Percy Townes is a recipient of the prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Humanitarian Award, given in recognition of his community outreach initiatives.
The former longtime Charleston resident and Charleston High School graduate said he was “honored” to have received the award, which is presented by The W.E.B. DuBois Foundation and The Chad Cooper Company on Broadway of New York City LLC.
The award’s namesake, Du Bois, was a trailblazing American sociologist, historian, author and civil rights activist who co-founded the NAACP and became one of the most influential Black intellectuals of the 20th century, according to Wikipedia.
Townes, 52, a native of Indianola who moved to Charleston when he was 11, has many resume items to his credit. In recent years, though, he has been heavily involved as associate producer of public affairs of a UFO documentary film titled “Ariel Phenomenon.”
The 2022 feature-length documentary explores a 1994 mass sighting of extraterrestrial activity in the south African country of Zimbabwe, where more than 60 schoolchildren reported seeing one or several UFOs land and non-human entities step out near the playground of their Ariel School.
The film utilizes archival news footage of interviews with the schoolchildren and tracks them into adulthood, where they have continued to firmly stand by their childhood accounts of the close encounter.
As an independent work, Ariel Phenomenon has not followed a traditional widespread theatrical box office release route. Instead, it has been distributed via independent screenings, select theaters, digital streaming and community-driven platforms.
Townes believes recent comments by legendary film director Steven Spielberg will “excite a lot of people” by expanding awareness of the documentary.
In media appearances to promote his own 2026 alien sci-fi movie, “Disclosure Day,” Spielberg has mentioned real-life accounts of UAP — unidentified anomalous phenomena, a new term adopted by the U.S. government — and referenced the 1994 Ariel School incident.
As a result of the Spielberg nod, Townes predicts Ariel Phenomenon’s “digital sales will skyrocket.”
The documentary is available to purchase on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
