Approach.
Man in Life and Space / A Monthly Review.
Other titles: UFO Newsletter South Africa
1958--1960 Monthly
Praetoria, South Africa.
Editor: Edgar Sievers.
Publisher: Sagittarius Publishers.
1/1, April 1958-2/12, March 1960.
10 typewritten pages, 1s. 2s. a copy, 12s. a year.

Although this was a UFO journal and carried a column on "Space Ship Field News" that reported on sightings, it was primarily an effort to inculcate the philosophy of peace and harmony brought to mankind by the "space Brothers" and exemplified by the experiences and writings of the UFO-contactee George Adamski (1891-1965). Sievers accepted Adamski's teachings without hesitation, and printed with a straight face, for example, Adamski's transcript of the conference of beings from six planets, most of whom had been living on earth for some time, in which they concluded that humans' nuclear doings and abuse of the environment were making their work more difficult. No issue of the journal appeared without an excerpt from Adamski's writings or speeches or a letter from him, and "Dr. T. Lobsang Rampa" was similarly featured in the journal even though his contact with the advanced interstellar "Gardeners" was by telepathy rather than space ship. The gist of these cosmic teachings and of Sievers' beliefs was set out in the first issue:

"Approach accepts two tenets as facts: First, that man represents only one form in the multitude of Divine Creations, occurring, therefore, throughout the whole of the universe; secondly, that this mankind's relatives have come from stars and neighbouring planets in a renewed effort to awaken our memories to the truth of their existence, of our origin and the purpose of life. We do not hesitate to call them our Brothers, for we recognize in them the wiser members of a vast family of humanities to which we still belong. Their ships were seen travelling through our skies for ages. Today only are they accepted for what they really are. Our Brothers have tried to teach mankind a better way of living, as long as it existed on this planet and where it did make such a mess of its own living."

Edgar Sievers (dates unknown) was a South African UFO enthusiast who wrote Flying Saucer über Südafrika: Zur Frage der Besuche aus dem Weltenraum (Pretoria, 1955). This discussed UFOs through the lens of the occult and Eastern spirituality, primarily Tibetan Buddhism, and was a pioneering introduction in Germany to UFOs. He later buttressed his reputation among UFO enthusiasts when he energetically defended the bona fide of Elizabeth Klarer Fielding (1910-1994) who published snapshots of a UFO she had seen. She was an Oxford-trained meteorologist living in Natal with her husband and two children. As the story emerged over the years, she had seen flying saucers (round and metallic) as a child and in her 20s, and encountered them again more intimately over a period of months beginning in July 1956 when she was taken aboard a craft, met the captain (Akon, a handsome scientific investigator with "magnetic eyes"). She repeatedly traveled with him to his home planet, Meton, in Alpha Centauri, and eventually fell in love with him, received a silver ring (presumably indicative of marriage) that enhanced their telepathic ability with each other, and was transported to Meton (with her MG) where she eventually bore a child, Ayling. He became an astrophysicist on Meton after she was forced by vibratory incompatibility to leave him behind when she returned to earth. The experience lasted nine Meton years although only four months elapsed on earth, and before and after the experience she lived in fear of efforts by Russian and American agents to abduct her to learn from her the Meton secrets of electro-gravity, anti-gravity, and light propulsion. When she finally managed to publish her story in English in 1980 as Beyond the Light Barrier, she revealed the Meton's message of universal interstellar wisdom to mankind: peace, love, harmony, understanding, and environmentalism, culminating in the urgent call to "protect our planet and find more sustainable ways of living here on earth." She also learned that the Metons had originated in our solar system, on Venus, millions of years before and had been forced to leave because the sun was overheating the planet (a nice prescient note), which, with earth's nuclear adventurism, accounted for the Metons urgency in telling mankind to save their environment. Klarer also learned that she was the reincarnation of an ancient Venurian and was the soul-mate and twin-soul of Akon, who had for ages been searching for her.

The full story of Ayling and interstellar romance only appeared in Ray Palmer's Fate (q.v.) in August 1969, but Klarer's original story of having seen (and photographed) a UFO in 1956 was defended energetically by Sievers. The press had jeered that the photographs were merely of a hubcap thrown into the air, and Sievers analyzed and catalogues every hubcap available in South Africa to prove that none matched the photograph. Other critics pointed out that her story was a close parallel to the standard folkloric tale of fairy abduction, and that Ayling was only yet another of what Jenny Randals was to call "star Children," spread around the world by lecherous UFO crew.

Sievers only mentions Klarer once in this journal, and that in passing. His real interest was the "Peace and Brotherhood Programme" learned from the Brothers (through Adamski). The last issue asked "Can Our World Be Saved?" and Sievers replied that he believed that it would be if mankind followed "SEVEN AFFIRMATIONS" of his program:

We Can Save the World
Non-Killing
Non-Pollution
Non-Exploitation
Simplicity
Trust
Cooperation

And these generalities in turn led to specific injunctions: "The increasing world population CAN BE EASILY SUSTAINED if Man is gradually brought back to his proper vegetarian diet." Etc. No more is heard of Sievers. Klarer made the rounds of UFO conventions for a few years and died before she could publish a second book that promised more secrets.

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