The Sunday Mail
Harmony Agere – Extra Reporter
On September 16, 1994 Zimbabwe and the world was left in a state of disbelief as news spread that a group of 60 pupils at Ariel — a private primary school located near Ruwa — claimed to have had a an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO) and its “alien” occupants.
UFO researchers say from the testimonies given by the students and their separate drawings of what they say they saw, it is possible that extraterrestrial civilisation may have indeed visited planet Earth that day.
The baffling incident created a buzz all over the world with local and international media struggling to make heads and tails of what the said intruders may have been.
Exactly 20 years on, the picture of what transpired remains vague and people are still split on what happened.
The Sunday Mail Extra travelled to Ruwa last week to engage various people who lived in the community when the bizarre incident happened.
Naturally, the people of Ruwa gave contrasting yet telling testimonies of what the students may have seen.
To some, the incident did not happen at all as it is just “not possible that aliens exist”. To those who are superstitious and little exposed to the UFO phenomenon, what the students saw were “tokoloshis” owned by a local “witch”.
Some say logically speaking, it is impossible that 62 students lied and then separately gave the same narration of the event and drew similar pictures of it.
Could it be mass hysteria?
Banda said: “We heard that a little plane with very short, big-eyed people fell from the sky close to where the school children were playing,” said 46-year-old Laston Banda, who has lived all his life near Ariel.
“I didn’t see it; none of the adults did because it happened in the school playground where the students were playing unsupervised.”
From what Banda heard, students saw the UFO hovering over gum trees near the playing grounds before disappearing and reappearing twice, and finally landing in the middle of the thicket.
A short figure emerged and started walking towards the students, who fled in panic.
Some younger pupils are said to have been in a state of shock and traumatised for several days afterwards.
Banda said the children’s accounts did not resemble the mysterious tales of witchcraft in the Shona lore, but he was not up to dismissing the witchcraft “theory” completely.
“In this community there are lots of witchcraft stories that we hear, sometimes we have tsikamutandas (people who say they can sniff out witches) coming in and claiming to have removed tokoloshis and other things,” he said.
“Even up to today some people believe that what was seen at the school were tokoloshis and not aliens or a UFO.”
A teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity for professional reasons said although he didn’t see it happening, the fear and shock that he felt in the pupils was unsettling.
“I still recall we had gone for a staff meeting that day and students, as usual, were playing in the playground,” he said.
“Soon there was alarm after students claimed to have seen things, which by their description resembled aliens.
“Some younger students even crying and for some time after the incident there was confusion and fear at the school.”
Sixty-six-year-old Chinyanga Phiri, who has lived and worked in this community since 1994, questioned the credibility of the story. He said he lived a stone’s throw from the school but never heard about the event.
“I was here the same year that you claim this thing happened, I never heard about it even up to now. I cannot believe that people who live in this community cannot know or hear about such a thing, it’s too big an incident for the school to remain silent about.”
We never will know what the 62 children saw that day.
