The Kadima Landing Circles and the Israeli UFO Wave, 1993

In 1993 Kadima was a small local council in Israel's Sharon region. Ten years later it merged with Tzoran to form Kadima-Zoran. That spring it became the focus of a wave of landings and tall visitors. The peak ran from March to July 1993.

20 March 1993. About 6:30 in the morning. Ziporet Carmel's kitchen was bathed in light. Outside she saw what she took for a new fruit silo. It was large, silver and square, with 18 glowing square windows along its side and five powerful light beams pointed skyward. Then she "saw the silo add a second storey to itself."

Ten yards away stood "a seven foot tall being wearing metallic overalls." Its head was covered by "what looked like a beekeeper's hat." She asked: "Why don't you take off your hat so I can see your face?" The answer came telepathically. "That's the way it is."

They faced each other in silence for about 30 seconds. Then she felt an urge to go back inside and make tea. When she came out, the being and the craft were gone. Barry Chamish called it "Israel's first publicized close encounter with an alien being."

On 31 March a neighbour's house trembled. She woke to "a bald giant, 7 to 8-feet tall, with round, yellow eyes" beside her bed. The next morning there were two more circles in the field, 20 feet and 11 feet across.

More reports followed. Kadima town treasurer Shosh Yahud woke to a being in silvery overalls circling her bed "as if 'floating on his shoes.'" Danny Rotem, the only male witness, felt compelled to drive to an egg-shaped craft near a forest. Inside he counted 13 beings. In Burgata, Hannah Somech found a seven foot being examining her pickup truck. "Go away. I'm busy. I could crush you like an ant if I wanted to." In Rishon LeZion, Batya Shimon said two bald creatures "beamed themselves into her seventh floor apartment."

Zvi Bighetz began sampling the circles on 31 March. One held a black gelatine-like material. Another held a red liquid, and a third held silicon deposits. Chamish reported that the red liquid, tested at the National Biological Laboratory in Ness Tziona, was "mostly of cadmium." No lab report has ever been published.

No police, army or government file has surfaced. In the Knesset, Labor MK Avi Yehezkel called for a commission of inquiry into UFOs. Scientific bodies opposed it and the proposal was dropped. The wave did lead to the founding of the Israeli Center for UFO Research.

The sources are the weak point. Most of the English-language detail comes from Chamish, who was also a prolific conspiracy writer, and his own tellings disagree on dates. From one account to the next the being grows from seven feet to three meters. Ynet's 2025 coverage even dates the first circle to 1992. Writing in Alaxon in 2015, Tahia Ashat set the wave in the years of the Oslo peace process. The essay also noted how closely the bedroom visits echo the classic "bedroom visitor" narrative.

Carmel told her story in a 1998 book, "Facing Forward: An Alien in the Backyard." In it she says craft landed in her back yard three times. Chamish wrote about the wave for Flying Saucer Review and collected it in Return of the Giants. Today guided UFO tours take visitors around Kadima Forest. No official explanation has ever been given.