Zimbabwe UFO Encounter / Haunted Montana Ranch

About the show

In the first half, George Knapp welcomed documentary director Randall Nickerson, who discussed his latest project, Ariel Phenomenon. Fifteen years in the making, the film explores the 1994 case of sixty-two students in Zimbabwe who reported that two alien beings emerged from a silver disc-shaped craft landing at their school. At the time of the incident, famed contactee researcher John Mack interviewed the schoolchildren on camera, concluding that their claims were honest and credible. Fascinated by Mack's work on the story, in 2007 Nickerson began visiting the students—who had since grown into adults—to dig deeper into their experience and offer a new perspective on the case.

Nickerson cited a number of problems in creating the new documentary. For one thing, he noted, it was difficult to track down some of the students, several of whom had moved to new countries. And of those he located, many were intimidated by the ridicule they endured from skeptical outsiders, Nickerson continued. In addition, many of the eyewitnesses remained remote from Western cultural influence, which sometimes made their descriptions of the encounter difficult for him to understand at first. Ultimately, however, Nickerson is convinced that his belief in the authenticity of the students' original claims is validated by his new documentary. In fact, he said, he's gathered enough material in the making of Ariel Phenomenon to begin a follow-up project, which he hopes will include interviews with new subjects encouraged to come forward.

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Paranormal investigator Tim Wood joined the second half of the show to talk about his work at Montana's Gunslinger Gulch, a hotbed of supernatural activity that's also the focus of his new TV series The Ghost Town Terror (watch trailer). Soon after Karen Broussard, owner of the ranch at Gunslinger, purchased the property and moved in with her family, they noticed a variety of unusual and frightening phenomenon, Wood explained. Encounters with shadow figures, apparitions, and poltergeists were common from the beginning of their residence there, he said; the family lasted three years before calling him and Sapphire Sandalo, his partner on the show, to come and investigate.

During their time at Gunslinger, Wood and his team experienced plenty of the high strangeness there. Even after leaving the property, the dark presence of the ranch could often be felt, he recalled. This was somewhat of a surprise, since the Gulch had been almost completely constructed as a visitor attraction: nothing was originally on the isolated property until the Broussards moved in, "importing" the buildings and equipment from various other places. Wood speculated that it may have been this combination of putting haunted buildings together—as well as Karen Broussard's past history as a conduit for evil forces—that laid the groundwork for the high level of paranormal activity at Gunslinger.