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

I imagine a scene where they have a rastafarian gardener.

Kids: Pointing at him saying look it's an alien.
Gardener: Hey maannn, it's me maaaan, the gardener maaan. I'm looking after the grounds maann. The earth needs to be looked after maaan .
Kids: The alien is communicating with us and wants us to look after the earth

And thus the legend began

:)

The alien in Predator did have dreadlocks so maybe half of the kids were describing the traditional gray alien and the others had been influenced by a more Predator type alien.
 
The funniest kid testimony was the one who said he thought it was the gardener
(from #38 above)

According to one account, quoting Cynthia Hind, the child initially thought it was 'Mrs Stevens's gardener'. I don't know who Mrs Stevens was - perhaps one of the school staff, or someone else living nearby. White people living in Zimbabwe at the time would probably have several employees or servants, including a gardener (or at least someone to manage their grounds). Or they might hire someone for a particular task, e.g. to exterminate termites or other pests. And what about bee-keeping?

It occurs to me that these people might sometimes wear protective clothing, for example if they are spraying pesticides or weed killer. This might include goggles, a dust mask, or even a respirator. The point is that there are various possibilities for people to be wearing unusual clothing which might be scary to children, and maybe even a bit 'alien'. If I saw someone wearing this thing I would probably have a heart attack:

https://www.fruugo.co.uk/respirator...nIXgGjzzDXCVKcSw8AkP7A-OvTUJVhD8aAh0_EALw_wcB
 
It would be interesting to review the full data regarding the eyewhitness accounts. Although the interviewer (who was actually an expert) did some essential mistakes. Asking them as a group for example. :rolleyes:
 
Has anyone here ever come across a reasonable explanation for what the children claim to have seen?
The puppetry hypothesis on #ufotwitter.
Article:
The evidence presented here supports the argument that there is better evidence that the children at Ariel school witnessed something related to the established puppetry education occuring in Africa at the time, than there is that a spaceship landed and the children encountered aliens or otherworldly beings. What it lacks is verifiable records, perhaps from AREPP, that place them or one of their teams in that location on that date. I’ve reached out to AREPP to see if they can help in this regard and await their response. I have also reached out a witnesses for their opinion about this hypothesis.

However, the evidence above makes a strong case that,

  • there is a physical similarity between the AREPP puppets – including those made by trainee pupeteers in various workshops – and the “alien(s)”
  • there is a similarity between AREPP puppet movements and that of the “alien(s)” as described by the children
  • puppets are used to deliver a message, sometimes powerfully and without words
  • the spectacle of puppetry can render the pupeteer unnoticed or “invisible” to the audience
  • there is a physical similarity between the AREPP vehicle(s) and the “spaceship” (given the observation distance / environmental conditions from the children’s point of view
From the available newspaper reports cited here it is verified that,

  • AREPP sent puppetry teams into rural areas, (Ruwa, Zimbabwe possibly being one of them on the date in question)
  • in April of 1994 there were at least two puppetry teams of 3-4 people working in the field, “mostly in rural areas”.
  • by at least 1994 AREPP had trained up to “40 troupes of puppeteers” (in Kenya) and “600 puppeteers” more broadly in southern Africa.


Also if you had 250 children with no adult supervision wouldn't you expect at least 1/4 of them to see aliens?
Quote from Colin Mackie the headmaster at the time.
“There were no adults who saw it, it was only children at the school, and all the children in the playground, something like 250 of them, and out of that only sort of 60 claim to have seen it”
Zimbabwe School UFO, Youtube [17:50]
 
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Also if you had 250 children with no adult supervision wouldn't you expect at least 1/4 of them to see aliens?

Unless the aliens froze time for some of the kids present, there's no way multiple alien spaceships landed on or hovered over that playground without almost every student seeing them. Photos taken of the area at the time show that it's mostly wide open space with no trees or buildings to block their view.
 
Is there any explanation of why no adults saw anything? If alien spaceships landed near a school anywhere I would have expected some of the kids to run to tell a teacher. Even if the teachers didn't believe in aliens, they would at least (I hope) show some curiosity and concern. In 1994 Zimbabwe had only recently emerged from serious internal conflict. Criminals would have access to guns, and children from wealthy families (white or black) would be potential targets for kidnapping. I'm a little surprised if the school didn't make specific provisions for security, such as guards or other staff on patrol. At a more basic level, what kind of school doesn't have staff supervising young children's playtime? This would be absolutely standard in British schools, and Ariel School was rooted in the British tradition. The more I think about it, the more peculiar the whole scenario seems.
 
The teachers not being present in the yard makes no sense to me.

70's when I went to primary school in Austyralia, teachers were always present in the school yards overlooking the students.
It's primary school, without teachers supervising, kids would get into fights that wouldn't be broken up, accidents that wouldn't get attended to quickly enough, and accidents that could have been avoided if a teacher was watching on and stopping impending accidents

I just don't believe for a second the yards were left unattended.
Maybe someone should lookup school regulations in terms of supervision in Zimbabwee during that time
 
Is there any explanation of why no adults saw anything?
They were all inside the school. Perhaps a better question is why three quarters of the children didn't see anything at all.
 
They were all inside the school. Perhaps a better question is why three quarters of the children didn't see anything at all.
I remember, in one of the youtube videos about that incident they said something about outer part of schoolyard. A lot of nature there. And so on. But I do not have a source for that. And superficial internet research brings no good Info about the exact location.

Does anyone else have a good source?
 
They were all inside the school
Well, that's the claim. But as jackfrostvc (#47) and I (#46) have pointed out, one would expect young children to be supervised. If not by adults, then by older students (prefects, monitors, etc). In English Common Law jurisdictions (which I presume included Zimbabwe at the time) the school would have a duty to exercise reasonable care ('in loco parentis') over the children in its charge, supplemented or modified by any statutory provisions.

I find it more plausible that some of the children may have wandered out unsupervised into the surrounding area. As I recall my own primary school (age 7-11, a long time ago), there was a tarmac playground and a larger adjoining playing field for football etc. It was quite easy to get out of sight of any supervisors. But this was all still within the grounds of the school, and leaving the grounds was prohibited. I guess that nowadays the rules might be generally stricter, due to paranoia about child abductions, etc. But maybe Zimbabwe in the 1990s was more free-and-easy. Child bitten by boomslang? Hey, it's all part of growing up! (or not, as the case may be).
 
that's the claim
It's not a claim, it's a quote from the headteacher at the time recorded two days after the event.

Colin Mackie's remarks from [9:40] here: Source: https://youtu.be/eBqKJHSrYZg?t=581

"we were having a staff meeting at this particular point in time"..."to my knowledge there wasn't any of the adults"(sentence is unfinished becuase of a break in the video)..."we were in here in the middle of a staff meeting".

And here's him saying words to a similar effect [timestamp from 17:50] Source: https://youtu.be/6sK2eGdfNNQ?t=1066
 
Looks like there was indeed a lot of nature there at this time. So possible that just a part saw something.
Someone said that he thought it was the gardener. If they had a gardener, it's a safe conclusion that they had "nature".
 
It's not a claim, it's a quote from the headteacher at the time recorded two days after the event
Can you explain the difference? As I read it, you have identified who made a claim and therefore it is not a claim. My assumption, then, is that I am missing something. ^_^
 
I understand the word claim to mean something that there's doubt about. #52 seems to be doubting the kids were really unsupervised, (unless I'm misunderstanding), I responded with links showing that there isn't any doubt that all the teachers were inside the school at that moment. So unless Colin Mackie is somehow wrong it's not a claim in that sense.
 
It's not a claim, it's a quote from the headteacher at the time recorded two days after the event.

Colin Mackie's remarks from [9:40] here: Source: https://youtu.be/eBqKJHSrYZg?t=581

"we were having a staff meeting at this particular point in time"..."to my knowledge there wasn't any of the adults"(sentence is unfinished becuase of a break in the video)..."we were in here in the middle of a staff meeting".

And here's him saying words to a similar effect [timestamp from 17:50] Source: https://youtu.be/6sK2eGdfNNQ?t=1066
Is this believable? ~200 childrens left unattended, with the added 'suggestion' it happened because of a staff meeting?
 
The puppetry hypothesis on #ufotwitter.
Article:
The evidence presented here supports the argument that there is better evidence that the children at Ariel school witnessed something related to the established puppetry education occuring in Africa at the time, than there is that a spaceship landed and the children encountered aliens or otherworldly beings. What it lacks is verifiable records, perhaps from AREPP, that place them or one of their teams in that location on that date. I’ve reached out to AREPP to see if they can help in this regard and await their response. I have also reached out a witnesses for their opinion about this hypothesis.

However, the evidence above makes a strong case that,

  • there is a physical similarity between the AREPP puppets – including those made by trainee pupeteers in various workshops – and the “alien(s)”
  • there is a similarity between AREPP puppet movements and that of the “alien(s)” as described by the children
  • puppets are used to deliver a message, sometimes powerfully and without words
  • the spectacle of puppetry can render the pupeteer unnoticed or “invisible” to the audience
  • there is a physical similarity between the AREPP vehicle(s) and the “spaceship” (given the observation distance / environmental conditions from the children’s point of view
From the available newspaper reports cited here it is verified that,

  • AREPP sent puppetry teams into rural areas, (Ruwa, Zimbabwe possibly being one of them on the date in question)
  • in April of 1994 there were at least two puppetry teams of 3-4 people working in the field, “mostly in rural areas”.
  • by at least 1994 AREPP had trained up to “40 troupes of puppeteers” (in Kenya) and “600 puppeteers” more broadly in southern Africa.


Also if you had 250 children with no adult supervision wouldn't you expect at least 1/4 of them to see aliens?
Quote from Colin Mackie the headmaster at the time.

Zimbabwe School UFO, Youtube [17:50]
Now I understand what's the style ... alright , I'm happy you know about
 
Wasn't Ariel a primary school?
Wiki notes it as an expensive private school

If it was a primary school , they would be aged between 6 - 11

Can you imagine 6 year olds left unattended outside at a expensive private school ?

My daughter is 6 and in grade 1 . If she was left outside unattended , I think I would be pretty f..ing pissed and be changing schools

That's the problem I have with the story
 
Wasn't Ariel a primary school?
Wiki notes it as an expensive private school

If it was a primary school , they would be aged between 6 - 11

Can you imagine 6 year olds left unattended outside at a expensive private school ?

My daughter is 6 and in grade 1 . If she was left outside unattended , I think I would be pretty f..ing pissed and be changing schools

That's the problem I have with the story
Honestly I think you're focusing your skepticism on the wrong thing here. There are television interviews with more than just the headteacher where this detail (that all the teachers were inside) is stated as a fact. I can't see a good reason to doubt this.

It's a different time, and a different place. Comparing it to contemporary health & safety rules of somewhere else is pointless.

Listen to the way the kids (now adults) speak about their school life in their interviews. They obviously had some kind of mentoring system where the older ones looked after / looked out for the younger ones.

It's not unusual for kids aged under 11 to walk miles to school unattended by adults. So a 15-30 minute recess seems perfectly plausible.
 
Honestly I think you're focusing your skepticism on the wrong thing here. There are television interviews with more than just the headteacher where this detail (that all the teachers were inside) is stated as a fact. I can't see a good reason to doubt this.

It's a different time, and a different place. Comparing it to contemporary health & safety rules of somewhere else is pointless.

Listen to the way the kids (now adults) speak about their school life in their interviews. They obviously had some kind of mentoring system where the older ones looked after / looked out for the younger ones.

It's not unusual for kids aged under 11 to walk miles to school unattended by adults. So a 15-30 minute recess seems perfectly plausible.

You might start walking home at 10-11, but what's that got to do with 6 year olds being left unattended by an adult in a yard
As I said before, even in the 70's teachers were in the yard supervising at primary. That was in Australia and not Zimbabwe, sure different place, but kids are kids. It's not like we haven't learnt over 1000's of years what to do and not to do with supervision of kids

Ariel was an expensive Zimbabwe private school , (probably for rich kids) in the 90's. And they left 6 year olds unattended outside ?
As a father of 6 year old, I find that hard to believe
Maybe you need to know what 6 year olds are like to appreciate what I mean.


And yes, I know that they said they were inside. That is what I responded to
 
They obviously had some kind of mentoring system where the older ones looked after / looked out for the younger ones.
and at least one volunteer mom in the snack kiosk. Several of our private schools use volunteer parents too.
 
I think I would be pretty f..ing pissed and be changing schools
how pissed would you be if the school responded to a similar "incident" the way that school did? bringing in ufo people to film and letting them make a big deal of it? i'd be livid.
 
Is this believable? ~200 childrens left unattended, with the added 'suggestion' it happened because of a staff meeting?
I'm older, and "200 children left unattended" was a daily occurrence in my elementary school days, in rural Ohio. The bell rang, and off we went. I think it's problematic for people from one place and time to judge those from another by their own standards.
 
.... There are television interviews with more than just the headteacher where this detail (that all the teachers were inside) is stated as a fact. I can't see a good reason to doubt this.
That no teachers were outside may well be, that no adults (ie. a janitor) were outside keeping an eye around is unbelievable.


It's a different time, and a different place. Comparing it to contemporary health & safety rules of somewhere else is pointless.
You could say this if you know which were the regulations in Zimbabwe at the time (for that kind of high-level school). I personally have no idea, so I use (as others have done) the regulations I'm aware of (and a little common sense). I can assure you that even in the early 60s leaving schoolchildren unattended would have meant jail time for the teachers in Italy in case anybody got hurt (my mother was a primary school teacher: she had a lot of troubles because one attended child had an accident while playing, had the children been unattended she would have been jailed).

Listen to the way the kids (now adults) speak about their school life in their interviews. They obviously had some kind of mentoring system where the older ones looked after / looked out for the younger ones.
The legal responsibility lies on the teachers, surely not on underage mentors (I bet it was this way in Zimbabwe too). So even if they had a mentoring system they would have had some adult overlooking both mentors and childrens, unless they liked to risk jail time as above.

It's not unusual for kids aged under 11 to walk miles to school unattended by adults. So a 15-30 minute recess seems perfectly plausible.
Same as above: if a child has an accident while walking unattended to school it's his parents who are held responsible of leaving him unattended. If an accident happens on the school premises, instead, the school will be held responsible and will have to foot the bill, while penal consequences will fall upon the chain of command of the school. To reiterate, that's why children are never left unattended at school: noone wants to risk to have to pay reimbursements and/or attend jail time betting on the behaviour of a couple hundreds kids.


Lastly if, for some rare chance, the children were actually left alone and free ro roam wherever, what do you think is the likelier explanation of what happened:
  1. That exact moment alien visitors landed there, leaving a little later, before any adult came out to check what the commotion was, or..
  2. Some of the children enjoyed some really cool playtime, with flying saucers and little spacemen instead of more common dragons and knights?
 
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I'm older, and "200 children left unattended" was a daily occurrence in my elementary school days, in rural Ohio. The bell rang, and off we went. I think it's problematic for people from one place and time to judge those from another by their own standards.
Well of course I've never been in rural Ohio, but think of this: if any of you children happened to fall, knock his head on a step and die, who would have been jailed? Are you sure really noone was looking after you? Did it ever happen an adult came out of nowhere to stop you when you were overstepping (this happened frequently to me in my infancy)?

Then they might have been left alone after all, that's not impossible, of course. The last paragraph of my previous post refers to this possibility.
 
This quote from one of the first interviews has always interested me.
Anna interviewed by Jill Darke from ZBC.

...when I was looking at it, I saw it’s like a silver light, like that kind of spaceship you showed me, just coming up, just for an instant and then it just disappeared just like that...



What kind of spaceship was she shown? Was it one of the other kids drawings or something the journalists provided?
 
This quote from one of the first interviews has always interested me.
Anna interviewed by Jill Darke from ZBC.

What kind of spaceship was she shown? Was it one of the other kids drawings or something the journalists provided?

It does not matter, it seems there was some "leading the witness" going on.
How can be we be sure the kids were not first discussing what happened with someone else, before being interviewed? Or was there leading going on during the interviews? If we can't, a whole lot becomes a little shaky.
 
How can be we be sure the kids were not first discussing what happened with someone else, before being interviewed?
They also had the whole weekend (the sighting was on Friday) and perhaps some time the day of this interview which I think might have been Monday.
 
There should be a Metabunk data- and references pool to every big topic. There are a lot more informations here on metabunk than on Wikipedia for example.
 
There should be a Metabunk data- and references pool to every big topic. There are a lot more informations here on metabunk than on Wikipedia for example.
I agree. As I suggested here I think Metabunk topics need some kind of sidebar/pop-up that contains the uncontested data: names, dates, places etc. So much gets lost in lengthy threads and trawling through olds posts isn't easy.
 
Well of course I've never been in rural Ohio, but think of this: if any of you children happened to fall, knock his head on a step and die, who would have been jailed? Are you sure really noone was looking after you? Did it ever happen an adult came out of nowhere to stop you when you were overstepping (this happened frequently to me in my infancy)?

Then they might have been left alone after all, that's not impossible, of course. The last paragraph of my previous post refers to this possibility.
You're doing it Mauro, you're judging the past by the standards of today ....which is exactly what my post was warning about. My childhood was in the 1950s, a far less litigious age than the present.

I remember being in what was still Yugoslavia at that time (just pre-war, so maybe 1990 or 91), and marveling that the water was deep without warning signs, the tramway through the cave didn't have signs telling us in six languages not to stick our heads and arms out or they'd get knocked off against the cave walls, etc. They didn't have signs telling every single danger, because there was an understanding that people should use common sense.

Meanwhile, there's a waterfall near me in Ohio that has multilingual signs telling me it's dangerous, where anyone of an age to read can take one look and SEE that it's a high enough fall to kill you. The signs aren't really there to warn people. They're just there to fulfill a duty so they don't get sued. People still get killed there every year or two,

I'm not saying what it was like decades ago in Zimbabwe. I'm saying that it's not a thing that we of a different age and different culture can reliably judge.
 
What kind of spaceship was she shown? Was it one of the other kids drawings or something the journalists provided?
maybe..let me see if i can find the article..most picked one from idaho? or mexico. they were showing them ufo photos.

Article:
I gave her a UFO calendar, not without using the 13 photos for a further test: “Lisel, show me the photo that ressembles your UFO most...” Lisel turned the pages carefully and slowly, looked at the photos intensely before she decided. “This one!”, she said and showed me a photo taken near Kanarraville in Utah in 1994.

...
Both wavered between the Utah photo that Lisel had chosen and another object, and fi nally agreed on a photo from Montemorelos/Mexico, taken in summer of 1994,
 
you're judging the past by the standards of today
it was 1994 so not like 1930 or 1950.

@Mauro i think its a bit ambiguous from what ive seen if there were volunteer adults around. i need to Google Earth to confirm where i think the kiosk was...not really adult supervision as she was doing snacks and drinks but a non-teacher adult in the vicinity at least.

personally i would want a sharp shooter on the roof, did you ever see the lion grass and no fence.... :/

58038055-10833597-image-a-127_1652990496366.jpg
 
I agree. As I suggested here I think Metabunk topics need some kind of sidebar/pop-up that contains the uncontested data: names, dates, places etc. So much gets lost in lengthy threads and trawling through olds posts isn't easy.
it's alot of work depending on the topic. if you want to collate data with source links etc on any topic you can start a thread..put everything in OP (opening post) and if others add good info that you think should be added to the first post (for easy finding) just write a moderator and they will move it.

we have a few threads with that sort of thing like one is good source links for 911.
1658891323948.png

i "think" Mick has one that is like useful 911 pictures? or useful chemtrail pictures..cant remember.


i sort of did that with official sandy hook reports. not alot of work as there werent that many, but made the info links easier to find.

Anyway they are useful and would be great if anyone wants to do such on a topic.
 
I agree. As I suggested here I think Metabunk topics need some kind of sidebar/pop-up that contains the uncontested data: names, dates, places etc. So much gets lost in lengthy threads and trawling through olds posts isn't easy.
I've suggested a companion wiki to store the info, and collaborate in editing and organizing it.
 
@TopBunk
BTW, there is controversy about the teachers , as the director of the Ariel Phenomenon said two teachers saw it. One is supposedly in the film.
It's cued up below


Source: https://youtu.be/UPOafeaLkDw?t=3295

I haven't seen that interview with the teacher witness. Can you transcribe it?

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

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

There are literally hundreds of potential sources of the "environmental message" theme, from the 1960s, onwards in popular culture that these kids could have absorbed via the radio or TV or their presumably well-to-do parents.

A small sample:
  • Pollution - Tom Lehrer (1965)
  • Where Do The Children Play? - Cat Stevens (1970)
  • Pollution - Bo Diddley (1971)
  • Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Michell (1971)
  • Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye (1971)
  • Don't Go Near The Water - Johnny Cash (1974)
  • The Landscape is Changing - Depeche Mode (1983)
  • Is this the world we created? - Queen (1984)
  • Earth Songs (whole album) - John Denver (1990)


source:
Source: https://youtu.be/WOlFendmvXc
 
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