So Supernatural - ALIEN: The Ariel School Sighting

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

In 1994, an entire playground full of school children in Zimbabwe claimed they saw a UFO hovering overhead. When experts tried to debunk their claims, they found little evidence to prove the kids weren't telling the truth. 

Children are notorious for their wild imaginations. They can create stories that seem so absurd they couldn't possibly be true. And we encourage them to do this, to embrace their individual creativity. But what happens when a bunch of kids tell the exact same story? And it's not only too far-fetched to be true, it's eerie. Today's story goes back to 1994 in Zimbabwe, where a playground full of 62 children claimed they'd witnessed a UFO landing. Some even saw aliens. The students told and retold their stories, and amazingly, the details stayed more or less the same.

Eventually, real experts were brought in to debunk the story, but even they were blown away because all the signs pointed to the kids telling the truth. This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week's episode is about the aerial school sighting. In Zimbabwe in 1994, over 60 children claimed that a UFO hovered over the grassland by their school. The story caught the attention of researchers, including a notable Harvard psychiatrist, making people wonder where the truth ended

and where the unknown began. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. Today's story is so bizarre and so hard to rationalize, the only way to make sense of it is to go through it piece by piece from the very beginning. It centers around the Ariel School, a private primary school in the small farming community of Rua, about 20 miles outside of Zimbabwe's capital of Harare. The students range from as young as five all the way up to age 12.

I don't know what the school schedule is like nowadays, but back in 1994, the kids would run around the playground every morning for their recess break. Friday, September 16th, was no exception. It's almost the weekend, so the kids are excited as they're running around the playground. Meanwhile, inside the building, teachers convene for a staff meeting. While they're gone, it's basically understood that the older children will keep an eye on the younger ones. And not far from the playground is a tuck shop, which is basically like this little deli or canteen that serves students. Mothers rotate through managing it, and the mom on duty this morning is Allison Kirkman.

Now, Allison's minding the shop when shortly after 10 a.m., a student named Luke runs in, and he's looking like he has seen an actual ghost. He has this sort of wide-eyed, stunned expression on his face. Then, Luke tells Allison he's just seen a literal alien outside. Now Allison hears this and brushes it off. I mean, she basically tells Luke, sure, very funny, quit pulling my leg. But Luke keeps insisting that he saw, quote, a little man in a one-piece suit with a band around End quote. Ultimately, Allison isn't convinced enough to leave the tuck shop and investigate, even though her own daughter Fifi is out on the playground too. In fact, Fifi and her friends are just as stunned as Luke is.

Apparently, the students were out running around when they noticed this thing hovering in the distance beyond the edge of the playground. It looked like a whitish object with a golden glow around it. As far as Fifi and her friends could tell, it was about 100 meters away, so the distance of about five semi-trucks all lined up. It's lingering above the brushy grasslands surrounding the school. According to some kids, the golden light coming from the object is so bright it actually hurts their eyes, almost like they're looking into the sun. And one little girl remembers its shape being like a yellowy floating pencil, super shiny and narrow, like your typical flying saucer. The light on the back kept flipping on and off, like a light switch. Now, it's unclear just how many UFOs there were. You see, a few students said there was one, and others were sure that they'd seen multiple. One student named Barry

claimed he saw three of these objects, all hovering outside the playground's perimeter. Then the objects disappeared, only to reappear seconds later. Supposedly, this happened multiple times and rapidly, as if they were teleporting around the sky. Eventually, the crafts came closer and landed. At that moment, some of the children felt a strong wind blow over them, and a couple recalled a subtle whirring sound as it touched down. Others claimed that they heard soft noises, not music exactly, but little puffs like from a flute. And some of them recall seeing a silver light flashing through the trees around the object. Then, supposedly, aliens emerged from at least one

of the UFOs. A few of the girls described a dark, shadowy figure scurrying near the craft, only to them, it looked like it was running in slow motion. And a boy named Guy claimed he saw what he called little men come out of the craft. Guy described them as people-like, but with distorted features. Like their eyes were huge and their mouths were thin and hard, like a razor line. And another girl named Isabel remembered that when she saw the creature, it was so unsettling to her that she wanted to look away. She said, quote, he was just staring. We were trying not to look at him because he was scary. My eyes and feelings went with him. So obviously that sounds terrifying and also really weird. Almost like the alien was getting inside Isabel's thoughts or something.

And other students remember feeling extremely frightened. At some point when all of this is going on, Luke goes to the tuck shop to get Allison. And again, she doesn't believe him. Meanwhile, an older child goes inside the school and asks a teacher to ring the bell, signaling that recess is over. By that time, more than 15 minutes have passed and the UFO and aliens are gone. The kids tell their teacher and the school headmaster about what they saw. And from what I can tell, the headmaster, this guy named Colin Mackey, is really interested. Like, these kids are obviously freaked out and they're more or less saying the same thing.

There was at least one UFO, and some of them saw aliens. But Mackie doesn't know what to make of it, and it's not like there's anything he can do. So it's just back to the books. Obviously, that approach doesn't work. The kids just keep talking about what they saw. And apparently, at some point, either later that day or over the weekend, Mackie gets a ton of calls from concerned parents.

They demand to know why their kids are going on and on about aliens. Mackie doesn't know what to tell them. But unbeknownst to him, there is an expert already on the move. She's a famous ufologist named Cynthia Hind. And if anyone can crack this sighting, it's her. Up next, experts investigate the aerial school incident. Now back to the story. When Cynthia Hind hears about the sightings in Rua, she's been covering extraterrestrial sightings throughout Central and Southern Africa for years. She isn't

some on-her-own amateur researcher. Cynthia is renowned in her field with a ton of experience. Other experts praise her methods of investigation, and one of them refers to her as more of a clinical caseworker as opposed to someone who just records sightings. Cynthia is looped into the Ariel School story around 2 p.m. on the same day it happens. She gets a call from a BBC news reporter named Tim Leach. Tim's stationed nearby in the capital of Harare when the news somehow reaches him. He gets in touch with Cynthia and then they agree to visit the school together next week so they can conduct their own investigation. Then Cynthia turns around and starts making her own calls.

She knows a veterinarian who lives in Rua and asks them to put her in touch with any parents from the school. Lucky for her, the first person she gets a hold of is Allison Kirkman, the mom from the tuck shop. Allison explains that when Luke ran into the shop, she didn't believe him. Then she puts her daughter Fifi on the phone with Cynthia. Fifi proceeds to tell her all about the floating object with the golden glow. Next, Cynthia gets in contact with Barry, the boy who claimed he saw the UFO teleporting around the sky. Now, I'm not sure how many of these phone calls she makes, but it's all very compelling, to the point that eventually

Cynthia calls Mackie, the school's headmaster. She asks if he can have the children draw illustrations of what they saw. It's unclear if he has them do this over the weekend or first thing Monday morning, but he wants it to happen before the kids get a chance to really talk to each other and potentially skew their stories. The following Monday, so just three days after the sighting, Cynthia and Tim go to the Ariel School. They bring with them a guy named Gunther Hoffer, who Cynthia's worked with before. Gunther has his own machinery for detecting evidence of UFOs, like electromagnetic fields. So hopefully he can help them find something. But before they even start poking around, Cynthia wants to hear the story from everyone's perspective. She

starts with headmaster Mackie, who walks her through the story as the children told it to him. They were out on the playground when an unknown spacecraft or crafts appeared in the sky. The UFO may have touched down to land, and when they did, one or more figures that looked like small men were running around the brushland. Then, Mackie shows Cynthia at least 42 drawings the children created. Cynthia pours over these, looking for common themes. A lot of the kids drew flying saucers, and a few of these had clear windows or doors. Others were of aliens themselves, and Cynthia notes that most of them look extremely thin with really big eyes.

And their heads are disproportionately large compared to their bodies, and a lot of them are wearing tight black suits. Afterward, Cynthia and Tim select a few children to interview on camera. Some are kids that they've already chatted with, like Luke, the tuck shop boy, but for others, it's their first interview.

As these kids retell their experience, their accounts are visceral. Sometimes they're talking quickly, almost like they're nervous or afraid. And later, one boy confides in Cynthia that he thinks the aliens might have been coming to eat him. And okay, kids can have a mile a minute imaginations. It's also worth pointing out that some of what the kids describe sounds like goblins from indigenous folklore.

So maybe they were just conflating what they saw with stories they knew well or trying to make sense of what happened. Tim even poses a few alternative explanations. He asked the kids if maybe they confused what they saw with a plane. I mean, he knows sometimes that military helicopters or Harrier jets fly over that part of Zimbabwe. But these kids are positive that what they saw was otherworldly. When the interviews are finished, Cynthia, Tim, and Gunter go out to investigate the brush. But Gunter's devices don't find any evidence of electromagnetic activity or radiation, which would have been something to help prove that intelligent life had been there. But the area has no signs of having been inhabited for

the past several days, which that doesn't mean a UFO hadn't been there. And after seeing the drawings and speaking to the students, Cynthia feels like she needs a second opinion. And she knows exactly the guy, a psychiatrist named John E. Mack. Dr. Mack is another renowned figure in the world of UFO phenomena. Not only was he interested in unpacking these types of stories, he was a psychiatrist at Harvard and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Like, this guy had credentials, and according to him, he viewed his role as someone who could, quote, listen, sift, and consider alternative explanations, end quote. Coincidentally, Dr. Mack already had a trip to South Africa planned at the time. He's researching for his upcoming book, Passport to the Cosmos, which is this deep dive into

extraterrestrial encounters and their possible psychological effects. So Cynthia and Tim notify him about the aerial school and they even fax over some of the illustrations so he can see the similarities for himself. And sure enough, Dr. Mack is definitely intrigued. He makes plans to visit the school during his trip to Africa. But in the weeks leading up to his trip, people in Rua aren't as enthusiastic. Townspeople, reporters, and even parents keep brushing off the kids' stories as lies. One longtime UFO investigator insists

he thought the kids made it all up or that someone had gotten to them. He said, quote, The bottom line is that there is no evidence. We don't know what pressure may have been placed on the children to tell the stories the way they did, end quote. So basically, it's the same story that comes up any time someone sees a UFO.

Maybe the entire thing is a prank. In early December of 1994, Dr. Mack and a research colleague arrive at the aerial school. They proceed to interview 12 of the students over the course of two days. The whole time, Dr. Mack is trying to get as much information as he can about what happened that day without shaking the kids up too much. He's a veteran psychiatrist, so he knows that rehashing experiences like this can stir up a lot of emotions. And he doesn't want to make the kids feel guilty or ashamed,

like he thinks they're lying. But he also knows how to play devil's advocate. He carefully suggests that maybe this prank has spiraled too far. But the kids are adamant. It actually happened. One 12-year-old girl tells Dr. Mack, quote, Anybody can think that it's not true or that we're making these things up, but we know what we've seen and we believe it, end quote.

And like Cynthia Hine, Dr. Mack finds that the details across their stories are consistent. When it's all over, Dr. Mack's interviews confirm that the students are able to articulate what they remembered nearly three months later. One child described an alien as running across the grass, quote, bouncing as if he were on the moon. I mean, the details are just so specific. And before he leaves, Mack encourages the aerial school faculty to keep an open discussion with their students, not discouraging them from telling their story. In the meantime, though, he has a book to finish. So Mack goes off to continue his research elsewhere in Africa. After that, literally five years go by. Mack spends them writing his book

and teaching his psychiatry lectures in the States until finally, in 1999, Passport to the Cosmos is published. It's a sweeping investigation into all the things he's been researching for years, meaning the aerial school sighting definitely isn't the focus. Mack includes interviews from people all around the world, and he spends a lot of time discussing cases of alien abductions and their psychological effects.

And by this point, his reputation is a little complicated. On the one hand, Dr. Mack is incredibly intelligent, but he's also a diehard believer, sometimes to a fault. Like around the exact same time of the aerial sighting in 1994, a committee at Harvard debated whether to censure him for the professionalism of his research. His first book on alien abduction had apparently been too out there for some of his research. His first book on alien abduction had apparently been too out there for some of his colleagues. Mack countered that they should keep an open mind, and he ultimately kept his tenure. But all that controversy aside, there are some really important pieces of information in his book. Because not only did Dr. Mack indicate that he believed the aerial school students,

he alluded to the importance of what came after the sighting. Up next, the long-term effects on the aerial students. Now back to the story. Mack didn't believe that the aerial sighting was a hoax for the simple reason that there was no apparent motive. Like, why would so many students lie to their parents and teachers? He also didn't waste time on another possible explanation, whether this was a case of mass hysteria. We've talked about mass hysteria a lot on this show. It's the go-to for any time a group of people do or say something weird, like claim they've seen a UFO.

Psychiatrists believe it's triggered by some sort of stressor and that kids and preteens are often most susceptible, which all of this was true in the case of the aerial sighting. But here's the thing. Mass hysteria is known for manifesting as physical symptoms. Think panic attacks, hyperventilating, vomiting, even dancing. The aerial students had none of that. If there were any symptoms, they had more to do with a slow burning anxiety. In his book, Dr. Mack wrote that some of the students had, quote,

persistent fears and troubling dreams. And Headmaster Mackey told Cynthia that the kids were having nightmares. Obviously, having nightmares after a disturbing event is completely normal, almost like proof it actually happened. And in this case, there's also evidence of repression. When children don't feel believed, they can blame themselves or even stuff down their feelings and stop talking about it. And we basically know this happened after the sighting. A boy named Guy initially told his parents who brushed him off. Then later, Guy told Cynthia, quote, I have decided to keep my story to myself in the future, deep inside of me. And that's repression if I've ever heard it. Another symptom is futurelessness, essentially when trauma causes someone to have a pessimistic

view of the future. One student, who we'll call Emma, told Dr. Mack that she thought the alien visit was a bad omen. She had a similar experience to Isabel where the aliens left her feeling gloomy and afraid of the future. Emma explained, quote, the world is going to end, maybe because we don't look after our planet or the air. 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, end quote. Hearing something like that, it's hard not to believe that something terrible happened. But in the decades since, there hasn't been any new proof. The closest thing we have is another incident that happened almost 20 years before the aerial school, in 1977. That February, 14 schoolchildren in Broadhaven, Wales,

claimed to have seen a UFO hovering near their playground. They were out running around when they noticed it hovering overhead. According to them, it looked like a flying saucer with a domed top. The sighting lasted only a few seconds, but in that time, the children watched it pop back and forth around the trees, basically what Barry and the aerial school described with the UFO zipping around, almost like it was teleporting. When the Broadhaven kids ran inside to tell their teachers, they were met with skepticism. But their headmaster had the wherewithal to separate the kids into different rooms and make them draw pictures. These pictures didn't look so different from what the kids at the aerial school witnessed.

Basically, saucers or cigar-shaped UFOs. The difference was that the Broadhaven sighting was part of an even broader phenomenon in Wales during 1977. Over the course of a few years, there were several sightings. The area became known as the Dyfed Triangle, basically a hot zone for UFO activity. But the Broadhaven incident was written off as a schoolyard prank. The BBC reported that a British government agency had looked into it and concluded it was probably a hoax. They also suspected the kids had confused it with a military jet or even a sewage tank. It essentially came down to the fact that the kids had been the witnesses, not adults. They weren't seen as credible, which doesn't make the possibility

of a UFO sighting any less believable. And how weird is it that both these incidents are so similar? Two schoolyards, two groups of kids around the same age, all seeing the same type of object. It's hard to write off as just a coincidence. One man who'd been 10 years old at the time at Broadhaven claimed he was ridiculed for years afterward. He looked back on his school days as, quote, misery. And in 2014, 20 years after the aerial sighting in Zimbabwe, a woman we'll call Samantha talked about her experience. Samantha explained that even as an adult, talking about the sighting made people treat her like she was delusional.

She said, quote, the real message is that this stuff can brand you for life. I mean, try telling people that you live in permanent fear of these things returning one day. They'll think you're a kook. End quote. It's a bleak reality, but if there's one silver lining, it's that students like Samantha saw experts like Cynthia and Dr. Mack as vindication. They made the children feel seen and heard. And maybe that's one thing we can glean from this story. At the end of the day, there's nothing to do but listen. And maybe if we lend a sympathetic ear, we'll get the most honest answer.

It just might be the hardest to believe. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all AudioChuck originals.