The Pleiadian Hoax

Issue 4 of UFOData Magazine was devoted to the subject of ‘crafts’, the vessels that form the bedrock of the UFO phenomenon. There have been countless photographs, film and video images of UFOs over the years, but few have come close to the quality and, let’s face it, impressiveness of those taken by a Swiss farmer known as Eduard ‘Billy’ Meier.

His best photographs (let’s face it, some were terrific, some were pretty dire) are the stuff of legend and at least one is wheeled out in just about every television programme made on the subject.  Billy’s images of the Pleiadian ‘beamships’ were not just lights in the sky, or out of focus blobs against a blue background, what he released to the world were well-composed, up-close and personal images of flying saucers, often with foreground objects (including people) to give a sense of scale. The photos were so good that image analysts were fooled and a cult grew around this one-armed, former legionnaire. Scores of books and magazine articles were written about his contacts with the Pleiadians and television producers clamoured for his images and film footage.

 

It seems, however that Billy Meier’s evidence was just too good to be true and that he fabricated the images himself, albeit very skilfully in some cases. It is cases like this that leave serious ufology open to ridicule, because the media pounces upon these stories and use them to paint all of the subject in a similar light. That said, there are still people who believe in Meier’s stories and some claim to have been present and witnessed the beamships for themselves.

Eduard Albert Meier was born in 1937 in the North Swiss town of Bülach. From an early age, he claimed to have been in contact with aliens. These beings, who claimed to be from the Pleiades star cluster (albeit in a shifted dimension known as the Dal Universe), called themselves Plejarans and Billy met several over the years.

In his formative years, Meier travelled greatly, joining the French Foreign Legion, living in an Indian ashram, working as a snake catcher, acting as an informer to US drug agencies in Turkey, before finally returning home to Switzerland. In 1965, he was involved in a road accident and lost his left arm. A year later, he met the woman who would become his wife and mother of his children, Kalliope.

In 1975, the Plejarans decided that they wanted Meier to let the world know about their existence and thus began his program of photographing and filming their vessels. He even took pictures of the aliens themselves, revealing them to be human-looking, if a little ‘Sixties’ in their hair styles. He was taken aboard their ships and travelled the universe with his camera, snapping away merrily. He photographed Venus, the Apollo-Soyuz link-up, and even the eye of God! Asked why he didn’t photograph both eyes of the Supreme Deity, Meier declared that God had winked at him…

Meier was also taken on trips through time. He met Jesus, photographed dinosaurs and snapped the demise of San Francisco in some future catastrophe.

With this mass of evidence, it would seem that confirmation that we are not alone in the universe was soon to come. Those who believed his claims, such as Wendelle Stevens, Lee Elders and Jim Dilettoso, trumpeted the evidence as incontrovertible proof that Meier’s story was true. Computer analyses, they said, showed that his photos were genuine and that metallurgical samples taken from landing sites produced results that could not have come from Earth.

Unfortunately, many of Meier’s images did not hold up to close scrutiny, despite the protestations from those who believed.

In 1998, Meier critic, Kal Korff, helped produce a television special which debunked many of Meier’s ‘travel’ photos. The photographs of Venus and other astronomical bodies were almost identical to widely available images. Other images were taken from science fiction books, the San Francisco destruction one being hoisted from a painting. The less said about the dinosaur image, the better.

 

One of Meier’s most famous photographs is of a ‘Type-4’ beamship. It is a sharp, clear image and looks fantastic. Yet, image analysis from Ground Saucer Watch clearly showed that this was a small model, about eight-inches across hanging from a wire.

    

Another image emerged, from a partially burnt negative found at Meier’s home, of a model on a table top. Meier tried at first to explain this as a model made by his children, but then said that it was a test model to help illustrate how he couldn’t have faked the images. Billy’s now ex-wife, Kalliope, confirmed that she had seen the models and even helped him fake some of the photographs, going so far as to swear to the above under oath in the Swiss courts.

The photographs of the Plejarans themselves have been proven to be taken from a Sears catalogue and another from a Dean Martin television show.

 

Other images of the beamships are clearly fakes, because, well, they’re rubbish:

    

These images are clearly small models close to the camera, with the final one even having a toy car in the foreground!

Of course, Meier states that he is innocent and that some photographs and stories have been planted by those wishing to discredit him. Is Meier a cult guru, living off those who enter his orbit or did his following grow because he did have contact with aliens, but felt compelled to provide evidence? As pressure mounted for more and more photographs of the Pleiadian beamships, was Meier forced into faking images to quench the insatiable appetites of those who believed? His often confusing and contradictory statements did not help matters. What began as a sensation in ufology has now become a laughing stock the world over.

Perhaps Billy Meier was in contact with extra-terrestrials, but, as often happens in the UFO field, he has been caught cheating and this undermines his entire story and the subject as a whole, which is sad for everybody.

© Steve Johnson - 2006

(First published in Issue 4 of UFOData Magazine. A response from Meier advocate, Michael Horn, can be found in Issue 5.)

 


A Reply to the Eduard ‘Billy’ Meier Article in Issue 4 of UFO Data Magazine

By Michael Horn (Authorized American Media Representative)

I want to thank Russel Callaghan and UFO DATA for the opportunity to respond to the article by Steve Johnson, attempting to debunk the Billy Meier UFO case and its physical evidence.. 

The absolute lack of awe and amazement that should be generated in a reasonable, thinking person who even only saw the few photos that accompanied Johnson’s article is telling, in my opinion, of the lazy, dumbed-down mentality that now pervades most of our world, including the so-called “UFO community”. There is not one person in this audience who could, even with the help of 10 of his/her friends, accomplish what Meier did in presenting his (more than 1,200) clear, daytime photos of UFOs (sometimes 3-4 in a photo), the 8 film segments, the stunning video, the sound recordings and the metal alloy samples, authenticated by IBM scientist Marcel Vogel. This painfully obvious and absolutely ironclad fact is glossed over, especially today with so many people living virtual lives in front of computer and TV screens, thinking that all of life is a PhotoShop or digital effect. Or simply the latest hour-long “reality” show.

While Johnson and others could certainly cobble together some cheap hardware and take photos that seemed to look like UFOs, the lack of the comparable detail and craftsmanship of the real objects, let alone the failure of each and every one of those photos to meet pass the specific standards and parameters that authenticated the Meier photos (http://www.theyfly.com/PDF/PhotoAnalysis3.pdf), as well as the sounds of the UFOs that he and his wife recorded on several occasions (http://www.theyfly.com/PDF/ UFOSoundRecordings.pdf)is guaranteed. And I mean GUARANTEED.

Johnson says that Meier “fabricated the images himself”, which is not only not true, but is refuted by the six-year long, on-site investigation – and a separate, independent investigation by author Gary Kinder (“Light Years”, published in 1987), who actually took the time to meet and interview the two owners, and the former owner, of the photo shop from which Meier bought his cameras and film, and to which he brought all of his rolls of film and movie footage for outside development. Why didn’t Johnson know that, as well as the fact that these people (including Kinder), who were skeptics themselves, vouched for not only Meier’s inability to have hoaxed any of the photographic evidence but also the stunning, authentic photos and films that would come back from the developers (who were in yet other locations) and to whom they had to send Meier’s films for processing?

Regarding the implication that there are only a few people who “believe” Meier or who claim to have witnessed the UFOs, how – and why – did Johnson fail to investigate the comprehensive, credible eyewitness information here that is completely contradictory to his unsubstantiated, inaccurate assertions:

http://www.tjresearch.info/witness.htm

http://www.tjresearch.info/witnessa.htm

http://meiercase.0x2a.info/meiercase/002/index.php

Johnson also says that Meier “met Jesus”, something that Meier has never claimed. And while Johnson is trying to make points about Meier photographing the “eye of God” (which is the name of a constellation seen in space), his photographs of Venus etc., he glosses over the rather amazing, prophetically accurate, information that Meier published about Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and the two planets beyond Pluto (among many other things) in his rush to display his own ignorance. (See: http://www.theyfly.com/ prophecies/prophecies.htm)

Regarding Kal Korff (who had to apologize on-air to Art Bell, twice, in front of millions of listeners, for lying about Bell), Korff has been so thoroughly discredited as to effectively destroy the credibility of anyone who would attempt to use him as any kind of truthful reference:

http://meiercase.0x2a.info/meiercase/temp/index.html

http://www.tjresearch.info/hasenbol.htm

Johnson tries to dismiss Meier’s photo of a coming earthquake in San Francisco without knowing that there were actually 11 photographs that were seen by the investigators as well as other witnesses.

Then we come upon his quoting the “analysis” of Ground Saucer Watch, who claimed that Meier photographed a – never discovered – eight-inch model. When it comes to taking the word of Ground Saucer Watch regarding the authenticity of the Meier photos, Kinder makes an effective dismissal of their value here: http://www.figu.org/us/figu/ supporter/kinder.htm (and you would do well to read the entire article and the accompanying testimonials of numerous scientific experts he quotes who authenticated Meier’s physical evidence).

As far as claims that Meier made models of the UFOs, it needs to be said that the investigative team had a model made by a Hollywood special effect company, specifically for the purpose of photographing, so that comparisons could be made, through computer analysis, to determine if there was any difference. In every case, the computer could distinguish between the models and Meier’s real, 21-feet in diameter UFOs, such as the one seen here: http://www.tjresearch.info/moretree.htm.

In regards to Meier’s wife, the sad and simple fact that real human beings can have acrimony between them to the degree that one would lie about the other is nothing new. As a matter of fact, Meier’s now ex-wife passed a lie detector test affirming Meier’s truthfulness and she is on a video in support of him and the case as well. Meier’s children also support him and have also been dismayed at their mother’s own untrue statements about him.

It should also come as no surprise that any man who has been the target of 21 documented assassination attempts on his life, as Meier has, would also be the target of attempts to discredit him via tinkering with and manipulating his photographs and films – none of which were ever developed by him, as has already been established. To be clear, Meier had no darkroom, no access to, or training in, special effects, image manipulation, model making, digital effects, sound engineering, metallurgy, electronics, astrophysics, geology, laser technology, astronomy, etc. Johnson and others prefer to attribute to Meier super-genius levels of ability in these and numerous other exotic disciplines rather than concede the obvious, i.e. that he’s a genuine contactee…one of very, very few to ever be able to truthfully say that.

As for Johnson’s dismissal of what are called the Wedding Cake UFO photos (WCUFO), allow me to direct you to:

http://www.theyfly.com/newsflash/newsflash2.htm

http://www.tjresearch.info/Wedcake.htm

http://www.billymeier.com/archives/Wedding_Cake_ship.mpg

I ask that Johnson, and anyone else who wants to claim that these are models, actually duplicate the craft pictured. That means, in case I’m not making myself clear, make a detailed, exact model of that craft, photograph it as Meier did (Meier took an amazing 63 photographs of the WCUFO) and duplicate the video. Use materials known to be available to Meier at the time and…use one hand. Anything less than that is simply more nonsense from these self-appointed “experts”, completely unacceptable and discrediting of them, not Meier.

As far as Meier being the source of “confusing and contradictory statements”, how much of Meier’s 24,000+ pages (most of it still in German), with volumes of specific, prophetically accurate information dating back to the 1950s (http://www.gaiaguys.net/MEIER.PROPHECIES.1958.htm) has Johnson actually read and researched himself for accuracy?

Why didn’t Johnson present as well documented a case to support his slanderous comments as is easily made in support of Meier’s truthfulness and the authenticity of his six categories of still irreproducible physical evidence? Does it go back to the earlier point I made about the shallow, two-dimensional, jump to conclusions behavior of people today who either can’t, or won’t, learn how to think, see the big picture and contemplate the sheer impossibility of one man (to this day, no accomplices, finances, resources, technology, etc. have ever been found) accomplishing all of this, let alone asking why we have the Meier case, and its impeccably accurate prophetic information, before us for the past 55+ years? (See: http://www.theyfly.com/news2005/july05/july05.htm#puzzle)

Regarding the skeptics and their stunning failures, despite intense efforts, to debunk, let alone duplicate Meier’s physical evidence, their equally intense efforts to disprove his truthfulness and accuracy regarding prophetic information, such as pertains to Jupiter, have also failed (See: http://www.theyfly.com/newsletter/jan06/jan06.htm).

So while Johnson closes out his article insinuating that Meier is a “laughing stock” who’s been “caught cheating”, the real laughing stock are people like Johnson who are the purveyors of the most slipshod, irresponsible, inept and incompetent “research”, which is nothing more than another attempt at character assassination, such as Meier has endured for decades. And it’s more telling of Johnson’s own superficiality – and that earlier mentioned lack of awe – that he concedes that Meier “was in contact with extra-terrestrials”, as if it was a long proven, everyday occurrence instead of what it would be – and what it actually is in the Meier case – the most important story in all of human history.

Michael Horn

Authorized American Media Representative

The Billy Meier Contacts

www.theyfly.com


Note from Steve Johnson:

I would like to make it clear to Mr Horn that I stand by my article and that I firmly believe that said missive was, in fact, more fair and balanced than the diatribe sent to UFO DATA Magazine. I would also like to point out that, as the proof reader for the magazine, I had to edit out a great many personally insulting remarks aimed at me by Mr Horn.

I hold no ill-will towards Mr Horn and wish him all the best in his efforts to bring Billy Meier's story to the world.

 

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Updated 16th August, 2012