The Ljubovija Phantom
By Cole Herrold
When it comes to accounts from the Eastern
portion of our world, there are countless Fortean cases that seem to fall
through the cracks of Western research. Part of this can be attributed to the
poverty of a country or the overall disinterest of cases outside of the
researcher's home country. As someone who actively searches for weird cases or
cases that aren't mentioned, I tend to at the very least have a specific
interest in cases that occur outside of the United States; it's from these
cases that some of the most bizarre entities are reported. One such report came
to my attention from Darwin’s Deviations, a great podcast and overall great
guy who has informed me and gave me a ton of information on a practically
un-talked-about case from his home country of Serbia. This case which many had
compared to the Mothman, is something that is definitely in a category all its
own as it seems to be a blend of several different kinds of flying humanoid
cases that have occurred over the years.
On Monday, August 22nd, 2005,
during the most unassuming of days, Milos Dokic was doing some work in front of
his house. The neighborhood was particularly quiet, all with the exception of a
group of children engaged in a game of soccer. This slight silence would
eventually be broken by these children when they shouted, "A man
flying!". As Milos turned, he saw that the children were focused on the
roof of a nearby yellow building, and as he looked up to the roof, he saw a
small man walking on the edge of the roof. This man was wearing a kind of dark
cape or cloak, and his entire outfit was dark in color. Milos did not
understand just what the fuss was about as the man he felt was most likely
installing a television antenna and continued to go on with his business.
However, just as he had started to go back to work, he heard the boys shout and
become excited once more. This cry not only alerted him but also his wife
Slavojka, who left her home to investigate. As soon as she left the confines of
her home, she saw what the boys were excitedly talking about. There floating in
the air, was the same man-like figure that her husband had seen. This figure proceeded
to move between the Yellow-building towards the "Ljubovijatrans"
building. As they watched the being, they noticed that the entity had a faint
glow surrounding the being and that they were able to now distinguish that this
figure had a strange set of eyes that seemed to shine or glow red. Curiosity
seemed to get the best of them as opposed to fear, and as the pair left the
safety of their property, they began to approach the entity. Yet a peculiar
thing happened, for as they approached this being, the entity soon began to
move away from them, keeping away at the same distance it previously was. This
did not stop them from attempting to get closer, and so they continued trying
to get closer, and each time the entity would move away, maintaining the same
distance away almost as if it were playing a kind of game with them. For
whenever they would stop, the entity would stop moving as it loomed high in the
sky, hovering in midair. This continued for some time until eventually, the
entity, either bored with their game or simply tired of being observed or
observing them, began to turn and fly at an extremely fast speed towards the
"Ljubovijatrans" building, ultimately disappearing behind a series of
poplar trees. Milos and his wife then ran over to the kids to discuss their
sighting further since they had seen the bizarre being before him; it was from
this that the children told them that they had first seen the being standing on
a roof on Karadordeva Street and that it then proceeded to fly off that roof to
the roof of the yellow building.
Word of this encounter soon reached the
media, and on Wednesday, an article entitled “Mysterious phantom alarms
citizens of Ljubovije ."Yet the papers were not the only feature of the
phantom to occur that day. On that Wednesday, the 24th, sightings of
the entity were through the roof. The wave of these sightings started at about
3:00 in the evening and the anomalous apparition. Ljubovije was extremely
active that day due to the fact that businesses were open and other functions
were going on, and certainly, this had something to do with the number of
witnesses, which led to the hundreds. Witnesses walking on Drin Street claimed
to of seen the being, and there was an entire bus full of people who claimed to
of seen the entity, and then crowds of people that were waiting for a soccer
game to commence also saw the entity fly overhead. All of the witnesses'
descriptions were almost identical to what the children and Milos and Slavojka.
There was one major difference that was reported in some of the witnesses'
description of the entity, and that was that some described the entity as being
stooped over and that while the being still wore its cloak or cape, it also
seemed to have some sort of mechanical device strapped to its back that aided
in its flight and ability to defy gravity. The anomalous entity seemed to have
a clear path as it traveled from Drin Street and was observed flying towards
the Kik Hill and then seemingly changing its flight path towards Nemic. These
sightings would be extensively covered in the article "Love Stories About
the Phantom," released the day after.
The following day the local newspaper got
word of a sighting of the being that occurred in the summer of that year by two
children named Dejan and Lazar in the village of Lokanj near Zvornik, which is
approximately 32 miles from Ljubovija. The account was brought to the attention
of the paper by the children's father, Dule Lazarevic. During his family
vacation, his children, along with several others, came up to him and told him
that they had seen a dark man-like figure flying in the sky for three nights in
a row. The children were so terrified by this flying fiend that they refused to
play after dusk. The father, after hearing about the encounters currently going
on in Ljubovija, felt sorry that he did not believe his children because they
to him now seemed to be telling the truth and that perhaps their sighting might
be connected to the current flap of sightings in Ljubovija.
Also, another woman from New Belgrade
would come forward claiming that she saw a similar dark-colored flying entity that
flew over her building on Arsenij Carnojevic Boulevard in 1995. She said,
"In February 1995, I was returning from work at the Horgos Customs House.
I reached the building around 5 in the morning and saw a man with a black cloak
overhead. He looked at me with glassy eyes that I will never forget. I bowed my
head, and when I raised it again, it flew over the building. He was a real man,
not a puppet. I ran into the apartment and woke the children, but by the time
they got to the window. Batman, so to speak, had disappeared. Nobody believed
me".
During this time, a strange case occurred that
many associated with the entity. Zorka Milutinovic, on her way to the store near
the village of Javor, saw a bizarre entity in front of her and saw a bearded,
long-haired creature. She could not make out the entity's face and could only
watch in horror as the entity began to walk towards her with its arms
outstretched. She was completely scared to death by this hairy anomaly, and
she, in a fight over flight reaction, proceeded to run towards the entity armed
only with her umbrella. The being proceeded to back away from her and walk past
her, and upon passing her, it never turned to look back at her and continued to
walk towards the top of Kika.
The police during this time did not have
an immediate interest in the case only because no one had officially reported
the entity to them. Yet, with the excessive rash of sightings as well as
Zorka's close encounter, they immediately began to conduct an investigation. They
started by questioning as many of the witnesses as possible, including Zorka. The
witnesses were also brought to the mayor to discuss their sightings as well. The
police from Zorka’s testimony eventually discovered that the entity which
scared her so terribly was nothing more than a hoax created as a means of getting
in on the overall hysteria that broke because of the initial sighting. It was
also revealed that during the day of mass sightings that around 2:00pm, a large
helium balloon was released that more than likely was the answer to just what
was seen in the skies that day. The Monday sighting, they felt that was seen by
Milos Dokic, his wife, and the children was some sort of motorized flying doll.
This seemed to be the final word for the encounters as while believers and
children watched the skies for a chance sighting, no further sightings were
reported in the area.
Now, this officially ends the account of
the Ljubovija Phantom, yet it, of course, was not the final word on the case.
Some felt that the entire affair was created as yellow journalism as a way to
sell newspapers; this hypothesis was especially supported by Miodras Isakov,
the former deputy prime minister of the government of Serbia, who said,
"Of course, this is someone's invention and its part of an attempt to
increase the circulation of newspapers. There have been gullible people who
like to hear, read and impress with such things". However, Jelena
Petrovic, editor of the Blic Correspondence, which published most of the
accounts, said in response, "We received serious information, the
colleague who wrote the text is one of the best correspondents of Blic. We do
not intend to increase the circulation of such texts at any cost. Already
several journalist teams, including one German, became interested and went to
Ljubovija. This is like the story of Mr. Goluza, a small environment where
something is happening, and people are adding things that have nothing to do
with each other; everything that happens is tied to it. People have seen
something, and the question is, what is it. Then the imagination of others
works, and it is a small environment in which nothing else happens.”
Now while the paper confirmed that this
case was not an example of yellow journalism, which of course is something that
one has to entertain when they look at older newspaper-centered cases. Yet even
the Blic newspaper was fairly certain that this could be a case of
misidentification or a case of mass hysteria, or people attempting to be apart
or join the bandwagon in claiming to see the entity/ or seeing multiple things
and believing it to be the same thing. Now certainly, with the sightings on the
24th, it does seem to indicate that there was a misidentified
balloon. Yet the overall description seems to be completely different from a
balloon. Now while this might be the correct answer or the simplest answer to
the sightings on the 24th, one has to wonder just what the position
of the winds were and whether it matched the path of the creature seen, because
there is the possibility that the path of the balloon and the entity could be
completely different.
Now, if one goes the route that the
hundreds of eyewitnesses on the 24th were those of a misidentified
balloon, then that still leaves the 1995 sighting, the summer of 2005 sighting,
and the first sighting on the 22nd. Now looking at these sightings,
there are still a few possibilities on the skeptical side. The first possibility
that comes to mind is, of course, a human-shaped kite. Kites are a unique
artform one I certainly am not a master of, yet they appear in several forms,
and people have utilized them in a variety of different ways, including Kite
fighting. Perhaps that is what the witnesses saw as a human-shaped kite with a
cape is not impossible it also could explain why the entity was claimed to both
hover and fly. Now, of course, this theory has problems as well; for one thing,
the entity seemed to glow a bizarre color that was from what can be gathered
from the articles noticeably different from what was reported. If it was simply
the eyes which also glowed, I would state that it was from some sort of
reflectors, but with the whole form glowing not from a noticeable point, this
does not clearly work.
Another possibility regarding the sighting
is that this creature could have been some sort of misidentified bird. The
reason I mention this possibility is that there is never a detailed description
of the entity outside that it is humanoid with some sort of cape. Perhaps this
cape is actually wings. Some of Serbia's native wildlife, such as the Purple
Heron or Great Cormorant, are darker in color and could, due to the light and
walking on the roof, be mistaken for a human in a cape. While this might seem a
ridiculous theory, the same idea has been used to explain other Fortean
entities such as Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Jersey Devil. Also,
when one thinks back to the being Milos claimed to see on the roof, he did
describe it as small, which is much more in the ballpark of a bird than these
other Fortean superstars. Now I will say the main problem with this theory is
that the entity was seen both flying and hovering; this implies that there was
no noticeable flapping wings which are mandatory for birds to propel themselves
through the air. The only time birds do not require their own wings to propel
themselves is if they are utilizing a thermal, which is something that most
predatory birds do, and even still, this form of movement is akin to gliding
and not hovering.
Now the next possibility gets into
something I rarely cover, and that is a conspiracy or government mission. Now
one of the major thoughts on this being was that some of the people of Serbia
felt that this entity was a person, most likely an American agent or some sort
of soldier with some sort of as of yet unidentified or new technology with the
sole purpose of attempting to bring down Radovan Karadzic who was accused by
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of being
responsible for numerous war crimes against Bosniaks. The United States became
involved with attempting his capture by offering five million dollars.
Throughout 2005 NATO troops had begun to arrest members of his family as
Karadzic had remained elusive until then, and it was during this time that
perhaps the man seen was some sort of soldier searching for Karadzic in
Ljubovija. Now with all that said, I will say that if there was some sort of
covert operation, there probably would be more than just one of these entities
reported. When looking at just how the US has conducted other attempts to
arrest other criminals or politicians, there are usually way more people
involved, and typically, in these cases, the soldiers involved are either more
or less more discrete than a floating black-caped glowing eyed entity.
Now another thing that one needs to also
breakdown is the sightings that allegedly occurred before Milos, his wife, and
the group of soccer-playing children saw the entity. Now the first and clearly
most skeptical look is that the earlier sightings which were reported after
Milos’s sighting were simply people trying to join the bandwagon after interest
in the creature came out. The big problem with these reports is that there is
no way to verify these reports; however, that, of course, does not mean that these
encounters did not happen. If this is the case, the reason that these reports came
out later is that these witnesses could tell their stories as there is now a
kind of validation that others had now seen the same being. These sightings
are, of course, if the latter is true, then just further evidence that this is
more than likely not just a misidentification but rather something bizarre.
Now getting out of the realm of skepticism
and into the Fortean, there are several possibilities that could explain this
being. Clearly, this entity is not a cryptid. Cryptids by and large are natural
animals in nature and range from the mundane such as the Eastern Mountain Lion
to the believed to be extinct species such as the Mammoth or Tasmanian Tiger to
the relatively believable Bigfoot or Yeti to the downright exotic such as the
tri-legged winged water horse the Beast of Barrisdale. This entity would be a
cryptid in the broadest sense of the word as a currently unofficial animal
either undiscovered or extirpated but seen in the location, it no longer is
said to roam, yet even this is only if what was seen was biological in some
way, shape, or form. For the sake of simplicity, however, this entity does not
fit the traditional cryptid as an undiscovered animal due to the fact that it
wears clothes and has possible technology.
Now, this feature of clothing specifically
seems to imply some sort of intelligence which, of course, leads into some of
the other Fortean categories. The very first and one that was embraced by some
researchers is that the entity seen could be extraterrestrial in origin.
Extraterrestrials with capes are not a unique phenomenon. There have been
several reports of such cases, but one, in particular, comes to mind that I
mentioned in connection with the Gnome Aviator of Hertford case. This case which
occurred on November 1st, 1954, in Cennina, Arezzo, Italy, involved small,
diminutive ETs with leather aviator helmets and gray overall doublets with a
kind of cape or cloak along their backs. These entities were three feet tall,
and if one compares the being seen by Milos to these entities, there are slight
yet noticeable similarities. Milos claimed that he saw a small man with a cloak
on the roof but never got into a noticeable description except that the figure
was dark in color with illuminated eyes and body. Aside from the overall lack
of facial description, exact height, and of course the glowing eyes, the dark
clothing, cape, and small stature are something that the Ljubovija phantom has
in common with the Cennina case. Now, of course, that's about also the end of
the similarities, and also it is important to point out the glaring problem
with the extraterrestrial hypothesis in regard to this being, and that is the
lack of reported craft in the area. While there is always the chance that the
craft was located in some other section of the area, and this being decided to
stray from the object to sight-see or whatever it does, of course, make it
difficult to automatically assume this creature has an otherworldly origin.
Now while one cannot rule out the
extraterrestrial possibility, it is certainly not the only possibility out
there, and this, of course, includes the supernatural. In attempting to find
something similar to this entity, my first thoughts were actually of a case I
had recently covered in connection to the Cannock Chase Slenderman. This case
which, much like the Ljubovija Phantom, was lumped in with a completely
unrelated phenomenon simply because of the time frame and the popularity of the
case connected. In this case, there was a report regarding a flying/hovering
black entity that bore a long coat or cape and had a glowing set of red eyes
that flew up and hovered over the witness late one night in Cannock Chase. Now,
of course, there are some differences, just like with comparing the Ljubovija
Phantom and the Cennina Aliens for one, when comparing the Ljubovija Phantom to
this Cannock Chase entity while both figures are black, have glowing red eyes,
and have some sort of long draping clothing there are significant differences
between the two for while the Ljubovija Phantom is not described in detail the
witness to the Cannock Chase being got a clear look and noted that this being
had a homburg style of hat as well as a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and
compared the entity he saw to that of the notorious Spring-Heeled Jack. Now with
the Ljubovija Phantom, there is an ambiguousness to its description to the
point that even if the figure had similar features, it went unreported, yet in
cases like these, we have to go off what the witnesses report, and so from the
information gathered we must assume that these two while similar are separate
entities. Yet while the Cannock Chase entity is most likely not the same as the
Ljubovija Phantom, there are other similar cases, many of which came out around
the same time.
In 2009 the History Channel’s show MonsterQuest
created an episode based on a rash of bizarre sightings that were reported
throughout Washington, Wisconsin, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico
from the late 90s to the mid-2000s. These sightings were of humanoid figures,
either silver or black in color, that flew, hovered, or glided over cities and
desert these entities known as Unidentified Flying Humanoids or Flying
Humanoids are extremely varied in description and many of which are extremely
different in description yet there was a steady string of sightings of entities
as ambiguous and similar to the being reported. For example, in 2006, near
Chicago's O'Hare airport, there was a report of a large black figure with a
cape or cape-like wings. Another case which occurred on February 14, 2004,
involved three individuals in Mexico City witnessing a large craft, a strange,
winged creature, and a flying black covered humanoid with a kind of cape or
cloak on its back. Now during this time, there were tons of videos of strange
shapes floating in the sky. Most of these turned out to be balloons or kites,
yet there were several cases that remain unexplained that match the description
seen in Ljubovija.
With the Flying Humanoids of this type and
variety, they tend to be lumped into either Ufology or into the realms of
witchcraft, Ultraterrestrials, or interdimensional beings. Witchcraft as the
origin of these entities is primarily centered around the Latin American
cultures and communities as often these entities are believed to be witches or
some similar entity. It is important to note, however, that when discussing
witch-flying humanoids, there usually is some bird element such as a bird-like
body or wings with the head of a human, something that is not reported in this
case. Now the possibility of this entity being an interdimensional being is
something that, of course, is possible perhaps if this entity came from another
dimension or plane of existence, it could have an entire biological structure
that could make it airborne or could have some special technology or cultural
garb that could result in the floating/hovering effect and cape. The
Ultraterrestrial angle as well is something that this entity could be, but its
purpose would seemingly be to mess with humans or some other reason like that
and not to feed off of fear or another emotional response. The fact that the
entity seen could be described as a kind of superhero-type figure would point
more towards this type of Ultraterrestrial logic as opposed to if this was an
Ultraterrestrial changing into, say, a dragon or demon.
With cases like this, there is a great
difficulty in trying to sift through the real encounters and those that might
be involved in a misidentification or as a way of joining a bandwagon. Much of
this seems to be from a lack of interest of the Fortean community in reaching
out to the witnesses and cataloging their encounters as well as any further
detailed investigation, at least from what I've been able to find. It's from
this and the overall ambiguous description of the entity and its actions, at
least beyond what Milos and his wife encountered, that makes deciphering any
clear picture of just what was seen in Ljubovija. Yet while a clear answer to
just what the Ljubovija Phantom was cannot be officially claimed, it is
important to note that chances are the entire flap was more than likely a
mixture of a variety of factors such as a released balloon and an original
unexplained sighting; however, as mentioned earlier, there are so many outlets
to look at in regard to this case its mind-boggling. These possibilities and
outlets I offer almost as a "choose your own answer" for this case as
any of the possibilities in any string of choices are just as likely as the
other. Once again, I really must thank Darwin from the Darwin’s Deviations
and Tracing Owls Podcasts for giving me the information on this case.
Its been a fascinating dive into an entity that has not outside of Albert S.
Rosales been covered in the West and a fascinating case from a country that
does not often get mentioned in most of the Fortean literature, so I’m so glad
that I could dig a little deeper on it and if at the very least bring this case
to a wider audience.
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Human with as
of yet undisclosed technology, Extraterrestrial, Interdimensional, Misidentification,
Ultraterrestrial
Location: Ljubovija, Serbia
Sighted: 1995/Summer 2005/ August 22, 24, 2005
Works Cited:
Darwin's Deviations Podcast
Episode 15. “Serbian Mothman, Yugoslavian UFOs & Balkan Alien Crap”. December
08, 2020.
Tracing Owls Podcast Episode 5. “Phantom
of Ljubovija: Serbian Mothman!”. May 8, 2021.
Humanoid Encounters The Others Amongst Us-
2000-2009
By Albert S. Rosales
“Mysterious flying phantom seen over
Serbia after 38 years” Index HR. August 24, 2005. https://www.index.hr/magazin/clanak/tajanstveni-leteci-fantom-nakon-38-godina-vidjen-nad-srbijom/279787.aspx.
Accessed March 06, 2022.
“Mysterious Phantom Alarms Citizens of
Ljubovije” ASI-ACN. August 24, 2005.
https://inicijativa.org/tiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=110. Accessed
March 10, 2022.
“2005: August UFO & Alien Sightings”. Think
About It Docs. August 17, 2016.
https://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/2005-august-ufo-alien-sightings/. Accessed
March 10, 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment