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

[jackfrostvc]

Probably the idea of it being the gardener could well be true

 

[Giddierone]

I thinks that's a bit of editorial, not Hind. I'm assuming the hostess trolly is something like the domed platters seen in old cartoons that are sometimes on wheels.

 

[jackfrostvc]

See here for photo source, license attributions etc: Photo by Alan Wilson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aérospatiale_Alouette_III#/media/File:Sud_SA_316B_Alouette_III_A-247_(cropped).jpg

It's possible they saw a helicopter and it's pilots. I believe the Zimbabwe airforce used the Sud SA-316A Alouette III like the one above.
Here is one of the Zimbabwe airforce helicopters photoed at Harare International airport in 1996, which is just ~ 14 miles from Ariel School
https://www.airhistory.net/photo/456669/7558

Helicopter pilots with their sun glasses or helmet visors could have been seen as big eyed aliens I guess.

Source, licenses etc by Michel Wiencek : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...And_Medical_Evacuation_Training_(7148973).jpg
By

 

[Giddierone]

I always thought that reminded me of the spaceships in Delta Space Mission, which was on TV later that afternoon on the 16 Sept.
https://gideonreid.co.uk/demystifyi...ges in a clip from Delta Space Mission (1984)

 

[John J.]

I'm not sure what a "Hostess trolley" is

Just a modest-sized trolley, often with shelves, usually used for serving snacks/ drinks in the home. Don't know what the American term is!
There are more elaborate cabinet types, some capable of keeping food warm a bit like mini versions of airline catering carts.
If my family is anything to go by, they're not often used as intended- perhaps at Christmas/ New Year or if special guests are expected.
Other times, they usually acquire pot plants or maybe a fruit bowl, loose change/ assorted small items and serve as somewhere to leave car keys.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Just a modest-sized trolley, often with shelves, usually used for serving snacks/ drinks in the home. Don't know what the American term is!
There are more elaborate cabinet types, some capable of keeping food warm a bit like mini versions of airline catering carts.
If my family is anything to go by, they're not often used as intended- perhaps at Christmas/ New Year or if special guests are expected.
Other times, they usually acquire pot plants or maybe a fruit bowl, loose change/ assorted small items and serve as somewhere to leave car keys.

View attachment 85886

Makes sense. The "Hostess" part threw me a bit, as that is a company here in the states that makes Twinkies, Cupcakes, Ho Hos and Ding Dongs:

Combined with the reference to "Bermuda Triangle" shorts, I was thinking some sort of Hostess Twinkie cart thing. Or maybe an advertising thing like the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile:

I would have called those things "bar carts" or "service carts", but now I remember the first Harry Potter movie on the train where the lady with a push cart of snacks asks the kids: "Anything from the trolley?" And IIRC, you guys call grocery store carts "trolleys".

With that in mind, this certainly reminds me of a service cart, or trolley, with a domed lid that would get wheeled up to your table at an old school steak house we would sometimes go to for our anniversary:

More importantly, it seems the Guardian editors were being a bit flippant in their descriptions and not taking Hind seriously.

 

[Giddierone]

This is the kind of thing they might have been thinking of. A hostess trolly (or "Carving trolly") with a domed platter.

EDIT: clearly craft services for the puppet troupe...

 

[Charlie Wiser]

There might have been "something out there" that initiated subsequent events, but around half of the children present saw nothing unusual at all.

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Didnt one of the kids in a documentary say it was him that started the whole thing by pointing to a shiny rock or something.

Feasable?

I don't think it's feasible, although there may well have been a shiny rock. I corresponded with Dallyn Vico and some of what he said didn't add up or was self-contradictory.

From another interview he did, he has religious-infected paranormal beliefs that seem to influence how he interprets the universe, and thus that incident.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

B. What are the odds of that happening out in that random area?

Just stating that there were puppet shows in the country of Zimbabwe is a lot different than one being in that random area. It's a small portion of a big country.

The odds of a puppet show being in any one location of Zimbabwe are miniscule.

The odds that a puppet show was somewhere in Zimbabwe are 100%.

 

[jackfrostvc]

What about the kids that said they saw something descend from the sky and land?
Ruling that out?

I mean if you believe that, it would a bus, car, puppets etc. very unlikely

 

[Giddierone]

What about the kids that said...

It would be helpful if people questioning how each theory lines up with what the kids said if they provided the exact quote they are referring to. As I asked @Z.W. Wolf to do earlier. As mentioned above Charlie Wiser has transcribed every word of the available interviews: Here: https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-school.html. The data (what there is of it) is there to be interrogated.

Distinguishing between the child and adult testimony is also necessary becase some of that later testimony contains completely new information.

 

[Giddierone]

I don't think it's feasible, although there may well have been a shiny rock. I corresponded with Dallyn Vico and some of what he said didn't add up or was self-contradictory.

From another interview he did, he has religious-infected paranormal beliefs that seem to influence how he interprets the universe, and thus that incident.

I think to be consistent we have to apply all the same arguments about source-monitoring, false memories, confabulation, etc to Dallyn's testimony. Just because he's countering the extraordinary narrative with an ordinary one doesn't mean he's correct.

 

[Ravi]

I am still unsure about the actual distance between the kids and the "aliens". Is it 100m or 10m? Or very much further? It does play a big role in being able to be sure you see something out of the ordinary.

 

[Giddierone]

I am still unsure about the actual distance between the kids and the "aliens". Is it 100m or 10m? Or very much further? It does play a big role in being able to be sure you see something out of the ordinary.

It varies. The observations of the shiny light (the UFO) are 100m+ (Hind estimates 100-200m in her book).
There aren't clear estimates about the distances the figures were seen over.
Except one. Salma's testimony that she believed she was 1m (ONE) metre from an alien being. She said this as an 12 eleven year old, and says the same as an adult.
Emma, standing next to Salma at the time, attempts a reconstruction in the Netflix show Encounters, and stands about 3m from Salma and says the being was that close to them. Emily Trim, the subject of Randal Nickerson's 2023 film as adult says she was near them at the time and also saw the being and looked into it's eyes.
As far as I'm aware this isn't supported by any other kids testimony at the time - no one else saw such a close encounter.
We don't have every bit of video tape from the time, from Tim Leach, Hind or the ZBC, SABC interviews. What we've seen is what was edited for broadcast.

 

[Ravi]

Thanks @Giddierone.

It is always remarkable how witnesses's estimate of distance can vary so dramatically. Not only kids.

 

[Ann K]

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

That's understandable; if there's nothing to be seen, there's nothing to be said. End of "interview". The interviewers have no further interest, because they want to hear from those who DID see something.

 

[Carlo]

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

This is a feature of the fact that you get rewarded with attention if you say you saw something extraordinary. When you combine this with the fact that the children were not separated from each other before recounting what they saw and you get a big incentive to augment your memory a bit. Children will do this without even realizing and without any prompting.

The fact that people believe alien spaceships landing one time to deliver an important message to powerless children and then never return is more likely than children confabulating or being mistaken and letting hysteria run away with them is surprising to me.

 

[JMartJr]

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

Might such children be screened out of the interviewing process? As an example, I don't recall ever having seen an interview with somebody who was looking the other way and did not see the plane crash, car wreck, etc... they interview the ones who say they saw it all!

 

[John J.]

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

Maybe those children were less likely to be interviewed.
(Edited to add: @JMartJr beat me to it).

 

[Giddierone]

The fact that people believe alien spaceships landing one time to deliver an important message to powerless children and then never return is more likely than children confabulating or being mistaken and letting hysteria run away with them is surprising to me.

That they were encouraged in their beliefs is also surprising. I think they have been let down in a remarkable and damaging way.

Maybe those children were less likely to be interviewed.
(Edited to add: @JMartJr beat me to it).

From looking at Hind's interviews the moment any kid gets a bit iffy she either asks a leading question or just moves on to the next child.

 

[John J.]

I've never seen an interview with any child who said they saw nothing unusual at all.

...another witness, Salma, said in an interview a few years ago that "half of the playground had no experience at all."

The number of approx. 60 witnesses is widely quoted (including by Cynthia Hind), this appears to include children who reported a light or a vague shape or shapes, not just those who reported (sometimes very detailed) UFOs and beings. The headteacher opined that more children might have seen something but didn't want to say so. The 60+ number of claimed witnesses seems to come from the number of children who responded (a show of hands?) when asked in class the following week. They were subsequently asked to draw/ describe what they saw.

-Just occurred to me, we have few accounts from the parents of those children saying that their child/ children told them about their extraordinary experience on that Friday or over the weekend- how many contacted school staff or the authorities?
Cynthia Hind relates one child, Guy G., telling his parents:

Guy, who was self-assured and the most articulate (of those interviewed)... ...The tragedy of Guy's story is that when he went home, neither of his parents, though admitting that he did not normally tell lies, would believe his story. ...What a frightening indictment of our society that when we are confronted by something we don't understand, we don't even open our minds to the event.

UFO Afrinews 11, February 1995, PDF attached in post #201.
Hind's criticism of parents who might know their son better than she does (and who in all probability were competent, loving parents) and the access that the school gave to someone prepared to make such statements in print about parents of that school's children, might be an indictment of another sort- and maybe raises questions about the headteacher's judgement.

When there is a claimed UFO sighting where the majority of those present didn't report seeing anything unusual when specifically asked, I'm not sure we can assume (although it might be a possibility to be considered) that some of those people (in this case children, who might be eager to recount novel happenings) did in fact see something unusual (or relevant). For instance, I'm not persuaded that those present who didn't see the "miracle of the sun" at Fatima, 1917, saw something unusual or pertinent but didn't say so.
If any of the "non-witness" children in this case saw something they thought was unusual but not a UFO or aliens, e.g. an identified or possible puppet or unusually clothed person, an unusual vehicle or a bright reflection from a vehicle or rock surface, they either didn't say so or their observations/ reports were ignored and not adequately considered as possible explanations (which, if that was the case, might reflect badly on the school staff involved; some of us here might not be surprised at "UFO investigators" not always considering alternative explanations).
Other than Dallyn Vico (see @Charlie Wiser's post #249) I'm not aware that any of the non-witness children then, or since, has said that they saw something that wasn't a UFO/ aliens but which might have been the cause of the other children's accounts.
It must be a significant possibility (IMHO) that there wasn't anything unusual to be seen.

 

[Giddierone]

we have few accounts from the parents

There's a couple of parents in a very short clip in the Sightings episode from '95. They don't say much.
What I find amazing is that if someone (alien being or human) who wasn't expected to be there was 1 metre from a child during school break why it wasn't the focus of the investigation, regardless of what was seen beyond the school grounds.
Notably John Mack didn't interview Salma. Depending on the audience her "one metre" claim tends to get quietly dropped, It's not made in Ariel Phenomenon, but she does say it in online interviews with the director.
She could have misinterpreted something large (puppet) and far away as something small and close up. [see her drawing in #203]

It must be a significant possibility (IMHO) that there wasn't anything unusual to be seen.

I continue to respectfully disagree. There clearly was something unusual seen and heard that day. I think to say otherwise requires greater complication, a mass shared delusion + (pick your favorite psychological diagnosis) and/or a conspiracy to lie to all the adults. This is less parsimonious than there being something unusual that they actually saw and heard yet misinterpreted because it was "UFO week."

 

[John J.]

...if someone (alien being or human) who wasn't expected to be there was 1 metre from a child during school break... ...She could have misinterpreted something large (puppet) and far away as something small and close up.

(Cue clip from Father Ted with Ted explaining to Dougal the difference between "small" and "far away" )

I don't think that can apply to something estimated to be within arm's reach in broad daylight, or even within, say, 5 metres.
There are several several common depth perception cues that we rely on, and binocular vision's role is sometimes overstated at the expense of others, but binocular vision is extraordinarily efficient within a few metres.

I don't think it's plausible that, e.g., a 2 or 2.5 metre-tall puppet at least 100 metres (328 ft) away might be mistaken for a 1.5 metre-tall being one, two or even five metres away.

All of a sudden they were in front of us. I'd describe them as being about an arm's reach.

Emily T, claimed witness, speaking as an adult, quoted in blog Three-Dollar Kit, which has an excellent account of events;
https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-drawings.html.
(Three-Dollar Kit is well worth a good read, and is authored by Metabunker @Charlie Wiser).
Strangely, although adult Emily says she saw the aliens just feet away, she didn't draw any when the children were asked to draw what they had seen in 1994.

If we very generously give Emily T. an arm's reach of about 1m/ 3 feet 3", then even allowing for a bit of misremembering or poor distance estimation- let's say a factor of 10- the alien is still only 10 metres (32 feet 6 inches) away; roughly the length of a bus, well beyond an arm's reach but easily close enough to see in detail on a sunny 10:00 a.m. across modestly scrubby ground.

 

[Giddierone]

(Cue clip from Father Ted with Ted explaining to Dougal the difference between "small" and "far away" )

Unless...

From: The Kids in the Hall early 1990s.

 

[jackfrostvc]

In Ariels sister case, ie the 1966 Westall case from Australia. I contacted one claimed witness who told me it was a balloon. He also told me a story of going to a meetup with the others to talk about the incident and the media was there. When they asked him what he saw, he told them it was a balloon. He said they just walked away and spoke to someone else.

This is how it works. you only see what makes news. UFOs sell papers, Balloons don't

 

[Charlie Wiser]

We don't have every bit of video tape from the time, from Tim Leach, Hind or the ZBC, SABC interviews. What we've seen is what was edited for broadcast.

The BBC footage of Hind interviewing that line of Grade 7 kids is uncut as far as I can tell. Those students describe the craft and being(s) but none describe any beings coming close to the children. It's not remotely plausible to me that the aliens came within arm's reach of 3 children but no children *other* than those 3 saw it happen.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

This is a feature of the fact that you get rewarded with attention if you say you saw something extraordinary. When you combine this with the fact that the children were not separated from each other before recounting what they saw and you get a big incentive to augment your memory a bit. Children will do this without even realizing and without any prompting.

That's understandable; if there's nothing to be seen, there's nothing to be said. End of "interview". The interviewers have no further interest, because they want to hear from those who DID see something.

I was disputing this from @John J. : "around half of the children present saw nothing unusual at all"

We have absolutely no idea how many children saw nothing unusual at all.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

The number of approx. 60 witnesses is widely quoted (including by Cynthia Hind), this appears to include children who reported a light or a vague shape or shapes, not just those who reported (sometimes very detailed) UFOs and beings.

I think 60 - or usually 62 - comes from the number of drawings made. I don't know whether that's the number after Hind got her hands on them and excluded some (she disregarded some as "imaginative) or if it was the number of drawings she was given, or if it was the number actually drawn. But there are about 62 drawings (collected here: https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-drawings.html)

 

[Charlie Wiser]

-Just occurred to me, we have few accounts from the parents of those children saying that their child/ children told them about their extraordinary experience on that Friday or over the weekend- how many contacted school staff or the authorities?

Parents heard about it on Friday when they collected their kids. They went that afternoon to examine the site. Timeline here: https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-school.html

 

[Charlie Wiser]

(Cue clip from Father Ted with Ted explaining to Dougal the difference between "small" and "far away" )

I don't think that can apply to something estimated to be within arm's reach in broad daylight, or even within, say, 5 metres.
There are several several common depth perception cues that we rely on, and binocular vision's role is sometimes overstated at the expense of others, but binocular vision is extraordinarily efficient within a few metres.

I don't think it's plausible that, e.g., a 2 or 2.5 metre-tall puppet at least 100 metres (328 ft) away might be mistaken for a 1.5 metre-tall being one, two or even five metres away.

The most likely explanation for Salma's contemporaneous description of being a meter from the being is that she was entirely making it up. The kids had been interviewed repeatedly by that point, and it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to one-up each other. She was sitting alone when she said that (not in a group) which is probably also relevant. When interviewed in a group, the kids are less likely to attempt to get away with making something up that others can dispute.

The other accounts of up-close aliens come from the witnesses as adults. As @Giddierone suggested on Twitter, I think the most likely explanation there is that they're confusing their memories with a movie(s) they saw. This movie matches both the environment of the school grounds and the odd movements of the aliens as reported by the witnesses as adults:

A small telepathic alien with a large head and eyes crash-lands in rural Africa, appearing, vanishing, then reappearing in the long grass of the bush in front of two boys.

Source: https://x.com/giddierone/status/1985447190316081272

 

[Giddierone]

She was sitting alone when she said that (not in a group) which is probably also relevant. When interviewed in a group, the kids are less likely to attempt to get away with making something up that others can dispute.

Here's Salma's remarks clipped from James Fox's version in The Phenomenon.

and here's Salma days earlier (20 Sept) standing in the doorway (presumably within earshot of Cynthia Hind) during her interrogation of some of the other pupils, (inc star witnesses Guy and Lisel in the front row) where no one, including her, mentions being so close to the figures they saw.

Here she is as an adult (2017) describing what sounds a lot like an expressionless, smooth, papier mache puppet mask...

A little like this...

This is the face she drew at the time in '94.

Here are her comments (2017) about the lack of experience that the grade 1-4s had. She claims "nobody had any experience on that half of the playground".
Note this totally contradicts Randall Nickerson's assertion (made elsewhere, but he's also in this video chat) that lots of the grade 1s and 2s saw the UFO and aliens. He claimed "a very large group" were very close to the alien.

 

[John J.]

The most likely explanation for Salma's contemporaneous description of being a meter from the being is that she was entirely making it up.

Entirely agree. I think it's possible other witnesses made things up.

 

[JMartJr]

Entirely agree. I think it's possible other witnesses made things up.

I think it is possible that, consciously or unconsciously, they all did.

 

[Giddierone]

I find this image of school boys holding up their drawings of a UFO they saw interesting, because they all drew different things.

Source: https://www.fourcornersbooks.co.uk/articles/close-encounters-of-the-playground-kind/

Also mentioned in David Clark's article is a case quite similar to Ariel school in that the kids saw something on a Friday and were asked to draw pictures of it on the Monday — having the whole weekend to think/be influenced about what they saw.

It's almost as if it was a similar exercise...

 

[JMartJr]

I find this image of school boys holding up their drawings of a UFO they saw interesting, because they all drew different things.

The variation among the drawings of aliens is also striking. And, to my mind, indicates healthy active imaginations. Children have those.


(Pics from https://threedollarkit.weebly.com/ariel-drawings.html)

 

[John J.]

The variation among the drawings of aliens is also striking. And, to my mind, indicates healthy active imaginations.

A while back you posted

...I can't recall, though, a kid who reported seeing BOTH bald aliens in black jumpsuits AND long haired aliens in polka dots.

I think this might be significant.
From post #160,

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.

@Giddierone has posted pictures of different puppets that have features similar to both the long-haired and the bald/ "gray"-like types.
If the "aliens" could only be seen in a fairly constrained, specific area- which is necessary for the theory that they could only be seen from a relatively small area of the recreation ground (a proposed reason for most of the children not seeing anything), then it is strange that most of the witnesses didn't notice, describe or draw both types, as they must have been very close to each other.

I think Cynthia Hind herself noticed that picture styles might have varied between groups of friends, but can't find a reference to support this at the moment.

There are other major differences between the descriptions of aliens that might suggest the children hadn't seen the same thing:

[Cynthia Hind] One of he boys told me that he thought at first the little man in black might have been Mrs Stevens' gardener, but then he saw the figure had long, straight black hair, "not really like African hair", so he realised he had made a mistake!
... ...
Lisa P.: "...A man dressed in black came out. He had big eyes. I thought it was an alien and then I thought it was the gardener."
... ...
Daniel M.: "I saw this silver thing among the trees, with one thing sitting on the side and another on top, Then they were running back and forth. It looked like a real person but it was quite plump. At first I thought it was someone from the compound (labourer's quarters) playing around, but his hair was not like the usual African hair- very curly and close to the head- it was almost like a hippy's hair, long and black."
... ...
...Guy said: "He was quite lightish in colour, not black..."

(UFO Afrinews 12, July 1995, Cynthia Hind, PDF attached below; thought I'd already posted it but couldn't see it on a quick flick through).

-The alien looks both like a black African man, hair excepted (implied by the first three descriptions*) but also "quite lightish in colour, not black."
Hind mentions that only Daniel described the figure as plump.

Some of the children saw a little man dressed in black on top of the large "craft". He was thin and skinny...

(UFO Afrinews 11, Feb. 1995, PDF attached in post #201).

One child "saw" three figures, dressed respectively in red, white and black.

Oriana F. drew a figure with long hair and polkadots (including on its face),

but she is quoted as saying

Oriana: "I saw this black stick, a very thin, long thing on top of the silver thing."

(Cynthia Hind in UFO Afrinews 11), which raises questions about her drawing.

Despite the diverse descriptions and drawings, Cynthia Hind wrote (UFO Afrinews 11)

Where the drawings were most consistent were in the description of the small entity the children had seen emerge from the craft.
He was approximately one metre tall, dressed in a shiny one-piece black suit similar to a wet suit. He had long black hair and a large head.

But this is a homogenised alien, at best a composite, at worst a use of Guy N.'s description-

..a small man (about one metre tall) ...was dressed in a black, shiny suit (like a skin diving suit); that he had long black hair...

-while effectively jettisoning several others, and ignoring some (perhaps most) of the drawings.
(Emma C. also described clothes "...which were very, very shiny black. Like a diving-suit and tight-fitting" but no mention of long hair).

The aliens are all apparently 1 - 1.5 metres tall. Otherwise, they're dressed in black. Or they wear black, or red, or white. Or large (presumably) light-coloured polkadots (or maybe that's their skin). Or a light-coloured top with a diagonal stripe/ sash/ strap.
They have long straight hair, or are bald, or short hair (in drawing, stood beside an apparently bald colleague) but some of the children can tell it's not like African hair (which appears to be the only way they can tell it's not an African person, which seems a bit odd). The alien is plump, or "thin and skinny".

Also mentioned in David Clark's article is a case quite similar to Ariel school in that the kids saw something on a Friday and were asked to draw pictures of it on the Monday — having the whole weekend to think/be influenced about what they saw.

Other similarities might be the diversity present in the Broad Haven children's drawings (although not to the same degree as at Ariel School), the diversity in accounts- some saw an alien, to the extent they could see its pointy ears, others didn't;
the fact that the majority of children at the school at break at the same time saw nothing;
and no adults were present or told until it was all over (I appreciate that the tuck shop lady at Ariel might have been told while events were still underway; either her informants weren't particularly convincing/ distressed, or the tuck shop had exceptionally expensive contents, or she had rather questionable priorities).

As with Hind's description of the alien(s), the differences between the Broad Haven accounts are often overlooked. We know that different eyewitness accounts of the same incident, given in good faith, can vary very substantially: But on seeing a landed flying saucer, I think it's fair to say most people, including children, would remember seeing a spaceman nearby if there was one there which could be clearly seen!
Instead, it's a bit of a trope that the Broad Haven witnesses gave very similar accounts/ produced similar drawings:

A class of schoolboys saw this UFO and drew identical pictures to prove it.

Daily Mail, 15 June 2024 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...n-UFO-sighting-drawing-military-50-years.html (text of article behind paywall).

Some of the 14 pictures are similar, depicting a classic Adamski-like flying saucer; a flared "skirt" with a squat cylindrical or domed compartment above sometimes topped off with a light a bit like an old-style police car beacon.

BBC News, Wales, "Broad Haven UFO sightings marked 40 years on", 4 Feb. 2017 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-38723643
Adamski's Venusian scout ship was perhaps the prototypical UFO in popular culture.
It featured on the front cover of Usborne Books' "World of the Unknown: UFOs", 1977, Ted Wilding-White, which was aimed at children:

(This is a later edition, the publisher's name went through a series of changes, but the cover illustrations remained the same as far as I know.)
-I've just noticed, the cover also has pointy-eared alien: It's meant to be a Hopkinsville-Kelly hobgoblin, so not connected to the scout ships. Inside the book, there's a rather fanciful imagining of the hobgoblin homeworld; the goblins are wearing silvery suits

This could be coincidence; I don't know when the Usborne book was published in 1977; the Broad Haven reports were from 4 February.
But pointy-eared "goblins" were common pop-culture representations of aliens, just as Adamski-style flying saucers were of alien spacecraft.

However, not all the pictures conform to a typical flying saucer; a couple are almost pyramidal, and a couple indicate that the "craft" was in fact barely visible behind bushes/ trees:

Daily Mirror, 23 September 2015 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/techn...ministry-defence-covering-up-infamous-6500940;

BBC News, link as above.

Another source of diversity is the colour of the UFO; in a brief clip on the BBC link above a child describes it as silver, and some of the stereotypical "scout ship" -style pictures (like those above) are coloured in grey, perhaps to represent an unpigmented metallic appearance. The school's UFO Scrapbook uses some metallic material for its front cover UFO.
But in a group photo of the kids with their drawings, some appear to show blue/ turquoise UFOs:

Admittedly the colour balance of the photo is poor.
It's not clear (to me) that all the Broad Haven pictures earlier in this post are shown in this picture.
Perhaps the kids drew more than one each? -There's nothing wrong with that in itself (and is perfectly normal for children if they have an interest in something, or are encouraged to draw it) but if a claimed witness produced "multiple drafts" that significantly differed from each other, it undermines the usefulness of those pictures as evidence. It might also increase the chance of finding similarities between the children's pictures: Take Dan's second attempt, Rowan's first one, Ian's third...

Interestingly, the Ariel School headmaster, Colin Mackie, might have been aware of the Broad Haven sightings, so he might have had an interest in UFOs: I could be completely mistaken, and I haven't seen the source material to check, but I'm wondering if these screencaps (?) are showing comments by Mackie: From Giddierone's post #203:

(I will happily defer to @Giddierone if I've misunderstood whose comments are shown in the pictures).
Of course, it's possible Mackie learnt about Broad Haven after 16 September 1994 and before the BBC item (Hind's editorial in UFO Afrinews 11 seems to date this to February 1995 or earlier).

Even if Colin Mackie didn't have a prior interest in UFOs, through his role he facilitated access to the children by Hind and by John Mack; I think it's fair to say Mack's views on UFOs were considered controversial even in 1994. Hind writes in UFO Afrinews 11,

...Budd Hopkins, Dr. John Mack, David Jacobs and several others promote the abduction syndrome as a factual happening...

...while also referring to Jim Schnabel's just-published Dark White: Aliens, Abductions and the UFO Obsession (1994) which she hasn't read (it is critical of Mack). In the editorial of Afrinews 11, Hind welcomes Mack's arrival in Zimbabwe to investigate the Ariel School events.
Mackie's acceptance (invitation?) of Mack's assistance is of interest, I think- Mack doesn't appear to have visited Ariel School in a therapeutic role.

Local factors- including previous UFO sightings in the areas concerned- might have played a part in both the Broad Haven Primary School and Ariel School sightings. In each case it's possible that an unusual (but probably not exotic) visible feature served as a focus for the children's attention and triggered their subsequent claims, though I'm not sure an exterior "trigger" was definitely necessary.
At both schools, the UFOs and aliens were reported by a minority of the children who would have been on their break, and there wasn't an adult present in the immediate area (though at least one Broad Haven account states the object was only visible for a few seconds, so it would have been difficult to alert a staff member even if they were relatively near. The alien must have been very quick in getting out and then re-boarding).

But I think the children's imaginations played a very large- perhaps pre-eminent- role. I don't think we need to invoke sociogenic illness (neither event resulted in protracted unusual behaviour or any somatic symptoms AFAIK).
Possibly the actions of school staff played a significant role, tending to affirm/ reinforce a "strange, significant event" interpretation to what might have otherwise have been ephemeral playground excitement.

*I've always wondered if Lisa P. was saying- and meant- what she appears to be saying: She ended up deciding she had seen the gardener.

 

[Giddierone]

I'm wondering if these screencaps (?) are showing comments by Mackie: From Giddierone's post #203:

They're Cynthia Hinds words over the BBC archive footage. The video might be region locked but it's from here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-57749238

Mack doesn't appear to have visited Ariel School in a therapeutic role.

No but this impression is given by those retelling the story. His purpose in Africa is questionable. His statements in his published words about it are unclear if contradictory. He already had a trip planned vs Ariel was the primary purpose.
https://gideonreid.co.uk/the-myster...art-2/#:~:text=Why did Dr. Mack Go To Africa?

Going to Africa was a well timed distraction from his investigation at Harvard and at the same time offered him the chance to study non-US cases of Alien Abduction. One of the criticisms of his book and the topic in general at that time was that aliens only seem to abduct white north Americans (Barney Hill aside).

I think it's fair to say Mack's views on UFOs were considered controversial even in 1994.

We also know that Mack's controversy was known in Zimbabwe. See newspaper clipping from The Herald from earlier in the year. https://gideonreid.co.uk/demystifyi...ass, 5 July 1994, p.5 of The Herald, Zimbabwe.

We also know he wasn't convinced Ariel as an alien abduction case despite his probing questions looking for evidence that the children might have some missing time, and this is why it takes up so little space in his published work. Just a few paragraphs.

A persistent myth that gets put out by ufologists is that he was killed before he could publish his report on Ariel. Which is bunk because he died in an accident a decade after the sighting.

Another source of diversity is the colour of the UFO

Limited colour crayon availability could also be the cause.

it isn't clear if the drawing was made c. Sept. 1994 or for Hesemann's film

Hesemann had access to the original '94 drawing and also asked the children to draw pictures for him. These are most likely from his '97 visit.

I include some of the wild variation of description he heard in his interviews here: Https://revue.comitepara.be/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Scepticisme_Scientifique_12_2024_SI.pdf

very, very shiny black

This detail has always intrigued me. It's found in other occupant landing cases. It makes me think that Emma had prior conversation with Hind before she said this. If you go through Hind's UFO Afrinews, and look at earlier cases you start to see a picture of repeated motifs in UFO cases. As i've done here: https://gideonreid.co.uk/ufos-alien...t=Similarities With Ariel School Descriptions
And we know from Hind's own words that she had contact with some of the children over the weekend, before her visit to the school.

Hind loved to talk about Broad Haven — another potential source of contamination.

protracted unusual behaviour or any somatic symptoms

The psychological aftereffects are full spectrum. With Salma and others saying they were never afraid and others saying it was "fun" to Emily Trim's crushing existential angst lasting long into her adulthood (likely rooted in other experiences IMO).
There are cases of similar triggering moments caused by coulrophobia or pupaphobia.

It's notable that some of the kids seemed happy to perform a reenactment for the cameras just a few days later.
(Clip with no audio I made from archive footage).

We know that different eyewitness accounts of the same incident, given in good faith, can vary very substantially:

You may be interested to read How Children Portray UFOs, by Richard Haines and Linda Kerth. Journal of UFO Studies, No.4, 1992 (see attached PDF).
They get into the variation question quite extensively.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

Lisa P.: "...A man dressed in black came out. He had big eyes. I thought it was an alien and then I thought it was the gardener."
... ...
Daniel M.: "I saw this silver thing among the trees, with one thing sitting on the side and another on top, Then they were running back and forth. It looked like a real person but it was quite plump. At first I thought it was someone from the compound (labourer's quarters) playing around, but his hair was not like the usual African hair- very curly and close to the head- it was almost like a hippy's hair, long and black."

[/EX]
(UFO Afrinews 12, July 1995, Cynthia Hind, PDF attached below; thought I'd already posted it but couldn't see it on a quick flick through).

Take care with those AfriNews quotes - they are not accurate. Hind paraphrased the kids but put the words in quote marks (which speaks to her journalistic integrity...). We have those interviews on camera, so we know what was actually said.

The one that's always annoyed me is Lisa P (Lisel): "...A man dressed in black came out. He had big eyes. I thought it was an alien and then I thought it was the gardener."

She didn't say he came OUT. By making her say that, it implies the beings came out of the spaceship. Lisel actually said:

Well I saw a silver sort of thing, it was shaped [circles her finger], it was like lying down like this on the side. And I saw a black man, he was just in black, and he had big eyes... I thought it was an alien, and then I thought maybe it was the gardener or someone.

In a later interview Hind again embellishes: "then a door opened and this little man got out" [Unexplained Mysteries ep. 25, from Sightings interview 1996]. No child said they saw a door opening or anyone getting out.

Daniel's description of the hair is not accurate (tho doesn't change the meaning), and the "diving suit" description is another inaccurate quote. No kid volunteered that the beings wore a "diving suit" - Hind suggested both "diver" and "tight-fitting":

HIND: ...You saw this creature?
EMMA: Yes, he was very very shiny black.
Shiny black -
Shiny black.
- suit?
Kind of suit.
Would you say it was like an ordinary suit, was it like what Mr Mackie's wearing?
No.
Or what would you call the type of clothing?
[thinks] I'm not sure but he was really-
Have you ever seen the divers going in the sea?
Oh yes, like that.
Was it like that, or was it like an overall or a tight-fitting suit?
It was tight-fitting.
It was tight-fitting. And it was shiny.
Yes.

Later on, the kids did incorporate "like a diving suit" into the official narrative.

The most egregious change IMO is that Hind randomly describes the being as a meter tall in her AfriNews report, when no kid said it was that small and several describe it as a "man" and of normal-size:

Guy indicates a head taller than himself (about 5'6") and Nathaniel says "about our size" (grade 7).

Hind's retellings over the years have introduced other errors, too, such as that Headmaster Mackie "had the presence of mind to get all the children back into their classroom, asking them to draw what they had seen." [UFO AFRINEWS #11, Feb 1995] No, they drew the pictures on Monday - three days later - and at Hind's request according to a different source:

I had suggested to Mr Mackie prior to visiting the school and before the children had been interviewed, that he let the children draw what they had seen.

MUFON UFO Journal #320 (Dec 1994)

Compare to Mackie's own words on Monday, BBC interview with Leach:

MACKIE: We asked them to draw pictures of what they saw this morning, what they saw on Friday.

 

[Giddierone]

Since there's an effort to copyright strike footage of Ariel School from the web (many of the old videos have been taken down) I thought uploading this one would be useful. It's from Tineke de Nooij, Paranormal World. Dutch TV in spring 1996, filmed after numerous local TV stations had visited the school and after John Mack's visit in Nov 1994.

The video is useful because they include a mock visualization of the distance the kids saw the object over. This is useful to compare with the testimony Cynthia Hind reported in Afrinews No. 12, July, 1995.

"An eyewitness, Barry D., said that he had seen three flying objects with flashing red lights. They disappeared and reappeared almost immediately, but in another place. This happened about three times. They then came and landed near some gum trees; Barry said the main (object) was the size of his thumbnail held at arm's length."

The TV Show's Visualization

Which reminds me of my photo of a brightly reflecting window in post #235 above.

Also of note in the video are:
- the gentle slope away from the school buildings. The kids were looking North over the valley and swamp. On the other side of the valley are hills with large rocks.
- Head Teacher Colin Mackie is briefly interviewed [in English]. He thinks the kids saw something, but doesn't give an opinion about it. He's not offered any public opinion about it since.