Episode 009 - The Westall / Ariel Sightings Part 2

The Ariel School sighting is certainly one of the most divisive events in ufology.

Though we should avoid the temptation to dismiss the tales of children as inherently unreliable, proponents are perhaps too quick to claim that children are infallible truth machines whom should be believed at face value. Any parent will tell you this is an absurd notion, though they often make an exception to this absurdity for their own children (which is, of course, also absurd).

Skeptics tend to dismiss the entire event on the basis of its fantastic nature and there are certainly some aspects of the story which beg more than one question, particularly the amount of detail (supposedly) seen by the children in regards to the associated entities. This incongruence was even pointed out by Cynthia Hind herself when conversing with Mr. Mackie in the school staffroom prior to interviews (though she paradoxically seems to imply this fact is evidence for the event’s reality).

It is very possible the children were conflating several bits of visual stimuli into something that they deemed sensible, their stories ultimately feeding off one another until they all more-or-less agreed. For example, claims of bright objects in the sky, flashing objects or even ‘teleporting’ objects could be the result of ‘load shedding’.

The local power authority in and around Harare did not have enough generative capacity to supply all the electrical needs in the area and therefore commonly disconnected non-critical systems from the grid, essentially creating a rolling blackout. Unauthorized electrical connections on the grid would render power usage estimations inaccurate and create electrical surges throughout the area, resulting in discharges along power lines.

As per Hind’s map, the UFO was seen near a power line. If some of the children witnessed a discharge (an unexpected and awesome sight to behold), they could have associated this with the UFO widely seen on September 14th.

To this day, several of the students maintain that a UFO did indeed land and that entities did appear in the field to the north of the school. While we do not want to brand anyone liars (as we were neither in Ruwa in 1994, nor are we psychic), we would be remiss if we did not point out that some of the former students’ remembrances have become quite elaborate (especially those of former student Emily Trim), including close-range observation (within five or ten meters) of the entities.

Regardless, the story retains enough credibility to be interesting even decades later. But, just as with the Westall sighting or any other, only contemporary claims and accounts should be given any real weight. Sketches and recollections made many years afterward are objectively indistinguishable from fantasy, no matter the sincerity of the artist or storyteller (which with rare exception, is quite profound).

This is the main reason a swift and properly conducted investigation is so important. That more care wasn’t taken by either Ms. Hind or Dr. Mack is a tragedy. Doing such would have only strengthened the case made by the proponents or skeptics and ultimately brought us all closer to the truth.

Also…identities of the children and their associated drawings are exceedingly hard to determine, partly due to the dearth of non-sensationalized information and the poor quality of existing video footage. Though the greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy, some errors regarding individual identities may exist.

Music:

"Nightdreams" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"River Fire" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

"Nevada City" by Huma Huma
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

"Eureka" by Huma Huma
https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music

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