I am struck by the parallels between this incident and that of one which allegedly occurred half a decade earlier in Central - (and as then Soviet Russia) - the Voronezh Close Encounter. This has been covered before a few times elsewhere on this site. For example:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-voronezh-saga-continues.63943/#post-1766901
In both cases:
*A mass sighting was involved - of something somewhere between CE2 and CE3.
*Both cases have something of a vision or `show` about them - Vallee's `theatre of the absurd`.
* In both cases there is some degree of unanimity around the event - but also a great deal of troublesome variety in the description of the precise nature of the sighting.
*In that area of Zimbabwe and in Voronezh there is some suggestion of anomalous things seen in the sky by others prior to the `main` event.
* In both cases the local and international media responded to the event in a markedly mixed manner. (In the cause of Voronezh TASS famously promoted it - whereby the report reached the States- but other press outlets such as `Pravda` did not).
* In both cases Ufological `superstars` later descended on the area - Mack in the Zimbabwe case and Vallee in the Voronezh case (although he was disallowed from actually visiting the town).
*Likewise in both cases there was an attempt to later analyse the local any signs of significant disturbance or residue - with inconclusive results. (The Voronezh case involved dowsing).
*Generally both events carry with them an inescapable - but not conclusive - whiff of some kind of `mass hysteria` about them.
Most tellingly: in both stories there has since been a faintly chauvinistic implication that the experience occurred to people who were in some way backward or culturally isolated - and hence more credible as witnesses! (In the case of Voronezh, I can say, for sure, that this is pure nonsense. Russia and the Soviet Union had had it's own homegrown Science fiction novels and TV shows for a long time before 1989 - and UFOs had been discussed before then and were growing in popularity in that heady time. Also Voronezh is not some rural backwater: I have been there. It is a standard lacklustre medium sized Russian city found on a longstanding train route that also serves Moscow).
Some of the differences include:
*In the Voronezh case the witnesses were not just kids - but also adults (including some military men and academics) waiting at a bus stop near the park.
* There has been no mundane explanation forthcoming (that I know of) to explain the UFO sightings around Voronezh prior to the mass sighting - unlike the space debris re-entry that is claimed to have triggered the Zimbabwe case.
* Whilst some of the witnesses at Voronezh who were children at the time have since been interviewed as adults, they have not since - as far as I know - become quasi- celebrities on this account, unlike as with the Zimbabwe case.
* In the Voronezh incident there is no suggestion of any attempt to communicate any kind of message from the phenomena.
For what it's worth I think both cases are too psychologically loaded to represent anything like extraterrestrial contact. But I do think something significant occurred. (The skeptics over-reductive cod explanation of people passing by with balloons is almost insulting). With regard to the Zimbabwe report, I find the description of balls of light moving around pylons - coupled with what seem like hallucinatory episodes, to be highly suggestive - and similar to many, many other such cases.