The October Abominations

It was the night of October 14th, 1996 - and something bizarre was waiting in the dark skies above Israel. An object with dazzling blue, red and white lights was moving over the city of Acre in the Northern District of Israel, floating through the sky towards the dunes of the surrounding coastal plains region - before suddenly stopping and dropping down close to the ground - casting the surrounding area in an eerie light. It is unknown what order the following events occurred in, but what is clear is that the entities that would descend on Israel that night would be like nothing ever seen before or since.

## Nightfall

Perhaps Tamara was watching as the glowing object as it descended from the clouds and hovered over the ground in her city, but she would certainly soon become aware of an otherworldly presence in her local area. She was outside just near her home - potentially watching the strange lightshow - when a different sort of lightshow began around her. Small creatures, blazing with red light, came towards her and started to attack. The report on this incident filed by Israeli ufologist Gil Bar is somewhat scant on details, but it is known that the entities were able to injure Tamara before she presumably made her escape.

If vicious little red men weren't weird enough for one night - we should take a trip over to the West Bank, specifically the Palestinian city of Jenin. A man named Abdul Alhazrad was driving towards the Jewish town of Dotan when he caught sight of a figure stood on the side of the road. Ever the good Samaritan, Abdul came to a stop and the man asked for a lift. Abdul obliged and the man got into the passenger seat of his car, and then he kicked the car back into life and continued driving down the sandy road ahead of him. Taking a glance at his new passenger, he was horrified to see his appearance morphing into something monstrous. The man changed within seconds, until he was no longer recognisably human. In his place sat a tall humanoid clad in dark clothing. It had a head like that of a dog, with floppy ears and a single, cyclopean eye at the top of its long snout. Panic-stricken, presumably realising that he was seated next to what one might call a demon, Abdul broke hard - causing the car to fishtail off the road. Throwing the door open, Abdul's feet hit the ground and he fled from the car as quickly as he could - fearful to even look behind him. He kept running and running, and eventually reached what he felt was a safe enough distance away from his supernatural tormentor to turn and look at the wreckage of his car. His heart sank to see the nightmarish entity clambering out of the passenger side door before walking towards him. I can imagine that he was just getting ready to take off running for his life again when the apparition faded from view without any further explanation.

Perhaps, however, the monster didn't vanish from our dimension and return to wherever it had come from. At least, not just yet. Two Bedouin Arabs were driving down a dark highway in the Negev Desert near to city of Beersheba in Southern Israel when they saw a man stood in the sands beside the asphalt road. They were in the middle of nowhere, and it was getting late - and so they decided to slow their car to a stop beside the figure to see if he needed help. One of them rolled down their window and asked him if he required any assistance, but they got no reply from the figure. Instead, it slammed its palm against the car door and the witnesses were horrified to realise that the strange figure was no man - and that its hand was now somehow stuck to the side of their car. Their stomachs turned when they managed to get a glance at the entity's face. It was described as being horribly '*mutated*'. In response, the driver stepped down hard on the gas pedal and the car sped through the night away from the monster - which seemingly came unstuck from the door. However, the creature would not be evaded so easily, and it leapt up and hurtled through the air for a distance of about 20ft before coming down on the side door of the car once again. It clung to the metal like '*Spider-Man*', staying firmly gripped onto the door even as the car and its panicked passengers sped down the nighttime highway at over 75mph. Nothing they did seemed to dislodge the monstrosity - until it mysteriously vanished into thin air after about half a mile of pure terror.

## Dawn

The latter two reports were made to an individual by the name of Dr. Leon Liebknecht, but I cannot find any more information about this man on the Internet - and so I am instead left to credit Albert Rosales and his *Humanoid Encounters* series for providing me with these casefiles after I found a description of the second story discussed in Neil Arnold's *Monster! An A-Z of Zooform Phenomena*. It seems that a temporary madness descended onto Israel that one night in 1996 - and then vanished come morning as quickly as the moon dipped below the horizon and out of view. It is fascinating to me to see how the entities involved seem to show characteristics of both ufonauts and classical phantom hitchhikers. The last story in particular is terrifying to think about - and the monster discussed within reminds me of Spring-Heeled Jack.