Preamble: On 14th September, 1994, a UFO streaked across the sky over Southern Africa. Two days later, something landed in a schoolyard in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, with three or four 'things' beside it. This was witnessed by 62 schoolchildren, who had little or no exposure to TV or popular press accounts of UFOs. The children were interviewed the day after the encounter.
Incident: 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. - UFO AFRINEWS 1994 - Cynthia Hind
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| A few of the schoolchildren who witnessed the encounter |
"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 black with 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. - Dominique Callimanopulos
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Ruwa, Zimbabwe
September 16, 1994
On the morning of September 16, 1994, teachers and school officials at the Ariel School in Ruwa, Zimbabwe were amazed when the school's students, aged approximately 5 to 12 years old, reported that a flying object had landed on the school grounds.
The teachers at the school were in a meeting, so the 62 children were basically unsupervised while in the schoolyard on morning recess. The only available adult seems to have been one of the mothers, who was operating the school tuck shop - a sort of snack bar where candy, snacks and sodas are sold.
According to some sources, UFOs had been seen in the skies over Zimbabwe for two days before the incident occurred. Ruwa is about 20 kilometers from Harare, the capitol of Zimbabwe. Ariel School is a private elementary school with students of mixed ethnic heritage.
The children said that they had first seen three objects in the sky. These objects would disappear and then reappear in a different location. The objects moved closer and closer to the ground and finally landed in a brushy area adjacent to the schoolyard. This area had not been fully cleared yet and was off-limits to the students. The object landed, or hovered just above the ground, in an area about 100 meters from the students.
The children said that a small man, about one meter in height, appeared on top of the object. The little man, who was described as having a scrawny neck, long black hair, and huge eyes, walked a short way across the ground toward the students. When he noticed the children, he vanished and then reappeared at the back of the object. The object then took off and vanished.
The smaller children were very frightened and cried for help. They believed that the little man was a demon who would eat them. Black African children have heard legends of tokoloshis, demons who eat children. The children ran to the tuck shop operator, but she did not want to leave the shop unattended and so did not go.
The late Cynthia Hind, known as Africa's foremost UFO investigator, investigated the case the next day. When she was first contacted, she asked the headmaster of the school, Colin Mackie, to have the children draw pictures of what they had seen. When she arrived at the school, he had about 35 drawings for her. The drawings were of very similar objects.
'I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.'
The headmaster affirmed that he believed that the students were telling the truth, and one little girl told Cynthia Hind that, 'I swear by every hair on my head and the whole Bible that I am telling the truth.'
Dr. John Mack, the abduction researcher, and his associate Dominique Callimanopulos went to Ruwa and spent two days interviewing and counseling twelve of the children and their parents.
"Those thoughts came from the man - the man's eyes."
Curiously, the older students said that they felt that the creatures communicated with them somehow, sending the message that we humans are destroying our planet, polluting the environment in ways that will have dire consequences.
The Sightings TV show did a report on the Ariel School landing, and CSETI has a RealPlayer video taken from the TV program with actual testimony from the children. - Loy Lawhon
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ZIMBABWE UFO REPORT
SCREENED ON SOUTH AFRICAN TV
CHANNEL 1 PROGRAM AGENDA
Tonight at 8.30 SA time we were treated to the rare spectacle of a half a dozen CHILDREN AGED 8-12 attesting ON tv to the fact that a group of them had seen a group of four or five UFOs. Sentients with large eyes, long black hair wearing shiny black one piece suits had made themselves known. The ships had then departed. The witnesses to this encounter are a group of schoolchildren at the Areal School in a town called Ruwa not far from the capital of Harare. The date is 16 September 1994. Cynthia Hind, Southern Africa's most well known UFOlogist had a few words to say, but the children stole her show with their innocent and honest faces. They had all drawn crayon pictures of the craft. The pictures were all the same.. This I saw with my own eyes. We had Dr. John Mack on the same show. What is he doing in Africa? But the star of the show was the South African Sangoma Wiseman CREDO MUTWA. He is well known for his disturbingly correct prophecies. One of these was the prediction of Hendrik Verwoerds assassination. Credo Mutwa stormed the program with figurines of aliens looking exactly like the various races we suspect to co-inhabit our planet with us. These figurines have long been in the possession of the African nations. He attested to the fact that the African nations co-exited with aliens in Africa for hundreds if not thousands of years. He made the disturbing allegation that the Europeans who first 'colonised' Africa were mistaken for these 'other,' star people. Credo Mutwa has also said that AIDS can be cured by a SONIC SCAN or AUDIO FREQUENCY scan of some kind. This does not harm the person, only the virus. Surely this is worth investigating? There is a video available of his prophecies. He is very convincing! And Frightening! - Schwann - Cape Town, South Africa
Click for video playlist - 1994 Ruwa, Zimbabwe School Encounter
Sources:
www.ufoevidence.org
UFO AFRINEWS 1994
Hind, Cynthia - 'UFOs Over Africa' - 1996
Callimanopulos, Dominique and Mack, John - 'CenterPiece Magazine' - Spring/Summer 1995
Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER)
ufos.about.com
South African TV, Channel 1
www.johnemackinstitute.org
www.webtrance.co.za
www.realufos.net
