The Watchers

  

As we head toward blog closure date how about I tell you about "the watchers"?

Back in the late 1970s I was a member of the British Flying Saucer Bureau (f 1952) and the crackpottery that went on could fill a book.  However, I managed to arrange a number of Sky watches and the purpose of these was to acquaint people with the night sky. One of these sky watches and its location, was altered by the BFSB committee for some silly reason so no choice. We ended up in the quiet countryside, in a field surrounded by hedgerows in Failand which is near Bristol.

At one point I noticed an odd silence only broken by whispers occasionally. I looked at my friend Franklyn (Franklyn Davin-Wilson) and asked what was going on? He had no idea so we sidled up to two committee members and asked what was going on and why people were spooked? One looked at us and whispered "The Watcher!"

It seems that in previous sky watches (the reason they stopped doing them) a dark figure had appeared standing at a distance from the sky watchers but watching them. Never said a word and never approached them. Eventually the figure vanished. 

You have to remember that after Albert K. Bender's breakdown and his Men In Black story he had sent a warning to all sections of the International Flying Saucer Bureau that "The Men In Black are coming!" and the BFSB put a lot of its records ands materials in a safe box and waited with dread. That was in the mid 1950s. They were still waiting in the 1970s and 1990s. 

None of this ever made sense to me. You are going to continue with flying saucery but some papers and files are stored away "safely"? HOW does that stop MIB visiting you? And, after four decades the files and records were still being hidden -as head of investigation and research I was not even allowed to view files. This was the silly mindset that had to be dealt with. Even in the early 2000s Denis Plunket (in his late 70s) was talking about the MIB and how they might visit any day. So, the whole watcher thing seemed silly.

I told Franklyn to keep an eye on the Watcher as I moved back into the crowd then made my way carefully through a hedgerow and circled around and then reached a point where I could see the greyish figure and then moved closer as quietly as I could in the dark. I then leapt and grabbed the Watcher.  The shock and surprise resulted in some good Anglos-Saxon words coming from his lips.

The "Watcher" was a man out "rabbiting" who had seen this "strange group of people standing still in the middle of a field, in the dark and looking up at the sky". He though he had stumbled on a witches coven or worse. I explained what was going on and got a strange look before he left the area.

I moved into the field to tell my companions and all I heard was a woman scream and a man say out loud "Bloody hell -he's coming toward us!" I put my torch on and called out. The mystery of the Watcher was solved. Or was it?

A couple of people swore blind that the grey figure had vanished before I got to it and thought the poacher had then turned up. How could they see where I was behind a thick hedgerow when they did not even know I had left the group? How did they see all of this in the pitch black as they were at least 200 yards(200m) away and I could not see more than 10 feet (3m)?

Naturalists, farmers and even poachers out at night probably explained away previous "Watchers" but no -they were not having any of it. After all "The Watcher" had been seen, what -10 times? or was it 20 times? No, someone was sure that it was more than that. Until I set the 1970s sky watches in motion the BFSB had not had a sky watch in the 1970s, 1960s and possibly for a great deal of the late 1950s. Yet, this legendary Watcher was always seen?

These are the sort of people who when you tell them that "Ancient Egyptian scripts noted quite clearly that two large glowing flying saucers had landed near to the pyramids with hundreds of observers" will immediately say "See? Historical facts how can you explain that away?" and another will add "Well, we know they built the pyramids" and end of story. Will any of them check sources? No. Why? Well "Why would he say and write that if it was not true?"

From 1948-2022 that mindset still exists and the bunko Ufologists continue to make money out of them and no matter how many times you expose the frauds...the suckers will keep buying.