#490 - ’Ariel Phenomenon’ director Randall Nickerson | Matt's Movie Reviews Podcast

0:00 thank you for listening to namat's movie reviews podcast available on podbean Apple podcasts Spotify Google podcasts Amazon music and Stitcher also please follow Matt's movie reviews on Facebook YouTube LinkedIn Reddit Instagram and niwi and of course be sure to visit Matt's moviereviews.net for the latest reviews top 10 lists and more now on to the show hundreds of people today phoned the zbc saying they cited an unidentifying flying object with a bright Radiant Life I'm the resident like it in my life it was the absence of noise people from all over Zimbabwe referring the BBC to say we've seen something weird there were three of us at sword myself the co-pilot and the pilot in other aircraft no wings no nothing shiny over things aerial School 19th September 94. could you tell me what you saw on Friday the

1:02 silver thing it in amongst this clump of trees we saw this black figure running his his face was like this and his eyes were down here I just thought it was some kind of alien from the different okay when he looks at those children they were absolutely credible and whereabouts was it and the trees over there there was a big group of kids appointing and making a noise and shouting and screaming the Panic spread am I safe or am I not safe and he's a Harvard psychiatrist meet Dr John Mack a believer in aliens from outer space we came away convinced it's an extraordinary event occurred here I think they want people to know that we're actually making harm on this world how did that get communicated to you it came through my head somehow there was a message about pollution from the way he was staring oh I was as far hard ass journalist I could handle War zones but I could not handle this UFO thing I mean

2:02 I never felt this could derail my career the dean wanted to know what is he doing Angels yes extraterrestrials no John has lost it this time this journey is literally to pick up the pieces and put them back together oh my gosh they are the ones who drew those funny something that I'll never ever forget I've drawn this again which I usually kept it quiet people think you're crazy my husband doesn't even know about it you feel so alone with Society why is it that we tend to want to shrink this powerful phenomenon to our Notions of reality rather than being able to stretch ourselves to expand what we know and to admit that we don't know you like to see him again yes and if you saw him again what would you do I'll ask him some questions what would you like to ask him

3:03 I'll ask him what is he doing on Earth and what does he want with us hello and welcome to the Matt's movie reviews podcast I am your host Matthew peakovich and this is episode number 490 releasing December 25 on digital is Ariel phenomenon a documentary that deals into the 1994 Mass UFO sighting event at the area school in Zimbabwe which over 60 school children witness an extraterrestrial event the film also explores the efforts of Harvard professor of Psychiatry John Mack in BBC War journalist Tim Leach in keeping this story alive a documentary that explores the real world human implications of experiencing and out of this world event Ariel phenomenon also marks the feature film debut of UFO researcher Randall

4:04 Nicholson who now directs the film and produces it does a whole bunch of other stuff as a world around I mean this is really a film that's a passion project for you when you have our fingers and a lot of Pies on this one don't you uh yeah that's true thanks for having me on that by the way absolutely I mean it's just a pleasure to have you on and you know we're just read enough about aerial phenomenon and and your relation to the film I mean I've read articles as far backers say 2009 talking about how you were trying to get this film off the ground and this is a documentary there's been a ways is self-financed and self-distributed and and now that it's some some critics have seen the review early reviews have been very strong it's to be released very soon how does it feel to that now after all these years the film will finally come out how does it feel on your end as a filmmaker and someone who has invested such a uh such a personal way and financial uh uh cost into making this filmhouse I feel now that people will be watching it finally uh it feels very very good

5:07 um you know I started in 2007. and you know you have all these different uh ideas of when you're gonna get done and the financing was a real big issue you know to be able to go to Africa I spent a year and three months there three different trips and um to get the proper people to work on the film also but I feel great that it's done you know what I mean that I that I achieved the goal I wanted to do which was to tell this um but yeah it feels good and what feels even the most uh rewarding uh has been happening in the last three months and it's it's the been the letters I've been getting from people and it's just one sentence it says that just really touches my heart and that says you know thank you for validating my and to me there's nothing I mean I would have done it all for that because I know how that is you know when you've been living with something your

6:08 entire life and and um you know finally someone tells that in the way it should be told in a way and and with real honest legitimate um that is there's no gift you can give bigger to anybody and it's not me that just gave that it was our crew it was all the witnesses who had the courage to to come forward um so that like the biggest gift to me is is that is um and I hope the kids that are the that were interviewed the witnesses uh really hear that that that's kind of the impact I've been getting over and over because a lot of people that has has had this happen to them isolate you know and don't talk about it they're afraid of getting ridiculed or laughed at and they just keep it inside for me you know this documentary is interesting in that it is a film about this UFO incident

7:10 that happened back in 1994 but it's also a film I think about it's a story about tenacity in a face of opposition it's a story about these group of people who all experience something and just really never wavering no matter what type of opposition was thrown against especially when it comes to someone say like John Mack or Tim Leach their careers in many ways were really put under the fire because they refuse to give in to any type of group thinking they refuse to give in um to they refuse to abandon these kids who put their story out there bravely that story of tenacity is that something that's really spoke to you as well in regards to the stories of John Mack and Tim Leach in regards to their area school incident it did and and it it was more than just John I mean that's just it was more than

8:11 John Mack um and Tim Leach and the kids it was researchers that were involved in it other uh parents that held that um for years and years decades really um that that same kind of tenacity uh the story can't go unheard it's too you know too big too important and it's just you know no one has ever come forward to say it was something else ever and it's uh it's it's just uh yeah it's amazing and and I think it was because of the exposure to interviewing those kids you knew they were telling the truth there was just no question about that and why would they do that you know why would they you know if they if they wanted to come forward with a story they'd have all you know everything would be this was the way this was this way but they were in awe in shock uh didn't have a lot of

9:13 answers and that's kind of that's what happens it's a very human story isn't it I mean the UFO event is is the trigger that brought all these people together but it's about the ramifications um that happen to these people whether it be towards their spiritual lives their personal lives family lives um you know their own kind of like dealing with what is uh reality as they knew it as to what what it was post this and one of the people that you focus on in the film is Emily trim um she is a uh she was in in Zimbabwe at the school she's originally from Canada um she witnessed the event along with so many others um but for her it was this was still a very much a process in regards to she didn't really have anyone to talk to about this and a lot of people didn't because a lot of the adults in their lives would be parents or teachers or some people kind of dismissed their

10:14 an interesting thing about Emily as well is isn't it true that she contacted you in the in a you know you know kind of like a and I wouldn't say aggressive but in very much say hey this is our story who were you to to be the one to tell it kind of kind of thing is that a kind of a true thing that happened there that's exactly true I still have that email and uh yeah I was just like wow I'm stepping into something here that people have a lot of feelings about and there's you know I understand because I don't think she understood or knew how I was going to present the story you know you know I'm sure she felt like hey don't don't don't mess with us don't mess with us kids because we're not going to be made fun of or anything like that I got a shout out to Emily because she really took a a real big risk and and uh gave a lot to um be part of this film um and very few people do that you know the interesting thing about Emily is I myself am a Christian I know there are

11:16 a lot of Christians out there who are looking at the whole kind of like UFO phenomenon especially the the um a lot of things that have been revealed over the last couple of years um and they they I don't know I'm not going to go as far to say that they're questioning they're faking anyway I'm not saying that but it's a real kind of interesting kind of juxtaposition about how this thing over here fits with this other thing that we've that we've come across to accustomed to as a human species over the last you know 2000 years or so since Christianity has been around and and that con the idea of the conflicting world of views is is a really kind of interesting element in this movie not only towards Emily's story but I think a lot of people as well when people face in events like they did we've we've just kind of like UFO incidents um it really kind of the ramifications um is really kind of searing I think I I think that's true religion uh was a was a focus because um because there were so it was religious school the aerial school is a

12:17 Christian School um and I have no you know beef or anything around religion I believe in God myself but it doesn't mean that these things are evil or you know we don't know what these things are but we do uh I believe uh know that they come from somewhere else you know and it's a pretty big universe um so yeah there is a lot of uh you know and a lot of the kids that come to the realization that you know it doesn't matter you know that there's other life in the universe you know it's in the Bible God said you know we you know there I don't know you can get into the the text and uh why would he not spread it out all over the place and we're just starting to meet some of those um other creatures from other places well I know everybody talks about well how would they get there um well you know we do this in the

13:18 military and we you know we go to a far away Place granted it's not interplanetary at this point but we send a forward operating we set up a forward operating base of you know and then we resupply that you know uh over and over so they they only had to travel once you know what I mean and that may have been a long time ago I don't know but but the whole idea of people talking about how how could they even possibly get here well we don't even know because we haven't evolved that far um what's Cape what's possible but also um you know another species would likely if they're interested in ours would likely set up some kind of forward base or whatever you know so they don't have to travel back and forth um if that's an issue at all so Emily reaches out to you but there are so many other witnesses as well how do you go about finding the witnesses

14:19 because after that incident they kind of like a lot of the kids can like become adults and they they've established that in lives that are kind of spread out around the world um how do you go about finding these kids now that they're adults is there does this Emily help with that is there kind of like other people reach out to you I'm really curious in regards to well I got a lot of the names when I first went to the school in 2008 March and uh I got a lot of names from the school I had great help from Robin GERD and Nikki uh Carter um and we started reaching out and searching those people on Facebook and Facebook just sort of came out at that time in 2006 2007. so I I was using it and even my space was still around back then and just trying to locate them online so I could figure out where they were because they were very uh mobile being in their 20s you know or early 30s they were moving

15:20 all over the world so it was very hard to to um track them and and set up a um but I did you know after I had to stay in Africa for quite a long time to get the people there because I didn't know if they were going to leave at any time you know they may have moved out to England or Australia so and then I did all of Europe finding all the ones in Europe and uh in the United States and um and then it just you know there was a several witnesses in Australia that I just couldn't afford to get to um but yeah it uh that was a journey in itself was locating these people it took an awful long time and then you know you once you locate them then you you know the conversations that I had on the phone with people were pretty I was that would uh was out there in the world but you know what and people would tell me about it over the phone and then I'd you know say hey would you like to do an interview and then that that would be a

16:21 yes or no and um so yeah they were quite there were a lot of witnesses a lot that I didn't either get to or um did not want to put their faces on a film it's interesting go ahead not that they didn't believe or weren't witness to something that happened that's just they were afraid of what it would do to their lives and their and that part's really interesting to me over the years that you've made these film when you first kind of came up conceived at 2007 and in all that time you've been making it in or the interviews that you've done an interesting thing is has been happening uh we've been pop culture within the media we've been within just a World At Large in that the acceptance of belief for these incidents and has gradually grown and grown and grown to the point where now you have the United States United States government admitting uh to

17:23 tracking these things and and these Senate hearings and all these other things going on and it's it's quite interesting to see so while you're making this movie um where a lot of these uh Witnesses have been ostracized and ridiculed and and in question um the things that was once considered Sabu in regards to uh UFO sightings and your belief has become a much more mainstream now it's quite an interesting uh parallel that's going on there yeah it's pretty incredible I didn't expect that to happen um probably most people didn't but it um so yeah it's a rather exciting time and uh you know I think of all those people who came forward from the beginning you know way back in the 30s 40s 50s who spoke out publicly all the way through the 60s 70s 80s 90s and a lot of those people are no longer alive you know that makes me a little sad that they don't they're not seeing this day because of the Flack they took and and

18:25 how it changed their lives you know I mean the aerial kids are pretty lucky in a way um that the timing for this event is uh is being accepted um and uh but yeah it's just it's it's exciting and I never thought I would see what is happening happen um but I think it's good for all of us I think the most important thing regardless of what these things are is let's find out the truth what is it because I want to know I want to know what their intentions are you know there's a million questions I I would love to have answered because you know they're they're obviously seemingly a very technological species from God only knows where and uh they can have a a quite an impact on our civilization without us even knowing it so that's you know part of my concern not that they're I don't I just don't even refer to good evil it's not

19:27 even about that we're dealing with another another species and uh it doesn't appear to be like they're out to you know take over the planet or any of those sci-fi things it doesn't that's not what's going on it doesn't appear to be the Mets movie reviews podcast is brought to you by tea public tea public is the world's largest Marketplace for independent creators to sell their work on the highest quality merchandise with over 1.2 million designs T public is sure to have something your love the Mets movie reviews podcast is brought to you by Amazon the world's leading online store Amazon is your first stop to buy a wide range of products at competitive prices with fast delivery times Amazon is also a world-class entertainment Hub that includes Prime video audible twitch Amazon music and more sign up with Amazon today and experience the best in online shopping and entertainment

20:28 please support Max movie reviews on patreon get access to exclusive content request movie reviews and top 10 lists and help support my work please click on the patreon link in the description I want to talk about the the Treasure Trove of archival footage that's in this documentary it's so fantastic that you can get your hands on um the the live interviews that that the children did or the different kind of like um news footage um just the town hall meetings as well it's just all incredible stuff I've haven't spoken to you know independent uh filmmakers before especially um usually I um they tell me stories about how difficult it can be not so much in locating the footage but getting the rights to the footage especially if we've been dealing with um budgets that may not may need to be stretched quite a bit to accommodate for that was that something that you had to go through as well in regards to obtaining rights to a

21:28 lot of this uh footage to use in your documentary in any of so um what have you learned over the years about copyrights Etc when it comes to archival footage because for a lot of filmmakers I talk to it's definitely been the learning curve in the process of putting these films together oh yes for sure you know um like I I figured I could get this film out for about two hundred thousand dollars but that was right in the beginning I'm like no because my uncle had left me two hundred thousand dollars to get this film done before he died which was amazing you know Byron candy really uh he um believed that I was gonna get this done and I did and but still you know starting at 200 000 then I you know you get to a point it's like oh my gosh I've got to hire an attorney I've got you know it just becomes bigger and then when you get into rights I mean people own this footage and you know that was a whole it was a very expensive

22:31 part of this film was paying for the rights to use it um all these different um interviews and you know there's there's another 60 interviews that are not even in the movie that are profound and uh you know I I would love to at some point to to get those out so it's just more of the slam dunk so to speak of that this is this really happened um but yeah it's been a it's been an education going a learning curve a steep one sometimes um just even dealing with attorneys and dealing with the rights holders and you know it I I'm pretty good at it now but it's been tough uh but it is a financial burden that um when especially when you get exclusive footage that nobody else has the price on that stuff uh goes up you know it's not like a Creative Commons kind of thing where you can pull stuff off

23:31 so yeah but there's an enormous amount of archival which is was really to me convincing you know for me because I knew where that came from and I knew where it was shot and and it was in the moment you know and uh um the adult interviews were very profound too because they had not seen a lot of their own interviews uh and yet they told the same story 20 years later as if they were there I'm really I'm interested in regards to the editing process I mean you know what they say it's one thing to shoot a film it's another film thing to piece it together in an editing room you know it's like that's where the film's kind of made right so um you yourself edited a movie and you also had Christopher um SeaWorld and Rick disgrace as well uh I'll help in human editing how do you three go about grabbing all of those archive footages to the interviews uh and pizza and all together do you like to map out your stuff beforehand

24:34 um do you do visual Diaries how do you like to go about piecing a movie together like this uh you know we did some transcribing so we could see the words but for me it was more what's on screen you know what what is what is communicated on screen uh the emotional value look in the eyes and that was a wonderful thing about this the working with all these people like when you looked in their eyes you you you they you knew you were they were telling you the truth you know there was no their body language everything about it was uh very raw and uh which is why like later on in the film when I start to interview the adult kids I go in tight you know I didn't do a lot of wide shots because I wanted people to look in their because they're telling the truth um but I say it all um and uh so uh yeah no when I I had edited till about 2012

25:36 and got stuck and I was like I have to get a professional letter to help me tell this story and that's when I got uh Chris Seward involved and uh you know he worked on Fahrenheit for Michael Moore and all these other award-winning films he's brilliant absolutely brilliant and he knows how to tell a story um and you know kind of gave me a different perspective of what what I was looking at uh and which was really helpful and then him and I started working together uh one of the things he's like you're not telling the story for yourself you're telling it for the audience the audience that's who you are telling this to which is a kind of a perspective shift that a lot of filmmakers go through hopefully is that as much as you want to get it done and tell what you think you're not really you're telling it to to a group of people you know

26:36 um that you don't know some of them you do some of them yell but you're talking you're telling a story to the kids that happened to which was a big deal for me I wanted to let the kids know because they didn't know all the things that happened at that point and one of the reasons was to give them like here's what happened and and then also other people had been through this and then the General Public um but Christopher was amazing uh Rick uh digress was degrees um was just a technical genius as far as any problems we had and Uprising footage and you know um so we all three of us were at different points of editing things but Chris and I um pretty much swapped chairs swap chairs back and forth I'd work on it he'd work on it I'd work on it he'd work on it and we had a lot of discussions we had disagreement you know the things that happened in an edit room and it's also a lot of fun in the edit room but

27:37 um yeah you go through a lot of uh what matters like what matters to the story what matters to what actually happened you know um and I really wanted to stick right with you know what happened no special effects none of that because didn't need it the kids were the special effects in a way you know the you didn't you know and and special effects in a movie like this you're never going to get it right unless you get one of these things and a couple of these creatures to come down right because it's just so bizarre that's the problem we can't replicate that and it also comes down to you A lot of times the imagination is better than anything could be on screen oh yeah truth is far better than Fiction by far I mean it's just yeah it's uh it's the unbelievable that need to make sure that the story of the children is told no compromise

28:40 um no um no special effects none of that stuff is is that what came down to having you distribute the film on your own did you find that when shopping the film around that some some people some companies wanted to change things or maybe uh you know maybe Jazz some things up and you would just like look I've worked on this for a long um there are people's lives that people have put their reputations on the line to be in this feeling I'm not going to um in at the end that that's essentially why we're seeing you yourself doing the distribution in this movie pretty much yeah that's unfortunate but um yeah a lot of people wanted to uh when I went out shopping it wanted to change it and uh sort of put it more back into the UFO genre of films which I wanted to stay away from and make a movie like you'd make about someone anybody in the world that went through something normal and even though this wasn't normal why treat it differently

29:41 because they've it's just we've been stuck in this UFO genre you know sort of thing which is very um you know uh uh how do you say it pushing buttons and it's like wow you know it's making it some big um thing when it it's it's just people going through something that we don't understand completely um so yeah that was a big fight that I had with some very large Distributors some of the biggest distributors in the world and I would have loved to have have had them on board and I really would have because it would have they had much more distribution capabilities and reputation and uh but at the end of the day I I thought the film after all this work all this time I thought we got it right so that was a hard decision and I had to

30:42 make it but yeah to self-distribute and um not as lucrative for sure but it's the right thing to do it was the right thing to do and that's what matters again it comes back to that that theme of tenacity that I think it's really prevalent uh for your story um when it comes to yourself and Ariel and the story and and everything else involved with it is this the does this close a chapter for you or is this just a a a a next step in in your investigations into uh this this event are we going to see more um content um you mentioned before there's um additional interviews that didn't make the cut in the movie I imagine there's a lot of things that didn't make the cut are we going to see perhaps online exclusives or DVD or perhaps a future DVD release of more things uh uh that didn't make the uh Final Cuts Like the uh the release date a lot of people will watch very soon

31:43 I I mean personally I'd like to it's definitely not the end of um this is not a closed closure for me at all um but what I what I would love to do is uh directors cut with you know a lot of the other children's interviews in it the people that had this on their radar scopes at different um airports and installations Pilots uh I mean other witnesses that were around that area so we saw a lot I mean I've done all those interviews there's there's you know 70 interviews anyway um you know the other part that wasn't included was you know how the the native uh African uh population and their um it was included a little bit but that was a half hour segment which was absolutely fascinating but we had to cut it uh just for time but the the native Africans and their

32:45 experience and how they feel about these things because they see them they see these things more often than we do I think because they're outside more it's dark the really really dark skies in in Africa there's not a lot of light pollution and and and people generally instead of TV they're outside at night um so there's a lot that gets seen over um it's a different kind of Lifestyle there's many reasons for that um but I would love to uh love to just you know just to sort of do the you know error okay here's Ariel this is a story that happened at Ariel and then a second film uh really kind of focusing on this is why this is why it's even more significant because of all these other incidents that happened around it and then you know after that I've got

33:46 another movie um so I've been doing a movie about a a murder and a murder investigation than I um that's pretty uh current and um it was basically all the video and digital information that I've been figuring all this out and I might do a film about that and I don't know I just have quite a few quite a lot of things I've already shot around the other interviews of people in Africa that had nothing to do with Ariel but had their own experiences I mean I hope people really understand that it's a worldwide every single country I've talked to people from Japan China you name it every single country on the planet has seen these things so uh what are we doing what are we doing we should be paying attention to this I don't know why I mean we're getting there that's the good well the first step everyone needs to do

34:47 is watch Ariel phenomenon available on all major digital providers December 25 you can also go to Aerial phenomenon.com to find more information you can rent or buy through the website as well it really is a phenomenal film that you put together here in Randall it's like I said before it's a human story about an extraterrestrial event I think you really got to the Crux about the really kind of intimate humid side of the of of these events um in you really bypassed a lot of that kind of sensationalism that other filmmakers really kind of to concentrate on too much I think and you did a great job here in representing the stories of not only the children who are witnesses but also the stories of John Mack in Tim leeches boy which I think is very important and Randall Nicholson I think is so much for your time today congratulations with the documentary hopefully we can to talk again in the future with your future releases because it's been a pleasure to talk today

35:48 same here I appreciate it David it's really nice and um and uh you know it's available on Amazon right now actually but and you can also get it on our website but I do appreciate it and I'll pass on the thanks to the crew and and the witnesses because they they need to know because they were part of all this you know excellent kudos to them you know absolutely thank you so much rainbow thank you sir thank you for watching the Matt's movie reviews Channel Please Subscribe for more reviews podcast interviews and exclusive content also if you would like to request a review and support my work please join my patreon via the link in the description below