, two days (well, approx. 37 hours) before the Ariel School events.
I don't know at what point the fireball(s) over Zimbabwe were linked with the Soviet rocket, from accounts of the local press coverage (e.g. ZBC radio asking people to 'phone in with their experiences) I'm guessing not for at least several days (that is, not until after the Ariel School events). If American, Russian or other authorities knew the likely cause of the lights, this explanation doesn't appear to have been known to most Zimbabweans in the days immediately following the sightings.
However, by the time February's UFO Afrinews was compiled, it's clear that Hind was aware of the re-entry and she refers to debris being found north-west of Harare (Zimbabwe's capital; Ariel School is just outside the eastern suburbs) and Chokwe in Mozambique, some 480 miles / 772 km SSE of Harare.
Nevertheless, she says
She goes on to add that she thinks UFOs have an insatiable curiosity, andExternal Quote:
John Mack gets a mention,External Quote:
This is all in the context of the September 14 sightings, not Hind's subsequent article about Ariel School , September 16.External Quote:
I think it's reasonably clear that Hind advanced a less-than-likely explanation for the September 14 events even after relevant facts supported a more plausible cause, and that she had a pre-existing belief that aliens were visiting Earth with an environmental message. She can't really be regarded as an impartial, unbiased investigator.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
I wrote quite a bit about this. Here: https://gideonreid.co.uk/russian-rocket-over-africa/
To summerize: The rocket was Identified the day after it was seen and there were media reports saying this on 15th and 16th, in the British press. Hind knew about this (and Leach should have since they were workign together), becasue she mentions it when she visited the school on 20 Sept. She wouldn't accept that the collection of eye witness accounts she compiled were different but described the same thing. So she chose to ignore it, but then took the stange position of saying there was a rocket AND a UFO.
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Mendel
Senior Member.
It's what you need to do when some kids saw a gardener but you still need to keep this a UFO story.
Ufologists don't exist in the sense other -logists do because of a total and utter lack of subject matter. None of them has ever seen or touched a UFO. There is not a single hard [fact] that the field has established. Ufologists come to prominence because they turn science fiction into reality TV, by spinning "UFO sightings" into tales of actual UFOs.
So when you call these experts, you get a UFO tale, because that's what they do.
It's pretty clear that what the Ariel School sighting needed was not experts on UFOs, but experts on reports. Experts who know how to take witness statements without prejudicing the witnesses. Experts who know how to seek out and document facts.
A big reason why AARO works so well is that they employ the latter kind of experts. They clearly have processes for taking witness statements. And AARO has groups of experts adept at interpreting reports and data on things that actually exist.
But that's why the UFO believers don't like AARO: they want these UFO reports "explained" such that they turn into a believable UFO story. But that's what the UFOlogists do that AARO does not employ.
On the Red Line thread, we talked about evidence. We have two distinct types of reasoning::
1. We have unexplained evidence, therefore UFOs exist.
2. We have evidence of UFOs, therefore UFOs exist.
The second reasoning is logical.
The first reasoning really stands for, "We have unexplained evidence, therefore we can spin an uncontradictable UFO tale". And that's what the "UFO experts" are really experts at.
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DavidB66
Senior Member.
There is a long new interview with Dallyn Vico here:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsxjeBU02gI&t=617s
Vico is the guy who claims he was at Ariel at the time and the 'aliens' story was a childish fabrication. Without detailed comparison, which I don't have time for, I don't know how much of this is new. Points I noted were:
- he is confident that what was claimed to be an alien craft was just a rock
- he was older than most of the other 'witnesses' and was not a close friend of theirs
- he has discussed the incident with people who were (and still are) close friends, and they agree with him
- he claims that people from NASA and other space agencies came to visit the area
He seems intelligent and articulate, but I don't quite follow what he says about whether he has changed his story on the incident since becoming an adult. He says he is 40 now, so he has been an adult for quite a long time!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsxjeBU02gI&t=617s
Vico is the guy who claims he was at Ariel at the time and the 'aliens' story was a childish fabrication. Without detailed comparison, which I don't have time for, I don't know how much of this is new. Points I noted were:
- he is confident that what was claimed to be an alien craft was just a rock
- he was older than most of the other 'witnesses' and was not a close friend of theirs
- he has discussed the incident with people who were (and still are) close friends, and they agree with him
- he claims that people from NASA and other space agencies came to visit the area
He seems intelligent and articulate, but I don't quite follow what he says about whether he has changed his story on the incident since becoming an adult. He says he is 40 now, so he has been an adult for quite a long time!
alien
New Member
deirdre
Senior Member
sounds like he was an eyewitness.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
He was a witness, he just claims to remember witnessing something that contradicts the favored UFO story which was synthesized from the disparate stories told by the other witnesses telling what THEY claim to remember witnessing.
And like all witnesses, barring confirming evidence his testimony is of limited value, as is the case with all the other witnesses in this case.
Mendel
Senior Member.
For what reason do you call him a liar?
DavidB66
Senior Member.
He specifically claims to have seen that what other children thought was a spacecraft was just a rock. From other discussions here (e.g. #41 above) we know that there were rocks in the surroundings of the school.
On the general question of credibility, it may be important that Vico was (if his account is correct) somewhat older than the other kids (the main witnesses). Even a year or two may make a big difference in a child's mental development. If Vico is 40 now, he was ~10 in 1994, but other witnesses may have been as young as 6.
Duke
Senior Member.
Agree wholeheartedly, and he seems to contradict himself about the impact of the alleged incident on his life. Early on he complained about how he's had had "alien chasers" (~6:15) hounding him for "20 years" (footstomped "20 years," said it twice.) Then later (~17:15) he laughs about the whole thing, said it's, "Just a funny thing, it's just another day. It's had no impact whatsoever on my life...." I don't know what he saw or didn't see, but I find him elusive. Would be interesting to see what he originally told investigators.
deirdre
Senior Member
he didnt say "hounding" and it didnt sound like he was complaining. he was shrugging his shoulders like it was no big deal.
a group of 10 year old boys finding the whole thing funny sounds perfectly legit to me.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
As with every other interview associated with the Ariel School sighting this is a disappointing poorly conducted interview. Harald clearly hasn't done his homework. He assumed Dallyn had said he'd seen aliens - he never did so on the record and had only talked about flashing lights. He claimed that all the kids saw the same thing (they didn't). His aggressive line of questioning about Netflix and Spielberg pretty redundant.
Salma - one of the girls who said they were "1m" from an alien was 11 at the time. She was one of the oldest.
Seems simplest to take Vico's willingness to contradict the dominant alien visitation narrative at face value. Researchers tracked him down expecting him to support that claim - he didn't.
Given the chance of a better interview he could shed some light on the way the investigation went and what other naysayers are saying/have said.
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Duke
Senior Member.
Yes, "hounding" was my word, but disagree about whether he was complaining about the "alien chasers."
Which "group" of ten year old boys are you talking about finding the "whole thing" funny? He said he was older than the other witnesses.
You're missing point, however. This goes back to what @DavidB66 said about not understanding why/whether the interviewee changed his story with adulthood, particularly with him contradicting himself about the impact of the incident on his life. I find that odd, too bad the two guys doing the interview weren't very good at their "job."
deirdre
Senior Member
David said he was 10. Dallyn said he and his friends thought it was funny.
The other witnesses were as young as 6.
Article: 11:37
Did you started to call that alien ship the first one ? No, I was not the first one there but I walked over to where the logs were the kids were doing this,
11:49
and I was actually older than the kids on grade one and grade two that were doing this,
but instead of taking the maturity and explaining to them and showing them that it's actually a rock
and having giving more of a voice to reason and logic and truth, I allowed them to continue this charade and I thought it was fantastic, I thought "wow, look how fast this is spreading"
..
13:08
I thought it was very funny and it was like almost like an inside joke in a way,
I know. I just disagree, i dont find what he said odd or contradictory.
Haliate2854
Member
I'm not sure if its really about believing anyone in particular, I think its more about laying out every side of the story. I had not heard that side of the story, and I am happy that @DavidB66 found it because this perspective was totally new to me. Good looking out David.
John J.
Senior Member.
Because of the subjects discussed on this forum, members often talk about groups, or individuals, who some of us think are not telling the truth.
After all, we're aiming to challenge bunk, and a lot of bunk is due to hoaxers, and people trying to increase publicity and/ or revenue streams for websites/ books/ public appearances or projects that promote bunk topics.
But everyone makes mistakes, and some of the people whose accounts we doubt might simply be mistaken, not knowingly dishonest. Many people hold beliefs, despite overwhelmingly contrary evidence, without malign intent. We know that people's recollections can change over time.
We can also make mistakes, of course.
Pointing out where claimants have contradicted themselves or stated a factual inaccuracy is often useful, and can be important, in assessing their claims (or at least their general reliability).
But I think we should avoid calling people liars unless we are very, very confident that this is correct, and is already widely accepted as being correct (e.g. after a court judgement).
Perhaps best to avoid using that word when discussing other people here, except in proven historical contexts.
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
The alien chasers he's referring to are probably Randall Nickerson and his team - who have been tracking down witnesses for about 15 years including him (he appears in Nickerson's documentary).
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
Based on what other witnesses said: There were two playgrounds, one for the younger kids, one for the older. The younger kids' playground was closer to the "line of sight" of the UFO, and they saw it first and panicked. This caused the older kids to come around to see what was going on - including Dallyn, presumably. So there are witnesses up to grade 7 (age 12?) and down to age 6 - none of the younger kids were included in the filmed BBC/Hind interviews. Some as young as 9 were asked to draw pictures, and John Mack interviewed at least one 9-year-old, Oriana, as seen in [audio-free] footage but whatever she told him is never quoted, and given this is her drawing one might draw a conclusion as to why.
Side note: she became a skilled artist when she grew up.
Another 9-year-old who drew a picture was Emily Trim (who also expresses herself today through art). Emily's return to Ariel is the focal narrative of Nickerson's documentary. This is her 2015 description of that day:
Source: Alien Cosmic Expo (2015)External Quote:
Compare to her drawing at age 9:
Duke
Senior Member.
Thanks Charlie. I have no idea who Nickerson is, and won't pay $10 to watch his "documentary" on line. Apparently it was released just a couple years ago, however. Do we know how long ago he interviewed Vico for his video? To your mind, were there significant differences between what Vico told him and what Vico said in the new interview above? Are you aware of any interviews with Vico from when he was a kid soon after the event?
deirdre
Senior Member
Giddierone
Senior Member.
Oriana's drawing always reminds me of the Polkaroo from Polka Dot Door, a kids program that was airing on terrestrial Zimbabwe TV at the time.
Not to preempt Charlie's responses to Duke's questions above but Randall Nickerson didn't include any of Dallyn's actual sighting details in that Instagram post in his 2022 film Ariel Phenomenon. Vico's only on camera words in that film are "Your not exactly going to bring up this kind of conversation at a bar or a restaurant, or you know? People think you're crazy." [Timestamp 53:56]
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
When I said she was a talented artist, I was referring to this sort of work. She does photorealistic drawings in pencil crayon. Amazing stuff.
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
Dallyn was interviewed 18 months later when Dutch personality Tineke de Nooij visited the school. Dallyn (red hat) was in a group of 3 boys talking about seeing flashing lights. He confirmed to me that that's him. Bear in mind that even if Dallyn is referring here to seeing flashing lights in the sky (the story he tells today), it's being conflated with the description of the actual landed UFO, making it sound like the UFO had flashing lights all over it. Lisel has become a sort of spokesperson for the kids, relaying testimony that is not hers, as if it's hers. The entire story has become horribly mangled by this point.
External Quote:
Timestamped:
Source: https://youtu.be/q8pymWSKAPQ?si=c8C3EWW-KpWvtPf9&t=195
deirdre
Senior Member
so which kid did Ariel Phenomenon think was Dallyn? (a twitter response says you told AP their identification was wrong)
I'm confused because they were searching for kid footage for him, but now seem to being saying there isn't any?
Source: https://twitter.com/ArielPhenomenon/status/1734623320069247466
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
AP deleted their video of that boy weeks after I told them it was not the same kid, and that Dallyn had confirmed to me it wasn't him. They checked for themselves and eventually decided Dallyn was competent enough to recognize when he'd been wrongly identified.
This is the boy whose footage they attributed to Dallyn. It's from 18 months earlier (South Africa TV with Nicole Carter, 2 weeks after the incident) and he's unnamed. AP used the footage to prove their point that Dallyn changed his story.
Transcript with Nicole Carter asking the questions:
External Quote:
deirdre
Senior Member
ah. decent guess though, its not as far off as the other boys in the dutch footage i saw!
Duke
Senior Member.
Thanks for that, Charlie. Very interesting a guy who disdainfully talked about "alien chasers" in the recent podcast interview (see @DavidB66 post #51 above) volunteered he thought there were aliens and even vetured a guess as to why they were there. He also seemed to take the incident very seriously in the 2008 Instagram video @deirdre posted (see post #67 above.)
Investigators are taught to question why witnesses (or suspected perpetrators if interrogating criminals) change their stories. I districtly recall one instructor saying in that case, we should ask ourselves, "Were you lying then, or are you lying now?" So why did the whole tone of his story change from 18 months after the event and in the 2008 interview (see post #67 above) to the recent podcast interview? In that latest podcast, we heard him say, in effect, he decided to come clean because he's a grown up now and it was a joke that's gone on too long. As @DavidB66 pointed in post #51, however, as a current 40 year old, he's been an adult for some time.
BTW, watch both the 2008 Instagram video (post #67) and the recent podcast video (post #51) and notice how differently he comes across. In 2008 he was relatively stoic and made eye contact with the camera. In the more recent video, he's fidgety and avoids making eye contact.
I'm not claiming the guy is trying to cover anything up, or that I believe the kids saw an alien spacecraft and/or its occupants. I'm merely pointing out the tone of his story has changed, and wondering why.
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deirdre
Senior Member
eye contact with who? he looks at the computer screen (which is where the eyes are) often enough.
i'm not saying he isnt possibly jonesing for another 'fame' fix, (so changed his story to get more air time) but... that's total speculation.
i also wish i could find footage of the boy in the beige hat, cause those facial features look very similar. if beige hat boy was actually him also then his story really really changed over time. (i dont believe everything he says now of course, ..how much do you remember about when you were 10 years old? )
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
From what I can gather, he believes alien sightings are demons and angels.
He didn't really change his story, he just added a new facet to it. His childhood and 2008 testimony is consistent. In 2023 he reiterated that those flashes he saw were in the sky and that he has always maintained he never saw a UFO or aliens.
He took credit for starting the UFO rumor by going along with the little kids who thought a shiny rock was a UFO. I think he's exaggerating that part of the story, or misremembering. It seems clear he didn't witness most (or all) of the event because he never mentions seeing the "men" that many other kids saw (i.e. aliens). I think he probably got there too late, so while he saw something shiny (which he thought was a rock, or is saying now it was a rock) the men had gone by then.
Not all 18-year-olds are grown up. Most of them aren't, in my experience.
Maybe he was having a bad day or has been through some life experiences since then. He's been on podcasts since the doco last year. I can only guess his motivations: maybe he enjoyed his 15 mins of fame, maybe he believes exaggeration is acceptable for the cause of spreading skepticism, maybe he doesn't realize he's exaggerating.
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
The boy in the beige hat really isn't similar to Dallyn once you see the footage. He has a flat nose and different eyebrows. And he's wearing a green shirt, which Dallyn explained means green house - there were two, red and green, and Dallyn was red (hence the red hat in his footage). Also he told me there's no way he'd have had a watch like this.
I found the saved footage - have to upload to YT as there doesn't seem to be a way to do it here.
Charlie Wiser
Senior Member.
Footage of the unidentified boy (initially misidentified as Dallyn Vico) interviewed by Nicole Carter, 2 weeks after the incident.
Source: https://youtu.be/oV0zWC_AOoc
Source: https://youtu.be/oV0zWC_AOoc
deirdre
Senior Member
awesome. thanks!
Duke
Senior Member.
With the camera, like he did consistently on Instagram video you posted. Also,
"often enough" for what? I'm talking about a comparison between the two videos, not comparing the videos against some arbitrary "often enough."
Entirely possible. Or the opposite could be true, trying to put off any more "alien chasers" from bothering him.
He doesn't have to remember, he can watch the video of his interview 18 months after the incident.
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