Online Reporter
Stanford Chiwanga [email protected]
FOR many Zimbabweans growing up, aliens belonged in films. They came from Hollywood, glowing in the dark, stepping off flying saucers, speaking through strange sounds or telepathy. They were the kind of stories you watched on a Sunday afternoon, then forgot about by Monday morning.
To most, they were simply part of Western imagination, creative, dramatic, but far removed from life in Bulawayo, Harare or the quiet villages scattered across the country.
But every now and then, something happens that unsettles that certainty. And suddenly, the question no longer feels so distant: what if some of those stories were never just stories?
A mountain with too many questions
High in the Eastern Highlands stands Mount Nyangani, Zimbabwe’s highest peak, known for its beauty, its mist, and increasingly, its mystery.
For decades, the mountain has carried a reputation that locals do not take lightly. It is often called “the mountain that swallows people”.
The name did not come from nowhere.
In 1981, the two daughters of former Finance Minister Tichaendepi Masaya vanished while hiking on the mountain. Despite extensive searches, no trace of them was ever found.
It was not an isolated case.
Over the years, several people have disappeared without explanation on the same slopes. Survivors often tell similar stories — sudden thick fog appearing within minutes, strange sounds, confusion, and what some describe as “lost time”.
Others speak of becoming disoriented for no clear reason, even in areas they should easily navigate.
Scientists point to harsh weather, difficult terrain and human error. Local communities speak of something deeper — spiritual forces, sacred ground, and a place that demands respect.
For years, those were the two explanations: nature or belief.
Then came a third.
The claim that reignited everything
Recently, former US Army intelligence officer Lyn Buchanan made a claim that quickly spread across the world. Speaking on a podcast, Buchanan — a former participant in the CIA-linked Stargate Project — said that Mount Nyangani is not just a mountain.
According to him, it is an alien base.
Buchanan said he was part of a Cold War-era programme that explored “remote viewing”, where individuals attempted to gather intelligence using their minds rather than physical surveillance. The programme itself was later shut down in 1995 after being deemed unreliable by the US government.
But Buchanan insists that what he saw during that time was real. He claimed there are four such bases in the world — in Alaska, Australia, the Pyrenees mountains, and Zimbabwe.
Mount Nyangani, he said, functions as a maintenance site for UFOs.
It is the kind of statement that sounds unbelievable. And yet, it landed on ground that was already full of unanswered questions.
Zimbabwe’s own alien story
Long before Mount Nyangani entered global headlines, Zimbabwe had already experienced one of the most talked-about UFO incidents in modern history. In September 1994, more than 60 schoolchildren at Ariel School in Ruwa reported seeing a strange silver craft land near their playground.
Many of them said they saw small beings with large eyes standing near the object. Even more striking was how similar their stories were. The children, aged between six and 12, told their accounts separately — yet described almost the same thing.
Some claimed the beings communicated with them, not through speech, but through thought.
Sceptics later suggested mass hysteria or misinterpretation. Others, including researchers who interviewed the children at the time, said the consistency of their stories was difficult to ignore.
To this day, the Ariel School incident remains one of the most debated UFO sightings in the world.
And it happened here.
Between science, belief and something else
What makes the Zimbabwean experience different is how these stories sit between two worlds. On one hand, there is science — which demands proof, evidence and repeatable results. From this view, alien bases and mysterious beings are unlikely, even impossible.
On the other hand, there is culture. Across Zimbabwe, stories of unexplained places are not new. Mountains, rivers and forests are often seen as sacred spaces — places where the physical and spiritual meet.
Mount Nyangani fits perfectly into that tradition.
For some, Buchanan’s claims about aliens are simply another attempt to explain what has always been understood in African terms. Not aliens. Not science. But something that has always been there.
A question that refuses to go away
What makes this story so compelling is not whether aliens exist. It is the fact that there are still questions with no clear answers. People have disappeared on Mt Nyangani.
Children in Ruwa told stories that still puzzle investigators decades later. And now, a former intelligence insider has placed Zimbabwe at the centre of a global extra-terrestrial theory.
Perhaps there is a scientific explanation for all of it. Perhaps there is not. But for many Zimbabweans, what has changed is this: the idea of aliens is no longer just a story from somewhere else.
It has, in some strange and unsettling way, found a home much closer to home.
