1 00:00:10,010 --> 00:00:11,937 Following a sighting of a peculiar object 2 00:00:12,137 --> 00:00:13,230 in the skies of Zimbabwe, 3 00:00:13,430 --> 00:00:16,858 the ZBC was overwhelmed by callers from all over Zimbabwe, 4 00:00:17,058 --> 00:00:20,028 describing the unidentified flying object. 5 00:00:20,228 --> 00:00:24,607 So what-what time of day did this, uh, event occur? 6 00:00:25,108 --> 00:00:26,109 At break time. 7 00:00:27,027 --> 00:00:29,871 You could just see, like, little lights flickering. 8 00:00:30,071 --> 00:00:31,698 The being would have been... 9 00:00:32,949 --> 00:00:35,794 this far away, where you can see details. 10 00:00:35,994 --> 00:00:39,456 And I saw this... person. 11 00:00:40,582 --> 00:00:43,385 And it had big eyes. 12 00:00:43,585 --> 00:00:45,804 A man that looked like a regular man or different... 13 00:00:46,004 --> 00:00:47,389 No, he was all black. 14 00:00:47,589 --> 00:00:50,100 - All black? - Yes. And his eyes were looking funny. 15 00:00:50,300 --> 00:00:52,102 They were making funny shapes and all that. 16 00:00:52,302 --> 00:00:55,021 What was it... What did it feel like when he was looking at you? 17 00:00:55,221 --> 00:00:56,264 I felt scared. 18 00:00:56,931 --> 00:00:59,109 It seemed that he was looking at all of us. 19 00:00:59,309 --> 00:01:02,445 His eyes looked at me as if, "I want you to come with me." 20 00:01:02,645 --> 00:01:03,864 "I want you to come." 21 00:01:04,064 --> 00:01:06,157 You think the kids are telling the truth or do... 22 00:01:06,357 --> 00:01:09,202 No, I think that I'd rather not think about it again. 23 00:01:09,402 --> 00:01:12,330 Because now if I think about it tonight, I'll have another sleepless night. 24 00:01:12,530 --> 00:01:15,041 I'm afraid. I'm-I'm shit scared. I'm terrified. 25 00:01:15,241 --> 00:01:17,460 Um, I thought the aliens would attack me. 26 00:01:17,660 --> 00:01:19,337 - Would attack you and do what? - Yes. 27 00:01:19,537 --> 00:01:21,214 What if we're abducted or something? 28 00:01:21,414 --> 00:01:23,133 Something happened to these folks. 29 00:01:23,333 --> 00:01:26,136 We can't understand it, but something happened. 30 00:01:26,336 --> 00:01:30,298 And these people are not mentally ill. They're just not mentally ill. 31 00:01:31,174 --> 00:01:35,011 There were over 60 kids that saw what I saw. 32 00:01:35,637 --> 00:01:37,680 We weren't making things up. 33 00:01:42,268 --> 00:01:44,446 The story is about the truth actually coming out. 34 00:01:44,646 --> 00:01:48,608 You don't know what that's gonna be, but eventually the truth comes out. 35 00:01:56,574 --> 00:01:58,335 From the beginning of recorded time, 36 00:01:58,535 --> 00:02:01,254 men have been seeing unexplainable things in the sky. 37 00:02:01,454 --> 00:02:03,506 Are we alone in the universe? 38 00:02:03,706 --> 00:02:07,052 Somewhere in the data will be something worth real inquiry. 39 00:02:07,252 --> 00:02:09,054 We have not been hiding anything. 40 00:02:09,254 --> 00:02:11,139 There are such things as interplanetary spaceships. 41 00:02:11,339 --> 00:02:13,767 I thought it was an alien, and he had big eyes. 42 00:02:13,967 --> 00:02:16,853 There's something profoundly important going on here 43 00:02:17,053 --> 00:02:18,680 that is authentic and real. 44 00:02:33,153 --> 00:02:34,496 Okay, I'm Ralph Blumenthal. 45 00:02:34,696 --> 00:02:38,124 {an8}I was a reporter for The New York Times for 45 years. 46 00:02:38,324 --> 00:02:40,919 {an8}I now contribute to the Times. I write books. 47 00:02:41,119 --> 00:02:43,296 Well, the biggest risk in this whole field, 48 00:02:43,496 --> 00:02:46,549 and I've encountered it myself writing about it, is ridicule. 49 00:02:46,749 --> 00:02:49,135 Now, that's not by accident. The, um... 50 00:02:49,335 --> 00:02:54,724 Our government, unfortunately, in the '50s, uh, made a policy decision 51 00:02:54,924 --> 00:02:57,143 to-to ridicule people who... 52 00:02:57,343 --> 00:02:58,645 who had sightings of UFOs 53 00:02:58,845 --> 00:03:01,272 and came forward with these fantastic stories. 54 00:03:01,472 --> 00:03:04,017 And that stigma has lasted to this day. 55 00:03:18,239 --> 00:03:20,000 Um, you never really know, you know, 56 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:22,794 when you write something, what the effect is gonna be. 57 00:03:22,994 --> 00:03:26,423 And, uh, the Times ran it on the front page on a Sunday. 58 00:03:26,623 --> 00:03:28,458 It was an earthquake. 59 00:03:29,459 --> 00:03:32,470 We accompanied the story with videos, 60 00:03:32,670 --> 00:03:36,516 Navy videos, which had not been seen, until then, publicly. 61 00:03:36,716 --> 00:03:40,478 These were among the most watched videos ever put out by The New York Times. 62 00:03:40,678 --> 00:03:42,147 And, you know, I... 63 00:03:42,347 --> 00:03:44,524 I don't... I'm not saying this, other people are saying this, 64 00:03:44,724 --> 00:03:50,280 but it sort of made the subject more accessible to the mainstream media, 65 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,450 and people were more comfortable reporting about it. 66 00:03:53,650 --> 00:03:55,660 But, you know, we didn't talk about aliens, 67 00:03:55,860 --> 00:03:57,829 and the Pentagon's not talking about aliens. 68 00:03:58,029 --> 00:04:01,499 So that's... that's an area that we haven't gone into, 69 00:04:01,699 --> 00:04:02,834 with good reason. 70 00:04:03,034 --> 00:04:04,252 Because how do you deal with it? 71 00:04:04,452 --> 00:04:06,337 I mean, you come into your editor and say, 72 00:04:06,537 --> 00:04:09,257 "I got a story about a guy who saw a UFO in his backyard." 73 00:04:09,457 --> 00:04:10,717 And the editor will laugh and say, 74 00:04:10,917 --> 00:04:14,462 "Okay. Give me 500 words on it, and, you know, make it funny." 75 00:04:15,046 --> 00:04:17,140 But to these people who had these encounters, 76 00:04:17,340 --> 00:04:18,683 it wasn't really funny at all. 77 00:04:18,883 --> 00:04:20,185 They know what they saw. 78 00:04:20,385 --> 00:04:22,937 People have seen things that they don't understand. 79 00:04:23,137 --> 00:04:25,690 And just because we don't understand something 80 00:04:25,890 --> 00:04:27,600 doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. 81 00:05:04,470 --> 00:05:06,523 Ariel was a great place to learn. 82 00:05:06,723 --> 00:05:08,766 We weren't in the classroom much. 83 00:05:10,268 --> 00:05:15,156 I'm so privileged to have experienced driving to school and seeing a giraffe. 84 00:05:15,356 --> 00:05:18,868 {an8} You know, um... Having a... 85 00:05:19,068 --> 00:05:22,655 {an8}Having a game park next to your school, next to your high school. 86 00:05:28,244 --> 00:05:29,254 But where are your hats? 87 00:05:29,454 --> 00:05:33,258 The teachers were very passionate about education. 88 00:05:33,458 --> 00:05:35,051 Aren't you supposed to wear your hats? 89 00:05:35,251 --> 00:05:36,511 We were a community, 90 00:05:36,711 --> 00:05:40,140 and we definitely could trust all the adults that were around us, 91 00:05:40,340 --> 00:05:42,767 whether they were teachers, volunteers. 92 00:05:42,967 --> 00:05:44,844 They all made us... 93 00:05:46,262 --> 00:05:48,106 feel safe and feel connected. 94 00:05:48,306 --> 00:05:50,016 Has he got friends already? 95 00:05:51,517 --> 00:05:52,402 Where? 96 00:05:52,602 --> 00:05:55,521 - Ariel School was a second family. - Show me where. 97 00:05:56,647 --> 00:05:58,575 {an8}I went to Ariel School, 98 00:05:58,775 --> 00:06:01,411 {an8}which is quite a good school, you know, a private school. 99 00:06:01,611 --> 00:06:04,539 And, for the most part, raised reading the Bible, 100 00:06:04,739 --> 00:06:08,159 understanding things from that Christian perspective. 101 00:06:10,203 --> 00:06:11,788 And my brother was in the same path. 102 00:06:14,248 --> 00:06:17,051 I know that it did have an impact on what I experienced, 103 00:06:17,251 --> 00:06:19,379 to see it and to view it in a certain way. 104 00:06:19,962 --> 00:06:23,308 So why are we here today? 105 00:06:23,508 --> 00:06:26,102 {an8}To hear my side of the story. 106 00:06:26,302 --> 00:06:28,096 {an8} What is your side of the story? 107 00:06:29,013 --> 00:06:32,433 {an8}I guess it's what I saw, right? On that day. 108 00:06:34,185 --> 00:06:36,938 I guess I'm gonna tell the world. 109 00:06:38,689 --> 00:06:40,409 Where would you like to start? 110 00:06:43,611 --> 00:06:45,613 {an8} 111 00:06:48,157 --> 00:06:52,328 So we were at recess. 112 00:06:52,912 --> 00:06:54,372 I was in Year 6, 113 00:06:54,997 --> 00:06:58,676 and the teachers had gone on a quick staff meeting, 114 00:06:58,876 --> 00:07:02,713 so Salma and I were kind of roaming on that out-of-bounds area. 115 00:07:05,716 --> 00:07:09,020 And I remember that there was a bright light, 116 00:07:09,220 --> 00:07:11,814 really close by, just above the grass. 117 00:07:12,014 --> 00:07:14,609 And both Salma and I kind of went, "Ooh, what's that?" 118 00:07:14,809 --> 00:07:16,277 It was very shiny. It was bright. 119 00:07:16,477 --> 00:07:19,147 You would see it one moment. You wouldn't see it another moment. 120 00:07:19,647 --> 00:07:22,525 It was almost like our eyes were playing tricks on us. Um... 121 00:07:23,234 --> 00:07:27,205 And then my friend Emma and I were kind of... 122 00:07:27,405 --> 00:07:29,332 She had come and was standing next to me. 123 00:07:29,532 --> 00:07:30,616 I saw... 124 00:07:32,785 --> 00:07:34,504 a little object hovering. 125 00:07:34,704 --> 00:07:35,838 It was quite big, actually. 126 00:07:36,038 --> 00:07:38,132 And then there were little ones all around it. 127 00:07:38,332 --> 00:07:39,050 Mm-hmm. 128 00:07:39,250 --> 00:07:41,844 And it looked as if they were changing spaceships. 129 00:07:42,044 --> 00:07:44,514 They were like ants, doing what they needed to do, 130 00:07:44,714 --> 00:07:45,714 whatever it was. 131 00:07:46,549 --> 00:07:48,759 Just here were the ships. 132 00:07:49,427 --> 00:07:51,396 One... There was a big one. 133 00:07:51,596 --> 00:07:54,056 Yeah, from about there to about... 134 00:07:57,810 --> 00:07:58,810 here. 135 00:08:00,813 --> 00:08:02,106 And then in diameter. 136 00:08:02,982 --> 00:08:05,201 Silver, shiny disc 137 00:08:05,401 --> 00:08:07,161 with lights. 138 00:08:07,361 --> 00:08:09,330 On the lower half of it, there were lights. 139 00:08:09,530 --> 00:08:13,710 It was like... 140 00:08:13,910 --> 00:08:15,962 Then I saw, uh, like a door. 141 00:08:16,162 --> 00:08:20,675 And then suddenly he was over there. And he was right in front of us. 142 00:08:20,875 --> 00:08:23,794 I blinked, and then I saw the being less than 143 00:08:24,754 --> 00:08:26,964 like one meter or two away from me. 144 00:08:32,220 --> 00:08:33,554 The being would have been... 145 00:08:40,019 --> 00:08:42,196 no further than this far away, 146 00:08:42,396 --> 00:08:44,365 where you can see details. 147 00:08:44,565 --> 00:08:46,409 And it was a bright, sunny day. 148 00:08:46,609 --> 00:08:50,029 So there was definitely no mistaking what we were looking at. 149 00:08:51,697 --> 00:08:55,710 The clothing was black, very skintight, 150 00:08:55,910 --> 00:08:57,620 like a scuba-diving outfit. 151 00:08:58,120 --> 00:09:01,090 - Like diving suits, deep-sea diving. - Mm-hmm. 152 00:09:01,290 --> 00:09:04,260 And it had, like, a very big head. 153 00:09:04,460 --> 00:09:08,473 Oval, kind of, like a pointy chin that kind of came down like this. 154 00:09:08,673 --> 00:09:10,475 It had big eyes. 155 00:09:10,675 --> 00:09:14,062 That's all I saw about it. Big eyes and a black body. 156 00:09:14,262 --> 00:09:15,730 Huge eyes 157 00:09:15,930 --> 00:09:18,566 that you just can't not look towards. 158 00:09:18,766 --> 00:09:22,520 And once we got that eye connection, 159 00:09:23,688 --> 00:09:27,066 everything else around us just disappeared. 160 00:09:34,031 --> 00:09:35,500 What scared you? 161 00:09:35,700 --> 00:09:37,702 - The noise. - What noise? 162 00:09:38,327 --> 00:09:40,755 The noise that we heard in the air. 163 00:09:40,955 --> 00:09:42,632 - You heard a noise in the air? - Yes. 164 00:09:42,832 --> 00:09:45,843 What was it like? Like a roar or a buzz or a hum? 165 00:09:46,043 --> 00:09:47,261 Or what kind of a noise? 166 00:09:47,461 --> 00:09:49,839 It was like someone was playing a flute. 167 00:09:54,594 --> 00:09:56,804 It didn't touch me, physically. 168 00:09:58,264 --> 00:10:02,143 But it felt like, with that stare, it touched every ounce of my body. 169 00:10:04,687 --> 00:10:08,699 And that's when I started feeling messages. 170 00:10:08,899 --> 00:10:14,747 The ideas just came across over into... into me, into my being. 171 00:10:14,947 --> 00:10:20,711 It wasn't talking. It was... It was... almost telepathic. 172 00:10:20,911 --> 00:10:22,505 It was just a feeling of... 173 00:10:22,705 --> 00:10:27,677 this overwhelming feeling of how important the environment is. 174 00:10:27,877 --> 00:10:32,306 We need to make sure that the environment is... is our first priority 175 00:10:32,506 --> 00:10:35,852 and that we all make the right choices for the environment. 176 00:10:36,052 --> 00:10:41,065 We need clean air, beautiful plants, clean soil to be able to live and thrive. 177 00:10:41,265 --> 00:10:45,445 Animals to plants to just everything around us. 178 00:10:45,645 --> 00:10:48,865 I think they want people to know 179 00:10:49,065 --> 00:10:52,160 that we're actually making harm on this world, 180 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:55,163 and we mustn't get too technologed. 181 00:10:55,363 --> 00:10:58,124 I don't think I could even say the word "technology," 182 00:10:58,324 --> 00:11:01,127 um, when I was at that age, so I-I... 183 00:11:01,327 --> 00:11:04,172 And I remember being interviewed by people, 184 00:11:04,372 --> 00:11:06,090 and I would say things like, um, 185 00:11:06,290 --> 00:11:09,135 "Don't get too technologized," or, you know... 186 00:11:09,335 --> 00:11:11,137 The message was very clear, 187 00:11:11,337 --> 00:11:13,931 that technology is not going... 188 00:11:14,131 --> 00:11:16,684 is-is only going to develop further, 189 00:11:16,884 --> 00:11:19,687 and it's not going to do any humans any good. 190 00:11:19,887 --> 00:11:22,815 How did that get communicated to you? 191 00:11:23,015 --> 00:11:24,984 - Through words, or... - My conscience, I think. 192 00:11:25,184 --> 00:11:26,986 - Your what? - My conscience told me. 193 00:11:27,186 --> 00:11:30,356 - So your conscience told you? - Yah, it came through my head. 194 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:34,193 I had never felt that sense of... 195 00:11:35,861 --> 00:11:36,946 connection. 196 00:11:43,744 --> 00:11:48,666 Just unfortunate that what happened in the aftermath was not as peaceful and... 197 00:11:49,625 --> 00:11:50,668 and nice. 198 00:12:02,346 --> 00:12:06,275 Last time I was here was 20 years ago, I think, or a little bit longer than that. 199 00:12:06,475 --> 00:12:10,104 It was when I finished at, uh, Ariel School. 200 00:12:10,604 --> 00:12:13,324 And now I remember why my mother wanted me to come here. 201 00:12:13,524 --> 00:12:16,444 Being out in nature, it's just so wonderful. 202 00:12:19,488 --> 00:12:20,614 {an8} 203 00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:24,869 {an8} So did you see the UFO? 204 00:12:26,203 --> 00:12:27,455 No, I didn't see a UFO. 205 00:12:28,205 --> 00:12:29,957 I, uh, made up the whole thing. 206 00:12:30,666 --> 00:12:31,709 Uh... 207 00:12:32,543 --> 00:12:35,680 So, uh, myself and a friend, we were discussing 208 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:37,631 how we could get off Shona lessons. 209 00:12:38,883 --> 00:12:41,060 A few of our friends were native Zimbabweans, 210 00:12:41,260 --> 00:12:44,647 and so their mother language would have been Shona. 211 00:12:44,847 --> 00:12:47,692 And I really wish I'd paid more attention, because my Shona is not great, 212 00:12:47,892 --> 00:12:49,310 and I really wish it was better. 213 00:12:50,019 --> 00:12:53,272 And I really wanted to get out of Shona in... at any opportunity I could. 214 00:12:54,398 --> 00:12:58,077 And, uh, we came up with a crazy idea, which never ever should have worked. 215 00:12:58,277 --> 00:13:00,955 At the time, I can't see it now, but at the time, there was a... 216 00:13:01,155 --> 00:13:02,206 there was a rock. 217 00:13:02,406 --> 00:13:05,042 A very, very shiny rock, and it was shining in the sun. 218 00:13:05,242 --> 00:13:07,253 And, uh, you know, so I pointed and I'm like, 219 00:13:07,453 --> 00:13:09,630 "Look, yah, there's-there's a spaceship! There's an alien!" 220 00:13:09,830 --> 00:13:13,593 And the Grade 1s, Grade 2s were like, "Ah, really?" I'm like, "Yeah, aliens!" 221 00:13:13,793 --> 00:13:16,262 And within half an hour, all the kids were talking about it. 222 00:13:16,462 --> 00:13:19,173 All the kids were running around. Um, the whole school was buzzing. 223 00:13:20,257 --> 00:13:22,226 It could have been a millisecond. 224 00:13:22,426 --> 00:13:25,062 It could have been ten minutes. 225 00:13:25,262 --> 00:13:28,849 All I know is, when I was able to eventually let go of Emma's hand, 226 00:13:29,517 --> 00:13:31,185 the playground was in chaos. 227 00:13:36,774 --> 00:13:40,661 There were 60 kids that saw what I saw. 228 00:13:40,861 --> 00:13:42,955 You know, short, long arms. 229 00:13:43,155 --> 00:13:46,876 Crazy, greenish, oval-shaped head. Some pretty big eyes. 230 00:13:47,076 --> 00:13:50,830 And I'm shit scared. I'm terrified. 231 00:13:53,082 --> 00:13:56,093 Maybe it was the shimmering of the rock or, you know, I don't know. 232 00:13:56,293 --> 00:13:58,596 But, uh, there was definitely no aliens running around. 233 00:13:58,796 --> 00:14:00,806 "What if a laser beam cuts our heads off?" 234 00:14:01,006 --> 00:14:03,726 All kinds of things, you know, but I was just in panic. 235 00:14:03,926 --> 00:14:06,145 Why would aliens come to a school, run around, 236 00:14:06,345 --> 00:14:07,938 not make actual contact with anybody? 237 00:14:08,138 --> 00:14:09,899 You know, so they've traveled from galaxies. 238 00:14:10,099 --> 00:14:11,984 You know, you're not gonna risk that chance 239 00:14:12,184 --> 00:14:15,321 of coming thousands of miles away to talk to... to children. 240 00:14:15,521 --> 00:14:18,407 And I wasn't trying to find out, like, "Okay, what's gonna happen next?" 241 00:14:18,607 --> 00:14:20,117 Or, "Why are they here?" 242 00:14:20,317 --> 00:14:24,413 I don't remember looking back, because I was terrified. 243 00:14:24,613 --> 00:14:26,374 I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 244 00:14:26,574 --> 00:14:28,959 You're seeing all these people literally pointing at a rock 245 00:14:29,159 --> 00:14:30,169 and saying, "It's a UFO." 246 00:14:30,369 --> 00:14:33,589 But that's the thing with children is, they do play these imaginary games. 247 00:14:33,789 --> 00:14:36,792 And before you know it, they... they really, truly believe it. 248 00:14:38,460 --> 00:14:40,971 So it definitely was not a rock. 249 00:14:41,171 --> 00:14:42,640 I know what a rock looks like. 250 00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:46,018 And, I mean, anyone could say, "What else could it have been?" 251 00:14:46,218 --> 00:14:48,104 "Could it have been this? Could it have been that?" 252 00:14:48,304 --> 00:14:49,730 "Could it..." 253 00:14:49,930 --> 00:14:52,066 I don't know. I didn't go up and touch it. 254 00:14:52,266 --> 00:14:53,266 Um... 255 00:14:53,767 --> 00:14:55,986 But what it was not was a rock. 256 00:14:56,186 --> 00:14:57,354 Yeah. 257 00:15:08,532 --> 00:15:11,252 If it had happened, I don't think I would have just stood there 258 00:15:11,452 --> 00:15:12,920 and looked at the rock and pointed. 259 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:15,840 I would have actually moved towards the alien. 260 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:17,675 I would have gone up to the spaceship. 261 00:15:17,875 --> 00:15:20,636 Because when else are you gonna get an opportunity like that, 262 00:15:20,836 --> 00:15:22,847 to actually physically go up to the alien? 263 00:15:23,047 --> 00:15:25,933 You know, a lot of people obviously argue with me, tell me I'm a liar, 264 00:15:26,133 --> 00:15:27,143 tell me all sorts of things, 265 00:15:27,343 --> 00:15:30,179 but, you know, I have to be honest with myself, first of all. 266 00:15:30,679 --> 00:15:33,232 And my truth is there were no aliens. 267 00:15:33,432 --> 00:15:36,026 My truth is that it was a rumor that started, 268 00:15:36,226 --> 00:15:37,903 and you guys believe that you saw something. 269 00:15:38,103 --> 00:15:41,699 I do apologize for calling you guys out on your bullshit. 270 00:15:41,899 --> 00:15:43,776 But, sorry, I have to be honest. 271 00:15:47,112 --> 00:15:49,373 I do not have any doubt about what I saw that day. 272 00:15:49,573 --> 00:15:50,573 I... 273 00:15:51,492 --> 00:15:53,035 have never doubted what I saw. 274 00:15:54,995 --> 00:15:57,206 And let's be honest, you know, children lie. 275 00:15:57,790 --> 00:16:00,590 You know, they're not as innocent as we would like to believe they are. 276 00:16:01,168 --> 00:16:02,970 "That means you're saying that 60 people lied?" 277 00:16:03,170 --> 00:16:04,880 Yeah, 60 people lied. 278 00:16:13,222 --> 00:16:15,858 It's 1994, and I'd just finished litigating 279 00:16:16,058 --> 00:16:19,153 the first large sex abuse case against the Catholic Church. 280 00:16:19,353 --> 00:16:20,946 And I was sitting in my office, 281 00:16:21,146 --> 00:16:24,325 {an8}and I got a telephone call from this very prominent lawyer, 282 00:16:24,525 --> 00:16:26,402 {an8}who's in the western part of the country. 283 00:16:26,902 --> 00:16:29,205 {an8}And he said to me, "Eric, I have a case for you." 284 00:16:29,405 --> 00:16:31,373 And he told me it was about a Harvard professor 285 00:16:31,573 --> 00:16:32,825 who believed in aliens. 286 00:16:33,575 --> 00:16:36,587 And he was the chief of psychiatry at Cambridge Hospital. 287 00:16:36,787 --> 00:16:38,255 He'd won the Pulitzer Prize, 288 00:16:38,455 --> 00:16:42,092 you know, like, created the first outpatient mental hospital in the country, 289 00:16:42,292 --> 00:16:45,262 who's done great work, is now claiming 290 00:16:45,462 --> 00:16:47,640 that there's a phenomenon out there, involving aliens, 291 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:48,974 that we don't understand. 292 00:16:49,174 --> 00:16:53,229 I said, "Well, he probably needs some serious mental health assistance." 293 00:16:53,429 --> 00:16:56,232 Um, but I was told that he was a tenured professor, 294 00:16:56,432 --> 00:17:00,528 and there was a secret proceeding that was about to take place, 295 00:17:00,728 --> 00:17:03,447 uh, with a committee at Harvard, to remove his tenure. 296 00:17:03,647 --> 00:17:07,117 Which, I was told, was the first time that had ever happened 297 00:17:07,317 --> 00:17:10,446 in the 350-year history of Harvard University. 298 00:17:10,988 --> 00:17:12,248 So that piqued my interest. 299 00:17:12,448 --> 00:17:14,500 This is a guy to take seriously. 300 00:17:14,700 --> 00:17:16,460 He's won the Pulitzer Prize. 301 00:17:16,660 --> 00:17:18,838 He built, from scratch, the psychiatry department 302 00:17:19,038 --> 00:17:20,506 at Cambridge Hospital, 303 00:17:20,706 --> 00:17:24,176 now a trophy on the Harvard showcase of teaching hospitals. 304 00:17:24,376 --> 00:17:28,347 {an8}You know, traditionally in psychiatry, if a patient were to come to you 305 00:17:28,547 --> 00:17:31,559 {an8}and report that they'd had contact with alien creatures, 306 00:17:31,759 --> 00:17:34,728 it would be, uh, almost automatically assumed, I think, 307 00:17:34,928 --> 00:17:38,899 that this is a-a... this person is likely to be psychotic. 308 00:17:39,099 --> 00:17:40,484 That was my initial reaction 309 00:17:40,684 --> 00:17:43,070 when I first heard about this type of case. 310 00:17:43,270 --> 00:17:46,031 John had conducted over 150 interviews 311 00:17:46,231 --> 00:17:48,951 with people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, 312 00:17:49,151 --> 00:17:51,161 about 70 of which I spoke to. 313 00:17:51,361 --> 00:17:56,917 And they were tortured by the fact that no one would listen to them. 314 00:17:57,117 --> 00:17:59,295 People would dismiss them as psychotic. 315 00:17:59,495 --> 00:18:01,797 And, as John looked at it, they weren't mentally ill, 316 00:18:01,997 --> 00:18:03,173 but they were traumatized. 317 00:18:03,373 --> 00:18:06,635 As far as I could tell, and this has become clearly established, 318 00:18:06,835 --> 00:18:09,138 having now worked with 90 such people, 319 00:18:09,338 --> 00:18:13,383 there was no apparent psychiatric illness that could account for this. 320 00:18:14,593 --> 00:18:16,437 If they're describing something 321 00:18:16,637 --> 00:18:19,023 that's very similar to what others are describing, 322 00:18:19,223 --> 00:18:21,984 and we're discounting it as saying, "Well, this didn't happen..." 323 00:18:22,184 --> 00:18:24,520 What did happen? What did occur? 324 00:18:26,021 --> 00:18:27,364 That's what John was saying. 325 00:18:27,564 --> 00:18:31,110 Did you approach it as a wanting to believe 326 00:18:31,693 --> 00:18:33,454 or as a huge skeptic? 327 00:18:33,654 --> 00:18:36,248 I approached it as a huge skeptic. I mean, to me, it could not be. 328 00:18:36,448 --> 00:18:38,250 This is not something that is possible. 329 00:18:38,450 --> 00:18:42,296 There can't be that kind of intelligence working in our universe. 330 00:18:42,496 --> 00:18:46,133 There must be something different to explain this thing. 331 00:18:46,333 --> 00:18:48,052 So let's find out what it's about. 332 00:18:48,252 --> 00:18:50,471 Let's do careful studies of every aspect of this. 333 00:18:50,671 --> 00:18:52,306 That's what I would like to see. 334 00:18:52,506 --> 00:18:54,892 John was starting to become a celebrity. 335 00:18:55,092 --> 00:18:57,978 And he was on all the talk shows, 336 00:18:58,178 --> 00:19:01,148 with his rumpled suit and stains on his tie. 337 00:19:01,348 --> 00:19:05,361 For the last four years, Dr. Mack has studied about 100 patients 338 00:19:05,561 --> 00:19:09,365 who claim they have been abducted by aliens. 339 00:19:09,565 --> 00:19:14,912 Dr. Mack is a respected professor who teaches at Harvard University. 340 00:19:15,112 --> 00:19:17,498 - A Harvard psychiatrist... - A Harvard psychiatrist... 341 00:19:17,698 --> 00:19:19,083 And he was outspoken. 342 00:19:19,283 --> 00:19:21,210 And Harvard, 343 00:19:21,410 --> 00:19:23,295 what they couldn't tolerate 344 00:19:23,495 --> 00:19:26,173 was the fact that John was out there on television 345 00:19:26,373 --> 00:19:28,592 and Harvard was being associated 346 00:19:28,792 --> 00:19:30,928 with something that was highly controversial. 347 00:19:31,128 --> 00:19:34,431 There's a pattern here that... that, as a psychiatrist, I can't explain. 348 00:19:34,631 --> 00:19:38,435 Okay, when we come back, Sharon shares with us the terror she feels 349 00:19:38,635 --> 00:19:41,355 when she's had an encounter with an alien. 350 00:19:41,555 --> 00:19:44,066 Harvard's position was that John had committed malpractice. 351 00:19:44,266 --> 00:19:49,113 That John, um, should not have accepted these patients 352 00:19:49,313 --> 00:19:51,991 without treating them with either medication 353 00:19:52,191 --> 00:19:53,742 or intensive psychotherapy, 354 00:19:53,942 --> 00:19:55,786 that these patients were psychotic, 355 00:19:55,986 --> 00:19:58,664 and that by, um, listening to them 356 00:19:58,864 --> 00:20:02,084 and not discounting what they claim to have experienced, 357 00:20:02,284 --> 00:20:03,585 John was harming them. 358 00:20:03,785 --> 00:20:06,130 Hundreds of thousands of people, all over the country, 359 00:20:06,330 --> 00:20:08,632 from various polls, we know, maybe even millions of people, 360 00:20:08,832 --> 00:20:11,051 have had very similar experiences. 361 00:20:11,251 --> 00:20:12,594 They don't know each other. 362 00:20:12,794 --> 00:20:15,305 The details that they're describing were not in the media. 363 00:20:15,505 --> 00:20:16,890 They have nothing to gain by it. 364 00:20:17,090 --> 00:20:19,143 They feel ashamed about it. That's number one. 365 00:20:19,343 --> 00:20:21,145 When I also heard that this was occurring 366 00:20:21,345 --> 00:20:23,105 in children as young as two or three years old, 367 00:20:23,305 --> 00:20:25,691 that ruled out personality explanations. 368 00:20:25,891 --> 00:20:27,317 And, as said before, 369 00:20:27,517 --> 00:20:30,487 the people, when examined, are not psychiatrically disturbed. 370 00:20:30,687 --> 00:20:33,690 So the only thing that behaves like that is real experience. 371 00:20:35,192 --> 00:20:37,995 At stake was his entire professional career. 372 00:20:38,195 --> 00:20:40,497 His license to practice medicine. 373 00:20:40,697 --> 00:20:43,083 And John said, "Okay, I'm not gonna roll over here." 374 00:20:43,283 --> 00:20:44,668 "I'm gonna stand up to them." 375 00:20:44,868 --> 00:20:46,670 {an8}Something we can't explain is going on here 376 00:20:46,870 --> 00:20:50,174 that needs to be looked at realistically and not sort of ridiculed. 377 00:20:50,374 --> 00:20:53,335 So John went to Ruwa, Zimbabwe, 378 00:20:54,378 --> 00:20:57,139 to prove that there was something significant 379 00:20:57,339 --> 00:20:58,932 that happened to these individuals, 380 00:20:59,132 --> 00:21:01,477 and we need to keep our minds open 381 00:21:01,677 --> 00:21:05,230 and-and not be just narrowly focused on the material world. 382 00:21:05,430 --> 00:21:09,109 Okay, how-how many of them actually say that they... 383 00:21:09,309 --> 00:21:11,528 What happened? Oh. 384 00:21:11,728 --> 00:21:13,864 So I was working on my John Mack book. 385 00:21:14,064 --> 00:21:17,901 Uh, actually took me 17 years from beginning to end. 386 00:21:18,652 --> 00:21:20,162 And that's what intrigued me, 387 00:21:20,362 --> 00:21:23,540 that John Mack would put his career on the line, 388 00:21:23,740 --> 00:21:27,836 um, to investigate this, uh, what I call a disreputable subject. 389 00:21:28,036 --> 00:21:30,547 And you can say, "Well, you know, there's no scientific proof." 390 00:21:30,747 --> 00:21:34,584 Well, there isn't, but Mack dealt in an area where... 391 00:21:35,836 --> 00:21:37,671 there really isn't scientific proof. 392 00:21:48,932 --> 00:21:51,310 I'm not here to be liked. It's not my job. 393 00:21:52,477 --> 00:21:53,937 It's not a popularity poll. 394 00:21:54,771 --> 00:21:57,699 I'm here to run a good school with a good reputation, 395 00:21:57,899 --> 00:21:59,860 and that's... that's what I do. 396 00:22:00,777 --> 00:22:02,904 {an8}Someone asked why I've been here 33 years. 397 00:22:03,530 --> 00:22:05,615 {an8}Maybe it's 'cause I'm lazy. I don't know. 398 00:22:06,366 --> 00:22:07,366 {an8} 399 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:09,703 Get up, dress up, show up. 400 00:22:10,495 --> 00:22:13,915 That's what you have to do, even if you don't want to, every day. 401 00:22:14,791 --> 00:22:19,296 Whether I want to be there or not, I am there because that is my duty. 402 00:22:23,842 --> 00:22:27,855 I'm here to run a Christian school, but I'm of a faith that's my own. 403 00:22:28,055 --> 00:22:30,524 I don't go to church. I don't need to go to church to find God. 404 00:22:30,724 --> 00:22:31,725 I know He's there. 405 00:22:32,601 --> 00:22:34,353 He knows where my problems are. 406 00:22:35,145 --> 00:22:37,865 There are some things you just don't need to question in life. 407 00:22:38,065 --> 00:22:39,858 You just accept. 408 00:22:41,234 --> 00:22:42,903 And that's what I allow it to be. 409 00:22:53,789 --> 00:22:57,876 Oh, is this being recorded? Yeah, I feel like a little kid again. 410 00:22:59,544 --> 00:23:02,931 {an8}Yeah. Breaking school rules. 411 00:23:03,131 --> 00:23:06,176 If Mrs. Bates finds out, she's gonna kill me. 412 00:23:10,180 --> 00:23:13,483 You know, you try and live a normal life, you try and move on, 413 00:23:13,683 --> 00:23:18,780 but it's always this experience that just... just opens up wars again. 414 00:23:18,980 --> 00:23:21,775 I could hear the kids... 415 00:23:23,527 --> 00:23:26,113 ...the other kids screaming, crying, 416 00:23:26,613 --> 00:23:30,283 but it was just like I was being drawn in by this-this being. 417 00:23:32,494 --> 00:23:35,580 And I remember seeing big, black eyes. 418 00:23:37,916 --> 00:23:40,093 And... 419 00:23:40,293 --> 00:23:42,512 I don't know if it was telepathic. I don't know. 420 00:23:42,712 --> 00:23:46,141 But the message I was receiving and the message I remember 421 00:23:46,341 --> 00:23:49,010 was that we were harming the planet. 422 00:23:50,303 --> 00:23:53,598 But growing up those days, we didn't really... 423 00:23:54,850 --> 00:23:57,402 um, discuss those kind of things. 424 00:23:57,602 --> 00:23:58,445 We just, like... 425 00:23:58,645 --> 00:24:01,356 We just blocked it out, and we just moved on. 426 00:24:03,483 --> 00:24:05,285 It was just really traumatizing. 427 00:24:05,485 --> 00:24:07,246 I think the next time we spoke about it 428 00:24:07,446 --> 00:24:11,166 was when John Mack asked me to describe what we saw, 429 00:24:11,366 --> 00:24:14,127 and I just felt safe that I could talk to him. 430 00:24:14,327 --> 00:24:17,080 I felt safe that he believed what we had seen. 431 00:24:18,081 --> 00:24:21,802 So, Professor Mack, you've been in Zimbabwe now for about ten days. 432 00:24:22,002 --> 00:24:24,805 What's your opinion, having spoken to these children 433 00:24:25,005 --> 00:24:26,348 at Ariel School, as such? 434 00:24:26,548 --> 00:24:29,726 I approached these two days trying to keep an open mind 435 00:24:29,926 --> 00:24:33,272 about whether these kids were, um, 436 00:24:33,472 --> 00:24:35,857 stirred by, say, the imagination of one of them, 437 00:24:36,057 --> 00:24:38,652 and then told a story, or something like that. 438 00:24:38,852 --> 00:24:42,364 And we interviewed about a dozen children individually. 439 00:24:42,564 --> 00:24:45,701 He had been one of the last reporters 440 00:24:45,901 --> 00:24:47,277 to come to the school. 441 00:24:47,903 --> 00:24:51,498 News crews from everywhere came to talk to us, 442 00:24:51,698 --> 00:24:55,377 and I wasn't taken... seriously. 443 00:24:55,577 --> 00:24:58,171 What was the effect, to be looking at these eyes 444 00:24:58,371 --> 00:24:59,881 or have these eyes looking at you? 445 00:25:00,081 --> 00:25:01,633 What... How did that affect you? 446 00:25:01,833 --> 00:25:03,719 - Scary. - It was scary? 447 00:25:03,919 --> 00:25:06,430 Now maybe they'll understand my story and they'll listen to me, 448 00:25:06,630 --> 00:25:09,599 and they'll help me make sense of what's going on for me. 449 00:25:09,799 --> 00:25:11,351 Mum tucks me in sometimes. 450 00:25:11,551 --> 00:25:13,687 And she tucks you in, and then do you go right to sleep, 451 00:25:13,887 --> 00:25:15,856 or do you, kind of, stay awake thinking for a while? 452 00:25:16,056 --> 00:25:20,193 I stay awake, and I... I get scared with every single noise I hear. 453 00:25:20,393 --> 00:25:21,945 - You still get afraid at night? - Yes. 454 00:25:22,145 --> 00:25:26,149 You do. And what do you... What do you worry about now at night? 455 00:25:28,527 --> 00:25:31,330 I worry that the man is still looking at me, 456 00:25:31,530 --> 00:25:33,615 and he's gonna kill me. 457 00:25:36,243 --> 00:25:39,796 Does your mom know you're worried? Did you tell her how worried you are? 458 00:25:39,996 --> 00:25:43,008 No. Most probably, she-she won't believe me. 459 00:25:43,208 --> 00:25:45,669 What would convince you that you're safe? 460 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:49,765 I don't know. 461 00:25:49,965 --> 00:25:52,259 What could make you feel less worried? 462 00:25:57,347 --> 00:26:00,609 The man, he's just always in my mind. 463 00:26:00,809 --> 00:26:03,362 - He just won't go out of your mind? - Yes. 464 00:26:03,562 --> 00:26:04,562 Mm-hmm. 465 00:26:06,189 --> 00:26:07,189 And how... 466 00:26:07,941 --> 00:26:08,742 So, what... 467 00:26:08,942 --> 00:26:12,404 What would make you less worried? Is there something the man could do? 468 00:26:15,031 --> 00:26:16,031 No. 469 00:26:16,366 --> 00:26:17,918 So there was a guy who came. 470 00:26:18,118 --> 00:26:22,172 I remember him being very tall and, you know, slow and deliberate. 471 00:26:22,372 --> 00:26:23,748 He was really kind of... 472 00:26:25,166 --> 00:26:25,967 listening. 473 00:26:26,167 --> 00:26:28,970 If you could just tell me, you know, like, what happened that day. 474 00:26:29,170 --> 00:26:32,891 Like, you're... You were outside, I guess, at the break, right? 475 00:26:33,091 --> 00:26:33,809 Yes. 476 00:26:34,009 --> 00:26:35,519 And-And then what was the first... 477 00:26:35,719 --> 00:26:38,021 the first thing that you... that you noticed? 478 00:26:38,221 --> 00:26:40,482 We went down to the bottom of the playground. 479 00:26:40,682 --> 00:26:42,642 "Hey, tell me, what did you see?" 480 00:26:43,810 --> 00:26:45,687 "How did you feel?" You know? 481 00:26:46,313 --> 00:26:49,282 "Did you get a sense that they were communicating with you?" 482 00:26:49,482 --> 00:26:51,109 I remember these questions. 483 00:26:52,235 --> 00:26:55,414 And then, yeah, they gave us some pieces of paper, 484 00:26:55,614 --> 00:26:57,791 some colors, and they said, "Draw what you saw." 485 00:26:57,991 --> 00:26:59,576 Right? And I drew. 486 00:27:00,827 --> 00:27:02,078 I'm drawing the ship. 487 00:27:06,541 --> 00:27:08,168 With a couple of lights. 488 00:27:11,755 --> 00:27:14,433 Arms, would you say long or short, compared to our arms? 489 00:27:14,633 --> 00:27:16,560 Well, kind of long. 490 00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:18,437 Kind of long. Mm-hmm. 491 00:27:18,637 --> 00:27:21,189 - Okay. But you did see hair? - Yes. 492 00:27:21,389 --> 00:27:26,061 The hair was a bit like Michael Jackson. And they had a black suit, like this. 493 00:27:28,605 --> 00:27:30,649 And these big eyes. Okay. 494 00:27:31,733 --> 00:27:33,994 And you've made pupils. Did they actually have pupils or... 495 00:27:34,194 --> 00:27:36,413 - Yes, the pupils were white. - ...solid black? 496 00:27:36,613 --> 00:27:38,490 Eyes that are... are bigger than ours. 497 00:27:42,869 --> 00:27:45,121 - What happened then? - Um... 498 00:27:45,789 --> 00:27:48,008 It was at the end of break time. 499 00:27:48,208 --> 00:27:50,594 And then when we went back into the class, 500 00:27:50,794 --> 00:27:55,599 we told our teacher, but none of the teachers believed us. 501 00:27:55,799 --> 00:27:57,392 They wouldn't believe you? Really? 502 00:27:57,592 --> 00:28:00,020 - Yes. - But you all told the same story. 503 00:28:00,220 --> 00:28:02,514 The... The teachers didn't believe us. 504 00:28:03,556 --> 00:28:04,556 At all. 505 00:28:05,266 --> 00:28:08,445 Um, they thought maybe we just saw something, 506 00:28:08,645 --> 00:28:11,031 but they... they didn't believe it was beings 507 00:28:11,231 --> 00:28:14,493 and, you know, this, like, this oval thing that we saw. 508 00:28:14,693 --> 00:28:17,829 {an8}- We actually tried to fob it off at first. - Yeah. 509 00:28:18,029 --> 00:28:20,165 {an8}Um, and we just carried on as normal. 510 00:28:20,365 --> 00:28:23,043 {an8} I don't even recall speaking to the children about it all. 511 00:28:23,243 --> 00:28:26,046 'Cause we were dealing with something we had never dealt with before. 512 00:28:26,246 --> 00:28:29,082 So you stick to what you know, in your classroom. 513 00:28:29,582 --> 00:28:33,720 {an8}I live here at the school, so I try not to think about it at all. 514 00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:35,972 {an8}- - If I do, I'll have sleepless nights. 515 00:28:36,172 --> 00:28:38,308 - Then you'd have sleepless nights? - I do! 516 00:28:38,508 --> 00:28:41,311 I've had a lot of sleepless nights since it happened. 517 00:28:41,511 --> 00:28:43,563 So I try to put it out of my mind. 518 00:28:43,763 --> 00:28:45,690 One of the first things that we were told 519 00:28:45,890 --> 00:28:48,727 was that there was a gardener down there that was gardening. 520 00:28:49,394 --> 00:28:52,897 Um, "And I don't want you to be talking about this any further." 521 00:28:53,648 --> 00:28:55,909 I'm still very skeptical about children, 522 00:28:56,109 --> 00:29:00,413 because I think they can, um, convince themselves of what they see 523 00:29:00,613 --> 00:29:03,166 and-and get excited amongst themselves. 524 00:29:03,366 --> 00:29:05,627 How do they know what we've seen? 525 00:29:05,827 --> 00:29:07,796 And that was not a gardener. 526 00:29:07,996 --> 00:29:09,297 They didn't see anything. 527 00:29:09,497 --> 00:29:11,800 I think somebody created this make-believe story 528 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,093 that they actually created. 529 00:29:13,293 --> 00:29:14,544 That's my feeling. 530 00:29:15,086 --> 00:29:18,807 When you've been working with children as long as I have, you have to be cautious 531 00:29:19,007 --> 00:29:23,261 as to how you interpret what they actually tell you. 532 00:29:24,804 --> 00:29:28,149 They are their own individuals. They have to choose what they believe. 533 00:29:28,349 --> 00:29:30,902 Maybe they truly believe that they'd seen it. 534 00:29:31,102 --> 00:29:33,280 But I'm sorry to tell you that it never happened, 535 00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,106 and they're lying to themselves. 536 00:29:35,774 --> 00:29:37,117 I might have lied once or twice, 537 00:29:37,317 --> 00:29:39,944 but the rest of the people, they continued the story for me. 538 00:29:40,528 --> 00:29:41,946 Sixty children lie? 539 00:29:42,614 --> 00:29:45,083 Lie about what they saw, 540 00:29:45,283 --> 00:29:47,085 or are being put up to it by their friends? 541 00:29:47,285 --> 00:29:48,878 That's a pretty big group. 542 00:29:49,078 --> 00:29:51,756 If I can get five 16-year-olds testifying 543 00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:56,169 that one particular teacher or priest was a predator, 544 00:29:56,795 --> 00:29:59,180 that's really powerful evidence, 545 00:29:59,380 --> 00:30:00,807 and I win the case. 546 00:30:01,007 --> 00:30:05,812 Okay, so all 60 people, describing the same experience, 547 00:30:06,012 --> 00:30:07,564 why should we discount that? 548 00:30:07,764 --> 00:30:12,560 This is the kind of evidence that is very powerful in-in legal circles. 549 00:30:16,856 --> 00:30:19,075 In court, we credit eyewitness testimony. 550 00:30:19,275 --> 00:30:22,245 People are convicted of murder on eyewitness testimony. 551 00:30:22,445 --> 00:30:25,498 They're sentenced to death and executed on eyewitness testimony. 552 00:30:25,698 --> 00:30:27,167 And Mack said, "Look, this is what I do." 553 00:30:27,367 --> 00:30:29,502 "I'm a psychiatrist. I talk to people all the time." 554 00:30:29,702 --> 00:30:32,547 "I-I kinda judge when they're telling me the truth 555 00:30:32,747 --> 00:30:34,633 and when they're, you know, not, making up a story." 556 00:30:34,833 --> 00:30:40,263 So when the people told Mack these stories, uh, recounted them, 557 00:30:40,463 --> 00:30:43,016 they... it was with what he called "suitable affect." 558 00:30:43,216 --> 00:30:47,437 In other words, they displayed the terror that they felt at the time. 559 00:30:47,637 --> 00:30:48,938 And he felt certain 560 00:30:49,138 --> 00:30:52,141 that this was not something people can easily make up. 561 00:30:52,725 --> 00:30:55,687 - Listen, I have a hard time with this. - Why? 562 00:30:56,938 --> 00:30:59,774 'Cause I don't wanna believe it. I really don't. 563 00:31:01,109 --> 00:31:03,912 These people were expressing, with such intense feeling, 564 00:31:04,112 --> 00:31:07,916 something that was so meaningful and powerful for them, with great fear. 565 00:31:08,116 --> 00:31:09,209 And as a psychiatrist, 566 00:31:09,409 --> 00:31:12,537 there's nothing but real experience that-that is like that. 567 00:31:15,248 --> 00:31:18,802 I wish that they'd talked to us more, they'd really asked us questions, 568 00:31:19,002 --> 00:31:23,131 or make us feel like we're not so crazy. 569 00:31:23,965 --> 00:31:25,558 I couldn't talk about it in my house 570 00:31:25,758 --> 00:31:28,603 because my dad didn't want to know what was going on. 571 00:31:28,803 --> 00:31:32,524 He didn't want to have the stigma behind him. 572 00:31:32,724 --> 00:31:36,111 My parents were just, like, straight up, "No! You didn't see that!" 573 00:31:36,311 --> 00:31:38,605 We were scared of getting smacked. 574 00:31:39,939 --> 00:31:41,991 It's not a matter of what we believe. 575 00:31:42,191 --> 00:31:44,160 {an8}It's what their experience is 576 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,038 {an8}and how they find the adults around them 577 00:31:47,238 --> 00:31:49,082 {an8}being receptive to that experience. 578 00:31:49,282 --> 00:31:50,667 And I think that 579 00:31:50,867 --> 00:31:54,754 that's probably one of the rock-bottom educational principles. 580 00:31:54,954 --> 00:31:58,591 That whatever your personal point of view, politics, prejudice may be, 581 00:31:58,791 --> 00:32:01,720 it's that you give an opportunity for ideas 582 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,882 and expression of feelings and thoughts to be openly communicated. 583 00:32:07,425 --> 00:32:09,260 I lost friends because of it. 584 00:32:10,553 --> 00:32:12,897 I was the crazy person 585 00:32:13,097 --> 00:32:17,060 who just wouldn't drop the fact that it wasn't a gardener. 586 00:32:19,145 --> 00:32:22,190 Because I was the person that said that this had happened. 587 00:32:24,359 --> 00:32:28,288 So there was a lot of stigma at that stage. 588 00:32:28,488 --> 00:32:31,541 Ordinarily, we would not even put people on television 589 00:32:31,741 --> 00:32:33,710 who make such bizarre claims. 590 00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:37,872 To be honest, their stories do sound really crazy. 591 00:32:38,873 --> 00:32:42,961 In a lot of ways, the experience itself was less traumatic than the aftermath. 592 00:32:43,586 --> 00:32:45,138 The aftermath was a lot. 593 00:32:45,338 --> 00:32:47,557 So it really impacted some people, you know? 594 00:32:47,757 --> 00:32:49,601 And then you gotta ask a question, you know... 595 00:32:49,801 --> 00:32:53,471 You know, these individuals, did they have psychological issues before? 596 00:32:54,055 --> 00:32:56,983 Or has... Or did that day, that experience of people lying, 597 00:32:57,183 --> 00:32:59,986 did that create psychological issues for those individuals? 598 00:33:00,186 --> 00:33:03,656 In the four years we've been on the air, we've never done a show about aliens. 599 00:33:03,856 --> 00:33:07,285 Quite frankly, the reason is because a lot of us are skeptical. 600 00:33:07,485 --> 00:33:10,655 At the beginning, I'm searching, I'm seeking, I'm asking people... 601 00:33:11,531 --> 00:33:13,249 up until a point where... 602 00:33:13,449 --> 00:33:15,210 At a certain point, they started getting hostile. 603 00:33:15,410 --> 00:33:20,131 The most hostile was this youth pastor, who basically went red in the face. 604 00:33:20,331 --> 00:33:22,500 He's saying like, "No, aliens don't exist." 605 00:33:23,167 --> 00:33:26,879 He was really tryna get me to not ask those questions. 606 00:33:27,714 --> 00:33:31,134 And I'd started feeling a lot more like I'm the crazy one. 607 00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,314 Why do we treat people like they're crazy and humiliate them 608 00:33:36,514 --> 00:33:38,483 if they are experiencing some other entity, 609 00:33:38,683 --> 00:33:40,568 some other intelligence that's coming across? 610 00:33:40,768 --> 00:33:42,654 Why is everybody thought crazy if they have... 611 00:33:42,854 --> 00:33:44,239 if some intelligence is coming to them, 612 00:33:44,439 --> 00:33:47,358 and they're honestly experiencing that this is the case? 613 00:33:49,318 --> 00:33:51,412 In a time where you are growing up 614 00:33:51,612 --> 00:33:54,615 and you're not being believed about a really important thing, 615 00:33:55,324 --> 00:33:59,128 that meant that when I had other important things happen to me, 616 00:33:59,328 --> 00:34:02,215 or... or just life happen, 617 00:34:02,415 --> 00:34:06,845 I found it very difficult to then... open up to anybody else 618 00:34:07,045 --> 00:34:09,464 and tell them about anything that happened. 619 00:34:10,590 --> 00:34:12,600 People have said to me I should go and see a counselor, 620 00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,095 or I should go and talk to someone about these things. 621 00:34:16,596 --> 00:34:18,097 But I don't because... 622 00:34:19,557 --> 00:34:21,276 will they believe me, or will I go... 623 00:34:21,476 --> 00:34:25,730 have to go through that fight again of "this is what happened"? 624 00:34:27,398 --> 00:34:29,659 People who have these experiences are being truthful. 625 00:34:29,859 --> 00:34:31,744 We don't know what the source of the experiences is, 626 00:34:31,944 --> 00:34:34,914 but it's important to accept that they are speaking truthfully 627 00:34:35,114 --> 00:34:37,500 about something very powerful that has happened to them. 628 00:34:37,700 --> 00:34:40,336 And... And yet, why should this be so remarkable 629 00:34:40,536 --> 00:34:44,299 when we claim to believe in-in God and all kinds of spirits? 630 00:34:44,499 --> 00:34:46,676 And yet, there's something about this one, 631 00:34:46,876 --> 00:34:50,346 which takes a form that is particularly, um, 632 00:34:50,546 --> 00:34:51,547 alien to us. 633 00:34:52,173 --> 00:34:56,728 As I understand it, there are people now, including the headmistress of the school, 634 00:34:56,928 --> 00:34:59,639 who have that same recollection. 635 00:35:06,854 --> 00:35:09,816 I couldn't tell you when I had my experience. 636 00:35:11,192 --> 00:35:15,029 But it was after what the children saw and before Professor Mack came. 637 00:35:19,367 --> 00:35:21,244 But I haven't spoken about it. 638 00:35:27,625 --> 00:35:29,252 It was nighttime, in my bedroom. 639 00:35:31,462 --> 00:35:32,462 And then... 640 00:35:33,047 --> 00:35:36,717 I was taken on the craft. 641 00:35:38,636 --> 00:35:39,804 On a narrow bed... 642 00:35:41,389 --> 00:35:43,191 which I found funny because I'm quite fat. 643 00:35:43,391 --> 00:35:47,111 It was like, "God, I hope I don't fall off this!" 644 00:35:47,311 --> 00:35:48,312 Just very narrow. 645 00:35:50,314 --> 00:35:52,241 And these little people are around you. 646 00:35:52,441 --> 00:35:53,776 "People." Aliens. 647 00:35:54,569 --> 00:35:56,371 And they said, "Don't look up." 648 00:35:56,571 --> 00:35:58,573 And of course I looked up, because that's who I am. 649 00:36:00,825 --> 00:36:03,202 They inserted something in my belly button. 650 00:36:04,370 --> 00:36:05,913 It could have been a microchip. 651 00:36:10,209 --> 00:36:12,587 And then there was the flash, and they left. 652 00:36:15,631 --> 00:36:17,058 Sounds like a movie, doesn't it? 653 00:36:17,258 --> 00:36:20,019 But it wasn't. It was my experience, nobody else's business. 654 00:36:20,219 --> 00:36:21,896 Just deal with it quietly on my own, 655 00:36:22,096 --> 00:36:24,565 which didn't help because I then ended up on Prozac. 656 00:36:24,765 --> 00:36:26,726 And I wasn't happy at the school. 657 00:36:27,435 --> 00:36:31,981 And I just was like, "Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn't be around any longer." 658 00:36:32,982 --> 00:36:34,859 To the point of suicide, maybe? 659 00:36:37,069 --> 00:36:38,070 I don't know. 660 00:36:45,661 --> 00:36:49,090 But there would have been no way I would have spoken about it 661 00:36:49,290 --> 00:36:52,301 with Professor Mack or anyone who came in. 662 00:36:52,501 --> 00:36:54,545 I kept very much in the background. 663 00:36:58,132 --> 00:37:01,427 Then they came back again, and they said, did I wanna go with them? 664 00:37:01,928 --> 00:37:03,387 Because I was so unhappy. 665 00:37:04,013 --> 00:37:05,898 And I'm like, "No. No." 666 00:37:06,098 --> 00:37:08,526 Then they came back the third and final time 667 00:37:08,726 --> 00:37:10,945 and said, "Right. We're leaving. This is your last chance." 668 00:37:11,145 --> 00:37:12,321 "Do you wanna go with us?" 669 00:37:12,521 --> 00:37:15,241 And I said, "No, I've got to do what I've been trained to do." 670 00:37:15,441 --> 00:37:18,995 And that you don't leave a project. You see it through. 671 00:37:19,195 --> 00:37:20,947 You good? Hello. How are you? 672 00:37:21,781 --> 00:37:25,918 It was nice of them to ask. But, no, I wasn't gonna go. 673 00:37:26,118 --> 00:37:29,372 It was better for the children. So they left. 674 00:37:50,768 --> 00:37:53,821 John Mack may be off with the pixies, or the aliens, 675 00:37:54,021 --> 00:37:56,532 but he still draws a healthy salary. 676 00:37:56,732 --> 00:38:00,369 And Harvard professors are never ever sacked. 677 00:38:00,569 --> 00:38:02,413 Doctor, is the profession embarrassed 678 00:38:02,613 --> 00:38:05,750 {an8}when one of your colleagues, uh, puts forward theories like this? 679 00:38:05,950 --> 00:38:07,543 {an8}Oh, yes, we're very embarrassed, 680 00:38:07,743 --> 00:38:12,173 {an8}and embarrassed for the profession and a little worried about John himself. 681 00:38:12,373 --> 00:38:14,217 - He's gone off the rails? - Well, uh... 682 00:38:14,417 --> 00:38:17,678 John is a man of great gift and great intelligence, 683 00:38:17,878 --> 00:38:21,015 but he's also a man of... who tends to take on enthusiasms. 684 00:38:21,215 --> 00:38:23,017 And then this time, he's gone... 685 00:38:23,217 --> 00:38:24,969 yeah, gone too far. 686 00:38:26,470 --> 00:38:28,147 John has lost it this time. 687 00:38:28,347 --> 00:38:31,400 Harvard was saying that John had committed malpractice, 688 00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,695 and that came up repeatedly in the hearings. 689 00:38:34,895 --> 00:38:36,489 And the theory of Harvard was, 690 00:38:36,689 --> 00:38:39,283 "By not telling these people that they're psychotic, 691 00:38:39,483 --> 00:38:42,495 by not putting them on tranquilizing medication 692 00:38:42,695 --> 00:38:45,740 for their psychoses, you are committing malpractice." 693 00:38:47,616 --> 00:38:50,586 These patients do have psychological problems, 694 00:38:50,786 --> 00:38:53,506 and those problems are being masked 695 00:38:53,706 --> 00:38:59,920 by, uh, this idea that the explanation is this crazy one. 696 00:39:08,554 --> 00:39:11,766 When I got into high school, probably my second and third year, 697 00:39:12,850 --> 00:39:14,226 I got very religious. 698 00:39:16,562 --> 00:39:19,315 And I'm asking my pastor, at that time, youth pastor, 699 00:39:19,815 --> 00:39:22,243 "Right." Like, "Okay." Like, "I get it." 700 00:39:22,443 --> 00:39:26,164 You know, "Jesus came to Earth and died for our sins and everything, 701 00:39:26,364 --> 00:39:28,157 but where did he come from?" 702 00:39:29,867 --> 00:39:31,169 And I remember asking him then, 703 00:39:31,369 --> 00:39:34,538 "Could it be possible that he was an alien?" 704 00:39:36,624 --> 00:39:39,177 And I was like, "I've witnessed this. I've seen this." 705 00:39:39,377 --> 00:39:42,254 And he kind of shrugged it off, and he's just like, "No, you didn't." 706 00:39:42,755 --> 00:39:43,890 "Right? You didn't see it." 707 00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:47,051 Literally, I had people saying, "No, you didn't. You did not see that." 708 00:39:47,843 --> 00:39:52,348 I-I remember this one white pastor, actually, saying to me... 709 00:39:54,058 --> 00:39:56,811 "You know, your experiences... 710 00:39:58,562 --> 00:40:00,648 that you had as a child, they don't matter." 711 00:40:02,233 --> 00:40:05,077 "Who you are, as an African, 712 00:40:05,277 --> 00:40:06,445 is irrelevant." 713 00:40:07,446 --> 00:40:09,540 He actually used the word "irrelevant." 714 00:40:09,740 --> 00:40:11,459 I can't bring my own individuality. 715 00:40:11,659 --> 00:40:13,669 And as big as the world is, 716 00:40:13,869 --> 00:40:18,257 with so many different people, kinds of people, and languages, 717 00:40:18,457 --> 00:40:21,001 you want to erase all of that and say it doesn't matter? 718 00:40:23,170 --> 00:40:27,842 You know, so that led me on a journey, searching and... and asking questions. 719 00:40:30,177 --> 00:40:32,480 You know, they've been lying to themselves for so many years, 720 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,774 maybe they actually need somebody to say to them... 721 00:40:34,974 --> 00:40:36,934 ..."It never happened. Wake up!" 722 00:40:37,601 --> 00:40:39,195 And so that they can start healing 723 00:40:39,395 --> 00:40:42,156 from the lie they've been telling themselves for so many years 724 00:40:42,356 --> 00:40:45,067 and eventually believed the lie that they're telling themselves. 725 00:40:51,532 --> 00:40:55,253 About 20 years, I tried to keep that... hidden. 726 00:40:55,453 --> 00:40:57,204 I tried to keep that down. 727 00:40:57,872 --> 00:41:01,592 And as a result, I lost a lot of my childhood. 728 00:41:01,792 --> 00:41:04,387 And I lost a lot of my memories of my childhood, 729 00:41:04,587 --> 00:41:07,765 because I couldn't... open that wound. 730 00:41:07,965 --> 00:41:09,467 I couldn't open that trauma. 731 00:41:10,092 --> 00:41:13,345 And when you hear a noise, what do you imagine it is? 732 00:41:14,847 --> 00:41:17,191 I think it's people coming into my house, 733 00:41:17,391 --> 00:41:20,444 wanting to steal me and steal all my toys and... 734 00:41:20,644 --> 00:41:21,979 - Mm-hmm. - ...everything. 735 00:41:26,859 --> 00:41:30,112 And then I wasn't able to really talk about it to my husband. 736 00:41:31,447 --> 00:41:36,419 He's a very traditional Catholic, and he questioned me and said, "What..." 737 00:41:36,619 --> 00:41:39,338 "What-What is this documentary really about?" 738 00:41:39,538 --> 00:41:40,965 And I said, "Well..." 739 00:41:41,165 --> 00:41:44,835 "...for a very long time, I was scared that if I did tell you that you would 740 00:41:45,753 --> 00:41:48,764 think that I was crazy, so you wouldn't wanna be with me." 741 00:41:48,964 --> 00:41:49,964 Um... 742 00:41:50,841 --> 00:41:54,345 And, initially, he was like, "Yeah, nah." 743 00:41:54,929 --> 00:41:56,063 "This can't be happening!" 744 00:41:56,263 --> 00:41:59,225 "I can't be married to someone that's seen aliens!" 745 00:42:05,940 --> 00:42:09,568 I walked into this courtroom that they'd assembled at Harvard. 746 00:42:11,153 --> 00:42:14,373 And there was a big, kind of, semicircular dais, 747 00:42:14,573 --> 00:42:16,292 where these three doctors were sitting. 748 00:42:16,492 --> 00:42:18,202 It looked kind of like a tribunal. 749 00:42:19,328 --> 00:42:21,380 And we collected affidavit and statements 750 00:42:21,580 --> 00:42:25,384 and gave testimony from people who say that John saved their lives, 751 00:42:25,584 --> 00:42:28,796 and they might have committed suicide, in some cases, were it not for John. 752 00:42:29,922 --> 00:42:33,050 I wasn't heard by the adults that I trusted. 753 00:42:33,634 --> 00:42:34,727 Whereas with John Mack, 754 00:42:34,927 --> 00:42:38,105 we didn't have to try to make him believe what we had seen. 755 00:42:38,305 --> 00:42:41,484 And I know that he copped a lot of flak for it too. 756 00:42:41,684 --> 00:42:46,781 He-He didn't walk away from this experience peacefully at all. 757 00:42:46,981 --> 00:42:49,567 And he had to fight for us. 758 00:42:50,818 --> 00:42:52,787 This went on for 14 months. 759 00:42:52,987 --> 00:42:55,915 And we're having all these hearings. 760 00:42:56,115 --> 00:42:59,460 And, of course, by then, word of this star chamber had leaked out. 761 00:42:59,660 --> 00:43:02,380 People were outraged that John was going through this. 762 00:43:02,580 --> 00:43:05,883 And I think the fact that it leaked out was one of the reasons 763 00:43:06,083 --> 00:43:07,793 why Harvard decided to retreat. 764 00:43:08,836 --> 00:43:11,764 I'm pretty thick-skinned about it, and I'd certainly expected, you know, 765 00:43:11,964 --> 00:43:14,642 if you're rattling the cage of a worldview 766 00:43:14,842 --> 00:43:16,727 with something that's just not supposed to be, 767 00:43:16,927 --> 00:43:18,771 you're gonna... the empire will strike back. 768 00:43:18,971 --> 00:43:19,772 You gotta expect that. 769 00:43:19,972 --> 00:43:23,442 The people at the highest levels of the university realized 770 00:43:23,642 --> 00:43:25,986 that this was nothing more than a witch hunt 771 00:43:26,186 --> 00:43:27,488 and put an end to it. 772 00:43:27,688 --> 00:43:29,990 That was empowering. That was so... 773 00:43:30,190 --> 00:43:32,818 That was... so healing. 774 00:43:33,485 --> 00:43:36,705 We came away convinced that an extraordinary event occurred here, 775 00:43:36,905 --> 00:43:38,541 quite unique in UFO history. 776 00:43:38,741 --> 00:43:42,545 And if there's anything that could convince a closed-minded public 777 00:43:42,745 --> 00:43:44,922 that, uh, some kind of intelligence 778 00:43:45,122 --> 00:43:48,134 that is not, as the headmaster said, "of this world," 779 00:43:48,334 --> 00:43:51,128 then this event should-should persuade people. 780 00:43:51,795 --> 00:43:55,015 He was a rare individual who had enough confidence 781 00:43:55,215 --> 00:43:58,218 to tackle this very, very strange area. 782 00:43:58,802 --> 00:44:02,690 And-And it remains the colossal mystery of our time. 783 00:44:02,890 --> 00:44:05,818 I mean, there is no answer to-to these experiences. 784 00:44:06,018 --> 00:44:08,279 What these UFOs are 785 00:44:08,479 --> 00:44:12,366 and whether there are beings, you know, associated with them 786 00:44:12,566 --> 00:44:13,534 are questions... 787 00:44:13,734 --> 00:44:17,621 among the most confounding questions of our time. 788 00:44:17,821 --> 00:44:20,616 Questions like, "What happens after we die?" 789 00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,503 "Where did the universe come from?" "What happened before the Big Bang?" 790 00:44:24,703 --> 00:44:28,165 I mean, what was there before that? Where did that come from? 791 00:44:30,626 --> 00:44:32,628 So, in Shona, we have a word... 792 00:44:33,587 --> 00:44:34,922 "Zvinoera." 793 00:44:36,131 --> 00:44:37,892 When the Church got a hold of it, 794 00:44:38,092 --> 00:44:40,803 it was converted into something that means "holy." 795 00:44:41,804 --> 00:44:45,858 But its original meaning, before it was hijacked by the Church, 796 00:44:46,058 --> 00:44:48,852 means "something of great mystery." 797 00:44:51,271 --> 00:44:54,149 "Something that is inexplicable... 798 00:44:55,609 --> 00:44:56,652 but it exists." 799 00:44:57,945 --> 00:45:00,739 It's there, because you are interacting with it. 800 00:45:03,909 --> 00:45:08,872 Seeing an alien brought me to a place where I did find my "Africanness." 801 00:45:10,165 --> 00:45:13,252 My own African belief systems and culture and spirituality. 802 00:45:14,837 --> 00:45:17,464 I believe in it because I did see it. 803 00:45:20,259 --> 00:45:23,312 This is a story that we're sharing. This is a story that we're proud of. 804 00:45:23,512 --> 00:45:24,230 This is a story 805 00:45:24,430 --> 00:45:26,649 that if you wanna talk about it, talk about it. 806 00:45:26,849 --> 00:45:28,567 If you don't wanna talk about it, don't. 807 00:45:28,767 --> 00:45:30,185 But it's your story as well. 808 00:45:30,853 --> 00:45:32,988 This is a very important story to tell, 809 00:45:33,188 --> 00:45:38,536 but not so much because of... the incident itself. 810 00:45:38,736 --> 00:45:41,780 It's an important human story to tell. 811 00:45:42,322 --> 00:45:46,493 To simply say, "Humans have experienced this." 812 00:45:48,036 --> 00:45:48,754 That's empathy. 813 00:45:48,954 --> 00:45:51,257 That's like, "I can see things from your perspective." 814 00:45:51,457 --> 00:45:55,169 You can go in different directions after that, but that makes us human. 815 00:45:58,088 --> 00:46:00,132 Some people chose to dig deeper. 816 00:46:00,758 --> 00:46:04,270 Some people chose to just shut it down and not think about it. 817 00:46:04,470 --> 00:46:07,481 Some people may have found answers that make sense to them. 818 00:46:07,681 --> 00:46:12,853 Some people, it may still be a puzzle piece that doesn't fit anywhere. 819 00:46:14,271 --> 00:46:15,990 There are people who were there that day 820 00:46:16,190 --> 00:46:18,784 that are like, "Uh. That really didn't happen." 821 00:46:18,984 --> 00:46:21,236 And that's okay too. That's a... That's a choice too. 822 00:46:22,154 --> 00:46:23,622 There's so much more to explore 823 00:46:23,822 --> 00:46:27,293 and so much more to know about what is around us, 824 00:46:27,493 --> 00:46:32,006 and I didn't realize that I could have an impact to the environment 825 00:46:32,206 --> 00:46:33,591 in a negative way. 826 00:46:33,791 --> 00:46:39,013 So having that message definitely took me to a different understanding 827 00:46:39,213 --> 00:46:41,799 of my place in the world. 828 00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,768 It was just so eye-opening, 829 00:46:44,968 --> 00:46:49,481 and it made me realize what a... a-a narrow mindset I had 830 00:46:49,681 --> 00:46:53,277 and that I was unwilling to accept the possibility 831 00:46:53,477 --> 00:46:54,645 that there's something... 832 00:46:55,479 --> 00:46:59,149 in this material world that I don't understand. 833 00:47:01,944 --> 00:47:04,947 Most people would say the question is like, "Are we alone?" 834 00:47:06,114 --> 00:47:09,326 I don't think that's it. I think the question is, "Who are we?" 835 00:47:10,327 --> 00:47:11,837 And maybe begin to understand 836 00:47:12,037 --> 00:47:14,957 that someone else could be looking back at us, it's like... 837 00:47:16,333 --> 00:47:17,459 "Who do they see?"