Ariel School (Ruwa, 1994) — The Ariel School Encounter [Bedtime Stories]

Source: YouTube, "The Ariel School Encounter", Bedtime Stories channel — narrated retelling.
URL: https://youtu.be/Pqc5tfCgFC8 (19:04; ~1.0M views; uploaded 2020-09-13)
Captured: 2026-06-11 via YouTube auto-captions. Auto-caption text is lowercase and unpunctuated.
What this is: A narrated retelling of the Ariel School incident on the Bedtime Stories channel. Part of the Ariel School (Ruwa, Zimbabwe, 16 Sep 1994) source set — see ../../sources/ariel-school-ufo-1994.

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one of the most common reasons that
alleged encounters with unidentified
flying objects are often dismissed
is that they usually involve only one or
two witnesses but how has society
reacted when such occurrences have taken
place involving larger groups of
onlookers
this week we examine one such incident
join us as we delve into the mysteries
of the aerial school encounter
[Music]
it was predictably hot outside on the
playground as colin mackey sat waiting
in a stuffy office for the rest of his
teaching staff to join the meeting
currently they were preparing their
young charges to go out and play in the
sun
but they would join him shortly
pouring himself another cup of coffee he
glanced down at the newspaper on his
desk and then smiled to himself
for the last two days the headlines had
been saturated by reports of ufos
hovering in the skies above zimbabwe
each emerging description of these
alleged sightings seemed to be more
colourful and fantastic than the
preceding ones
but despite the media clamour
surrounding the reports
there was suspiciously little in the way
of hard evidence to support them
he looked up as the first couple of
teachers finally began to filter into
the staff room
he listened with interest to the
snippets of conversation that were
taking place as they entered
trying to catch the surnames of any of
the children that were being discussed
when the last participant finally
arrived he commenced the meeting as
planned
as the head teacher of the aerial school
mr mackie was ultimately responsible for
the delivery of the national syllabus
and the health and safety of his pupils
daily responsibilities of a more menial
nature were naturally delegated out to
his staff
and so once a week he liked to be able
to gain an overall picture of what was
going on within the school community
this meeting had started out like any
other with the usual concerns and
complaints being raised
blocked toilets damage caused to the
facility's perimeter fencing
and a lack of variety in the school
dinner options were merely a few of the
ongoing issues that needed to be tackled
but a short time into the discussion
mackie became aware of a perceptible
increase in volume coming from the
children
playing outside
as the disturbance had increased he
began to hear screaming and wailing
and it quickly became clear that
something was quite a miss
as one the room immediately emptied
with every teacher running for the exits
to find out what had upset the children
when they finally made it outside the
scene that awaited them was akin to
something out of a science fiction movie
roughly half of the pupils had strayed
beyond the boundaries of the playground
and were gathered around the border of a
patch of nearby scrubland
all were clearly emotional some having
collapsed to the ground
whilst others stood crying
several of the youngsters claim they had
encountered a takolshi
an evil spirit from local folklore but
the older children told quite a
different story
one of a little man from another world
who had visited them in order to warn
humanity about the future
when mackie asked one of the youths
where this visitor had gone
the child pointed upwards and told the
adult that the man in question had flown
away again off up into the heavens
the headmaster stood scanning the skies
above the school
but could see no trace of what the
youngsters were describing
as he watched his staff move amongst the
crying children
trying to comfort them he realized that
despite his skepticism
it was clear that something had taken
place
collecting several of the older pupils
he headed back to the school
explaining that he wanted them to draw
what they had witnessed
the town of rua lies approximately 22
miles southeast of the zimbabwean
capital harare
it is home to roughly twenty thousand
inhabitants
and sits on one of the country's main
road and railroads
beyond these mundane statistics there is
little to distinguish this featureless
settlement
from many others within the country's
borders
that is save for an event which is
believed to have taken place there
one morning in september of 1994.
in the two days prior to this alleged
incident the zimbabwean media had been
reporting a series of nocturnal ufo
sightings above harare
the majority of witnesses had described
seeing glowing fireballs traversing the
night skies
these lights had moved around at
breakneck speeds making impossible
twists and turns
before shooting off again and out of
sight
the aerial school is a private
elementary school
which is located on the outskirts of rua
at the time of the 1994 ufo flap
the facility taught approximately 90
pupils
varying in age from between 5 and 12
years old
on the morning of friday the 16th of
september
all the teaching staff were taking part
in a meeting inside the main school
building
and had left the 62 children who had
attended that day
to play unsupervised outside
as the youngsters had run and chased one
another beneath the burning sunshine
they had suddenly become aware of three
silver balls hovering in the sky above
the schoolyard
before long the majority of the children
had stopped to watch these objects
which would suddenly disappear in a
flash of red light
before reappearing again several meters
away
with each successive disappearance and
reappearance
the objects were slowly descending
closer and closer to the ground
making some of the younger children feel
anxious
seeming to sense the unease of those
watching two of the objects started to
rise back up to their original position
whilst the third continued to move
towards the ground
the silver orb followed the path of a
line of electricity pylons
which ran parallel to the school's
perimeter fence before descending into a
cluster of gum trees
located roughly 300 feet from the
playground
this area was strictly off limits to the
children as it was home to a variety of
poisonous snakes and spiders
but a deputation of the pupils promptly
set off
to investigate what the object could be
they had moved to within a few feet of
the foliage when a figure suddenly
emerged from the top of the hovering
craft
immediately the watching children were
taken aback
as no door or hatchway had been seen to
open
it was as if the man had simply
levitated up from within the object's
interior
the individual was only about three or
four feet tall
and was clad in a shiny and
tight-fitting suit of some kind
descriptions of him in the aftermath of
the event varied somewhat from child to
child
but most agreed that he was thin with
elongated arms and legs
and oversized black eyes which were
shaped like
rugby balls some of the witnesses
described him as having a thin
neck whilst others stated that he had
black hair that fell down to his
shoulders
or was wearing a hood
the entity floated down the side of the
orb until he landed on the ground
beneath
and then began to walk around as if
inspecting the rough terrain
at this point a second figure suddenly
appeared at the top of the craft
causing the nerve of the younger
witnesses to break
sending them screaming back to the
school building to fetch help
apparently aware of the commotion that
its presence had caused
the first creature then moved over to
the waiting children
where it surveyed them through
emotionless eyes
straight away the youngsters were
consumed by an overwhelming feeling of
despair and hopelessness
several claimed to have visions of the
world decaying and dying around them
and the voice in their head warning them
of a perilous and dystopian future
centered around a falsehood
inside the main building a number of the
children had located the school dinner
lady
the only adult not involved in the staff
meeting
she had been running the break time tuck
shop but believed that the children were
trying to draw her away with the story
so that some of the others could steal
sweets
and refused to come outside with them
meanwhile back outside the children
assembled near the floating craft
continued to be tormented by a
whispering voice
that warned them of the danger they were
all in and that their future would be a
dark and foreboding one
throughout this interaction the entity
standing before the pupils did not speak
seemingly able to plant the dystopian
thoughts and images they were
experiencing
directly into their minds
after a number of minutes the intruder
turned away
and then floated back up into the
waiting orb
the object promptly shot up into the sky
at great speed
before disappearing with a further red
flash
when the teachers finally emerged from
their meeting to see what had caused the
commotion
there was no trace of the craft either
in the skies above
or on the ground where it had landed
realizing that something significant had
taken place
colin mackey quickly encouraged the
children involved to draw pictures of
the being they had interacted with
in total the pupils he identified
created 35 images of the entities
and the orb in which they had traveled
when
investigators and journalists attended
the school the following day
mackie laid all of these renderings out
as proof that the children were not
lying about the encounter
over the decades that have passed since
the incident it has become increasingly
difficult to find any of the children
involved
the overwhelming majority have long
since left zimbabwe
to settle on foreign shores many others
have died as a result of the country's
ongoing civil issues
but the few who have been located have
maintained their story
increasingly concerned that the warnings
the creatures issued
continue to be ignored
in the days following the occurrence a
number of prominent ufologists visited
the aerial school in order to
investigate the encounter whilst the
visual inspection of the alleged landing
site
along with the use of geiger counters
produced nothing of value
interviews with 12 of the young
witnesses completely persuaded
investigators
that the incident had transpired exactly
as it had been reported
the fact that the children were all of
varying age ethnicity and social
standing
but were providing a near identical
account was believed to be a clear
indicator that the story could not have
been made
up alongside this
the early observations of the teachers
and the drawings supervised by mr mackey
further reinforced the apparent validity
of the witness accounts
many of the children who were spoken to
had no concept of ufos or
extraterrestrial entities
they were local youths from poor
backgrounds and believed that the entity
which they had illustrated and described
to the investigators
must have been some form of spiritual
creature or demon
days later reports emerged in the press
that witnesses at the neighbouring pier
house school had also
observed the objects further reinforcing
the incident's credibility
over the years commonalities with the
aerial school encounter have been
uncovered in the testimony of other
alleged alien abductees
the concept of extraterrestrial visitors
speaking telepathically is commonplace
and a minority of other witnesses have
described warnings from aliens about the
future
and what is in store for mankind
there are also a number of other
incidents where ufos have been witnessed
apparently visiting teaching facilities
perhaps the most notorious of these
events took place in the australian city
of melbourne
on the 6th of april 1966
at approximately 11am a number of pupils
at the westall high school informed
their teachers that an odd-looking craft
was hovering over the school playground
as these reports circulated throughout
the children and their teachers
the school buildings quickly emptied out
with approximately 300 witnesses
attending what was taking place
the majority of them described that the
object hovering above the school was
oval shaped
and was roughly the size of two cars
parked next to one another
it was grey in colour but emitting a
purple hue into the air around it
as with the subsequent rear incident the
object slowly descended towards the
ground
before it was obscured by a nearby patch
of trees
at this point five military aircraft
suddenly appeared overhead
and began to circle around the school
perimeter
the unidentified object immediately rose
back up into the sky
and engaged in a short game of cat and
mouse with its pursuers
before flying off again at great speed
in the days that followed the head
teacher told the students not to discuss
what they had seen with anybody outside
the school
and a number of military officials
attempted to persuade the witnesses
that they were mistaken about what it
was they had seen play out
there were also reports of other men
dressed all in black who was seen
inspecting the patch of trees
the craft had descended into
so what are we to make of these reported
incidents
are they indeed instances of
extraterrestrial visitation
trying to usher mankind along a less
destructive path
whatever that may be or are we instead
seeing classic examples of mass hysteria
or merely extremely convincing youthful
pranks
both incidents involved a staggering
number of eyewitnesses
the australian case in particular was
witnessed by both juveniles and adults
and whilst there was a notable lack of
physical evidence at either of the
alleged
landing sites there are sufficient
similarities in the witness testimonies
which make them difficult to dismiss or
debunk
one theory is that these mysterious
visitors are not extraterrestrial at all
but are actually travellers from earth's
far future
this may explain their ability to
materialize in different time periods
and geographical locations
whilst attempting to carry out their
mission to prevent the mistakes of the
past
from dooming mankind's future as
far-fetched as that all sounds
as we leap through the pictures drawn by
the aerial school children
it becomes increasingly difficult to
deny that they saw something unthinkable
on that
fateful september morning in the nearly
three decades that have passed
they have never altered or disavowed
their stories
and that conduct alone should persuade
us all to perhaps give their claims at
least
a second thought whatever they saw
they certainly believed that it was real
and that the warnings they were given
were both clear and ominous
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