In Steven Spielberg's new movie "Disclosure Day," a meteorologist and a cybersecurity expert work together trying to expose the government's cover-up of extraterrestrial life. And although that movie has left theaters for the season, there's another film coming to the Malco in Rogers on July 23 that might leave you questioning the stars.
Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis has more on "Ariel Phenomenon," a 2022 documentary that explores a strange event that occurred decades ago in rural Zimbabwe.
Randall Nickerson is a filmmaker. He doesn't have a degree in planetary sciences, astrophysics or even biology, but he can recognize something unusual when he sees it. And he says something strange happened at Ariel School in September 1994 outside Ruwa, Zimbabwe. Over 60 students reported seeing one or more silver, saucer-shaped crafts land near their playground. Some said they saw tall, black, big-eyed creatures emerge, and then began receiving telepathic messages about the dangers of climate change and technology.
This was a big deal in the '90s — Harvard psychiatrist John Mack even traveled out there to interview the kids. And in 2022, Nickerson re-explored the case with his documentary "Ariel Phenomenon." He tracked down several of the kids, now adults years later, and spoke with them about the experience.
Nickerson says he's not trying to convince anyone aliens are real. He even went so far as to remove all narration from the documentary, further allowing people their own judgment.
"I wanted to present what I found and let people make up their own minds. With this story, there was no reason to push it or to try to steer it in a direction. Usually UFO films, there's a narrator and they talk about this and try to convince you that UFOs are real. We didn't do that. We took a character-driven story and basically told a story, like you'd tell a story about somebody who went through anything, you know, and focused on the people that it happened to, more so than aliens or the things they saw. It was how it affected them."
Nickerson says that folks can go to the Malco in Rogers at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade to see for themselves. "Ariel Phenomenon" is screening there Thursday, July 23 at 7 p.m.
"You know, the film was made for the big screen. It was never meant to be — I mean, the audio, all the visuals were made for the big screen. The reason to go is just, even if you don't believe UFOs are real or anything like that, it is worth seeing because it's a crazy story, and it's told by children, mainly. And then you have the Harvard professor, and then you have the BBC reporter. You have just a lot of very interesting characters throughout the film. But I'd go see it just for the novelty of it."
People have presented theories as to how all of this could have happened minus a close encounter, whether it was mass hysteria, a puppet show gone wrong, or even something else. What those kids experienced at their school in 1994 has captured the world's imagination for nearly 30 years, and now Nickerson is writing the next chapter.
