Within the earlier posting, we examined how the primary episode of Encounters offered the 2008 sightings in Stephenville, Texas in loving element, however ignored the already-known clarification for all of it. Second verse, identical as the primary!
Episode 2 of Netflix’s Encounters (one in all whose Govt Producers was.Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Tv) covers the alleged 1994 UFO and alien sightings by as many as 62 faculty kids (however no adults) on the Ariel Faculty in Zimbabwe. An excellent deal has been written about this case, I will not attempt to repeat that in any element.
 |
| One of many kids drew this Spaceman, together with his Spaceship. |
As described in UFO Evidence,
On 14th September, 1994, a UFO streaked throughout the sky over Southern Africa. Two days later, one thing landed in a schoolyard in Ruwa, Zimbabwe, with three or 4 issues beside it, in keeping with journalist Cynthia Hind. This was witnessed by 62 schoolchildren, who had little or no publicity to TV or widespread press accounts of UFOs. Cynthia Hind interviewed them the day after the encounter and made them draw photos of what that they had seen.
The case has since gone on to grow to be a basic. The Harvard psychiatrist and UFO abductionist Dr. John Mack (1929-2004) got here to Zimbabwe two months after the incident, and spent two days on the faculty interviewing the youngsters, and the varsity employees. Apparently, while there were about 250 children playing outside at the time, only 62 claim to have seen it. Not all 62 kids had been interviewed by Hind or Mack. (It needs to be famous that Cynthia Hind was a devoted UFO creator and investigator.)
What may need been inflicting such extraterrestrial pleasure? A “UFO streaked throughout the sky over Southern Africa” on Sept. 14? Newspaper experiences described it as a “meteor bathe,” however there was no meteor bathe. Not till a number of weeks later was it decided that the thing broadly seen throughout southern Africa was, the truth is, the fiery re-entry of a Zenit-2 rocket that had launched Cosmos 2290. This then-unexplained sighting had prompted an excellent stir and nice UFO curiosity throughout the realm.
 |
| Satellite tv for pc guru Ted Molczan recorded this visible statement of the rocket’s fiery re-entry. |
Charlie Wiser has written a very detailed account of the Ariel School incident, from a skeptical perspective. I wrote about this case in 2016, a few of which is reprinted right here. The French psychologist Dr. Gilles Fernandez reviewed all of the written and recorded material concerning the children’s interviews. He wrote that
Interviewing kids has been the topic of quite a few scientific papers and experiments, diversifications and creations of interview commonplace protocols, in psychology or criminology, to effectively keep away from or reduce biases that happen when such interviews (or questionnaires) “pollute” the proof. Cynthia Hind’s interview methodology with kids could be very removed from these requirements…. Cynthia Hind and an grownup (Headmaster?) debrief and focus on “different planets”, “house journey”, and so forth. whereas kids are within the room and listen to every little thing …
|
|
Fernandez notes that the children were not being interviewed individually, but instead all together:
The child must be interviewed individually (again following proper procedure). Now, in the video-recorded excerpts above, it is striking to see that children are interviewed in a “line” from four to six. Sometimes other children are in the background and listen to another child being questioned. The adults talk to each other or “debrief” while the children are still very close and present … Also, children hear what others say (including adults), and therefore are likely to influence each other. Even worse, a child who has seen very little or nothing, sees his classmates details and that this is something that greatly interests adults (verbal and non-verbal rewards). This could encourage them to participate in the “game”.
These collective sessions have therefore enabled children to hear each other and even to copy each other, caught in a game where they see adults and a nice lady interested in the narratives. We must therefore deliver in our turn, not be excluded or unwelcome in this “game” that took place. This potential participation or having participated give a certain homogeneity to the stories and therefore reported details …
Also, Cynthia Hind conducting the interview is constantly interrupting the children and not allowing the free narrative. We must also wonder if the fact that the interviews as drawings sessions were held in the school, this did not lead them precisely, encouraged or “biased” them to make what would be compilations of stories … kinds of school events, where, for example, the child thinks he must absolutely answer questions, produce a drawing, the adult (or authority here) will be waiting for answers and therefore it happens.
Then, as if the problems in the interrogation technique were not bad enough, Fernandez notes
Finally, and this is rarely mentioned or noticed, there was also a session where the children were invited [by Hind] to draw on the board this time around-and not just on paper. Again, this does not back it literally “to send the child to the table” ? And it is still in my opinion a methodological error: the child is placed as in a school exercise status, “forcing him to produce” adult authority and waiting for something (and “authority” that the reward verbally or non-verbally) … John Mack also, two months later, again invited children to draw ..
Dr. Fernandez’ article detailing all of the problems with Ms. Hind’s and Dr. Mack’s interviews is effectively value studying (in French, which Google can translate).
However then, unexpectedly, Encounters reveals us a fellow named Dallyn (the entire college students had been recognized by first title solely. Later he was recognized as Dallyn Vico) who claims to have made up the entire ufo/alien story to get out of class. He claims it was a “shiny rock” and in some way supposedly persuaded the opposite college students they had been seeing spacemen. To say that this man was disbelieved on social media could be an understatement, and I do not consider him, both. Journalist Nicky Carter interviewed Dallyn Vico and other students two weeks after the event in 1994. At the moment he made no point out of constructing something up. He stated that he had seen the “meteorite” the evening earlier than, and the thing he supposedly noticed on the faculty seemed like that, so he thought it was a meteorite, too. Requested if he believed that individuals may stay on different planets in addition to earth, Dallyn replied “sure.”
 |
| Dallyn Vico in 1994 |
In a second interview in 2008, Dallyn said,
I consider that the Ariel sighting, though we don’t absolutely perceive what occurred, there was one thing positively that did happen there that was out of the bizarre… I seemed up into the sky and I noticed these lights within the sky, however they weren’t fixated in a single space…”The lights had been flashing like totally different colours, blue, pink, yellow, purple. However they want flash after which disappear after which they might flash once more, however perhaps a kilometer or a big distance within the air. They might reappear and flash once more, in a distinct space.
He made no point out of his alleged function in any of this. When the story instructed by an alleged witness modifications in such a serious method, that individual is a liar. Both he was mendacity earlier than he modified his story, or else he’s mendacity afterward. Which it’s does not matter.
So what really triggered the Ariel Faculty incident? It’s tough to say for positive. However allow us to recall that that is removed from the one incident of obvious mass contagion or mass hysteria, particularly amongst kids:
- “The Voronezh UFO incident was an alleged UFO and extra-terrestrial alien sighting reported by a group of children in Voronezh, Soviet Union, on September 27, 1989. The realm has been widespread with UFO-hunting vacationers.
“In response to TASS, boys taking part in soccer in a metropolis park “noticed a pink glow within the sky, then noticed a deep pink ball about three metres in diameter. The ball circled, vanished, then reappeared minutes later and hovered”. The youngsters claimed to have seen “a three-eyed alien” carrying bronze colored boots with a disk on the chest, and a robotic, exiting the thing.In response to the youngsters, the alien used a ray gun to make a 16-year-old boy disappear till the thing departed.”
- “In 1959 Papua New Guinea was still a territory of Australia. June of that year saw the spectacular sightings by Father William Gill, an Australian Anglican missionary, and 37 members of his Boianai mission. Gill made notes in regards to the expertise, which the media obtained. Tales appeared in August, inflicting a sensation…One above the hills west, one other over- head. On the big one two of the figures gave the impression to be doing one thing close to the middle of the deck, had been sometimes bending over and elevating their arms as if adjusting or “establishing” one thing (not seen). One determine gave the impression to be standing trying down at us (a gaggle of a few dozen). I stretched my arm above my head and waved. To our shock the determine did the identical…. Hynek and Allan Hendry, the the [CUFOS] heart’s chief investigator, concluded the ‘lesser UFOs’ seen by Gill had been attributable to vivid stars and planets, however not the first object. Its measurement and absence of motion over three hours dominated out an astronomical clarification.” Whereas this account doesn’t contain kids, the truth that Father Gill was the religious chief of this spiritual neighborhood makes it very probably that his followers would merely agree with what he claimed they noticed. Chapter 22 of UFOs Explained by Philip J. Klass discusses this case, and provides compelling the reason why these claims shouldn’t be taken severely.
- Extra not too long ago, “On Monday October 2, 2023, news reports from western Kenya told of a bizarre condition that had swept through St. Theresa’s Eregi Girls’ High School. At the least 62 college students had been hospitalized after exhibiting uncontrollable twitching of their legs and arms, together with rhythmic muscle contractions and spasms. At occasions the women had been reported to seem as if possessed by spirits and complained of complications, dizziness, and knee ache. Many had been unable to stroll and needed to be taken in wheelchairs to ready ambulances. The unusual outbreak occurred within the city of Musoli, about 230 miles northwest of Nairobi…Samples of blood, urine, phlegm, and stool had been taken, together with throat swabs. All proved to be unremarkable. By Thursday, Kenyan well being officers additionally dominated out the function of infectious illness and as an alternative concluded that they had been affected by “hysteria” in response to emphasize from upcoming exams.” Psychologist and skeptic Robert E. Bartholomew means that it was “mass psychogenic sickness… Motor-based outbreaks are most typical in much less developed nations. They evolve extra slowly, typically taking weeks or months to incubate. They sometimes happen within the strictest colleges the place there’s rigidity between college students and directors or another battle. Below such extended stress, the nerves and neurons that ship messages to the mind grow to be disrupted, leading to an array of neurological signs reminiscent of twitching, shaking, convulsions, and trance-like states. This is identical kind of outbreak that affected the younger Puritan ladies in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and led to the notorious witch craze.” Which brings us to:
- Saducismus Triumphatus by Joseph Glanvill could be considered “The Scientific Research of Witchcraft,” because it tried to show the truth of witchcraft on purely empirical grounds. Within the 1689 version, we learn that in 1669, experiences reached the Swedish king regarding a large-scale outbreak of witchcraft within the village of Mohra. The king dispatched some commissioners, each lay and clergy, “to look at the entire enterprise.” They discovered that the Satan had apparently drawn a whole lot of kids into his grasp and had even been seen “in a visual form.” After a cautious investigation, they discovered no fewer than seventy grownup witches within the village, who had managed to seduce about 300 kids into the follow of black magic. The commissioners interviewed every of the youngsters individually (they had been wiser than John Mack), and located that “all of them, besides some little or no ones” instructed tales that had been extremely constant, of being supernaturally carried away to the witches’ fest, driving by the air on the backs of animals (see chapter 7 of my e-book UFO Sightings, which may be purchased on Amazon, or “borrowed” from the Internet Archive library.).
So, no matter you select to name it, “mass hysteria” and “social contagion” are by no means unlikely as explanations for weird incidents reminiscent of this.
