A most disturbing event in Zimbabwe 1994
This section is for those who say there are never any UFO stories that take place in South Africa where we live.
This next event is well known to UfO enthusiasts but certainly not widely known outside of enthusiast reports
The story has remained as mysterious and unexplained as it was reported back in 1994 when it happened.
- This is our second case involving multiple witnesses, again there is not much more that the testimony of 62 kids who witnessed a bizarre encounter whilst they were outside in the playground of Ariel School in Ruwa Zimbabwe.
- The credibility of the Story is based on the consistency as well as similarity of the accounts given by the children.
- However, there were no adults at the School to corroborate the story which leads others to say perhaps it was a prank .
- But then again we must firstly ask if Adults are better at telling the truth than children, and are 62 Kids all capable of inventing a lie that not one of them at any stage admitted to.
- There was no physical evidence left of any kind and no photographs or records made.
- But then again when some of the children were located 20 years later they still did not change their story and all agree that they saw something inexplicable in conventional terms.
- The only adult near the playground was a mom working in the tuck shop who was reluctant leave the shop unattended even when the kids ran to her screaming and crying. The teachers apparently were incredulous and they carried on classes, but the children were do unnerved by the event they told their parents who began one after the other to contact the School asking what had happened.
- It seems someone new a local journalist who specialised in the paranormal and Cynthia Hind was contacted.She then arrived at the School the next day armed with camera to find out what had happened.
Cynthia Hind
- These events took place were reported by Cynthia Hind.
- Who is Cynthia Hind?
- Born in Namaqualand in South Africa
- After living in England and having her family she emigrated to Zimbabwe in 1957. She began free-lance writing and during this period her interest was aroused in UfO’s
So in 1974 she Joined MUFON
- Stands for the “Mutual UfO network, this was originally established in 1969 to investigate the validity of UfO reports.
- The stated mission of MUFON is the study of UFOs for the benefit of humanity through investigations, research and education. The members who investigate claims are trained in how to interview witnesses, perform research, and how to draw conclusions from the evidence.Although investigators are not paid, they must pass both an exam based on a 265-page manual, and a background check.
- The groups intention is to furnish data that can separate explainable cases which occur because of a natural phenomena or whether it is man made such as a helicopter, military flare or stealth fighter etc.
Field Investigator
- Cynthia became a field investigator as well as the representative for MUFON in Zimbabwe.
- she was the featured evening speaker at the MUFON 1981 UFO Symposium held at M.I.T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her paper was titled "African Encounters: Case Investigations". (Dr. J. Allen Hynek was the keynote speaker). She was also appointed Continental Coordinator for Africa in 1981, a position she faithfully held in MUFON's global organization until her death in 2000 - http://www.noufors.com/Cynthia_Hind.htm
- To view all 22 UFO Afrinews issues, which Cynthia Hind published from 1988 to 2000, go to:
John Mack
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| John Mack |
- The Report she made was conducted with John Mack
- John Edward Mack M.D. (October 4, 1929 – September 27, 2004) was an American psychiatrist, writer, and professor at Harvard Medical School. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, and a leading authority on the spiritual or transformational effects of alleged alien abduction experiences (wikipedia)
- In the 1990’s Mack began psychological study of people who had an alien abduction experience.
- He is the highest ranking Scholar in the world to have taken a serious interest in the UfO phenomena
- This was regarded with much suspicion and even hostility from his fellow faculty members.
- He subsequently became the subject of an investigation by the Dean of Harvard Medical School in which he was accused of “unprofessional Scholarship” on a subject that did “not merit the time and expense of a reputable university”.
- The biased and prejudicial enquiry was basically exposed when it inadvertently became leaked to the public, the academic community objected to the unprofessional “investigation of a tenured professor who was not suspected of ethics violations or professional misconduct. Concluding the fourteen-month investigation, Harvard then issued a statement stating that the Dean had "reaffirmed Dr. Mack's academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment," concluding "Dr. Mack remains a member in good standing of the Harvard Faculty of Medicine.”
- John Mack was struck down and killed by a drunken driver in 2004
Hind’s article “UFO flap in Zimbabwe: Case No 95”:
“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.”
Astronomers across the region soon reported that the “pyrotechnic display”, seen as far afield as Zambia and Botswana, had been a meteor shower. Hind, though, recorded receiving dozens of reports of a capsule-like fireball, trailing fire and flanked by two smaller capsules.
She also received several reports of alien sightings around the same time: a young boy and his mother reported a daylight sighting; a trucker who had seen strange beings on the road at night. And then, on September 16, Hind received the report from Ariel School, which she records as Case 96, and describes as “one of the most exciting UFO stories of this or any year”.
initial report by Cynthia Hind in the UFO AFRINEWS, 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, 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. 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 (91F)... "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." - See more at: http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2012/02/alien-lore-no-ariel-school-ufogrey.html#sthash.bZ0hkACV.dpuf
Report made by John Mack and Dominique Callimanopulos
The Ariel School sighting is one of the most significant in recent UFO history. The event lasted about fifteen minutes, the children said, before the spaceships faded from view. But even in their state of fear, many of the children reported also being curious and fascinated by the strange beings they saw, whose eyes in particular commanded an intense attention.
“I got the feeling he was interested in all of us. ... He looked sad and without love. ...In space there is no love and down here there is.”
John Mack and I were at the Ariel School, a small elementary school outside Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, listening to Elsa (not her real name) describe her encounter last September 16 [1994] with an “alien” being. In all, sixty children, ages six through twelve, reported seeing one large and several smaller spaceships land - hover, really - over the scrubby bushland adjoining their playground.
The twelve children we interviewed over the course of two days all described the same event with a steady consistency of detail. In addition to the spaceships, the children had seen two “strange beings,” one sitting on one of the spaceships and the other running back and forth in the grass, “bouncing as if he were on the moon, but not quite so much.”
The beings were described as blackwith long heads, “eyes as big as rugby balls,” with thin arms and legs. The event took place during the children’s morning recess while teachers were in a staff meeting. Many of the younger children were very scared and cried. “At first I thought it was a gardener,” one fourth-grader told us. “Then I realized it was an alien.”
The event lasted about fifteen minutes, the children said, before the spaceships faded from view. But even in their state of fear, many of the children reported also being curious and fascinated by the strange beings they saw, whose eyes in particular commanded an intense attention. Elsa told us that she thought the beings wanted to tell us something about our future, about how “the world is going to end, maybe because we don’t look after our planet or the air.” She said she felt horrible inside when she got home that day. “Like all the trees will go down and there will be no air. People will be dying. Those thoughts came from the man - the man’s eyes.”
Isabelle, a composed and articulate ten-year-old, echoed Elsa’s feelings. “He was just staring. He was scary. We were trying not to look at him ‘cause he was scary. My eyes and feelings went with him.” What came through her “conscience” as she looked at the being was, “We are doing harm to the Earth.”
The Ariel School sighting is one of the most significant in recent UFO history. It is the first time such a large group of people have reported witnessing the simultaneous appearance of spaceships and alien beings. After receiving a call in September from a BBC reporter telling us that a flight of strange objects and ships had glided across Zimbabwean skies for two nights prior to September 16 culminating in the dramatic sighting at the Ariel School, we decided to investigate firsthand.
Good Alien Creatures or Bad?
What is intriguing to me is that the Kids said they felt very scared and the creatures gave the one kid "the creeps". John mack seems to emphasise the idea that these beings are from another Galaxy and they are here to warn us about the danger of nuclear arms or global warming.
There is much evidence to sift here but I have to say in advance that I personally think they are not good and there is a deceptiveness to these ideas of kindly "Space brothers" that we need to investigate.
But there is a long way to go
NEXT TIME: Westall encounter in Ausie - just in case you thought Australia has no major sightings watch this . . .
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