SADDAM's AREA 51?

A UFO incident in Iraq four years ago has raised disturbing questions about possible collaboration between aliens and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

On Thursday, December 16, 1998, during Operation Desert Fox, the Allied air strike against Iraq, a video clip aired on CNN showed a UFO hovering over Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and moving away to avoid a stream of tracer anti-aircraft fire.

At the time, it was thought to be just another UFO sighting, although captured on videotape. But now, ufologists think there might have been more to this incident.

According to Jack Sarfatti, on Friday night, December 6, 2002, "a caller into the Art Bell (radio) show, who claims to have a connection to the military, said a UFO crashed in Iraq in recent years. The U.S. is searching for any public pretext to invade Iraq, but its greatest fear is that Saddam will reverse-engineer the crashed alien spacecraft."

"The craft allegedly crashed during the Gulf War (1990-1991) or more recently (possibly December 1998). This will be Iraq's Roswell. The U.S. is currently reverse-engineering the Roswell craft and fears Saddam's scientists will catch up with or even go beyond the U.S. in one or more areas. These areas of research include zero point, over-ratio or gravimetric technology, which would allow for a tremendous advance, allowing Iraq to become a leading power."

Another caller reportedly hinted at the presence of "Saucer Nazis" in Iraq, assisting Saddam Hussein with his plans. Sarfatti commented, "Of course, the Occult Nazi SS (proper name: SS-Ahnenerbe--J.T.) has probably been in Iraq since World War II, and, if Nick Cook is right, maybe. But I think this story is all really silly disinformation and misinformation. But what do I know? I'm just a warped macro-quantum mechanic."

However, in actuality, Nazi interest in Iraq goes back 80 years to the early 1920s, to a time when the Nazionalsocialische Deutsches Arbeiterspartei (NSDAP) was still brawling in the streets of Berlin.

In 1924, Detlef Schmude, one of the leading lights of the NSDAP's forerunner, the Thule Gesellschaft, left Germany on an extended pilgrimage in the Middle East. Schmude had been a Canon in a Thule-related mystic group, the Order of the New Templars, and the editor of the Thule group's magazine, Ostara. Schmude settled in Tabriz, in Iran, and spent the next few years hunting for what he called "the Hidden Masters."

Then, in early 1939, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Hitler's spymaster and head of the Abwehr intelligence agency, sent Dr. Paul Leverkuehn to the Middle East to cultivate Muslim allies for the Third Reich. Strangely enough, Dr. Leverkuehn's headquarters was Detlef Schmude's old stamping ground, Tabriz. And his most successful convert was Rashid Ali, the pro-Nazi prime minister of Iraq, who was overthrown during the British invasion of Iraq two years later, in 1941.

Admiral Canaris became involved in the Stauffenberg bomb plot against Hitler in July 1944. He was arrested and thrown into the Flossenburg concentration camp, where he was executed in April 1945. Abwehr agents and operations in the Middle East were taken over by the Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler and placed under the control of Rudolf von Sebottendorff (nee Adam Glauer). By some strange coincidence, Sebottendorff was a Thule lodge brother like Schmude and, from 1916 on, a member of the New Templars.

Even stranger, Sebottendorff's dead body was found floating in the Bosporus near the docks of Istanbul on May 9, 1945, the day after World War II in Europe ended. What happened to the Thule/SS organization in Iraq after 1945, no one in the West knows.

One who took a keen interest in Iraq was SS-Brigadefuhrer Karl Maria Wiligut, alias Weisthor, who was called "Himmler's Rasputin." In 1940, he called Himmler's attention to important archaeological discoveries in Iraq's Irbil province. Scientists had dug up man-made artifacts dating back to 10,000 B.C.

Wiligut claimed to be the last of a line of sorcerers called the Ueiskuinigs, which had originated hundreds of thousands of years ago on the lost continent of Atlantis. With important Neolithic discoveries being made in Iraq, Wiligut thought it was vital to have the SS-Ahnenerbe on the scene, and it was probably he who advised Himmler to give control of the apparat to Sebottendorff. (For more on Wiligut, see below story)

After the war, in 1947, the biggest cache of Neolithic items yet was unearthed by Dorothy Garrod of Cambridge University, all dating back to 10,000 B.C. The find was at Zarzi in the upper valley of the as-Zab as-Saghir (or Little Zab River, to give the Arabic a free translation--J.T.), about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Irbil. Another important discovery was made by Prof. Braidwood of the Chicago Oriental Institute in 1951, Neolithic artifacts dating back to 6,000 B.C.

(Editor's Note: The ruins of Shimurru, a Sumerian city dating back to 3,000 B.C., are also in that valley.)

UFO Roundup correspondents in the Middle East came up with a mixed bag of information about the valley. Ayesha al-Khatabi wrote,

"Zarzi? That's a remote region, Joe, even for Iraq. The upper valley has a mixed population, Kurds mostly, with some Arabs and Yezidis. There is a famous imam's tomb just south of Zarzi, in the village of Shornakh. It's called the Ishkut-i-Kuhr-i-Kish, and it's sacred to the Kurds. The interesting thing about Zarzi is that there is a giant limestone cliff on the edge of town. An intriguing cave painting was found there years ago, showing a Sumerian prince bowing before a deity. Behind the god's throne is an eleven-pointed star. A proof of ancient astronauts, perhaps? This cliff is called Ishkut-i-Qizapan."

"I wonder if there might be an underground alien base at Qizapan, in truth similar to Mount Moncayo in Spain." (For more on this enigmatic peak, see UFO Roundup, volume 5, number 1 for January 6, 2000, "1815: Spain's mysterious Mount Moncayo," page 8.)

"I have, however, heard nothing of a UFO crash in Iraq. I have never heard of Thule, either. But Tabriz is not far from Zarzi. It's only 250 kilometers (150 miles) away, with a good road from Tabriz to Mahabad, also in Iran. It is possible for people to cross the border west of Mahabad and enter Iraq and the valley that way."

Mohammed Daud al-Hayyat wrote,

"There are rumors of aliens in Iraq but no talk of a crash. The souk (market) gossip in Sulaimaniya (south of Zarzi--J.T.) says the aliens are the guests of Saddam. Where are they staying? Well, there is the usual talk of an underground base. But Saddam does have a palace in the valley. The old fortress of Qalaat-e-Julundi used to belong to the (Iraqi) royal family. Here the king met with the Kurdish chieftains. After the revolution, the government took possession, and now, like every palace in Iraq, it is the 'summer mansion' of Saddam. The reason I mention the Qalaat-e-Julundi is that it is nearly impregnable. The citadel stands on a hill surrounded on three sides by precipices that plunge vertically down to the (Little Zab) river. I think Saddam is letting the aliens stay there."

Mohammed Hajj al-Amdar wrote,

"There are some very strange stories coming out of that valley. They say Saddam has given the aliens sanctuary, so they won't be captured by the Americans. Nobody will go near the citadel of Qalaat-e-Julundi at night. They say the aliens have created 'watchdogs' for Saddam. The aliens take simple desert scorpions and use their bio-engineering to grow them to giant size. Scorpions as large as cows! They have implants to control them."

"The scorpions are the perfect guards. They blend in with the desert, move swiftly and silently and zero right in on their warm-blooded prey. The luckless intruder hears a strange skittering noise on the stones. Then a pincer crushes his neck, and another (pincer) his legs, and he is slammed to the ground, and the barbed tail strikes six or seven times. Death comes quickly..."

"I hear that Saddam says the mission of these creatures is 'to discourage guests who have not been invited.' He has a strange sense of humor, that fellow."

It appears that something is going on in the Little Zab valley, but it is unclear just what. Is Zarzi the site of Saddam's "Area 51?" Or the location of some Neolithic "Temple of Doom?" We'll have to sit back and wait and see what develops, if anything.

(Many thanks to Jack Sarfatti, Art Wagner, Ayesha al-Khatabi, Mohammed Daud al-Hayyat and Mohammed Hajj al-Amdar for these reports. See also The Occult Roots of Nazism by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, New York University Press, 1983, pages 112 through 117; and Canaris by Heinz Hohne, Doubleday and Co., Garden City, N.Y., 1979, page 377.)

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