The strangest incident in the long history of Cappadocia took place in February of 303, when Diocletian was the emperor of Rome.

At that time, the city of Caesarea Maritima was the capital of Cappadocia, and Fabricius had just been appointed the prefect. He was very eager to please Diocletian. Due to the gradual disintegration of the Roman empire, outlying provinces such as Cappadocia were slipping out from under the emperor's control. In many lands, the prefects were hiring private armies and treating Imperial lands as their own personal estates. And Diocletian wanted to make sure that he got his majority share of the revenues from his Cappadocian vineyards.

So, when Diocletian's decree against Christians was issued, Fabricius enforced it with particular vigor. Among the people executed during the first round of summary arrests were the parents of young Dorothea of Caesarea.

Dorothea was a young unmarried woman given to trances and mystic experiences. She spent a lot of time wandering the Ihlara Valley (near modern Urgup, Turkey), which, like Sedona, Arizona, USA, has a large number of weird rock formations. She was always talking about an "enchanted garden" to which she was a frequent visitor.

In January 303, during the severe cold of a Turkish winter, news of Dorothea reached the ears of Fabricius, and he ordered her arrest.

So there was Dorothea, at her parents' small house in Caesrea, cooking kiremit kebap (roast lamb with tomato, mushroom and cheese--J.T.) when the Roman soldiers knocked at the door. The centurion came right to the point. "Are you a Christian?"

Dorothea nodded. "I am. Jesus is my true husband, and I see him often in the garden."

"The woman is a lunatic," a soldier muttered.

"Lunatic or not, the prefect has issued a warrant for her arrest," the centurion replied. "Take her to the citadel."

Upon her arrival in the citadel's prison, "she was stretched upon the rack, and offered marriage if she would sacrifice" to the gods of Olympus, "or death if she refused."

Dorothea refused, saying, "Jesus is my only spouse, and death is my desire."

When he learned that she had turned down all offers of an arranged marriage, Fabricius thought, Well, if she doesn't like men, then perhaps she prefers women. And he sent two women of that persuasion who had been Christians but recanted to "seduce" the prisoner.

The ploy backfired. "But the fire in Dorothea's heart rekindled the flame in theirs and led them back to Christ."

"When she was set once more upon the rack, Fabricius himself was amazed at the heavenly look she wore and asked her the cause of her joy."

"Because I have brought two souls back to Jesus," Dorothea replied, "And because I will soon be in the heavenly garden rejoicing with the angels."

The full force of Roman law was brought against her. Her jailer wrapped a festus, a leather strap studded with iron , around his fist and punched her repeatedly in the face. Then iron plates were heated in a brazier, and, as soon as they turned red, were applied against her ribs and thighs.

The outcome of her trial was pre-ordained. Like her parents, she was sentenced to be executed. Hearing the verdict, she cried out, "Blessed are you! Blessed are you, O Lover of Souls, who calls me to Paradise and invites me to your nuptial chamber."

On February 6, 303 A.D., Dorothea was marched out of the citadel to the main plaza of Caesarea. Onlookers booed and jeered as she walked along, wrapped in her heavy woolen cloak, surrounded by Roman soldiers. Among the crowd was a Roman lawyer named Theophilus, who had heard her testimony in court and had thought it absurd.

"Dorothea!" he shouted, "Send me some apples and roses from your enchanted garden!"

She stopped for a moment, turned to face Theophilus and said somberly. "Very well. You shall have them."

Dorothea climbed the ladder to the wooden scaffold and quietly knelt. The centurion who served as the executioner finished sharpening his sword. The crowd of three hundred onlookers gathered around the scaffold.

And then it happened.

A figure appeared at the foot of the ladder. It was a boy about 10 or 12 years old with curly blond hair. On this cold February morning, he wore nothing but a skimpy tunic, but the cold didn't seem to bother him. He carried a wicker basket in his hands.

The amazing thing about this apparition is that it was witnessed not by Christians but by pagans. Those nearest the ladder let out a cry of astonishment. Some shouted that it was Apollo. Others pointed at the basket and claimed it was Ganymede, the cupbearer of the Olympian gods.

Dorothea looked down at the curly-haired boy. Some form of wordless communication passed between the two. Then, removing her shawl, Dorothea leaned forward on her knees and awaited the fatal stroke.

Thunk! The young woman's head rolled across the scaffold floor. The boy with the basket vanished. A louder clamor went up from the crowd.

That evening, the lawyer Theophilus was at the city baths. The main topic of conversation, as might be expected, was the apparition. He too had seen the boy with the basket but he didn't want to talk about it.

And then the gatekeeper tapped Theophilus's shoulder. "There's somebody here to see you."

As he entered the anteroom, Theophilus turned pale. Standing there was the same boy he had seen that morning at the foot of the scaffold. The boy lifted his basket, saying, "Here are the items you requested."

Heart pounding, the lawyer peered into the basket. He saw three roses and three ripe apples of a strange golden color. Fruits which could not possibly have flourished during a Cappadocian winter.

Blinking in disbelief, he extended his quivering hand toward an apple. Could it be real? His fingertips caressed the smooth skin. It was!

Like a man in a dream, Theophilus lifted the apple to his lips. He bit into it and was both stunned and delighted by its weird pleasing taste.

The boy said, "She awaits you in the garden."

And then he vanished.

According to the Acta Sanctorum, "he was converted to the faith and then shared in the martyrdom of St. Dorothy."

Since Vatican II, the Roman Catholic Church no longer recognizes the story of Dorothea and Theophilus as completely factual. Mainly because there's no mention of Dorothea in the Eastern Orthodox Church calendar.

But maybe they're looking at the wrong scripture. Here's a selection from al Quran (the Koran)--Sura 56: 11-20.

"Those are the favored ones

In the Gardens of Bliss;

A throng of the ancients,

And a small band of the latecomers,

Upon beds interwoven with gold;

Reclining upon them, facing each other.

While immortal youths go round them,

With goblets, pitchers and a cup of limped drink.

Their heads do not ache from it,

And they do not become intoxicated.

And with such fruits as they care to choose."

Perhaps Dorothea of Caesarea should consider becoming an Islamic saint. Because it appears that she visited the Garden of Allah about three hundred years before the birth of Mohammed." (See Pictorial Lives of the Saints by John Gilman Shea L.L.D., Danziger Brothers, Baltimore, Md. 1887, pages 82 to 84. Also The Quran--A Modern English Version, translated by Majhid Fakhry and Mahmud Zayid, Garnet Publishers, Reading, UK, 1997, page 349.)

Three weeks before the encounter on Malta, on March 11, 1996, a dull yellow UFO appeared in the night sky near the port city of Izmir, on the west coast of Turkey. The UFO was seen by a handful of Turkish fishermen, who described it as "a curious bright light in the sky."

The night of March 12, the UFO flew over downtown Izmir. This encounter was reported in the Istanbul and Ankara newspapers.

By sundown on March 14, the beaches of Izmir were crowded with several hundred spectators. They did not go home disappointed. The UFO flew in from the Aegean Sea around 10 p.m. and performed several aerial maneuvers. A Turkish photojournalist shot seven still photos of the object, which were printed in the next day's newspapers.

Witnesses described the UFO over Izmir as "a yellow-colored ellipsoid light in the sky." As the yellow light "hovered motionless," a smaller light was seen "moving in and out of the clouds." They described "the big one" as shaped "like the saucer on the U.S.S. Enterprise" and said it "grew brighter as the smaller one merged with it." The UFO then retreated westward, back into the Aegean skies.

Note: "Star Trek-The Next Generation" is one of the Top Ten TV shows in Turkey. In fact, the Ankara ST fan club claims that Worf is half-Klingon and half-Turkish!

On Saturday, August 22, 1998, at about 12:30 a.m., travel agent Hakan Solyer, his wife and his brother's wife were on a quiet beach near Antalya, a Turkish city on the Mediterranean Sea.

Suddenly, "We saw two lights coming from the Olympos Valley," Hakan reported, "The UFOs were very close to each other and very fast. The closest UFO to us was very bright. We did not see any colored lights on their wings or hear any sound."

The trio then spied a third UFO. "They moved very fast, creating a delta-shape, and in a very short time they became like stars and disappeared. For these reasons, we do not think they were military jets. We could not see any stars for a while in the area where they disappeared. Three of us observed them--my wife, my brother's wife and myself."

Antalya is on Turkey's south coast about 360 kilometers (216 miles) southwest of Ankara, the national capital. (See Filer's Files #36 for 1998. Many thanks to George A. Filer, Eastern director of MUFON for this news story.)

Ufologists in Turkey have launched a two-year research project, under the auspices of TUVPO, :to examine, classify and publish UFO reports received from around different cities and regions in Turkey."

Reports submitted to Project Pulsar will be compiled and printed on a periodic basis. The reports will appear in Turkish at their website. However, some reports will be translated into English for dissemination to foreign researchers.

According to ufologist Erol Erkmen, "The project will last for two years and UFO reports will be sent out periodically to the institutes supporting our project, and at the end of the period, all of the results will be published in tables on our web page and in a book."

UFO Roundup readers can access TUVPO's Project Pulsar website at http://www.tuvpo.com/proje/ (Many thanks to Erol Erkmen for this news release.)