Published as a letter to the editor in Merseyside UFO Bulletin, volume 4, number 3, Summer 1971.

I read with great interest Peter Rogerson’s article ‘The Sun Maiden’ in issue 4:2 of the Bulletin, but it is not about the theme of that article that I am now writing. Mr  Rogerson quotes a statement I once made about the validity of skywatches (“I favour the idea that the watchers have to be … somehow in tune with whatever controls UFOs before they will appear … preferably a small, harmonious group should sit quietly and think about UFOs”) and, at the time, that is what I believed. I am now even less in favour of ordinary skywatches than I was then, and I will try and explain why.

The basic reason for holding a skywatch is to see a UFO; a slightly more sophisticated skywatch wants to photograph a UFO; an even more sophisticated one wants to get instrumented proof on dials and charts that a UFO has passed over. Just supposing that all those were achieved – where does that get us? Even such ostensibly foolproof evidence will not convince those who do not wish to be convinced, and we are left with another bunch of frustrated and embittered ufologists. The experience of the last 20-odd years, since ufology came into being, has surely shown that nothing is gained by concentrating on spotting and documenting lights in the sky; nothings that is, beyond proving over and over again that UFOs exist.

Ufologists (I use this term widely, to include all who are genuinely interested in the phenomenon) do not need this continual proof, and those who are not yet ufologists will become such when the time is right for them. That is, you can lead a horse to water (show a man proof of the existence of UFOs) but he will not drink until he is thirsty (will not believe until his development has reached the appropriate stage). As well as the ordinary layman, this applies to scientists and everyone else upon whom the “scientific” ufologists are trying to force a belief in UFOs.

So all the evidence points to the fact that we should concentrate an the ‘Why?’ rather than the ‘How?’. A conventional skywatch concentrates on the ‘How?’ (if it concentrates at all), and my earlier statement, quoted above, indicates concentration on the ‘Why?’ It is obvious that UFOs are here on Earth for a reasons and the evidence seems to suggest that this reason is concerned with we humans, our past, present and future. The evidence also suggests that we are ignorant and have much to learn, that we could learn if we would only open ourselves to the teaching, but that for various reasons this teaching cannot be given by a ufonaut from a soapbox in Hyde Park or in any other direct way. I will not go into details here; those who have got on to the ‘Why?’ will know what I means and those who have not will understand when they are thirsty enough.

Those who are skywatching in the way I suggested, trying to tune in with the ufonauts, might hope that they will attract a UFO and cause it to land, thus perhaps getting the answer to ‘Why?’. I now think that this is unlikely too, for the conditions would very rarely be favourable for such an event. The UFOs do not often do as we ask them, probably for our own good. But the basic idea is right, solitude, peace and harmony both externally and internally. Contactees are  usually alone and mentally quiet when the UFO lands and the ufonaut steps out to deliver his messages and recent research shows that frequently the contactee is psychic too. Somehow, albeit unconsciously, the contactee has tuned in to the correct wavelength, and everything is right for the contact. The individual has been chosen because he is right for the ufonaut’s present purposes.

And so, although skywatches might be jolly good fun, and help to boost our egos that we are actively doing something to help solve the great UFO mystery a little honest thinking will soon tell us that we are not, and that whatever other values skywatching might have (astronomy, appreciation of nature, etc.), as regards UFO research it is a complete waste of time.

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