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Two decades ago something strange occurred in a remote elementary school in Ruwa, Zimbabwe.  Sixty two curious and frightened schoolchildren witnessed a silver object descend from the sky, onto the furthest part of the schoolyard. To their terror, a small humanoid creature appeared on top of the craft then quickly made its way around the weed-entangled area of the lot. Some of the kids ran in horror while others stood transfixed at the strangely events unfolding before their eyes.

That’s when Cynthia Hind, a South African MUFON field investigator got the call. She quickly pieced the incredible story to some strange events that began just a few days prior. Hind had written an article titled ‘UFO flap in Zimbabwe: Case No 95.’ In it, she begins with the date of Wednesday, September 14th, 1994. It reads:

“Wednesday, 14th September, 1994, was an exciting night for Southern Africa. Round about 20:50 to 21:05 hours, a pyrotechnic display of some magnificence appeared in the almost clear night skies of this part of the continent.”

Case No. 95 goes on to talk about the multitude of witnesses that reported seeing strange and wonderfully eerie fireballs burning across the night sky. These witnesses included scientists, astronomers, amateur astronomers, and the dozens of scattered residents that happened to be looking up into the night sky.  The accounts varied of what flew across the sky that night. From a zeppelin on fire to a low-flying jumbo jet with visible cabin lights and sparks blazing out its tail. Many witnesses submitted drawings of what they saw in the sky that night and remarkably, almost all of the the drawings resembled the same shaped craft in distress. It would be another 48 hours before Case No. 96 would begin with an incredible experience of the third kind.

September 16, 1994. The Children of Ariel School – Case No. #96. Ruwa, Zimbabwe:

“On Friday 16th September, at approximately 10:15, 62 children from Ariel School, a private primary school in Ruwa (about 20 km from Harare) were in their playing field for the mid-morning break. Suddenly, they saw three silver balls in the sky over the school. These disappeared with a flash of light and then reappeared elsewhere. This happened three times and then they started to move down towards the school with one of them landing (or hovering) over a section of rough ground made up of trees, thorn bushes, and some brown-grey cut grass with bamboo shoots sticking up out of the ground. The children are not allowed in this area although it is adjacent to their playing field and is not fenced off, because of snakes, spiders and perhaps other harmful creatures. One can soon disappear from view while walking here, and there is only one very rough track used by tractors in an attempt to clear this area.

There is a line of electricity pylons and according to one boy, the object followed along this line prior to landing. There is also some controversy as to whether the object _landed_ on the ground or hovered above it. On Tuesday, 20th September, I went out to the school with a BBC reporter and their television equipment, as well as my son and Gunter Hofer, a young man who builds his own electrical equipment, viz, a Geiger counter, a metal detector and a magnetometer, to try and see if the object left any traces behind.

The headmaster of the school is Mr. Colin Mackie, who was most co-operative, and although he had never been involved with UFOs or a believer in them, said that he believed the children had seen what they said they saw.

I was able to interview about 10 or 12 older children and this was recorded for BBC television.

One eyewitness, Barry D., said he had seen three objects flying over, with flashing red lights. They disappeared, and reappeared almost immediately, but somewhere else. This happened about three times. Then they came and landed near some gum trees; Barry said the main one (object) was about the size of his thumb nail held at arm’s length. The reports were similar although some children were more observant than others. The consensus of opinion was that an object came down in the area where they indicated, about 100 metres from where they were at the edge of the school playing field. Then a small man (approx 1 metre in height) appeared on top of the object. He walked a little way across the rough ground, became aware of the children and disappeared. He, or someone very like him, then reappeared at the back of the object. The object took off very rapidly and disappeared. The little man was dressed in a tight-fitting black suit which was ‘shiny’ according to one observant girl (11 years of age). He had a long scrawny neck and huge eyes like rugby balls. He had a pale face with long black hair coming below his shoulders.

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 and he now has about 30-40 drawings, some of which are very explicit and clear, although some are rather vague. The children’s’ ages vary from 5/6 to 12 years. I have 22 photocopies of the clearer drawings as Mr. Mackie kindly allowed me to page through the pictures and choose those I wanted. Most of the descriptions are similar but some of the craft are very obviously ‘flying saucers’, and I wonder how many of these children have had access to the media. Others are crude but more or less in this saucer shape.

The children vary in cultures: there are black, white, coloured and Asian children. One little girl said to me, ‘I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.’ I could see the pleasure on her face when I told her that I believed her. The smaller children from 5-7 years were very frightened at the time and ran shouting ‘Help me, help me.’ When the older children asked why they were saying this, the reply was, ‘He is coming to eat us.’ I should think this applied more to the black African children who have legends of _tokoloshies_ eating children.

Their teachers were in a meeting and did not come out. When I queried the headmaster about this he said the children always shouted and yelled during their playtime and no-one thought there was anything unusual going on. The only other adult available at the time was one of the mothers who was running the tuckshop. When the children came to call her, she did not believe them and would not come out: she was not prepared to leave the tuckshop with all the food and money. Gunter and the men thoroughly examined the ground around where the children had seen the object, but could get no reaction on the geiger counter or any other equipment. If the object was hovering perhaps nothing would show.”

Source: Ufoevidence.org

Coincidently the famous Dr. John Mack was in Zimbabwe during these events and decided to investigate the incident at the Ariel private school. What follows are the recorded interviews of some of the children of Ariel school.

Twenty years after the harrowing account of the humanoid sighting, some of those original witnesses were interviewed on camera for the second time. Their feelings, although matured, still express the same unwieldiness since their original interview. Fast forward to the 11:34 mark for the recent interviews of the Ariel schoolchildren.

For years, the strange events that unfolded in the mid-morning break on that small schoolyard have remained unexplained like many other UFO incidents. Even the most ardent of skeptics can only theorize that this must be some sort of mass hysteria but the problem with that theory is that mass hysteria does not include mass hallucination. Mass hallucination, as far as science goes, has never been proven as a natural phenomena . So most of the skeptical readers simply brush this story off as if it was just another schoolyard prank. As the years pass and the children grow up and develop lives and families of their own, one thing remains constant about the case. Their emotions and accounts for what transpired that September morning in Ruwa, Zimbabwe in 1994.

________________________

On Friday 16th September, at approximately 10:15, 62 children from Ariel School, a private primary school in Ruwa (about 20 km from Harare), were in their playing field for the mid-morning break. Suddenly, they saw three silver balls in the sky over the school. These disappeared with a flash of light and then reappeared elsewhere. This happened three times and then they started to move down towards the school with one of them landing (or hovering) over a section of rough ground made up of trees, thorn bushes, and some brown-grey cut grass with bamboo shoots sticking up out of the ground.

The children are not allowed in this area although it is adjacent to their playing field and is not fenced off, because of snakes, spiders and perhaps other harmful creatures. One can soon disappear from view while walking here, and there is only one very rough track used by tractors in an attempt to clear this area.

There is a line of electricity pylons and according to one boy, the object followed along this line prior to landing. There is also some controversy as to whether the object landed on the ground or hovered above it.

On Tuesday, 20th September, I went out to the school with a BBC reporter and their television equipment, as well as my son and Gunter Hofer, a young man who builds his own electrical equipment, a Geiger counter, a metal detector, and a magnetometer, to try and see if the object left any traces behind.

The headmaster of the school is Mr. Colin Mackie, who was most cooperative, and although he had never been involved with UFOs or a believer in them, said that he believed the children had seen what they said they saw.I was able to interview about 10 or 12 older children and this was recorded for BBC television.

One eyewitness, Barry D., said he had seen three objects flying over, with flashing red lights. They disappeared, and reappeared almost immediately, but somewhere else. This happened about three times.

Then they came and landed near some gum trees; Barry said the main one (object) was about the size of his thumb nail held at arm’s length.

The reports were similar, although some children were more observant than others.

The consensus of opinion was that an object came down in the area where they indicated, about 100 meters from where they were at the edge of the school playing field.

Then a small man (approx 1 meter in height) appeared on top of the object. He walked a little way across the rough ground, became aware of the children and disappeared.

He, or someone very like him, then reappeared at the back of the object.

The object took off very rapidly and disappeared. The little man was dressed in a tight-fitting black suit which was ‘shiny’ according to one observant girl (11 years of age). He had a long scrawny neck and huge eyes like rugby balls. He had a pale face with long black hair coming below his shoulders.

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 and he now has about 30-40 drawings, some of which are very explicit and clear, although some are rather vague.

The childrens’ ages vary from 5/6 to 12 years. I have 22 photocopies of the clearer drawings as Mr. Mackie kindly allowed me to page through the pictures and choose those I wanted.

Most of the descriptions are similar but some of the craft are very obviously ‘flying saucers’, and I wonder how many of these children have had access to the media. Others are crude but more or less in this saucer shape.

The children vary in cultures: there are black, white, coloured and Asian children. One little girl said to me, ‘I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.’

I could see the pleasure on her face when I told her that I believed her. The smaller children from 5-7 years were very frightened at the time and ran shouting ‘Help me, help me.’

When the older children asked why they were saying this, the reply was, ‘He is coming to eat us.’ I should think this applied more to the black African children who have legends of tokoloshes eating children.

Their teachers were in a meeting and did not come out. When I queried the headmaster about this he said the children always shouted and yelled during their playtime and no one thought there was anything unusual going on. The only other adult available at the time was one of the mothers who was running the tuck-shop.

When the children came to call her, she did not believe them and would not come out: she was not prepared to leave the tuckshop with all the food and money.

Gunter and the men thoroughly examined the ground around where the children had seen the object, but could get no reaction on the geiger counter or any other equipment. If the object was hovering perhaps nothing would show.

I walked, on my own, along the electricity pylons for quite a away, caught up in thorn bushes, trampling blithely over snake holes and discarding all caution. I found no place where some object could have landed and pressed down the foliage. In fact, I should think the bamboo stumps would have been a deterrent. The day was hot, around 33 C (91 F)…

Dr John Mack was visiting Zimbabwe at the time of the event, and he spent two days at Ariel School with the children. He also spoke to the Headmaster, Colin Mackie, the teachers and some of the parents. John and his fellow researcher, Dominique Callimanopulos, were able to get through to the parents and teachers and convince them that even if they did not believe the children, it was counter-productive to accuse them of lying.

Listen and think about what they were saying, he advised.

His particular interest in child psychiatry was also of great use during the questioning and many former hidden memories came to light, something John is sure to make public when he has had a chance to reassess his interviewing.

___________________________

The 1994 Ruwa Zimbabwe Alien Encounter

It's one of those stories that defies all rational explanation. 62 children at a school in rural Africa all witnessed a craft come down out of the sky and land just outside their schoolyard, and a strange being stepped out and communicated a telepathic message to all of them that they need to take better care of planet Earth. The event was broadly documented, not only by responsible news organizations such as the BBC, but also by a respected academic who interviewed the children and reported that they all told exactly the same story. Surely 62 children wouldn't all tell the same lie, and surely rural Africans would have no pop culture references from which to fabricate a flying saucer story. While today's skeptical academics dismiss the episode as a case of mass hysteria, the UFO community embraces the Ruwa, Zimbabwe encounter of 1994 as an unassailable body of evidence that we were visited by extraterrestrial beings.

It was the midmorning break on September 16, 1994. 250 schoolchildren were all outside playing at the Ariel School, a private elementary school in the Harare province of Zimbabwe. Ruwa itself isn't even a town, just a local place name, little more than a crossroads in an agricultural region. The adult faculty were all inside having a staff meeting and none of them witnessed what happened. 62 of the children saw it (aged 6 to 12); nearly 200 did not. The details are not actually as consistent as usually reported, but the basics generally are. Somewhere between one and several silver balls or objects or spacecraft either appeared in the sky, darted about, or came floating in low, to a field of brush and small trees just outside the school property. One or more either landed or hovered above the field, and anywhere between one and four men, either normal-looking black men or conventional small gray aliens wearing black clothes, stood either atop the craft or beside it, faced the children, and communicated telepathically the need to take good care of planet Earth. The craft either faded away, flew away quickly, or disappeared, either leaving one or more men behind or taking them away. When classes resumed, some of the children told their teachers. Some told their parents. The story got out. Universally, it was reported that 62 children, with no reason to lie and no prior exposure to the concept of space aliens, would never all make up (and stick to) exactly the same story.

A couple months later the event got its most famous stamp of authenticity when John Mack, a prominent and respected professor of psychiatry at Harvard University, came in person and interviewed the children. Many of these interviews were videotaped.

Mack: What was the feeling when you looked at the eyes?
Girl #1: It was scary.
Mack: Scary why? What made it scary?
Girl #1: The eyes looked evil.
Mack: Evil? What was evil about them? Say what you mean by evil.
Girl #1: It looked evil because it was just staring at me.
Mack: Staring at you as if what? As if to do what?
Girl #1: As if it wanted to come and take us.

And another little girl:

Mack: How did those thoughts come to you? Did they come to you from the craft, or from...?
Girl #2: From the man.
Mack: And did the man say those things to you? How did he get that across to you?
Girl #2: He never said anything. It was just the eyes.
Mack: What was the sense you got from those eyes?
Girl #2: He was interested.

Mack reported to the world that the event was genuine, that the children were telling the truth, and that extraterrestrials had indeed visited Zimbabwe on that day. And his is the verdict that has been endorsed by the popular media ever since, including at least two features on the TV program Sightings.

Inside academia, however, it is the mass hysteria explanation that has found the most traction, as happened in a number of other mysterious cases we've talked about here on Skeptoid. A literature survey published in the Malawi Medical Journal found that such cases are surprisingly common in African schools, citing many such cases and concluding "The psychosocial environment plays a crucial role in the occurrence of mass hysteria in developing countries." Whether mass hysteria was involved here or not, the psychosocial environment absolutely did come into play. To see how, let's go back and look at some of the less commonly reported details in this event's history.

With most UFO stories, we can trace a case back to a single person who became its primary advocate and "creator of the legend". In this case, there were two. One was John Mack, and the other was UFO writer Cynthia Hind, editor of the periodical UFO Afrinews, and also the African representative for MUFON — the Mutual UFO Network. One day, ZBC Radio reported that there had been a rash of UFO reports from all over southeastern Africa, consistent with a large meteoric fireball passing over the continent at about 9:00pm on September 14 — two nights before the Ariel School event. Few Africans knew it, but that fireball had been the re-entry of the Zenit-2 rocket from the Cosmos 2290 satellite launch. The booster broke up into burning streaks as it moved silently across the sky, giving an impressive light show to millions of Africans. Many people answered ZBC Radio's request by calling in with all sorts of disparate UFO reports prompted by the re-entry, ranging from one shooting star to a fleet of sixteen brightly lit spaceships. Zimbabwe was gripped with its own little wave of UFO mania. The radio announcer said that the BBC was looking for anyone with information or photographs. Tim Leach, the BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe, picked up the phone and called his friend Cynthia Hind, knowing that UFOs were her jam. Two things transpired from their conversation: first, Hind learned of the Ariel School event, as someone had phoned it in to ZBC Radio; and second, Hind recommended that Leach call John Mack.

As she was local, Hind went to the Ariel School within days and had the children draw pictures of what they saw. She took 22 photocopies of what she said were the "clearest" of them, and most that have been reproduced online show a very conventional flying saucer sitting on the ground on the usual footpads, with the usual row of windows around the equator, and the usual bulge on the top (most of the rest of the drawings are wildly divergent). When Sightings did one of their two shows on this, their token skeptic pointed out:

I think kids knew about flying saucers. The way they drew the flying saucer and the so-called people who came out of it, those are pictures you'll find in TV programs and movies.

But Cynthia Hind quickly countered:

Well, a lot of these children don't go to the movies. They live in the country. Parents are farmers.

Her argument was that students at a rural African school would not have had exposure to modern media and thus would not be familiar with the concepts of UFOs and alien visitors; so when they report them and draw detailed sketches, the source must be an actual, real-life encounter. Let's have a look at the Ariel School.

Ruwa is a suburb of Harare, a modern metropolis of 1.6 million people (1.2 million in 1994), and Zimbabwe's capital. Since its founding as a British colony with distinctly European architecture, to its modern display of glass skyscrapers and office buildings, Harare has always been the nation's economic center. A 15-minute drive down the R5 highway and you soon get into agricultural regions, and right about at this transition is where you'll find the Ariel School. Their neatly uniformed students have active programs in many sports, clubs, and other extracurricular activities. They have a competition swimming pool, tennis courts, and a golf course. The demographics have changed; in 1994 the school was mostly white Zimbabweans of British and South African origin, today it's mostly black Zimbabweans. English is the language spoken in schools, so all the students — then as well as now — are perfectly fluent. Ariel was the most expensive private school around, and the students were generally from wealthy families in Harare who wanted to send their children someplace nicer than the crowded urban schools. Ariel's students had just as much exposure to the world's movies and television as people in every other modern city around the world — certainly including the wave of UFO mania that had been saturating Zimbabwe's news media ever since the fireball two nights before.

It wasn't just Cynthia Hind. In all the pro-UFO reporting of this event, you'll read that these rural African children were unfamiliar with popular media, and you certainly will not read that all they'd heard the day before, on every radio and TV station, was that spaceships were saturating their skies — all stemming from that Zenit-2 rocket re-entry. The UFO community misrepresents the children's background in an effort to persuade you that their stories deserve more credibility than they do.

Those children's stories came to us mainly through John Mack's interviews. Mack was going through a rough spell professionally. Earlier that year, he'd published a book called Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens. As a tenured professor, he'd virtually abandoned his academic work and had devoted himself nearly full time to attempting to prove his deep conviction that aliens actively visit the Earth. Harvard had opened an official investigation into him for misconduct; specifically, for telling people who believed they'd been abducted by aliens that their experience had been absolutely real. One colleague wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Mack was "a brilliant fellow who occasionally loses it, and this time he's lost it big time". Keep that in mind: Harvard's issue with Mack is that his thing was convincing people they'd had an alien encounter.

So it was with a heavy baggage of bias and preconceived conclusions that Mack arrived in Harare to speak with these children. When multiple witnesses are involved in something, they should be interviewed as soon as possible and separately, to avoid any cross contamination between their stories. Mack did the opposite: giving the students two months to converse among themselves. A crucial insight into Mack's interview technique is revealed when comparing his results to those obtained by Cynthia Hind two months earlier: the whole theme of a telepathic message to protect planet Earth was not found in the stories collected by Hind at all. This major part of the story did not exist at all until Mack's interviews. Why? Because he prompted and suggested it, according to his existing beliefs; in addition to being an alien visitation advocate, Mack was an anti-nuclear and environmental activist. (Hind ultimately did report this angle extensively, but only after Mack's interviews.)

Hind's own interviews were even worse. She interviewed the children in groups of two to six, while other children were allowed to watch and listen to each group. Every single child's story was necessarily cross contaminated with the others. There is little wonder that she always reported that all the students told exactly the same story.

Maybe an alien spaceship did land there that day and communicate telepathically to this handful of children. Or, maybe a couple of strangers strolled through the nearby field, and maybe a stray party balloon floated past. We'll never really have any good idea of what did or didn't happen on that day, if anything happened at all — keeping in mind that "nothing at all" is what three quarters of the students reported. The actual events are buried under a nationwide UFO frenzy triggered by the rocket re-entry, under the hopelessly incompetent story sharing sessions of Cynthia Hind, and under the skilled promptings of Harvard University's resident expert in persuading people that they had an actual alien encounter. As far as serving as evidence of alien visitation, the 1994 Ruwa, Zimbabwe encounter falls just a little bit short.