Youfoology

I read Peter Brookesmith’s Flying Saucery column in the May issue [FT379:28] and came away puzzled. I can’t imagine why he’s writing articles on a subject for which he feels such contempt. I certainly sympathise with his attitude concerning UFOs. As he demonstrates in the column, the entire subject is home to countless idiots, liars and lunatics. But when almost half of a writer’s article on UFOs is actually a plug for what sounds like an excellent book on Homer, I can’t help but wonder why be bothers to write about “a faggot of a subject, a bundle of disparate and heterogeneous twigs, all of them pretty queer.” Isn’t it time for him to move on to literary criticism or politics or something more rewarding? Again, I sympathise with his dismay and revulsion for the subject, but that’s not really what is needed for your magazine. I could find exasperated articles by people who are fed up with UFOs and

their accompanying madness anywhere on the Internet.

Meanwhile Jenny Randles has consistently been able to come up with interesting and thought-provoking articles on the subject. Her column is one of my favourite treats. Your magazine has done an excellent job of covering other subjects that can’t possibly exist – mermaids, for example. It isn’t necessary to believe that something is real to find it interesting. The value of UFOs to forteans is their anomalous nature. Furthermore, the sideshow that comes with the subject should be interesting to anyone with a sense of curiosity. I personally think that the ETH is probably the least likely explanation, but the whole story, the mythos of UFOs is interesting and deserves to be examined. After reading his article, I can’t believe

that Mr Brookesmith still feels that way.

Bryan White

Duncanville, Texas

Peter Brookesmith responds: I had innocently thought it plain that my feelings about ufology are far from contemptuous and a long way from revulsion. They more nearly approach an irrepressible – if sometimes horrified – fascination with the subject and the things people are prepared to believe, usually without good reason. The brief for the column is to present “news and views” of “fads and flaps” from ufology, which I strive to do without misrepresentation. As Mr White politely does not say, these fads and flaps are often full of crap: so they frequently collide with my pedantic insistence on correcting errors where I spy them. And I can’t really help it if the people and things I think worth reporting – i.e. are sufficiently entertaining to grace these pages – are also slightly bats. Even when they’re plain wrong, I hope their delusions raise a chuckle among the sane. By such possibly perverse means I seek to explore “the whole story [and] the mythos of UFOs”.