Showing posts with label close encounter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label close encounter. Show all posts

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Alien Lore No. 220 - The Ariel School UFO/Grey sighting in Ruwa, Zimbabwe

By Jack Brummet, Unexplained Phenomena and Alien Lore Editor

[Thanks to Jeff Clinton for the "news tip.]


On September 14th, 1994, a UFO blew across the skies of Southern Africa.  Days later, something fell, or landed, in a Ruwa, Zimbabwe schoolyard, as well as a few smaller objects, according to journalist (and book author, and UFOlogist) Cynthia Hind, and Harvard psychiatry professor John Mack.  This episode would later become a chapter in her book UFOs Over Africa (Horus House, 1996). 

One eyewitness, Barry D., said he saw three objects fly over, with flashing red lights. The UFOs disappeared, but then reappeared almost immediately, in another location.  This happened about three times. He said the objects then came and landed near some gum trees not far from the school.

Four of the eye witnesses Cynthia Hind interviewed

The most interesting part of this story is that UFOs were witnessed by 62 school children, none or few of who had ever seen or heard stories about aliens or UFOs.  Cynthia Hind interviewed them the day after the encounter and got them to draw them draw pictures of what they had seen.  A prominent Harvard researcher and professor of Psychiatry, John Mack, also traveled to Ruwa and conducted extensive interviews.

Many researchers call the Ariel School story the ultimate "nondebunkable" piece of alien lore.  It is a tantalizing UFO/Grey sighting to UFOlogists because of the large number of people who witnessed it, and because UFO researchers like Hind were quickly on the scene to report on it, take interviews, and collect sketches and eyewitness accounts.  Hind was able to interview around a dozen of the older children and was able to get them to create sketches of what they had seen. 

Many serious and experienced researchers call this case one of the most believable of all documented close encounters.  Almost everyone calls it one of their "favorites."  One poster on Paracast wrote: "A recent poster asked for our favorite (?) UFO case. I opted for Ruwa and its school children. This merely reinforces that choice. I thought I'd seen every clip of the children being interviewed until I watched this. I want someone at CNN to run those clips and come on afterword, with eerie music and take pokes at those kids' credibility or sanity. The public would fire-bomb their Atlanta offices."

"These children are (were), at least in my opinion, the most credible UFO/Alien witness' I've ever seen interviewed. The shock, trauma, terror and confusion manifested in their words and their eyes would be near impossible for anyone to fake so convincingly- let alone young, rural children. We are not talking about 'lights in the sky' here. These children say that they had close contact with these things and that there was some sort of communication. . .that they can't even comprehend." 

some of the sketches created by the Ariel schoolchildren

The editor of Paracast agreed, saying "These are some of the most believable Close Encounter testimonies on record,and it's a real shame that the case hasn't received more attention here in the West.Let's hope that this all changes once the new documentary premieres.It'll be fascinating to see how these children (now young adults) have managed to assimilate this experience into their lives,and what they think of it now - 15 years later."

The now deceased Cynthia Hind had deep experience in investigative reporting and was well-respected in the UFO community. 

A photograph of the Ariel School grounds

At the end of this story, I have included some video footage from YouTube showing some of the interviews and background on the story.
Here is the 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."



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Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Spokane River Bigfoot

By Jack Brummet
Bigfoot-Yeti-Sasquatch Editor


 


A YouTube user--Samantha13950 --says she and some friends encountered a Sasquatch while hiking along the Spokane River.

"While hiking, we accidentally caught an image of Bigfoot walking through the woods. I didn't even notice until I got home and saw it on the computer! This scarred the crap out of us! Video uploaded by samantha13950 on May 23, 2011."


Some Bigfoot investigators and aficionados are skeptical of this one, for the usual reasons.  And, they say, there doesn't appear to be a large enough area to sustain a Bigfoot habitat near this sighting.   It's interesting--they have theories of the breadth of its range...although no one has actually examined one or studied them as a group (depending on whose stories you believe).


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Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Alien Lore No. 163: It's not a matter of when the aliens arrive; they're already here, among us



Some of the most compelling alien lore in the last couple of years has emerged from Eastern Europe, "Russia," England and France. This story is no exception. Thanks to Jeff Clinton for once again alerting us to another fascinating story.

Luchezar Filipov, a deputy head of the Space Exploration department within the BAS, recently told reporters that "they (the aliens) are here right now, among us". He said that, although there is little awareness of their presence, they are conducting surveillance and research on Earth.



The scientist said that they are not hostile in any way; on the contrary, they are friendly and willing to help us. Unfortunately, due to our lack of evolution and development, we are unable to conduct any coherent form of conversation with this superior life form. "They want to help us, but the problem is that we don't know what to ask of them once a contact is established," Filipov told Dnes daily.

Filipov reckons that it will be impossible to try and track extraterrestrial life with our current radar equipment, or through the usage of radio telescopes. Apparently, the aliens were "categorical" that any future means of contact between us and them would be conducted through mental power and telepathy.




"The aliens are very critical of our immoral behaviour and our destruction of the environment. They say that global warming is attributed mainly to infrastructural engineering. Additionally, they are very skeptical of our use of cosmetics, and artificial insemination because this is 'unnatural,'" Filipov said.

According to Filipov, his team of scientists are currently analysing the answers to their questions from the interactions with the visitors. The scientists aim to have a coherent "strategic plan" pertaining to questions which they will put forward to the extraterrestrials in their next meeting, which is said to be in the spring of 2010, Dnes reported.

Work on deciphering a complex set of symbols sent to them is underway, scientists from the country's Space Research Institute said. They claim aliens are currently answering 30 questions posed to them.




Lachezar Filipov, deputy director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, confirmed the research. He said the centre's researchers were analyzing 150 crop circles from around the world, which they believe answer the questions.

"Aliens are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time," Mr Filipov told Bulgarian media. "They are not hostile towards us, rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them."

Mr Filipov said that even the seat of the Catholic church, the Vatican, had agreed that aliens existed. [Ed's note: this is true. The pontiff recently acknowledged the possibility, and likelihood of the existence of alien life.]



He said humans were not going to be able to establish contact with the extraterrestrials through radio waves but through the power of thought.

"The human race was certainly going to have direct contact with the aliens in the next 10 to 15 years," he said. "Extraterrestrials are critical of the people's amoral behavior referring to the humans' interference in nature's processes."

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Sunday, October 04, 2009

Alien Lore No. 159 - The Russkies open up their Grey/UFO motherlode

Thanks to Jeff Clinton for the tip on this story.

The Russian navy recently declassified its records of close encounters with The Greys and with UFOs, according to the Svobodnaya Pressa news website. Only a few months ago, France also declassified and released their own UFO files....

The records from the Soviet years were assembled from navy reports of close encounters with submarines and ships. The group headed by a deputy Navy commander, Admiral Nikolay Smirnov, uncovered numerous cases of possible UFO encounters, according to the website.

Vladimir Azhazha, former navy officer and a Russian UFO researcher, says “Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more – with lakes. So UFOs tend to stick to the water,” he said. A nuclear submarine, on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean, detected six unknown objects. After the crew failed to leave dodge their pursuers by maneuvering, the captain ordered to surface. The objects followed suit, took to the air, and flew away.

Dozens of mysterious events went down near the Bermuda Triangle, according to a retired submarine commander Rear Admiral Yury Beketov, in which instruments malfunctioned with no apparent reason or detected strong interference. On several occasions the instruments gave readings of UFOs moving at 240 miles per hour. Underwater.

Navy intelligence veteran, Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay says “Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO’s fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda
Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea.”

The archives contain numerous reports of UFO encounters near Russia’s Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water body in the world. Fishermen tell stories of powerful lights shining up from the deep and objects flying up from the water.

In 1982, military divers at Baikal spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silver suits. The encounter happened at a depth of 170 feet, and the divers attempted to catch the strangers. Three of the seven men died, while four others were severely injured. Greys 1, Russia 0.

Vladimir Azhazha saysSkepticism is the easiest way: believe nothing, do nothing. People rarely visit great depths. So it’s very important to analyze what they encounter there.”

Russian Navy officials deny that a collection of UFO encounters exists. Really?
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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Alien Lore No.157 - The Nome, Alaska abductions and "The Fourth Kind"




In 2005, the FBI sent homicide detectives to investigate a series of unsolved disappearances and deaths in Nome, Alaska. Most of the victims were native villagers. Between the 1960s and 2004, over 20 people mysteriously died, or vanished. In 2006, the FBI concluded that "excessive alcohol consumption and a harsh winter climate" were to blame for the disappearances.

1n 1972, a scale of measurement was established for alien encounters. This system of classification behind it was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, and was first suggested in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. He introduced the first three kinds of encounters.



A new movie, The Fourth Kind is set in Nome, Alaska, where--mysteriously, since the 1960s--a number of the population has been reported missing every year. Despite multiple FBI investigations of the region, the truth has never been discovered. The movie has opened up a debate about whether any of this is actually true or not, or if the movie is really just another Blair Witch style documentary.

“The movie looks ridiculous,” said Kawerak Inc. Vice President Melanie Edwards, who watched the trailer online Monday. “It’s insensitive to family members of people who have gone missing in Nome over the years.”



According to Kyle Hopkins of adn.com, after years of rumors that Nome had become a dangerous place for travelers from the villages, local officials in 2005 released a list of about 20 disappearances and deaths in the city. The cases dated back to the 1960s. At the time, a Nome police officer was on trial for the murder of a young village woman, and some residents mistrusted city police.

The FBI stepped in, reviewing two dozen cases, eventually determining that excessive alcohol consumption and the winter climate were a common link in many of the cases. Unlike other commercial hubs in rural Alaska, Nome is a “wet” city, with bars and liquor stores.
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Thursday, December 04, 2008

Alien Lore No. 146 - The 2006 Australian UFO Wave


a still from the last clip in the film/video - click to enlarge

This is a great compilation of the "2006 Australian UFO Wave" -- a massive UFO hoax created by Christopher Kenworthy. Make sure to watch the entire video--the giveaway comes in the very last two videoclips. Thanks to Jeff Clinton, once again, for feeding into our Alien Lore series.

Kenworthy writes: "All the clips from my UFO hoax project, which have been viewed by over 8 million people." While the hoax project was underway many UFO researchers and others wrote to say they were convinced. Kenworthy says about the project: "Between June and mid-August 2006 thirty-one clips of UFOs were created. The UFO videos were distributed over the Internet via websites and video podcasts."

"The project was hugely successful, being viewed by many millions of people. Very few people suspected that the clips were manufactured. Gradually, the level of plausibility was reduced, but only when the last two clips were uploaded did a large number of people get suspicious. "

"It's also worth noting that two of the UFO clips we distributed were quite genuine - and no researcher was able to pick which two they were.I wanted to give people a taste of the drama and excitement of a UFO Close Encounter, creating a genuine sense of wonder." (See http://www.christopherkenworthy.com/ for further details on this fascinating project).




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Monday, November 24, 2008

Alien Lore No. 142 - The UFO sightings outside Istanbul, Turkey

Many people in the UFO community, and elsewhere believe this sighting, and video, to be "one of the most significant UFO videos of all time." The footage also shows two extraterrestrials on tape. The sighting/incident took place in a compound in Kumburgaz/Istanbul and was witnessed by nearly a dozen residents and filmed by a night guard (unfortunately I missed it, although I was in the vicinity last summer). The images captured are expected to have a tremendous impact throughout the world and be listed as the most important UFO/extraterrestrial images ever filmed.

As is often the case, thanks to Jeff Clinton for the tip...Jeff is often rumored to be the progeny of President William Jefferson Clinton. He is no blood relation to the soon-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. . .







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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Alien Lore. No.125 : The Wow Signal

Thanks to Jeff Clinton for pointing this one out. I'd heard of the Wow signal, but never read about it.






The Wow! signal was a narrowband (and surprisingly robust) radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977 while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of Ohio State University. The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for 72 seconds.

The Wow signal has often been considered the most promising, or the most likely, signal SETI has studied to date.

Dr. Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment "Wow!" on its side. . .ergo the name by which it is still known.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Those Actually Were UFOs Over Phoenix in 1997 Says Former Governor Symington



Former Gov. Fife Symington says now that those strange lights that appeared over Phoenix a decade ago were from another world and he admitted having a close encounter with an alien craft on March 13, 1997. At the time, however, he publicly mocked the very idea at a press conference. The Arizona Daily Star has an interesting article about his new revelations.

Symington, who was in his second term as governor of Arizona during the Phoenix Lights incident, recently told a UFO investigator making a documentary that he had kept quiet about his personal close encounter because he didn't want to panic the populace.

Symington repeated his story Thursday on CNN, saying the craft he saw was "enormous. It just felt other-worldly. In your gut, you could just tell it was other-worldly."
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