Wikipedia entertains the possibility that a “touring puppet show designed to promote awareness around AIDS” may be the explanation behind what the students involved in the Ariel School incident saw

by FloatingDestiny

10 Comments

  1. I’m the biggest skeptic, but this explanation defies all credulity. Whatever these kids saw it was not a puppet show. Go listen to there interviews then and now. They saw something bizarre. And in all my years of hearing this story never once did a puppet show nearby ever come up. Just silly.

  2. PaddyMayonaise on

    My biggest gripes from the Ariel Incident are the facts that:

    * No adult saw anything

    * many students didn’t see anything

    * some students said it was make believe and they were playing around a large rock in the back

    * students shared drastically different reports of what they saw initially

    * the students reports only because similar after they were all brought together and asked to talk about what saw

    * an outside psychologist, John Mack, who was an open and dedicated UFOlogist, came in and asked pointed questions, hurting the case’s natural legitimacy

    Maybe something did happen, maybe it was real, but there was way too much interference for me to be confident in the validity of any of the reports

  3. AIDS Puppet show – fuck me… never heard anything more possible, I think actual meeting with aliens is more probable.

  4. AdWooden2312 on

    This is much more believable than swamp gas reflecting the light of Venus…

  5. lol, that’s the first time I’ve seen or read about that. And I’ve read that page and other resources many times. Not sure how I missed it.

    Here’s the source: https://revue.comitepara.be/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Scepticisme_Scientifique_12_2024_SI.pdf

    Oh, looks like it was added in 2023. https://i.imgur.com/bIersz9.png and in doing so, they removed the part of how I originally read the story that was factually incorrect.

    > … **the witnesses would not have had exposure to modern media and so would not have been familiar with the concept of UFOs and alien visitors**

    This was the most compelling part of the case as it was often told, but it was 100% wrong. I watched a lot of the interviews with the kids and one of the girls in particular talks about going to the theater and watching a movie about aliens.

    It’s not a great case.. It was built into something it is not. They also said the kids all described the same thing, which is also not true.. The general story was the same, but the details were all different.

    It amazes me that people still care about this case when there is so much wrong with it.