Tourist ‘lost’ in desert left a trail of torn Bible pages
A BRITISH tourist who vanished in the Israeli desert left behind a strange trail of torn-out Bible pages, leading search teams to suspect he was suffering from psychotic delusions known as “Jerusalem Syndrome”.
Oliver Mcafee, a 29-year-old gardener from Northern Ireland, went missing in late November while cycling through the Negev desert in southern Israel and has not been seen or heard from since.
It was initially thought that Mr Mcafee, a devout Christian, got lost following a cycling path but recent clues have led Israeli authorities to believe he chose to disappear into the desert.
An Israeli police search team discovered a series of pages ripped from the Bible carefully weighed down with rocks in the area in which he was last seen. Other handwritten notes quoting Bible verses were also discovered.
Some of the notes included references to the story of Jesus fasting in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. Search teams scoured the texts for clues to Mr Mcafee’s location but came away empty-handed.
Investigators also found what they described as “a chapel” apparently made by Mr Mcafee on top of a rocky desert ridge outside the town of Mitzpe Ramon. He had cleared a circle-shaped area of stones and used a bicycle tool to carefully flatten the sand.
“He seems to have been doing all kinds of ceremonies that we don’t really understand,” said Raz Arbel, one of the leaders of an all-volunteer search team that has been looking for Mr Mcafee, whose bicycle, hiking boots, camera, and wallet were discovered but not his phone nor his passport.
The Biblical clues have led the search party to suspect that Mr Mcafee may be suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome, a well-documented mental phenomenon where visitors to the Holy Land suffer psychotic religious delusions, including the belief that they are figures from the Bible.
Israel’s health ministry records around 50 cases a year where a tourist’s delusions are so strong that police or mental health professionals are forced to intervene.
“I have never met this man [Mr Mcafee] but from the reports that he was involved in some kind of religious experience in the desert, it certainly sounds like it could be a case of Jerusalem Syndrome,” said Dr Moshe Kalian, the former district psychiatrist for Jerusalem and an expert in the condition.
“Jerusalem Syndrome is not a mental disease by itself but is usually superimposed on top of a background of mental distress or disease that a patient has. Their psychotic ideas often lead them on a mission to Jerusalem,” he said.
Mr Mcafee had struggled with depression in Britain and spent much of 2017 travelling, partly as a way of coping. He cycled through Europe and then went to Mexico on a charity mission before arriving in Israel in late October. He had planned to return to Essex, where he lived, on Dec 1.
When he did not return his friends raised the alarm and contacted police on Christmas Eve. Mr Mcafee was last seen on Nov 21, by an American tourist.
“He’s quite shy and naturally quite
‘He seems to have been doing all kinds of ceremonies that we don’t really understand’
quiet,” said Mark Fletcher, a friend from Essex. “But once he opens up he’s a lovely guy with a big heart for helping people. He’s a deep thinker.”
Mr Fletcher said friends had wondered if Mr Mcafee might have been suffering from depression in Israeli or become overwhelmed by the heat in the desert.
Israeli search teams have used drones, dogs and dozens of volunteers for more than two weeks in the unsuccessful search for Mr Mcafee. CCTV cameras at an Israeli military base near Mitzpe Ramon spotted an unidentified man moving in the darkness on the morning of Nov 22 and authorities suspect it might have been Mr Mcafee.
The volunteers said they believed that Mr Mcafee may have found his way to a road and potentially hitchhiked away from Mitzpe Ramon, though some fear he may have died in the desert. They said it was possible that if Mr Mcafee was able to stockpile enough water he could be living in one of the many caves which dot the desert landscape, though the rescue teams think this is unlikely.