Ariel School, 1994: original BBC news report

0:00 Story. A large, brightly coloured object was seen travelling very fast above Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. I thought it was an alien and he had big eyes. Several planes saw it. The experts are baffled. Rua, Ariel School, 19th September 94, 12.12, local time. Could you tell me what you saw on Friday? It looked like it was glinting in the trees. It looked round about like a disc, like a round. Are you sure it wasn't a Harrier jump jet or something that the Zimbabwe Air Force had got? It was like in a disc. Kind of like that.

1:00 I saw something silver on the ground amongst the trees and a person in black. They had big black eyes. That's all I saw. I saw a glimpse. They kind of turned around and stared and then went back into a kind of like ship. I saw this silver thing in amongst this clump of trees with this one thing sitting on the side and another thing sort of like running up and down the top. What did he look like? His face was like this and his eyes were down here. Mr. Mackey, you're headmaster of Ariel School. Tell me, what do you think of all this? I feel sure that the children feel that they did see something. We asked them to draw pictures of what they saw on Friday. And after looking at that, I definitely feel that they did see something. What do you think that was? I agree that it could be something that we are not common with. But to actually say that it was a UFO, I

2:02 would be reluctant to make a decision like that. What did you see? I just saw a glow over my chicken run. A very orange glow. And it was a helicopter or what? Yeah, it was just a big, round wall. Can you just tell us what happened the other night at Kariba? We suddenly looked up and we saw this thing coming over the top of the hill. As it sort of grew at the best of us, it suddenly changed from this glow to, let's say, two big red-orange balls. Again, first thought was an Airbus 300 with the two engines. But then one thing we noticed about it was the lack of sound. In total, I would say, about 14 people saw this, in our group anyway.

3:02 They did tell me from London this would be the biggest story of the 20th century. As I said to Tim yesterday, I mean, I do believe the children saw something. Saw a door. What equipment have you brought with you? Well, Gunther is a highly technical chap and he's made his own Geiger counter, his own metal detector. We're going to check it out and see if there's any radioactivity there. Cindy, what are your impressions after this morning's at all expedition? Well, I certainly believe the children. I've come across a similar type of thing in Broadhaven in Wales, 1979, and the British didn't believe it, although I went down three times. And it's very similar to the whole incident here. MUSIC PLAYS