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Zimbabwe U.F.O. incident

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Pierre

Skilled Investigator
Hi Don, I'm a huge fan. By far the most captivating & compelling U.F.O. incident I ever heard of was the one that took place in Ruwa, Zimbabwe in 1994. I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on this Don. For those of you that are not familiar with the story:

"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 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 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 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."

-Cynthia Hind


 
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Pierre, thank you for the report you made here. Although I have heard a few remarks about this case, your report is very complete. Although it is very interesting and I am very glad you reported on it ... the simple fact is there is not much that we here in the USA can do with it. I would love to see the BBC story that was done, and of course I would love to be able to interview some of the witnesses but that seems impossible at this point.

Once again, thank you.

Decker
 
Thank you kindly for the reply. I can't take credit for this report though. This is an article by Zimbabwe U.F.O researcher Cynthia Hind written in 1994. This case absolutely stupefies me to say the very least. We have 64 eye witnesses that saw a u.f.o. landing with grey alien like beings actually stepping out of the craft. It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. I'm usually very sceptical when it comes to paranormal phenomenon, but even the most battle-hardened sceptic would have a hard time explaining this case away.

I don't understand why this case is getting so little attention from the mainstream u.f.o. experts, like I said, it's THE most compelling and believable case I've ever heard of (Even more so then the Rendlesham forest ufo incident)

I'm located in South Africa which of course is Zimbabwe's neighbouring country and I would love to investigate this case myself but sadly I'm no researcher (despite my current forum title). I'm pretty sure I heard that the vast majority of witnesses relocated to South Africa at some point after Zimbabwe's political crises. I really hope this case won't be forgotten, I think there is still much to uncover.

I would also love to hear the opinions of the other forum posters.
 
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Forgive my ignorance, as you can see I'm a new member on the forum and I still have a ton to learn. Thank you for posting the link, will read through it now.
 
Also one of my favorite cases. I agree something strange did occur in that school yard. The immediate reaction of these kids running in the building calling for the adults has always caught me as genuine.
 
... By far the most captivating & compelling U.F.O. incident I ever heard of was the one that took place in Ruwa, Zimbabwe in 1994 ...
I also find this case to be very interesting, and also underrated. Back when I first heard the story I thought it was an urban legend from some kids in a primitive tribe that had been exaggerated for publicity, and like the Washington National sightings in 1952, it just sat on my shelf for years. What a mistake that was. This case deserves to be taken at least as seriously as the Zamora case. Here's another video about the case.

On September 16, 1994, over 60 people, including children and teachers at
Ariel School Ruwa, Zimbabwe, Africa reported seeing an alien
from a UFO that had landed near their school.



 
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Speaking of underrated or forgotten cases, this reminds me of the 1966 Westall (Melbourne, Australia) case, in which high school students saw something clearly anomalous (no little men here, but if you watch the witnesses telling their stories, IMO there is no way they were misinterpreting something normal).

The common theme, I guess, is that we tend to dismiss sightings by children or teenagers as sci-fi induced fantasies, pranks and hoaxes or just misinterpretations much more easily than with adults, and often that's not the worst thing to do.

But when you have consistent and credible reports even after 20, 30, 40 years, when childhood fantasies and pranks should actually be quite forgotten, it does make you wonder.

UFO Documentary - Australia (2009) - Westall 1966: A Suburban UFO Mystery | The Paracast Community Forums
 
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Just an update for those of you who are interested in this case:

James Fox's upcoming movie "The 701" will focus on the Zimbabwe incident with never before seen footage of interviews shot during the time of the incident, startling info concerning the event preceding this case & shocking new info.

James Fox flew in 3 of the key witnesses to do follow up interviews. Apparently some of the witnesses came within arms reach of the "creatures" (!!!)

I got this update from an interview on Dark Matter with Art Bell (I know, sue me ok?) In the interview James said that this particular case is the most compelling case he has ever stumbled upon & will be one of the main highlights of his new movie.

I am super excited about this, can't wait till the movie comes out!!
 
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