Semra Şalvan Cezlan is a civil engineer married with a daughter and the representative of a consultancy firm in the eastern province of Van. It’s an ordinary life, as she put it. But some believe Cezlan is an informer due to her area of interest and yet others think she is schizophrenic. For Cezlan is an “ufologist.” She plans to pitch a tent at Lake Van and observe aliens, because she claims the Lake Van monster is an USO, a type of UFO that knows how to swim.

Cezlan smiles and says, “I don’t have any intention to make others believe.” She seems seasoned to being mocked all the time, even at home.

Cezlan has been doing research on extraterrestrials for a decade. She has helped people who say that they saw a UFO or aliens for the last two years, gets in contact with them, gives the message, “You are not alone,” and explains what probably happens next. Her interest in UFOs goes back to her childhood.

“I was 6 or 7. We were living in Balıkesir. One day, I saw three green creatures in the backyard of the house. They were as tall as I was. Big black eyes, a tiny mouth, two holes in place of a nose. We played together once in a while during a year. When I realized that I was the only one who could see them, I got scared. In fact, they didn’t show up again. Years later, I ran across them in science and technology magazines.”

Could she be affected by films or exaggerating to get attention?

“Let’s say that I had a psychological problem and I made this up. But now, many people say the same thing. Is everyone hallucinating?” she asks.

During her high school years, she dreamed about studying astronomy and space science. But her family did not approve, and so she decided to pursue the same profession as her uncle. She passed the entry exams for Dicle University’s civil engineering department and moved to the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

In those years, she became acquainted with the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center in Istanbul. The creatures that once played with her appear like small rough models. She begins her research again in a place where she feels she is best understood. As Cezlan examines the reptilian-like creatures, she feeds a water snake, a lizard and even a tarantula. Since her UFO prince never appears, Cezlan marries her classmate and settles down where she was born, in Van. She works as a civil engineer for a firm but never loses interest in UFOs though her husband says, “Don’t get involved in those.”

She begins to tell about the gray ones among green, blue and gray, reptilian-like and human-like creatures. “The gray ones are very curious but neutral. They are very developed in genetic engineering. They removed the senses of pain, love and happiness by modifying their genes.” She knows about these creatures through stories told by people who were kidnapped by the gray ones.

“Extraterrestrial creatures are mostly seen in Bursa, Zonguldak, Kayseri and Antalya. In other words, they are seen in areas rich with underground natural resources. Van is also rich with resources, as some people say there is uranium here. I believe the aliens must have set up a base underneath Lake Van.”

Cezlan says there are thousands of UFO researchers in Turkey. “I know 500 of them in person. We are two females among them.”

“I receive phone calls every day. My mailbox is full. There are people calling me from the United States, Sydney and even from Iran. We will soon establish an association in Istanbul,” she says.

Cezlan says she is a Muslim and practices her daily prayers, but is not interested in science fiction movies.

Not:  Its interesting..Many people claimed that they have seen some unidentified objects or creatures.. There is a saying in turkish, " there is no smoke in where there is no fire" (ateş olmayan yerden duman çıkmaz )"

With a wife, daughter, dog and garden house in Sarıyer’s Zekeriyaköy, it would appear Dutch photographer Wilco van Herpen, 47, is living the idyllic married life, but his road to such a destination anything but standard.

Van Herpen’s story begins in Amsterdam. A free-spirited 12-year-old, he took charge of his life and refused to attend a decent school, enrolling in a secondary school of his own choice.

His first profession was cooking. While working at hotels in the 1990s, he used to look at the planes going over his window and murmur, “I should be on those planes.” His close friends, realizing how unhappy he was, encouraged him to travel. “‘You love to stroll around with a camera in hand. Go wherever you wish and take some pictures! What’s holding you back?’ they told me,” he said. After a while, he decided to make a total change.

‘Your name is Volkan now’

It was a Turkish coworker who inspired him to go to Turkey: “As I was working at a hotel in 1987, I had a Turkish dishwasher who was in love with his country and kept insisting that I should see Turkey some day. According to him, the best drivers were in Turkey and life was a bed of roses. I was convinced right away.”

Back then, he had a Turkish girlfriend living in the Netherlands. He tried to convince her to go to Istanbul together. “Can you imagine it? She was a Turk and I was a Dutchman, but I was trying to convince her to go to Turkey with me? But I was successful in the end,” she said.

He was dazzled by Istanbul but was surprised by Turkish customs and traditions from day one.

“Since we were not married, hotels didn’t accept us. I was very surprised. Just for this reason, we had to stay at a dirty hotel in Sirkeci.”

He met his girlfriend’s family. Her uncle would call him Volkan – volcano in English – instead of Wilco.

“I liked my name, it fits me well because my outbursts are famous,” he said.

‘I only ate dried beans for a month’

Upon his return to the Netherlands, van Herpen became a photographer, but then became bored, took his backpack and set off for a world trip. He stayed for a while in Cape Town for a long time and returned to the Netherlands in 1993, continuing his life as an independent photographer.

“But I was still thinking about Turkey. I was with Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. I took their pictures and became a member of Turkish associations,” he said.

Van Herpen then started visiting Turkey more often. “There is nothing like getting lost in the crowds of this country. Turkish people constantly ‘oppose’ some things. I like this constant state of objection,” he said.

In that period, he fell in love with another Turkish woman, Nevin. “I settled in Turkey in 1999 and started living with Nevin. When I came here I had not a single penny in my pocket. I had no job either. I only wanted to take photographs.”

When the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, leader Abdullah Öcalan was caught, he longed to be a part of such a big event.

“So, I got on a bus and went to the town of Mudanya. And I somehow met a few journalists there, started living in a house rented by daily Radikal. I was about to die of hunger. I was not having even a bite but going to home-cooking restaurants in the evenings; a plate of dried-beans dish, two slices of bread and hot pickles. That’s what I ate for a month,” he said.

‘I looked for Gonca at every movie’

Van Herpen broke up with Nevin in 2002 but it was not long before he fell in love again.

“I went to the Istanbul Film Festival with a friend that year. Then I saw Gonca at a film. She was a translator for the director. As the director finished talking, I went up to Gonca, instead of the director, and applauded her. She gave me a look as if ‘What is this guy doing?’” he said.

“I wanted to have a conversation with her, but she didn’t stay around. I found her phone number from somewhere, but didn’t have the courage to call her. We had to talk face-to-face. I saw all films in 2003, throughout the year and during the festival. She was not anywhere. And I finally ran into her at Beyoğlu Cinema,” he said.

Gonca said she remembered the moment very well. “I was thinking that a man with colored eyes can never look meaningful. But this man standing at the top of the stairs of the cinema was different. His eyes were glimmering. ‘Oh my God! This man is in love with me,’ I said to myself. But I had to go back to my job,” she said. “After work, I started looking for him in the hall. I realized that he was watching me; I was caught red-handed and was so embarrassed. A few months later, we started living together in Cihangir.”

The couple married in 2007 and after their daughter Şira was born, they moved to Zekeriyaköy. “Everyone around us was very surprised. But my family supported us,” said Gonca.

Tootling around the country

Van Herpen said his life changed when he started “Wilco’s Caravan” in 2006 on İZ TV, a program which sent the photographer traveling around the country.

At the start when they decided on the name of the program, they had difficulty finding a caravan, he said. At last a renowned German caravan brand, Hymer, agreed to lend them one for one year.

“Our first stop was İğneada. It was difficult for me for the first few programs, but the Anatolian people embraced me. I had very interesting experiences. An 80-year-old granny in a village, in the province of Kars, made her pelicans wear booties and helped them to dance. After we filmed this, she said ‘Let’s have a hug now.’ I got used to people’s affection but it was something different,” he said.

The show visited 50 provinces in total, said van Herpen, but he confessed that he could never answer the question, “Which one do you prefer living in?”

“All are beautiful in a different way. I think the reason this program was popular is because I was talking with people independent from the text in my hand and was acting spontaneously. Somehow mothers liked me more and men were jealous of me. They said, ‘This total stranger from another country comes here, strolling around places we don’t know of.’ Despite its popularity, the program was shelved a few months ago, but we see reruns all the time,” he said.