Chapter 14

            

            One night, when I was a professor at Princeton, not long after I had broken up with Max, I dreamt about the jinn. I was inside a house, I don’t know where, perhaps in Arabia. I entered the kitchen and heard what I took to be the disposal grinder in the sink running nonstop. The sink itself was for some unknown reason covered with a sheet of loose metal. I moved the sheet aside, and saw the disposal unit in the drain, grinding happily away. The water was not running, and I knew this was bad for the grinder. I wanted to turn off the electricity, so I looked for a switch, then a breaker box. My search took me around the corner and suddenly I was outside.

            The backyard of the house was a wasteland, rugged and strewn with boulders, large and small. It was about twilight, perhaps sunset, and a group of men were gathered in the yard, watching the sun sink beyond the horizon. I did not know why these men were there, so I started to approach them. Could they be workers? They looked to be of all sizes and shapes, and some seemed very strange, though I could not yet tell why. Many of them seemed to be Indian or Pakistani. One of these, a young man with dark hair, wearing a jumpsuit of some sort, of slender physique and very pale in the light of the setting sun, began to lean forward a bit. Then suddenly he bowed forward dramatically and began to shrink, collapsing into a little ball of coruscating whiteness.

            “Hey!” I shouted, and I ran toward him and the group. The others turned toward me. The man who had shriveled into a tiny ball now began quickly to expand, returning to normal, until he was a full-sized man, standing with his comrades. As I approached, some of the men began to move toward me. Their faces were hard to distinguish in the gloom, but occasionally one would become clearer, as if bathed in the light of a full moon. While the slender young man was good-looking, the faces of his friends were often grotesque, terrifying. Facial features were out of place – noses up, eyes down, slavering mouths off to the side. Some of their faces were huge and amorphous and ripe with decay, like rotting pies.

            As they neared me, pure terror swept over me like a wave, and I feared for my life. I suddenly realized that they were jinn – evil jinn, no doubt, demons – and though I was not a Muslim, I began shouting the protective Arabic words of the bismillah at them, over and over. “Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim! Bismallah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim!” In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful! In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful!

            When they heard me, they suddenly stopped. Their ghastly faces registered shock and fear. They turned and fled, howling like a pack of feral dogs. I continued to shout the sacred words at them, until long after they had vanished.

            Then my eyes sprang open. I was awake – alone in my bed. I realized I had been shouting the bismillah in my sleep! My throat was almost raw from the ordeal. And the terror I still felt was very real.

            The Marines spread out and explored the perimeter of the large cavern chamber, alert for security threats. The rest of us followed the pathway to the center of the “hall,” and tried to make sense of the place. There were clearly refinements to this chamber that had been added by someone at some time. The pathway through the hall appeared smoother than concrete, almost like travertine limestone, but it was not made of blocks – it was one continuous flow of rock, highly polished yet retaining a very fine natural pitting. The pathway led to the far side of the room, then stopped at the cavern wall.

            “Hey!” said Jim Lasser, as he studied the chamber. “This is a goddamned amphitheater!”

            I followed his gaze and realized he was right.

            “Yes! I thought this was some kind of natural terracing, but you are right. The strata are actually stone benches – long curving benches!”

            The low benches swept around the chamber in descending circles, meeting a flat central circle, where conceivably someone could address a crowd seated on the surrounding benches. This was how the Greeks and Romans did their open-air dramas and comedies. The travertine pathway cut through the center of the “amphitheater,” passing out on the other side. I noticed that the central circle was also made of polished, finely pitted white limestone.  We converged on the circle, and stood there, examining the room from a new perspective.

            “Who could have used this amphitheater?” Devereaux asked. “Is this some ancient South Arabian thing?”

            “Don’t think so,” I said. “The South Arabians had nothing like this, judging from the archaeological sites that have been found in Southwest Arabia.”

            “Then it must belong to – ” Devereaux stopped himself, and wandered away from the circle. I looked at Mubarak. He gave a slight nod, perceptible only to me.

            The Marines on the far side of the chamber shouted and signaled to us.

            “Mr. Devereaux!” called the sergeant. “We found an exit!”

            We hurried across the hall.

            An oval opening in the cavern floor revealed a ramp – a three-meter-wide, dark-blue ramp that appeared to slice into the earth at about a 45-degree angle and stretch as far as the eye could see.

            We gaped at what was clearly a transformative discovery. This tunnel was not natural, and was not the work of the ancients. This was advanced technology, and signaled for us the reality of what had previously been only a theory.

            Devereaux gave us our marching orders. “We’ll begin exploring this tunnel tomorrow.” He looked around the chamber. “Let’s camp here for the night, and set out in the morning. I expect another asset to join us by then – someone from Aramco.”

            “Aramco?” I asked, as a flood of memories came back to me. “What role could they possibly have in this?”

            “This tunnel may enter one of their oil fields. At any rate, they have an interest in this, which I’ll explain later.” He turned to the Marine leader. “Sergeant, we’ll be staying the night in this chamber. We can base ourselves in the amphitheater. Please send a few men back to the vehicles and bring us some food and sleeping bags.”

            After we had eaten a freeze-dried dinner and settled in for the night, I took Mubarak aside and the two of us sat by a boulder and talked about … well, everything – all the way back to that morning in the desert when he rescued me from the Sulubi. The Marines were taking up their guard positions. Devereaux, Semple and the two cavers sat in a circle and planned the next morning’s trek. Awda’s English was amazing for someone who had spent his whole life in Arabia. I told him the turns my life had taken in the intervening years. I even told him about Max Sellars and our obliterated relationship. I don’t know why I needed to elaborate on that, but Mubarak seemed interested and sympathetic. He studied me with those large brown eyes of his – they were almost piercing in their effect on me.

Then I decided to get down to business. I wanted to know who he was, and what was going on down here, beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.

“Tell me who you are,” I said.

He glanced around, to make sure no one was within earshot.

“I think you understand the truth,” he said. “That I am of the earth’s first people, the jinn.”

“You know how ridiculous that sounds,” I murmured.

“Of course. You come from a civilization that has lost touch with the fundamental realities, and that pursues fleeting ones. Some people in the West have returned to the old beliefs, as a kind of fad, I think. But you are not one of them.”

I stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“The humans who are Muslims still officially believe in the existence of the jinn. But some have lost that belief, as they pursue so-called rationality. Other Muslims don’t know what to make of us.”

“You look like a normal human being.”

“Well, thank you. That is my intent. I realize, however, that I look younger than I should, given the years that have passed. I have done that so you would recognize me.”

“This is crazy,” I said, shaking my head.

“God has given us some skills that you lack. One of them is the ability to change appearance.”

He looked around again, to make sure he was not facing anyone in our group. Then he lowered his hand from his forehead, over his face, down to his neck. As the hand passed over his face, he changed. My heart almost stopped. I saw Max’s face, smiling at me, like he did in the good old days. Then the hand passed over his face again, and Max was gone – it was Mubarak. It reminded me of something that had happened long ago.

“Holy shit, Mubarak!” I whispered. “How do you do that??”

He grinned like a mischievous child. “It takes a lot of practice,” he said.

“Did your face really change? How do you know what Max looks like?”

“Well, to answer the first question, the face that you see did indeed change. But as you know, that is not my true appearance. It is not what other jinnis see. But you can never know that appearance. To answer the second question, I have done a lot of research on you, Emily. I needed to find out if you were the right person. I was operating on what you would call a ‘hunch.’”

“The right person for what?”

“We knew this day was coming – the day that humans would discover our hidden city in what you call your ‘world.’ Our goal is to prevent a calamity. There is no reason why we cannot live in peace.”

“What would prevent that?”

“There are some who do not want harmony, some who sow discord and hatred. They are coming, and they will try to keep humankind from knowing the jinn.”

I felt a chill run down my spine, and the tiny hairs on my arms stood on end.

“Who do you mean?” I asked.

“You find them all over the world, but these particular ones are the present leaders of Persia, the land you call Iran. The Persians follow a minority belief in Islam, as you know, and are called the Shi’a, the Faction. But their faith is not the problem. The problem is the worldview of the Persian leaders. They feel they are locked in a war with your civilization, with the West, a war that has continued in one form or another for thousands of years and dates back to the ancient conflict they had with the Greeks. And these Persians are willing to bring on the ‘Last Days’ to achieve what they see as victory. It is very sad, because the Persians are a good and productive people. They contributed much to the Golden Age of the Abbasids, when art, science and reason prevailed. Unfortunately, their current leaders have a warped view of the real world.”

“What is your role in all this?”

“I have been asked to be your guide. I will take you to the hidden city, where you can meet our leaders, and discuss our future relationship. I will do this if the Persians do not stand in our way.” He paused, and thought for a second.

“I should also warn you that there are some of my own people who do not want a reconciliation of humans and jinn. Call it politics, if you will. There are always some who oppose a new plan of action. These jinn want the old ways to continue. They want mankind to fear the jinn, not collaborate with us.”

“So we can expect trouble?”

“That’s always possible. But I will do my best to prevent any problems.”

Mubarak reached out, took my hand and squeezed it gently but firmly. His eyes overwhelmed me. I wondered what he was thinking.

“Tell me, Mubarak,” I said, “the legends speak of many kinds of jinn: afreets, ghouls, marids and the like. Do these types exist?”

“To some extent,” he said with a smile. “The legends are highly embellished. They are man’s attempt to describe something he does not fully understand. We do not use these names – ‘ghouls’ and such – to identify our people. And certain types of jinn behavior, described in countless works of literature, are much rarer in real life than the stories indicate. For example, we do not spend much time in the shape of snakes, despite what certain traditions would have you believe. As for ghouls, there are a handful of jinn, particularly in Egypt, that have taken to living in desert caves, frightening travelers by appearing to them as monsters. These few have apparently developed a taste for human flesh. I personally find such behavior repulsive. As do most of my people. Of course, the human race has its own deviates, as you know.”

I nodded slowly, thinking about the John Wayne Gacys and Jeffrey Dahmers of our world. Mubarak put his arm around my shoulders and held me close, comforting me at a moment when I desperately needed it. He kissed me softly on the lips, and I responded, just as gently.

            When we returned to the group, Mubarak went off and sat with the cavers, Lasser and Bakhashaf. I sat down beside Devereaux, who was nibbling thoughtfully at a granola bar.

            “So what’s with you and Awda?” he asked bluntly.

            “Nothing,” I said. Leaning back, I rested my head on my backpack and stared up at the stalactites. “We’ve met before, that’s all. I knew him back when I lived in the Kingdom.”

            “Old home week, eh?” Devereaux said. I didn’t like his tone. He sounded like an ex-boyfriend questioning a new relationship. I can’t stand that possessive crap. Besides, this was business. Strictly business.
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Research Note

Many-Columned Iram

(Arabian Nights, Richard F. Burton Translation)

IT is related that Abdullah bin Abi Kilabah went forth in quest of a she-camel which had strayed from him, and as he was wandering in the deserts of Al-Yaman and the district of Saba, behold, he came a great city girt by a vast castle around which were palaces and pavilions that rose high into middle air. He made for the place thinking to find there folk of whom he might ask concerning his she-camel. But when he reached it, he found it desolate, without a living soul in it. So (quoth he) I alighted and, hobbling my dromedary, and composing my mind, entered into the city….

Now when I came to the castle, I found it had two vast gates (never in the world was seen their like for size and height) inlaid with all manner jewels and jacinths, white and red, yellow and green. Beholding this, I marveled with great marvel and thought the case mighty wondrous. Then, entering the citadel in a flutter of fear and dazed with surprise and affright, I found it long and wide, about equaling Al-Medinah in point of size. And therein were lofty palaces laid out in pavilions all built of gold and silver and inlaid with many colored jewels and jacinths and chrysolites and pearls. And the door leaves in the pavilions were like those of the castle for beauty, and their floors were strewn with great pearls and balls, no smaller than hazelnuts, of musk and ambergris and saffron.

Now when I came within the heart of the city and saw therein no created beings of the Sons of Adam, I was near swooning and dying for fear. Moreover, I looked down from the great roofs of the pavilion chambers and their balconies and saw rivers running under them, and in the main streets were fruit-laden trees and tall palms, and the manner of their building was one brick of gold and one of silver. So I said to myself, “Doubtless this is the Paradise promised for the world to come.” Then I loaded me with the jewels of its gravel and the musk of its dust as much as I could carry, and returned to my own country, where I told the folk what I had seen.

After a time the news reached Mu’awiyah, son of Abu Sufyan, who was then Caliph in Al-Hijaz, so he wrote to his lieutenant in San’a of Al-Yaman to send for the teller of the story and question him of the truth of the case. Accordingly the lieutenant summoned me and questioned me of my adventure and of all appertaining to it, and I told him what I had seen, whereupon he dispatched me to Mu’awiyah, before whom I, repeated the story of the strange sights, but he would not credit it. So I brought out to him some of the pearls and balls of musk and ambergris and saffron, in which latter there was still some sweet savor, but the pearls were grown yellow and had lost pearly color.

Now Mu’awiyah wondered at this and, sending for Ka’ab al-Ahbar, said to him, “O Ka’ab, I have sent for thee to ascertain the truth of a certain matter and hope that thou wilt be able to certify me thereof.” Asked Ka’ab, “What is it, O Commander of the Faithful?” and Mu’awiyah answered, “Wottest thou of any city founded by man which is builded of gold and silver, the pillars whereof are of chrysolite and rubies and its gravel pearls and bans of musk and ambergris and saffron?” He replied, “Yes, O Commander of the Faithful, this is ‘Iram with pillars decked and dight, the like of which was never made in the lands,’ and the builder was Shaddad son of Ad the Greater.’

-- “The City of Many-Columned Iram and Abdullah Son of Abi Kilabah,” The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, translated by Richard F. Burton, Volume Four (1886), pp. 113-115.
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Chapter 13

The main object of [Harry “Abdullah” Philby’s] foray to the east was to find the fabled city of Wabar. This was the abode taken over by the Jinn when, as the Koran says, God destroyed the peoples of Ad and Thamud. “If any man nears it they cast dust in his face and make him mad,” says Ibn Faqih al-Hamadani, possibly referring to sand storms. The place was inhabited, according to legend, by the Nisnas, inferior creatures with only one leg, one arm and one eye. The various sources which mention Wabar were so widely disparate in their descriptions of its position that, as Freya Stark says in her Southern Gates of Arabia: “With such evidence it seems quite possible for Mr. Philby and Mr. Thomas each to find Wabar in an opposite corner of Arabia.” Philby had, in 1918, heard of the fabled city and of the existence there of a piece of iron the size of a camel.

After several days of wandering, his chief guide to the area rushed back to him in great excitement, claiming to have a stone from the city walls. When Philby recognized the volcanic slag he says that he knew not whether to laugh or cry.

-- Leslie McLoughlin, “Abdullah Philby’s Crossing of the Empty Quarter,” Asian Affairs, Vol. 22, Issue 2, 1991.

            Annette Braverman asked Keller to meet her at the Consulate General. He drove over to the hilltop U.S. diplomatic compound. The Consulate was located close to Aramco’s headquarters, just beyond the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, an engineering institution that in part supported Aramco’s oil and gas mission. A virtual walled fortress made less stern by numerous graceful shade trees, the Consulate General occupied land originally donated to the Americans by Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdulaziz. When the king had first visited Aramco, he and his entourage had pitched their tents on that hill. It was prime land, and the Americans were grateful for it.

After passing through the initial security perimeter, Keller drove to the Consulate parking lot, left his Nissan Patrol and walked up a pathway to the next set of security checks. Once through the metal detectors, he headed to Braverman’s office.

“Well, Dan, it looks like you hit the jackpot on this one,” Annette said as she ushered Keller into her office. They sat opposite each other in chairs in front of her desk. Braverman looked stressed and worried.

“I’ve been formally told to ask for your help,” she said. “We need a direct Aramco connection, and it helps that you are security. The Secretary of State has already spoken with your CEO, and your involvement has been approved.”

Keller frowned, but said, “Tell me what I can do.”

“We need copies of your seismic data on the so-called anomaly in the Hima oil field. We need your reports on the deaths or disappearances of all company personnel involved in the development of that field. And we need you to fly to Najran, to work directly with a team we have on the ground there.”

Keller nodded. “I’ll arrange for the seismic data and the incident reports to be forwarded to you. When do you need me in Najran?”

“Thanks. By tomorrow morning, if possible. The situation is becoming more complicated by the minute. In simplest terms, the anomaly you discovered in the desert, which we also have located via satellite remote sensing, is apparently a stronghold or base for the aliens, or jinn, or as we call them, the interdimensionals. Our own experts now support the theories of astronomer and UFO expert Jacques Vallée.

“Vallée was one of the developers of the first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA. He also worked at SRI International as one of the creators of ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet. Today he’s best known as a UFO researcher, but he no longer believes the so-called aliens come from outer space. He now calls them ‘interdimensional visitors.’ And we think he is right. These are the beings the Arabs call jinn. We believe the anomaly at Hima is their base in our dimensional world, their stronghold. Until now, it has been kept a secret. But we’re planning a surprise party.”

Keller had read a lot since he last saw Annette. Her words were not so bizarre this time around. But the concepts still blew his mind.

He’d reflected back on his years with Aramco, to see if he could recall ever having an encounter that might be described as “jinn-related.” There was one incident – it was pretty silly, actually – that had occurred in his house in Dhahran, about eight years earlier. He was alone: Jennie and the kids were still out on vacation in the States – Aramco expatriates called it “repat” vacation, short for repatriation to their home country.  Dan had returned to work a few days early, and since the kids weren’t due back at school for another week, the family had stayed behind with relatives in Texas. Dan was in the kitchen of their Dhahran bungalow, making coffee in the early morning. The kitchen connected with a hallway that led to three rooms: the kids’ bedrooms on the left and the master bedroom on the right. As he turned to reach for the coffee can, some movement in the hallway caught his eye. He looked to his left and saw a shadowy human shape crossing the hallway and entering the master bedroom. The shape, or shadow, walked swiftly but confidently. Suddenly, the hair on Dan’s arms stood on end, a fear reaction, of the type he hadn’t had since he was a little boy. “Holy shit,” he whispered. He set the coffee can quietly on the counter and sprinted out of the kitchen and down the hall. There was nothing – or no one – in the master bedroom. He hadn’t thought about the incident for years. He was certain at the time that it had been his imagination, or a trick of light. But now, after all he had read, Keller conceded that the shadow man could have been a jinni. He had read that jinn sometimes appeared as dark human silhouettes – shadow people, some called them.

Annette’s voice brought him back to the present.

“There is one other problem,” said Braverman. Her face became stern. “It looks like the Iranians are on to our activities. They know about the anomaly, and they regard it as some kind of ancient city of the Muslims, if you will. They’re calling it the ‘Lost City of Iram’ and they say it’s guarded by jinn. Tehran doesn’t like the idea of the Americans poking around in their neighborhood, if you will, in the Arabian desert. The Saudis, by the way, don’t know what to make of the interdimensionals, and are adopting a wait-and-see attitude on this. They’ll let us take the lead for now. But the involvement of Iran is problematic. We suspect they have agents down in Najran right now. That area is a hotbed for Shi’ite fundamentalism, so we have our work cut out for us.”

Keller booked a seat on the Aramco flight to Najran for the following morning. But that evening, he tried to take his mind off the case. He drove into al-Khobar with several “bachelor-status” colleagues from Aramco: Dave Owens from Personnel and Marcus Felsen from Public Relations. Dave, an Australian, was married, but his wife and kids were in Perth. Marcus, an American, had a long-standing relationship with a woman back home in Tennessee but was officially a bachelor.

When the stars were properly aligned – about once a month – the three of them would head into town for some antique and gold shopping and the best shawarma sandwiches this side of Beirut. There was one particular antique shop, Abu Mulhim’s, run by a Saudi friend of Dave’s, where they often picked up rare items – old Arabic manuscripts, Ethiopian liturgical codices, ancient Greco-Roman coins and bronze statuary of murky provenance. The shawarmas – chicken meat roasted on a vertical, rotating spit and rolled into pita bread rounds with tart pickles, garlic sauce and French fries – were found at a place called Gilgamesh, in the old part of al-Khobar. It was a tiny place, with two tables and a row of stools against a counter, plus a few tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk. Gilgamesh was legendary, and did an amazing carryout business. A few customers ate inside, including Keller and his friends.

The three Aramcons wandered over to Eastern Paradise Jewellers, where they examined bangles, chains and rings of 18 and 22-carat gold. Dave bought a bracelet for his wife. Marcus made a payment on a layaway item for his sweetheart. Keller thought about having a sapphire ring designed for his daughter Marielle, but decided to postpone it for a while; he wouldn’t be seeing her until Christmastime.

They then headed to Gilgamesh, hoping to squeeze in some good eats before everything shut down for prayer time. The shawarmas, rolled in pita, were wrapped in white paper, and piled like small logs on a plate in the center of the table. Accompanying the food were banana and mango shakes, made from fresh fruit. Each man grabbed a sandwich and began unwrapping it. Marcus reached for the bottle of hot sauce. Keller bit slowly into the Arabic bread, savoring the taste of hot grilled chicken drenched in garlicky white sauce, accented by the tang of pickled turnip.

As they ate, Keller ventured into unexplored territory.

“Have you guys heard about that anomaly in the Hima field?”

“Anomaly?” asked Marcus.

“No,” said Dave. “What anomaly?”

“They found a strange structure beneath the sands during the seismic survey. An immense pyramid-shaped something. It has four slanting triangular planes that end in a common point. Actually it’s upside down.”

“Pointy end down?” asked Dave.

“Yeah.”

“Cool!” said Marcus.

“So what the hell is it?” asked Dave.

“They don’t know. I thought you might have heard something.”

“Is this connected with the deaths and disappearances?”

“That’s what we are trying to figure out.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with the lost city.”

“What do you mean?” Keller asked.

Dave looked serious. “There was this city in ancient times, called Iram of the Pillars. It’s also called Wabar or Ubar. People have been searching for it in the desert for centuries. It’s supposed to be under the sands, in the Rub’ al-Khali. Guarded by jinn, according to the legends.”

“Do you know anyone who’s an expert on this lost city?” Keller asked.

“Well, there’s always James Milton,” said Dave. “Teacher at the Aramco School. He spends most of his weekends out in the desert in his Land Cruiser, searching for lost cities and treasure. But since we’re in Khobar, maybe you should talk to my friend Abdullah first. He’s the guy who works at Abu Mulhim’s. He knows all about those old legends. He’s been telling me stories for years!”

After they ate, the first Muslim prayer time of the evening arrived, and muezzins’ voices could be heard from loudspeakers on minarets far and wide, chanting their haunting refrain, calling the faithful to come and pray. The three Americans and the other non-Muslims in the streets, including large numbers of Catholic Filipinos, spent the next twenty-plus minutes window-shopping and chatting until the shops opened up again.

Abu Mulhim’s was a hodge-podge of a shop, with everything from decorated Arab rosewood chests to Arabian fox skins to Bedouin swords to fossilized teeth to brassware from India and chessboards from Syria. The clerk Abdullah – a tall, reedy gentleman with eyeglasses and a graying goatee – was keen to speak about the lost city. “The legends are true,” he said. “I know people who have seen parts of ancient buildings that have risen from the sands, only to sink back again when the dunes shift in the wind.”

“Where do you think this city is?” asked Keller.

“Well, some Americans claimed years ago that they found Iram (they called it Ubar, which is one of its names) in Oman, close to the Rub’ al-Khali. But that was not Iram. It was only a tiny caravan station, with a stone fort, and not a single piece of treasure. And it was in the wrong location. The lost city of Iram is located in the Rub’ al-Khali, not near it, and the best authorities place the site in the western part of the desert. Abdullah Philby and Bertram Thomas looked for it in the eastern part of the Rub’ al-Khali. Needless to say, they did not find it.”

“What about the Hima area, not too far from Najran?” Keller asked.

“That’s possible,” said Abdullah. “In fact, it’s even likely. Some strange artifacts have been found by Bedouins crossing that part of the desert. In fact, I have something here that comes from Hima….”

Abdullah reached under the counter and pulled out what appeared to be a colored glass disk, about three inches across. The glass or transparent stone of the disk was burgundy-colored. The disk was rimmed by a finely wrought metal bezel that could have been silver or possibly platinum. There were tiny letters from some ancient alphabet around the rim. Keller took the object in his hands and studied it. He held it up to the light. He could see clearly through the “lens” of the disk. But it didn’t magnify. He couldn’t figure out what its purpose was.

“How old do you think this is?” Keller asked.

“’No one knows. It was found in the sands east of Najran. The owner asked me to sell it for him.”

“How much does he want for it?”

Abdullah shrugged. “A thousand riyals, I think, would be a good price.”

Keller smiled. “I’ll give you five hundred.”

Abdullah assumed a hurt expression. “Times are bad, my friend. We all need to make a living. I have seven children to feed.”

They eventually settled on 800 Saudi riyals.

Keller didn’t know what he had just bought. But if it truly came from the sands of the Najran area, it might be of value to the U.S. government team that he would be joining the next morning. He counted out a 500-riyal note and three 100’s.

When he returned home later that evening, he unwrapped the burgundy glass disk and examined it carefully. It felt strange in his hands, as if it had a life of its own. He could have sworn it was vibrating at some very low level. He looked through the lens and saw the furniture of his living room, painted dark red but otherwise normal. He thought at first that the writing around the disk’s rim was South Arabian. It was faintly suggestive of the script he had seen on museum stelae, but it was fundamentally different and … well, strange. One thing was certain: it was a very refined script, and whoever had engraved it was highly skilled.

“Hello?”

“Hi, James. This is Dan Keller. I don’t think we’ve met, but we have mutual friends. Dave Owens? Marcus Felsen?”

“Sure, how are you doing, Dan?”

“Great, thanks. I hope I’m not calling too late?”

“No, it’s fine. What can I do for you?”

“I’m with Industrial Security, and I’m doing a bit of research on what might sound like a strange topic. I’m trying to find out all I can on the lost city of Ubar, or Iram of the Pillars.”
            “Wow! It is a strange topic for you security guys. But it’s a fascinating one. I’ve spent a lot of time out in the dunes, looking for archaeological sites, and the lost city has come up quite a lot. The Bedouins like to talk about it. The Hajri and Marri tribes, particularly.”

“What do you think of the legend? Do you think there really is a lost city out there somewhere?”

“Well, the early Arab geographers were pretty insistent that it existed. Al-Hamdani for one. And Al-Idrisi. The problem is, the various accounts are not consistent about the city’s location, or even its general area. I’m sure you’ve heard about Philby’s efforts to find Ubar or Wabar, and Bertram Thomas’s as well.”

“Yes, I have. They came up with zilch. That’s what makes me think the story is a fable.”

“That’s what I thought too. I checked out some of the locations they visited. Also I followed up a Hajri tribesman’s story about ruins beneath the dunes south of Yabrin. But I didn’t find anything. So I went back to Al-Hamdani’s writings. He was a Yemeni by birth, and he places the lost city in the western reaches of the Rub’ al-Khali, north of Yemen’s Hadhramaut.”

“A pretty remote area.”

“No kidding! Absolutely no one lives in that sand sea, and it’s a hell of a long trip for a weekend explorer like myself. Even if I could squeeze out four or five days, it would be tough. It’s really slow going in those dunes, even for a Land Cruiser.”

“I can imagine.”

“I hear Aramco is doing some exploratory drilling down there. It would be great to visit one of their camps in that area….”

“I’m sure it would.”

“You know, that area south of the dunes, called Hadhramaut? In Arabic, it means, ‘death has come.’ According to legend, some of the survivors from God’s destruction of Iram ended up in that area. Looks like they brought death with them.”
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Research Note

Ufologist Ann Druffel, in the 1989 edition of The Tujunga Canyon Contacts, sets forth the specifics of Gordon Creighton’s controversial position on the “true nature” of the “UFO entities,” and says she regards his hypothesis – that UFO entities or occupants are actually jinn – to be “logical and comprehensive.” Creighton, as we have seen, was editor of the British publication Flying Saucer Review, popularly known as FSR.

Druffel writes: “This British publication is the oldest and one of the most respected journals in the UFO literature. Editor Gordon Creighton is a highly educated and discerning individual; he is an exceptional linguist, with knowledge of over three dozen languages and dialects. He is noted for careful selection of material, written by researchers world-wide, appearing in the pages of FSR. Yet, since volume 29, no. 1 of FSR was published [in 1983], there has been an underground denunciation, slowly increasing to diatribe, directed against the journal mainly by English researchers who disagree violently with Creighton.”

Creighton, whom she described as proficient in Arabic, had researched the Islamic religion and had derived a logical theory based on its ancient teachings. His article discussed an order of creation between angels and humans, those “intelligent nonhuman beings” referred to in the Muslim Koran as jinn (or sometimes jinns).

The third order of intelligent creation, the jinns were created from what has been variously translated as “essential fire” or “smokeless flame.” The Koran, regarded by Muslims as the literal word of God, specifically states that jinn were created before man; Druffel notes some scholars have speculated they may have been the pre-Adamic men whose existence is hinted at in biblical texts. She adds: “Not knowing the exact nature of their substance, it is difficult to know where jinns normally reside in the physical (or nonphysical) universe, but the best speculation of Muslim scholars is that they reside in some other dimension or an interconnecting space/time, a parallel universe, et cetera. The Koran is not clear as to their location.”

Druffel sets forth Creighton’s principal characteristics of the jinn, based on his fifteen years of research, and says he hoped the parallels with UFO entities would be obvious:

1. In the normal state, jinn are not visible to ordinary human sight.

2. They are capable of materializing and dematerializing in the physical world, at will.

3. They can change shape and size to any desired guise, including that of animals.

4. Many among them are inveterate liars and deceivers, and they delight in misleading humans with all manner of nonsense.

5. They are addicted to the abduction or kidnapping of humans.

6. They delight in tempting humans into sexual liaisons with them--not only the "baddies" but also the "goodies," the latter having consorted with various Muslim saints!

7. They have a predilection for snatching up humans and teleporting them, setting them down miles from where they were picked up.

8. They possess tremendous telepathic powers, coupled with the ability to "cast a spell" over their victims.

Druffel concludes: “When I first read Creighton's article, the idea of jinns seemed strange, but as time passed I realized that the powers ascribed to these beings were, indeed, the same powers attributed to UFO occupants, powers that were reported over and over again in UFO literature. I also realized that my own theory – that UFO visitors came from intradimensional sources rather than our own space/time – seemed to merge with Creighton's, and his theory amplified and clarified my own.”
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