Close Encounters
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The video flickers. Off camera we hear voices – unseen people gasping in disbelief and astonishment. In the grainy black of the night sky, we see a shadow – a strange, haunting shape. Suddenly, a light flashes on. In the darkness, there is a presence – and slowly, it begins to revolve. These days it seems that visitors to Turkey come not only from Planet Earth. If the head of the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Centre in Istanbul is to be believed, Turkey is also now a major destination for travellers of quite a different kind. According to Haktan Akdogan, many arrivals are from a place that makes even the longest of long-haul flights look like a stroll in the park: outer space. “We get around 50-100 reports of UFO sightings every month,” he says, “with about 15-20 videos to go along with them.”
“I was smoking a cigarette and looking up at the sky,” he recalls. “Then, all of a sudden, I saw it. It was a bright light. I pointed my video camera at it and started shooting. I was so overwhelmed, astonished, excited – although I also had some fear at first.” The object Yalman videoed returned night after night, with UFO hunters like Akdogan convinced that the footage of the silvery cigar-shaped craft also shows two aliens, their heads tucked behind the UFO’s cockpit window.
Just as aliens seem to enjoy holidays in Turkey, the Turkish people are becoming increasingly obsessed with UFOs. The Research Centre manages UFO museums in Denizli, in the Aegean region, and Capadoccia. A third museum is opening in Antalya this summer. “We put on a road show one time,” recalls Akdogan, “and packed a museum, with photographs, models and resources, into a truck I borrowed from a friend. About 40,000 people came to see us on the tour – there were queues round the block.” Inside the museums, life-sized models of aliens stand next to press clippings from the Roswell Incident, when, some believe, an alien craft crashed at a US air force base. There are also exhibits on alien abductions, along with hundreds of photographs of UFOs from around the world. “We try to keep an open mind about these things,” Akdogan says. “Around 90% of all the incidents reported to us we can find some explanation for. It could be a weather balloon, or a bright planet, satellite or star – but then there is the 10% we can’t explain. These are the real UFOs.”
Then it happened again, in 1999, the same night as the terrible earthquake that struck near Istanbul. But I didn’t have any means of recording what I saw, so I became a sky watcher and got myself a camera.” Are UFO hunters looking for something they already believe in? “It’s not a question of belief,” counters Akdogan. “It’s a question of knowing. There is so much evidence and there are so many credible witnesses. Being sceptical is difficult under such circumstances. If something is real, it’s real.” Yalman points out that his tape of the UFO at Kumburgaz was subjected to testing by Turkey’s most distinguished government scientific institute, TUBITAK. These men in white coats concluded that the video had not been doctored or digitally enhanced, nor was the object a model or a mockup. “I don’t think these visitors can be hostile,” muses Yalman. “If they were they would have done something to us by now.” So what tips can a veteran UFO hunter offer for spotting a likely alien craft? “At first, they look a bit like stars,” says Yalman. “Then they start descending, getting closer to the earth. They can sometimes accelerate dramatically, too. That’s when you really know you’ve got one.” So, next time you’re in Istanbul it’s worth turning your attention skywards. Who knows, perhaps those bright lights accelerating away into the darkness are not heading for another packed airport, but for a different world altogether. |
We’re not the only ones flying to Istanbul – UFOs are spotted in Turkish skies almost every night. Jon Gorvett meets the brave earthlings patrolling the planet’s front line 
Exactly who these visa-free travellers are is unknown, as is the size of their baggage allowance, or which factor sun block works well with green skin. But whoever they are, there are certainly a lot of them visiting Turkey. One of the more recent of these alien arrivals was a silvery, elliptical object spied by veteran sky-watcher Yalcin Yalman, a night watchman at a summerhouse compound at Kumburgaz, on the outskirts of Istanbul.
On subsequent nights, many of Yalman’s friends joined him to observe the strange object, with their gasps of amazement also recorded on his tapes. “Eventually, the whole compound was out there, waiting till four or five in the morning,” Yalman recalls. “For about 10 days they kept coming – the UFOs and the crowds.” These recordings were then shown by the Research Centre at a packed Istanbul press conference last summer.
The enthusiasm of the UFO hunters, however, invites a degree of scepticism. How was it, for example, that Yalman happened to have a video camera on him when he saw his alien visitors? “In 1998 I saw my first UFO,” he explains. “It was about 1.30 in the morning. I saw a bright light swinging back and forth.