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{{ :ufo-zimbabwe.png?400|}}On September 16, 1994, around 60 students from the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, claimed to have spotted a UFO. They said they saw a silver orb that flew past them and landed on a field near the school. They also said that a creature dressed in black communicated with them using a message about an environmental theme.

Jerome Clark, a writer for the magazine The Fortean, referred to the incident as the most remarkable encounter of the 1990s. Skeptics, however, believe that it was a mass hysteria. Some of the students who claimed that they saw something said that their accounts were true.

Ruwa is a small agricultural center that's about 22 kilometers away from the capital city of Zimbabwe, and it was only a place-name during the incident.

The Ariel School was a prestigious private school that was attended by many white families in the capital city of Zimbabwe. Before the incident at the school, there had been a series of sightings of UFOs in southern Africa. Many people reported seeing a bright fireball as it flew through the sky at night. Although some witnesses believed it was a meteor or comet, the incident triggered a wave of UFO mania in the country.

Brian Dunning, a skeptic, believed that the fireball was caused by the re-entry of a Zenit-2 rocket. As the rocket moved across the sky, it produced burning trails. During this period, various alien sightings were also reported. One of these was a report of a truck driver witnessing an alien flying across the road.

The incident at the Ariel School happened on September 16, 1994. It occurred as the students were outside during a mid-morning break. The school's adult faculty was inside during the incident, and it lasted for around 15 minutes. After returning to class, the students told their teachers what they saw, but they were dismissed.
After returning home, the students told their parents about what they saw. Many of them visited the school the following day to talk about what happened. The incident was reported on ZBC Radio.

Tim Leach, a BBC correspondent based in Zimbabwe, visited the school on September 19. He conducted interviews with the school's staff and pupils. After interviewing the students, he claimed that he couldn't handle the situation. On September 20, Hind visited the school and asked the students to draw pictures of what they saw. According to her, the kids all agreed that they saw something.

In November, John Mack, a psychiatrist at Harvard University, visited the school to talk to the students about what he saw. During the 1990s, he had been investigating various UFO sightings. In May 1994, the Dean of the Harvard Medical School, Daniel Tosteson, ordered a committee of peers to review Mack's clinical investigations and clinical care. Some of the individuals who had reported experiencing alien encounters with him were featured in his book Abduction.

The controversy started after Mack told the students that their experience might have been real. After a couple of months, Harvard issued a statement to say that the Dean had allowed the academic freedom of the professor to study what he wanted.

Mack, Hind, and Leach stated that 62 children, ranging from six to twelve years old, claimed to have seen a UFO. A number of the kids who were present during the incident also stated that they had not seen anything unusual. The basic details of the incident were consistent, although some details were not included in the reports. They then floated down to a field near the school.

According to Mack, a couple of creatures dressed in black and with big eyes approached the kids. Many of them ran away, but some of the older pupils stayed and watched as the creatures approached. He claims that the aliens communicated with the kids through an environmental message before flying away.

Dunning noted that the alleged message sent by the aliens was not included in the reports by both Hind and Mack.

In his interviews, one of the children said that he was warned about a certain event that would happen. Another student said that the aliens wanted people to know that Earth was in danger. They also told him that pollution would not be tolerated.

Many of the children insisted that they did not see a plane. According to Hind, the cultural backgrounds of the students affected their interpretations of what they saw. She also noted that some of them believed that the creatures were tikoloshes, which are the creatures of Ndebele and Shona folklore.

The incident at the Ariel School became one of the most talked-about UFO cases in Africa. In a 2021 BBC Witness History program, the event was described as one of the most significant UFO cases in history. Ufologists also cite the case as proof that extraterrestrials have visited Earth. Skeptics, on the other hand, believe that the incident was either a hoax or a mass hysteria.

In December 2020, Brian Dunning, a journalist, wrote an episode of his Skeptoid podcast where he discussed the incident. He noted that some of the students claimed that they did not see anything unusual. He also questioned the notion that the witnesses were not exposed to modern media, and thus, did not have a good understanding of the concept of alien visitors and UFOs. He also criticized the interviewing techniques of Mack and Hind.
During her interviews, Hind conducted the sessions in groups of four to six kids, which contaminated the stories of the other participants. Dunning also noted that Mack had suggested a possible explanation for the incident, which was not included in the previous report.

Some of the witnesses maintained that the incident was real. In 2014, the Mail & Guardian interviewed a witness who claimed that she felt that the creatures were returning. In 2016, another witness, Emily Trim, exhibited her paintings, which she claimed were a representation of the messages that the aliens sent.

In 2021, Zah, a writer for Barstool Sports, talked about the incident in an interview. He said that he saw a bright light in the sky before the aliens vanished. Other witnesses were also interviewed for a documentary that year.

{{ ::ariel_school_ufo_incident_3.png?400|}}In November 2022 new evidence came out. Gunter Hofer, a photographer who was one of the first individuals on the scene, shared his pictures with DailyMail.com, which showed the alleged alien craft’s oval and wedge-shaped impressions in the ground (photo on the right).

**Links:**

- [[https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/tag/ariel-school-ufo-incident|Latest updates on Ariel School UFO Incident]]

- [[https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/2020/11/zimbabwe-ufo-child-conactee-speaks-publicly-for-the-1st-time.html|Zimbabwe UFO Child Conactee Speaks Publicly For The 1st Time]] 

- [[https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/2016/07/child-witness-speaks-zimbabwe-ufo-encounter.html|Child Witness Speaks Up About Zimbabwe UFO Encounter]]