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

[Giddierone]

Since I've fought all my life with sleep terrors and other disturbances, I have deep empathy to people who experience frightening mental imagery. It may not be real, but it can be really distressing.
I just mean that there are different kinds of "experiencers", not all just want to believe in UFOs and be in the club.
I don't think Mack was totally off with that one.
He was, however, wrong to assume any of that was real in a physical way and also wrong to consider hypnotic regression a reliable method for treating memories and trauma.

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

 

[Todd Feinman]

Since I've fought all my life with sleep terrors and other disturbances, I have deep empathy to people who experience frightening mental imagery. It may not be real, but it can be really distressing.

I'm sorry to hear that; it sounds miserable.
As I've gotten older I've inherited what my mother calls "panic attacks". No fear or imagery, just waking up with profound feelings of loss and hopelessness. I think regular life and worries can generate long-term PSD for some people. It's not fun either.

 

[Ann K]

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

About 35 years ago I suffered a concussion when I was halfway up a cliff and some idiot kid threw a large rock off the top. Since then I get lots of auditory effects, including what I think they refer to as exploding head syndrome. Another thing that really bothered me is when the TV commentators had volume equalizers at large sporting events, so that the crowd noise was hushed somewhat when the announcer said something, but then when he stopped the full crowd roar came back, and it felt like a physical blow in my ear.

I wonder if things like a head injury, perhaps even a relatively mild one, might be responsible for people reporting the syndrome. But so far I've had no "alien" experiences!

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I recently listened to a really good podcast (it was recent, say within the past couple of week, but which I cannot seem to now find) about Exploding Head Syndrome and it's similarity with various "anomalous/alien experiences".

Yeah that happened to me as well, during more stressing period.
Most of the time is just insomnia treated with meds and bad dreams.
I've had paralysis but with no aliens!
Maybe Mack was in good faith, maybe he thought about helping these people in a very unscientific way, and potentially dangerous too.
But I wouldn't say there's evidence he convinced them to have been abducted if they reported sexual abuse trauma.

 

[Fin]

To be totally honest, if I had an experience like that, such as a hallucination or a memory of an abduction, I wouldn't tell anyone except a psychologist.
I'd just hope not to encounter someone who would convince me I was actually abducted by space aliens.
Those "experiencers" online, who can be as dogmatic as Raëlians, usually share their stories anonymously anyway.
I simply wouldn't expect most rational people who undergo such weird psychological events to actually want to belong to that kind of club.

I had not one but 3 "close encounters" with the classic "black triangle" ufos between 2007 and 2008. I don't want to go off-topic with the details of those here in this thread. I'm just trying to offer a bit of insight/speculation regarding your final two sentences.

I think many people who have these sorts of ufo (and abduction) experiences really do not want to belong to the ufo club, for obvious reasons. So why do they talk about it publicly? I think in some cases there is an instinctive urge to tell our stories publicly despite the firm knowledge that it will attract ridicule and other unwanted reactions. I've compared it to when a rabbit notices a potential threat it thumps its hind feet on the ground to warn other nearby rabbits to pay attention. If the rabbit is wrong, (and if rabbits ridiculed each other) it might get ridiculed, but it was worth that risk, because if the rabbit is right it may save fellow rabbits from the sharp claws of an approaching bird of prey. After my sightings I was well aware that I didn't want to join the "ridicule me, I've seen aliens" club. Regardless, I initially reported my final sighting to a local newspaper but did so anonymously. Years later I plucked up the courage to tell my story more publicly & with my name attached to it - first on a small tv show & later in a YouTube interview.

In recent years I've pretty much left the ufo scene altogether and I'm happy I did so. But I've done plenty of thinking about why I felt the urge to eventually go public. I think, in my case and for some other ufo witnesses I've worked with, it boils down to the rabbit behaviour. I think, as tribal creatures we humans naturally want to warn others when we see something unknown and/or something which may represent a potential threat. The fact that UFOs are generally, widely thought to not actually be real, meant that after my experiences I felt a deep instinctive desire to "wake people up" to the fact that some witness accounts are unambiguous in nature and do indeed represent real structured "craft" of unknown origin. This also motivated me, eventually, to learn how to animate other people's ufo sightings for them, so I could help tell their stories as accurately as possible. I made 19 such animations which remain on my YouTube channel, during which time I met and worked closely with several ufo witnesses whose desire to share their stories echoed my own. Interestingly, I now feel like I've got this desire to tell these stories "out of my system" so to speak. It's a relief. After much introspection I really do feel that the almost obsessive desire to learn more about UFOs and keep telling not only my own story but also those of other witnesses I found compelling, came from a truly instinctive need to "warn the tribe", just like the aforementioned rabbit. All of this despite the firm knowledge that it could make me somewhat of an outcast from said tribe, due to the nature of the claims I have made. Claims which I have consistently felt uncomfortable sharing.

So yes, I certainly didn't want to belong to the UFO club and these days (unlike in previous years where I'd tell just about anyone and everyone) I rarely even mention my ufo-addled past when I meet new people. But I think my initial reaction to my sightings was a very rational one. If I'd only told a psychologist I don't think I'd have got the feeling of "I need to tell the rest of the tribe about this" out of my system. I don't think I would have been able to move on from it all in the way that I now finally have managed to.

Obviously, some people just do it for attention. Some people want to make money & are just lying, etc. Many people are just misidentifying prosaic things. In fact most of them are - I've done plenty of debunking as some of you may know. But I do think that some people who feel their UFO & abduction experiences were completely unambiguous (whether or not they were just mistaken, hallucinating, etc), are telling their story out of a completely rational instinct; an (albeit probably futile) desire to help the tribe better understand the world around it, for the sake of the survival of the tribe. I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I had not one but 3 "close encounters" with the classic "black triangle" ufos between 2007 and 2008. I don't want to go off-topic with the details of those here in this thread. I'm just trying to offer a bit of insight/speculation regarding your final two sentences.

I think many people who have these sorts of ufo (and abduction) experiences really do not want to belong to the ufo club, for obvious reasons. So why do they talk about it publicly? I think in some cases there is an instinctive urge to tell our stories publicly despite the firm knowledge that it will attract ridicule and other unwanted reactions. I've compared it to when a rabbit notices a potential threat it thumps its hind feet on the ground to warn other nearby rabbits to pay attention. If the rabbit is wrong, (and if rabbits ridiculed each other) it might get ridiculed, but it was worth that risk, because if the rabbit is right it may save fellow rabbits from the sharp claws of an approaching bird of prey. After my sightings I was well aware that I didn't want to join the "ridicule me, I've seen aliens" club. Regardless, I initially reported my final sighting to a local newspaper but did so anonymously. Years later I plucked up the courage to tell my story more publicly & with my name attached to it - first on a small tv show & later in a YouTube interview.

In recent years I've pretty much left the ufo scene altogether and I'm happy I did so. But I've done plenty of thinking about why I felt the urge to eventually go public. I think, in my case and for some other ufo witnesses I've worked with, it boils down to the rabbit behaviour. I think, as tribal creatures we humans naturally want to warn others when we see something unknown and/or something which may represent a potential threat. The fact that UFOs are generally, widely thought to not actually be real, meant that after my experiences I felt a deep instinctive desire to "wake people up" to the fact that some witness accounts are unambiguous in nature and do indeed represent real structured "craft" of unknown origin. This also motivated me, eventually, to learn how to animate other people's ufo sightings for them, so I could help tell their stories as accurately as possible. I made 19 such animations which remain on my YouTube channel, during which time I met and worked closely with several ufo witnesses whose desire to share their stories echoed my own. Interestingly, I now feel like I've got this desire to tell these stories "out of my system" so to speak. It's a relief. After much introspection I really do feel that the almost obsessive desire to learn more about UFOs and keep telling not only my own story but also those of other witnesses I found compelling, came from a truly instinctive need to "warn the tribe", just like the aforementioned rabbit. All of this despite the firm knowledge that it could make me somewhat of an outcast from said tribe, due to the nature of the claims I have made. Claims which I have consistently felt uncomfortable sharing.

So yes, I certainly didn't want to belong to the UFO club and these days (unlike in previous years where I'd tell just about anyone and everyone) I rarely even mention my ufo-addled past when I meet new people. But I think my initial reaction to my sightings was a very rational one. If I'd only told a psychologist I don't think I'd have got the feeling of "I need to tell the rest of the tribe about this" out of my system. I don't think I would have been able to move on from it all in the way that I now finally have managed to.

Obviously, some people just do it for attention. Some people want to make money & are just lying, etc. Many people are just misidentifying prosaic things. In fact most of them are - I've done plenty of debunking as some of you may know. But I do think that some people who feel their UFO & abduction experiences were completely unambiguous (whether or not they were just mistaken, hallucinating, etc), are telling their story out of a completely rational instinct; an (albeit probably futile) desire to help the tribe better understand the world around it, for the sake of the survival of the tribe. I believe this is encoded into our behaviour due to evolution and makes complete logical sense once we accept that some of these people, like myself, completely believe that what they saw was indeed "real", but is largely being ignored/missed by the rest of the tribe.

I've seen UFOs for real a couple of times too. Totally agree.