A Refutation of Bruce Maccabee's 1989 Debunking Attempt,
and the Episode
of the Above-the-treetop Beamship Oscillations

INTRODUCTION. In his article, "Billy, no; Ed, yes," Bruce
Maccabee (1989a) contrasted the Billy Meier UFO-contactee case with the Ed
Walters abductee case of Gulf Breeze, FL, of 1987-88, since in both cases the
subject was allowed to take multiple photographs of his ETs' UFOs, though from
there on the differences dominate over the similarities. The Gulf Breeze case,
which Maccabee investigated personally and intensively, received much flak from
a substantial fraction of ufologists, due to its unique features, a state of
affairs that always raises skeptics' suspicions. Naturally he could not have
wished this case to be compared in the same vein as the Meier case and then
suffer the same fate of receiving prolific debunking attempts. Thus, as the
title to his article suggests, by following the "politically correct" course of
apparently debunking the Meier case while supporting the Ed Walters case,
Maccabee could let other ufologists know he had not stepped outside the ranks of
respectability, ufologically speaking. This is not to imply, however, that his
rejection of the Meier case may not have been sincere. As we shall see, he
pointed out superficially suspicious elements of the case while scarcely
commenting upon supportive elements. He apparently did not read or believe what
the earliest researchers of the case found—Wendelle Stevens and his
investigative team (Stevens, 1982, 1989; Elders et al., 1979; Elders &
Elders, 1983), but appears to have relied mainly on Korff (1980) for input.

•  1A. INCOME LEVEL. Using Maccabee's numbering of
paragraphs, we start with his mention that Billy Meier, who was very poor,
supplemented his one-arm disability income by selling literature [and copies of
his UFO photos] and accepting gifts from his followers. Walters, who had a good
income, did not have to do this. Maccabee seems to have been implying that this
difference between the two detracted from Meier's credibility. However, with a
family to support and an occupation of being a full-time contactee since 1975,
Meier had no other way of supplementing his meager state income. He obviously
had to do what he legally could to feed his family. I have monitored the prices
he has charged since 1985 for his literature and photos, and these have never
been listed above a reasonable price for covering the cost of having copies
made. Since 1989, Walters has authored three books about his experiences and
photos, one of them co-authored by Maccabee (Walters & Walters, 1990, 1994;
Walters & Maccabee, 1997), and the fact that these books are not given away
for free in no way reflects upon their authors' veracity; similarly with Meier.

DATES OF PHOTOS. Then Maccabee (1989a) stated, "Subsequent
investigations have shown that his first supposed UFO photos were taken not in
1975 but in May and June of 1964, in India." The tone in which this is written
implies that perhaps Meier was hiding the fact of his earlier UFO sightings,
photographs and experiences. This is not the case. Stevens, in his 1982 book,
reproduces some of the black & white photos of UFOs that Meier took while
undergoing contacts in India in 1964, and Meier long ago made available
information about his Indian experiences. Maccabee may have been referring to
the fact that Lee & Brit Elders, in their two photo albums of 1979 and 1983,
presented photos from Meier's contacts subsequent to January 1975 only, and did
not mention his earlier contacts—an item that Korff (1980, p. 3) criticized. It
was certainly within the Elders' prerogative to publish only Meier's more
recent, color UFO photos, representative of his collection, if they wished;
their statement had been, "it was on this day [Jan. 28, 1975], in the remote
hillsides of Canton Zurich, Switzerland, that the first evidence of a man's
ongoing encounters with beings from another world began" (Elders et al., 1979,
p. 11). Meier had had no contacts between about 1965 and 1975, but they have
been ongoing ever since then, indicating that their statement is true even up to
the time of the present update (2005). Korff had already been corrected on this
by Stevens (1981a, p. 3), who correctly pointed out that the word "ongoing" had
been used there. However, the topic has no bearing on Meier's credibility.

As to the "supposed" UFO photos from India: they exist; Stevens published
many of them in his books. A witness other than Meier to the UFOs at Mehrauli,
India, has verified the UFO presence there in 1964 when Meier was visiting and
taking UFO pictures—more on this below.

•  1B. SOCIABILITY. Here Maccabee mentioned that Meier
"is not active in his community," as if the level of community activity has some
relevance to credibility and sincerity. But we've all read of dastardly acts
committed by persons whose neighbors had thought, up until the act, that the
person was a friendly, congenial, law-abiding citizen. However, being a
contactee who was very frequently in touch with his ET contactors since 1975,
Meier had acquired a rather different worldview than that of most of his Swiss
neighbors, and he was left with a mission to fulfill that didn't leave time for
small talk or playing community games. Meier's knowledge of human religions and
of the Talmud of Jmmanuel could not have made him feel a need to become a
member of a church, for example, and a partaker in community church activities
as Ed Walters was. Instead, even before 1975 Meier had participated in a
metaphysical discussion group in Wetzikon, Switzerland (Stevens, 1982, p. 28).
After his contacts recommenced in 1975, and his photographs became more widely
known, he spent much time with curious visitors, repeatedly explaining the
meaning of it all and answering their questions, until this degree of
sociability became too wearying and time consuming in the early 1980s.
Thereafter he had to leave most of this task to some of his followers at
Schmidrüti. All this is entirely consistent with his having been a contactee
since early youth.

•  1C. BILLY A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST? Next, Maccabee fell
into more serious error, in asserting, "Billy has emphasized a religious
connection to his sightings. (He claims to be the 13th disciple of Christ.)"
Here "sightings" must refer to topics of discussion when Meier was in the
presence of one or more of his ETs. However, his contact conversations with the
Pleiadian ETs (or Plejarens as they were later called) cannot be termed
"religious." They were wide ranging and sometimes did involve spiritual topics,
with occasional mentions about religion; however, his contacts themselves were
not religious—they did not involve worship, praying, rituals, reciting creeds,
proselytizing, singing hymns or chanting or any such.

It is true that Meier was told by the Pleiadians that he was our present-day
prophet—our New Age prophet (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 68-71), akin to the true
prophets in the Bible, some of whom he had been during past incarnations, so he
was informed; and this was why he was being contacted now. Meier has never gone
around claiming this, but has just reported what he has been told during contact
sessions, in which, with very few exceptions, everything discussed is
subsequently recorded word for word (Moosbrugger, 2000, pp. 94-96). He has
never claimed to be a disciple or a 13th disciple, and was never told by his
ETs of being such; Maccabee apparently picked up this misinformation from Korff
(1980, p. 6). Meier distinguishes between Jmmanuel (or Immanuel) and Jesus
Christ, the fictional character of worship that the Talmud of Jmmanuel
indicates Jmmanuel was made into, following the time of Paul. One can
say, however, that Billy's contacts and discovery of the Talmud of
Jmmanuel hold very strong implications for some of Earth's major religions,
in particular, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Regarding my above reference to Guido Moosbrugger, he was formally a
schoolteacher from Vienna, and has known Meier since April of 1976, having ever
since been a good friend and supporter. He has frequently been with Meier at his
place for extended visits over the years. His knowledge of the Meier contactee
case comes from having been an insider.

•  2A. DAYTIME UFO/ALIEN SIGHTINGS. Maccabee stated that
"no one, not even his wife or family, claims to have seen a ship in daylight,
nor has anyone claimed to see Billy photograph a spaceship. No one claims to
have seen a Pleiadian or any 'entity' that Billy might have met during a
contact." The facts are otherwise, but not knowable from Korff's 1980 article.
Presumably Maccabee meant to exclude Billy Meier himself from this assertion, at
the least. However, Meier's family, along with two adults besides his wife,
Kalliope, all witnessed a Pleiadian beamship in the afternoon for several
minutes, on June 28, 1976. The description of this
event was made known by Stevens (1982, pp. 142-143) and should have been known
to Maccabee also from Elders & Elders (1983, p. 44). An interview in 1979 of
Meier's wife and three children about their witness to this sighting is on a
videotape copy I obtained from Brit Elders; portions of this video are contained
within Genesis III's video "The Meier Chronicles," which is more readily
available. A written account of this sighting by Kalliope is presented in
Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 157-159).

In 1982 a visitor to the F.I.G.U. Center at Schmidrüti was sweeping the area
just outside the residence one morning when Billy stepped outside from the
kitchen, looking up at the sky. He pointed to a craft high in the sky having the
appearance of a beamship, so that the visitor could spot it also, which she did.
Billy had been alerted by a telepathic message from one of his contactors
(Moosbrugger, 2000, p. 159), otherwise this sighting would not have occurred.

There have been a few very brief sightings of one or another of Meier's ETs
themselves, on the grounds of his Schmidrüti residence, by close friends of
Meier. One of these is described here (Hesemann, 1998).
However, since his ETs are quite human in appearance, these sightings are not as
definitive as the sighting of the "grey" alien by Ed Walters and his wife
(Walters & Walters, 1990, pp. 63-64).

MIRAGE JET INCIDENT. There is very strong evidence that during
the day of April 14th, 1976, when Billy photographed a Swiss Army Mirage jet
fighter making 22 passes at the beamship, which each time evaded the jet by
moving or "jumping" away, the jet's pilot was a witness to this event. (Meier's
Verzeichnis erroneously indicates it occurred on March 14th.)

Fig. 1. Beamship
and mirage jet fighter in same frame.
From UFO...Contact from the
Pleiades, vol. I, p. 35. Courtesy Lee & Brit Elders.
Photo
taken by Billy Meier between the villages of Schmarbüel &
Maiwinkle.

Of the 14 surviving photographs, ten
show both the aircraft and beamship, and one of these, especially, has been
studied very carefully by Stevens and his team (Elders et al., 1979, p. 35;
Stevens, 1982, pp. 356-360; Stevens, 1987, pp. 443-447; Stevens, 1990, p. 375).
In the original photo the beamship occupies a width of about 1.7% of the 35mm
film width. Had it been a 30cm model suspended 21 meters away, it would have
required a support pole some 23m (75ft) long by which to suspend it. This event
took place while a Swiss army contingent was on maneuvers.

Stevens (1990, p. 265) learned some very interesting second-hand information
about the event, in quizzing persons connected with the Swiss air base. This
was, in reference to a particular Mirage jet, that "A mechanic at the base later
reported that the fire control panel had melted down internally, and had to be
completely replaced, including much of the wiring."

Fig. 2. Beamship
appearance in one
of Meier's Schmarbüel-Maiwinkle
photos. From
UFO...Contact from
the Pleiades, vol. I, p. 31.
Courtesy Lee
& Brit Elders.

In one of the photos, the shutter was snapped just as the beamship was
starting a jumping or acceleration maneuver, somehow causing the lowest 15% of
the craft to be virtually missing from view (see Fig. 2 on the left; Elders et
al., 1979, p. 31). This also strongly indicates it was no model UFO.

Most important, Meier had a tape recorder running during the six or more
minutes that the jet fighter was making its 22 passes, the sounds of which were
recorded along with those of a reconnaissance plane, a paratroop transport
plane, a train, a barking dog and a police siren (Stevens, 1987, pp. 456-459;
Stevens, 1989, pp. 443-445). The sound that the beamship made towards the end of
Meier's photographing session was also recorded. All but the beamship's sounds
could be, and were, identified as to their source by the lab that studied the
tape in detail, including the sound of the Mirage jet. This lab was the Naval
Sound Research Laboratory at Groton, CT. Stevens (1982, pp. 439-447) reproduced
their full report.

A UFO researcher from Zurich, Erwin Mürner, looked into the matter and was
able to confirm, through several conversations with a Swiss Air Force officer,
that this event between the "UFO" and the Mirage jet indeed took place (Hesemann, 1998). He
also learned the jet pilot's name and was able to talk with him sufficiently to
verify the event. Therefore the jet pilot was a daytime beamship witness, though
his name has been withheld, by Mürner, at his own request for the usual reasons.

THE 1964 WITNESS IN INDIA. Rather recently a witness to the
daytime UFO sightings occurring in Mehrauli, India, in 1964, at the time Meier
was visiting an ashram there, came forward. She presented her recollections on this,
which were video-taped, at the 8th International UFO Congress in Laughlin, NV,
in 1999. She was a witness to Meier's alien contactor at the time, as was her
younger brother and her grandfather, who was the head of the ashram. On more
than one occasion they witnessed this humanoid alien's UFOs in the daytime, and
Meier photographing them. Maccabee, in 1989, evidently did not know of this
particular information. See also Stevens (1995a, pp. 19-36).

A RECENT DAYTIME SIGHTING. In the summer of 2000 Silvano
Lehman, in the presence of Billy Meier, sighted a beamship-style UFO, which
Billy was alerted to through mental telepathy from the craft's occupant. The
event is described here, along with a
photo that Lehman took at the time.

Thus there have been some ten daytime witnesses besides Billy to one of the
beamships whose occupant had been contacting him.

•  3A. NO SWISS UFO FLAP. Maccabee mentioned that there
was no "flap" of UFO sightings in Billy's region of Switzerland (as there had
been in the Gulf Breeze case) during his taking of UFO photos in 1975-76.
However this has nothing to do with Meier's credibility. He failed to point out
the reason Meier received for this from his contacting ET: they keep their
craft/ships invisible except when they desire to let a person see one. In
Meier's case, they told him that, with few exceptions, they kept their craft
invisible except as viewed from along only his line of sight. This accords with
a strategy of plausible
deniability —if only one person is usually allowed to witness and photograph
particular UFOs, whether repeatedly or not, skeptics can more easily jump to the
assumption that he is not credible, if they wish. Negative skeptics are thus not
forced to believe anything against their will.

There are plenty of UFO sightings on record in which the craft suddenly
vanished, but it is not then known if it had suddenly darted away too fast to be
seen. However, two instances are reported by Gordon Creighton in which the UFO
disappeared by becoming more and more transparent until it had vanished
(Creighton, 2001); such reports indicate that invisibility, or "cloaking," is
indeed part of advanced alien technology. For ET groups who long ago reached
this level, it seems reasonable that with an additional 500 years, say, of
advancement of their science and technology (also long ago), the cloaking could
be refined to allow a corridor of visibility from a particular desired angle of
view, while retaining invisibility from all other viewing directions. It would
make no sense to dismiss this possibility of cloaking, or partial cloaking,
simply because our own level of science and technology is thousands or millions
of years behind theirs and we at present can scarcely begin to understand how
this bit of alien magic might be achieved.

•  4A. CONTACTEE  VS.  ABDUCTEE. Maccabee
stated, "Billy's contacts with aliens were pleasant. One gets the impression
that he looked forward to meeting the beautiful Pleiadians." The impression
Maccabee seems to have been seeking to leave with the reader here, especially
among fellow ufologists, is that a contactee, whose contacts are not scary,
traumatic or painful, is not to be trusted in comparison to an abductee whose
UFO experiences usually are traumatic. However, it is entirely
unscientific and illogical to assume that all ETs seek to impose themselves
unwillingly upon their human subjects, and not allow that some ETs could exist
with ethical levels we can appreciate, thus resulting in contactees, and not to
allow for the likelihood that some ETs could be human in appearance. (This is
not to imply, of course, that all alleged contactees are genuine.) Nevertheless,
Meier did not always look forward to his contacts, as Contact Report #115 of 19
Oct., 1978, indicates; see also Kinder (1987, p. 211). As for "beautiful," I'm
not aware that Billy described the Pleiadians with a word of this meaning.
Although he found them to be nice looking, the sketches of several of them that
he had an artist draw in accordance with his memory look like rather normal
appearing human faces (see www.billymeier.com, and click on
"Pleiadians/Plejaren").

•  4B. PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS OR SPIRITUAL? Next, in referring
to Billy's voluminous Contact Reports, Maccabee stated, "There is a
pseudoreligious message in Billy's writings." In response, see 1C. above. Meier
received a good deal of spiritual teachings during some of his contact sessions,
but these do not reflect religious instructions. They add rather than detract
from his credibility, since much evidence has been accumulating in the past
several decades on the reality of the human spirit, which is ignored within the
major religions of the Western world. See the studies within this bibliography. Billy's writings
include spiritual messages (pertaining to the individual human/alien spirit) and
not pseudo-religious messages.

•  5A. NICE SAUCER PICTURES. "Billy's still photos show
classic disc-shaped UFOs in daylit country scenery. They are beautiful pictures
which fit in with the general expectation of what a flying saucer should look
like." Here, Maccabee seems to have been implying that since the general
disc-like shape for UFOs had been frequently reported for nearly three decades
before Billy's Swiss contacts commenced, the fact that most of his contactors'
craft displayed that general shape indicts Billy of having utilized models of
that general design. However, this implication lacks common sense, and is
"reaching" much too far. Since 1950, and both before and after 1975, there have
been many sightings of UFOs of the same general shape as the flying saucers
first reported in 1947. It obviously makes no more sense to reject all sightings
and photos of UFO craft that resemble the shape of those first reported than to
reject all photos of automobiles built after 1930, say, as real whose components
include 4 wheels, a cab and an engine up front.

The beamship that Meier had the opportunity to photograph on March 8, 1976,
exhibited knurled protuberances all around its

Fig. 3. Section
of Meier's photo
#200 after Stevens had Interrepro
A.G. in Basel,
Switzerland, analyze
it with a laser-scanning computer
in 1979.
Black & white rendition
from Stevens (1989, p. 412).

Fig. 4. Section
of Ed Walters'
2nd photo, Nov. 11, 1987.
From back dust cover
of
Walters & Walters, 1990.

outer rim and
a decorative appearing cupola on top; this departs from the simplest "saucer"
shape. The UFO that Ed Walters took the most photos of exhibited a fancy
crown-like body, resembling an expansion of the cupola atop the craft on the
left that Meier photographed. Does this in any way implicate Walters of having
made a model UFO that copied from, and embellished upon, the structure seen in
the Meier photo? Of course not, especially considering that ETs in general seem
capable of traveling in craft of whatever design they wish, be it disc-shaped,
bell-shaped, boomerang shaped, spherical, cigar-shaped, triangular, or a shape
like a banana or an ice-cream cone (the latter two shapes have indeed been
reported). Further, UFOs have sometimes been observed to quickly change their
shape (morph). We can only guess whether ETs utilize craft of various shapes for
particular functional reasons, or for a whim, and/or as part of a strategy that
includes plausible
deniability.

•  5B. BILLY'S PICTURES WELL COMPOSED? Here Maccabee
wrote, "Billy's pictures, at least as presented in various publications (after
some retouching, apparently), are clear, well-composed shots." What is the
implication here? That after having had numerous visitations with his ET
contactors, and after being summoned telepathically to various sites in the
hills for the purpose of shooting roll after roll of film of beamships, that his
pictures should appear as if he were too hasty or frightened to hold the camera
steady? Many of his shots are not very well composed, however. His
camera's viewing mechanism was broken, and his aim and tilt of it was often not
optimal, usually being too high and showing too much sky and not enough of the
lower foreground. Many of his photos could have been improved if he had held the
camera in the portrait mode rather than the landscape orientation. It is
realized, of course, that Ed Walters' photos, in contrast, were taken very
hastily. However, this merely demonstrates one of the differences between an
abductee and a contactee, albeit an abductee whom ETs treated in a special
manner, and a contactee whom his ETs treated in quite a different, very special
manner.

•  5C. CARELESS TREATMENT OF SLIDES BEFORE 1977. Here
Maccabee wondered why Billy would have treated his original color slides "so
carelessly" that there was uncertainty as to which were originals and which were
copies. If one stops to consider that already by the summer of 1976 Meier had
accumulated some 300 photos showing his contactors' beamships, one sees that he
quite likely felt he could afford to loan quite a few of them out to friends and
acquaintances. By the time that Wendelle Stevens started investigating the case
in late 1977, however, Meier had learned better than to loan out his photos, as
some of them had not been returned, and with some others there was evidently
reason to believe that only copies had been returned. By 1978, Stevens had
visited Meier for sufficiently long periods as to receive his partial trust. Yet
even then, when Stevens persuaded Meier to loan him some 40 of his originals
from which to make copies, he was obligated to have a member of Meier's group of
closest followers (Bernadette Brand) accompany him with the original color
slides; they went to a photo shop in the town of Winterhur to have
internegatives made (Stevens, 1995b). Stevens was rather certain that these 40
color slides were the originals, judging by their appearance and sequencing
printed on their cardboard frames, and fairly sure that the photo shop did not
substitute copies during the day's wait before he and Brand received back what
seemed to be the originals judging from the frames.

Thus Meier's behavior here was not in any way suspicious of that of a hoaxer,
but was realistic. If he had been a hoaxer, his close friends or acquaintances
would have known of it, and so would persons living in surrounding areas. If he
had been a hoaxer, he would likely have shown Stevens only particular photos he
could utilize in making copies, rather than letting Stevens choose whichever
ones he wished. If he had been a hoaxer, he simply would not have taken numerous
photos of a model UFO, suspended in one manner or another, on occasion after
occasion, for each of which he risked the chance of later detection of a
suspension line showing upon careful inspection of the photo, a point of
suspension higher up showing, lack of haze effect showing, or a model UFO out of
focus by being too close to the camera whose focusing mechanism was jammed at a
stop just short of the infinity setting, etc. If there were only a 2% chance
that any of these and other problems would later be noticed on any given photo,
then for 300 photos, for example, the odds would be only 1 in 429 (assuming
randomness of errors) that a fatal error would not show up on any of them, which
the hoaxer himself might fail to detect. After Michael Malin of JPL was shown
some of Meier's movie films, and tried to visualize how they could all have been
contrived, he is quoted as saying, "I'm sure he's clever. He's a sharp guy"
(Kinder, 1987, p. 242). However, a clever hoaxer would not like such high odds
of risking exposure of the truth, and would therefore not fabricate a huge
number of fake photos.

•  5D. SUPPORT LINES IN PHOTOS? Here Maccabee made a very
serious charge: "Photographic analyses of Billy's photos have turned up some
overt artifacts (for example, a line above an object suggestive of a support)."
Yet he did not supply any reference to any of these analyses. If he was
referring to Kal Korff's (1981) booklet, it doesn't require much analysis to
find numerous fatal
flaws and false claims there. If referring to Korff (1980), there an
edge-enhanced version of a Meier-case beamship is shown in which a large number
(about 50) of vertical line segments show up; one of these was claimed to be a
supporting string or wire. Maccabee may have been referring to this.

A very definite problem has been caused by the debunking efforts against
Meier's experiences and photographic evidence having been widespread within
ufology over the past two decades. A frame of mind within ufology towards the
Meier case soon developed that is akin to the frame of mind within mainstream
science towards the UFO phenomenon as a whole, involving the "curtain of
ridicule" that grew both naturally and out of an official policy of debunking
UFO reports (Maccabee, 2000, p. 256). To wit: to denounce the genuineness of
Meier's evidence became almost mandatory in order to pass the test of "political
correctness" within the field of ufology. This has produced the problem of peer
pressure providing motivation for dishonest analyses and manipulation of Meier's
photographs, which modern technology and techniques has made simple to
accomplish. As a result, claims of the nature of what Maccabee has passed along
above have been made without supportive evidence or honest proof being required.
It seems that the only hope for objective analyses in such cases in the future
will require a balanced panel of experts for purposes of ensuring that photo
materials of highest quality and closest to the originals are selected for
analysis, and for managing the photographs, carrying out the analyses under each
others' watchful eyes at all times, and agreeing to make public the findings.

A possible complication in selecting photos for analysis arose after Billy
Meier announced in 1998 that he had been informed by his ET contactors' leader
(Ptaah) that some 230 of his photos had been subject to possible faking or
manipulation (discussed in Contact Report #260 of Feb. 3, 1998). These involved
film he had allowed a certain photographer to have developed at low cost, and
involved photos mostly from his 5-day space trip (Stevens, 1988, pp. 283-339).
Whether this information is genuine or is instead disinformation provided by
Ptaah for the purpose of plausible deniability, may be uncertain. Meier's
contacts have continued over the years, though much less frequently after the
mid 1980s than during 1975-78. The careful investigator will distinguish between
what Billy reports from his own experience and what he reports being told by his
ETs.

•  5E. NO PHOTO OF A WITNESS OTHER THAN BILLY? Maccabee
wrote, "None of Billy's UFO photos has a person other than Billy in it. A photo
that included another person would provide documentation of a multiple-witness
event, one witness being the photographer." Here, Maccabee failed to mention
that one of the several requirements Meier was under, apparently in keeping with
an alien strategy of plausible deniability, was that he not permit any others to
accompany him all the way to the site of any of their contact or photo sessions
(Stevens, 1982, pp. 64, 126; Moosbrugger, 2000, pp. 91-93). Evidently an ET
group that provides a man with many hundreds of opportunities to click the
shutter of his camera with their UFO in view needs to be much more careful about
upholding this requirement than another ET group that provides a person with
just one or two photo opportunities. However, the incident between the beamship
and the jet Mirage fighter, under 2A. above, could satisfy Maccabee's plaint
here, since the evidence indicates that the beamship was interacting with the
jet fighter plane, whose pilot obviously witnessed the beamship, which had been
its target during its many passes at it. Ten of the 14 photos in that series
showed both the aircraft and the beamship (Stevens, 1982, p. 356; 1987, p. 443).

•  5F. NO DISTANCE INFORMATION? "Billy always took mono
photos, i.e., used a single camera..." Therefore, "Billy's photos provide no
conclusive information on the distance to the UFOs." However, on two occasions
it is definite that the beamship was partially obscured by ground or tree,
respectively, at a substantial distance from the camera (roughly 30m and 90m,
respectively: the brow of the hill, and the mature
abies alba tree). The
imprecision in the estimated distance in these instances is not so great that
they could be off on the low side by more than 50%. In a third instance, the
beamship interacted with the top of a mature tree a considerable distance from
the camera (see below).

Additionally, by 1981 Meier had acquired the use of a video camera in
addition to a different still-picture camera, and was given the opportunity to
use both on April 3rd of 1981. Twice when taking the video footage he gradually
zoomed in on the "wedding cake" UFO (E.g., see Elders & Elders, 1983, p. 70;
Stevens, 1982, pp. 526-527), which was hovering just in front of a tree. By
observing how the different stretches of ground successively come into focus at
increasing distances from the camera, until the UFO and tree are both in focus
at the camera's greatest focal length, one can be certain that the UFO was no
small model close to the camera. (A copy of the video may be available from
Meier's support group in
Schmidrüti, or a video of a projection of it from the conveners of the (1999) International UFO Congress.)

•  6A. 8MM MOVIE FILM CUT AND SPLICED. Here Maccabee
noted that the segments of 8mm film footage that Billy took and had spliced
together and placed onto one reel "has obviously been cut at a number of places,
sometimes where the UFO image jumps in position from one frame to the next."
What he omitted to inform the reader, however, is the fact that this footage had
been loaned to a television studio for their use in a program about the case,
and when the reel was finally returned, it was later found that only a copy of the film was
on the returned reel. Meier then learned that the copy had been made only after
several cuts and splices in his original film had been introduced. However, his
comments on the videotape indicate his belief that this jump from one
position to another (at the Bachtelhörnli-Unterbachtel site) had not been
due to a cut in the film. This agrees with the fact that a portion, at least, of
the craft is seen in both positions at once during the one frame of the jump.

•  6B. BILLY DID NOT PAN WITH MOVIE CAMERA. Maccabee then
commented upon the fact that the movie film Billy shot shows the UFO moving in
front of a stationary background; "there is no evidence that he panned with the
motion of a UFO (which would require him to be behind the camera...Thus, if a
hoax, he could have moved the UFO by himself.)" It of course in no way
incriminates Billy that when he brought along a movie camera with him on his
moped he also brought along a tripod on which he would mount it. What Maccabee
failed to mention is that Meier used the tripod so that he could take still
pictures at the same time as the movie camera was running. (Meier learned that
the ETs could turn his 8mm-movie camera on and off remotely from their hovering
craft (Stevens, 1982, p. 282) while he took pictures with his still camera.) A
one-armed man cannot take pictures with a camera in his one hand and pan with a
movie camera at the same time. Maccabee also failed to mention that a one-armed
hoaxer would have required one if not two or three accomplices in order to have
rigged model-UFO arrangements that would begin to achieve the reality seen in
Meier's movies and pictures. An assumption that a one-armed hoaxer could have
set everything up, and operated it all himself, is not plausible in this case.

•  6C. THE UFO UNDERWENT MANEUVERS. Maccabee next
remarked about the movie-film segment in which the beamship oscillates in
pendulum-like movements, with some wobbling added, above a conifer tree
(Stevens, 1982, pp. 280-281; see also Maccabee, 1989b). This was on March 18th,
1975.

Fig. 5.
Superposed frames from the "Beamship: The Movie Footage" video of Lee
& Brit Elders,
showing one of the pendulum-like swings of the
craft. Interval between images of craft about 0.3 sec.
Brightness and
contrast enhanced.

The implication he was making
here is that the beamship was a suspended model UFO circling from a nearly fixed
point of attachment above a small, young tree close to the camera. Now, from
numerous UFO reports in general one reads of UFOs that wobbled, often like a
falling leaf, and from other reports one reads of UFOs oscillating like a
pendulum (in Tunisia on
9/3/1954, the famous Father Gill case in New Guinea on
6/16/59, in in Tierra del
Fuego on 8/9/1959, near Essex, U.K.,
in 1992; see also Olsen, 1989; Pine, 1993). Olsen pointed out three UFO cases in
which the UFO executed repeated pendular movements. Maccabee (1993) himself
pointed out that some of the videos of the red/white Gulf Breeze UFO disclose
quite regular oscillations. Hence it is well within alien capability to maneuver
their UFOs in this manner when desired. Maccabee (1989a) failed to mention this
possibility or that aliens could be intelligent enough to possess a strategy of
dealing with us that includes the plausible-deniability factor. This film
segment was the first one that Billy took, on March 18, 1975, so it would not be
surprising if his ETs went to extra effort at that time to establish right away
a semi-plausible cause that would allow skeptics to deny the reality of this and
later pieces of Meier's film evidence.

I had pointed out (Deardorff, 1989) that in one or more instances the UFO in
this movie segment changed its direction of oscillation rather abruptly with no
change in tilt of its vertical axis (see next paragraph), and that it twice
hovered absolutely motionless for many seconds (20 seconds in one instance). To
this, Maccabee (1989c) responded that a model UFO suspended by a string from a
pole could have one or more strings attached to it laterally with which to cause
an abrupt change in its state of motion. However, the response here is that it
would require measured and orchestrated pulls on three strings at once to
achieve an abrupt state of prolonged motionless, which in turn would require
three hoaxers plus Meier, if one of them were holding up a long support pole.
All this is quite implausible, considering that in 26 years no hoaxers have ever
been identified or come forward to confess their alleged handiwork, and no
skeptic has come up with a satisfactory replication of this movie segment using
a model. Besides, Maccabee had earlier criticized Meier for his use of a tripod
to support the movie camera, rather than panning with the camera, as if this had
allowed him to maneuver a model UFO around in the absence of any
confederate hoaxers.

At one point (at about 06:19:18, frame 20, on the Genesis III video-tape
counter), when the craft was 2/3 into

Fig. 6.
Superposed frames from the "Beamship: The Movie Footage" video of Lee
& Brit Elders,
showing a left-to-right swing of the craft changing
to towards-the-camera. Interval between images about 0.2
sec.
Brightness and contrast enhanced.

a
left-to-right swinging movement, it abruptly shifted to a towards-and-away
movement without any jerkiness, as seen above. It might be thought that, if a
model UFO were involved, this could be accomplished by suddenly moving the tip
of the imagined support pole closer to the camera, or moving the entire pole
further behind the camera. However, such a change in momentum could not then be
accomplished without the model UFO experiencing an abrupt tilt towards
the camera. No tilt in any direction accompanies this maneuver, as seen in Fig.
6. Instead, one is again forced to hypothesize Maccabee's multi-string scenario,
with one of the three strings being connected to the craft's rim at a point that
faces the camera and being managed by a hoaxer's accomplice who stands alongside
or behind the camera. Later (below) we find, however, that such a string would
need to have been some 50 ft in length, with slack maintained in it much of the
time during the craft's maneuvers, but without such slack ever becoming
entangled in the tree!

An equally implausible part of Maccabee's claim here, however, is that the
tree was a small one,

Fig. 7.
Frame from "The Meier Chronicles" video, just as the base of the beamship
passed behind the tip
of the tree, March 18, 1975. Brightness and
contrast enhanced. Courtesy Lee & Brit
Elders.

such that it could be rather close
to the movie camera with a model UFO suspended above it. The tree seen above
appears to be mature, judging from the density of its branches and from the
small-branch new growth extending out from the denser outline of the tree. The
tree's height appears to be 50-80 times the length of the new growth seen on its
left side; using 15cm (6 inches) for the average annual growth of outer
branches, the tree is then 7 to 12 meters tall, or 24 to 39 feet tall, and
therefore at a considerable distance from the camera. As far as one can tell,
the craft, tree and house are in equally good (or poor) focus.

In watching the movie itself at Meier's residence, the viewers agreed that
the ship appeared to go behind the tree at this point. However, this is not
quite definite in the video copies, as the movie was shot on a grey day when
there was some mixed rain and snow (Stevens, 1982, p. 280), resulting in little
contrast. However, on one of the craft's maneuvers it passed just over the top
of the tree, causing the uppermost 15% of the tree to suddenly swerve to the
right and then just as quickly recover. (It may be mentioned that a similar
event occurred during the 13 August, 1947 sighting at Salmon Dam, Idaho. Trees
whipped violently as the UFO raced overhead (Keyhoe, 1950).) Maccabee was aware
of this tree-top swerve (Maccabee, 1989b, p. 11), and so knew better than to
make the assumption that the UFO could be a model dangled close to the camera
with the tree being much farther away. The conclusion one comes to from the
appearance of the tree, however, is that it was not a small tree close to
the camera, and so the UFO could not have been a small model dangled just
above or behind it.

Fig. 8.
Section of Meier's 18 March 1975
film segment taken from Maccabee's Fig.
2
but enhanced here in contrast and
brightness.

This conclusion is supported by a figure within Maccabee's own website
analysis. A section from his Fig. 2, after being enhanced in brightness and
contrast, appears in Fig. 8 on the right. One can see the lighter hue of the
side of the house underneath much of the lower edge of the tree's canopy. This
lighter hue would not show up if it had been a small tree much closer to the
camera than to the farmhouse in the distance; instead the darker hue of the
ground and grass would then occupy that strip of the film.

Fig. 9.
Section of a photo
taken in western Oregon in
March. Tiny tree in
foreground
and large tree in background
denoted by
arrows.

This flaw in the hoax hypothesis is
exemplified by the photo in Fig. 9 on the left. The small, 2½-ft tree in the
foreground (white arrow) was about 50 ft from the camera. (Further below we
discuss Maccabee's more recent finding that the tree, if a model tree or very
young tree, was only some 2½- or 3-ft tall, and was about 55 ft from the
camera.) It had no limbs in its lowest third, yet one cannot begin to view
underneath it to see anything at any appreciable distance behind it—in
particular, to view the tree and house in the background (yellow arrow). This is
true even though I took the photo from a squatting height (not quite 3 ft),
whereas Meier's movie-camera height on the tripod was about 5 ft; and even
though the distance of the camera from the house was less in this example than
in Meier's film. The problem is this: the eye-level, or camera level, would have
to be right down at ground level, but at any significant distance away from an
infant tree the camera's view would then be totally obstructed by meadow grass
or its dentritus near the camera, or by any slight hump in ground level nearby.

In Fig. 8 the darkest region underneath the tree's canopy, encompassing the
tree's trunk, appears to be located somewhat to the left of the centerline of
the tree's perimeter. This, and the out-jetting of several isolated branches to
the right suggest that the right-hand side was the side more sheltered from the
stronger prevailing winds; the left side of the film frame would then point
towards a southwesterly direction.

Fig. 10. A
wider-angle view of the same general scene
as in Meier's movie film.
The tree was no longer present in 1979.
From Genesis III's "Beamship:
The Movie Footage."

The shadowing from the sun
in Fig. 10 below—a photo inserted into the Genesis III video showing taken by
Jun-Ichi Yaoi of Nippon TV at the same site circa 1979—is consistent with this
conclusion if Yaoi's film had been taken in the afternoon.

MORE ON THE PENDULUM-LIKE MANEUVERS. Very recently Maccabee
(2002) amplified upon his (1989b) "pendulum" paper in an Internet article. Here I shall
briefly quote places from it where important factors were overlooked, and
discuss an important new finding he made.

The tree later disappeared. Maccabee remarked that "there is a
farmhouse in the distance but there is no tree blocking the view of the
farmhouse." In a later amplification, he added, "Note: hearsay testimony barely
recalled, but interesting anyway. I was told the following by someone years ago.
I was told this by Yaoi or by someone who was aware of Yaoi's investigation.
Regarding the tree which, according to Meier, was 'removed' by Semjase, if I
recall correctly, Yaoi asked the occupant of the farmhouse if he was aware of
the tree disappearing. He responded that there had never been a tree at that
location." What Maccabee didn't mention was what the witness, Meier, learned
about this. He was told by his contactor, Semjase, that the Pleiadians/Plejarens
had carefully removed the memory of this tree from those who had definite
memories of it, and the same also for the tree that figured prominently in
Meier's Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden photo session. The exception was Meier himself, for
whom the memories were left intact; also, however, diffuse memories of the
latter tree were allowed certain FIGU members who had traveled to the site and
observed that tree before it had vanished (see Moosbrugger, 1977,
2001).

The weather. Maccabee noted Meier's remarks on Yaoi's video tape when
his movie segments were being projected on the screen, that it had been raining
and snowing. Then he mentions, "Observation: the sky appears featureless in the
movie (video) and the scene seems reasonably clear, i.e., not obstructed by
snow, rain or dust." A fair conclusion one may come to is that there had been
light rain mixed with melting snow either at the time of Meier's filming or
shortly before, but this was not a heavy enough precipitation rate to produce a
noticeable obstruction in the visibility. There is no reason to doubt Meier's
word on this.

Cutting and splicing of the film. On this Maccabee wrote, "The jump in
UO position occurs at the same time as a vertical jump in the whole picture.
This vertical jump in the picture, up and then down, is typical for 8 mm home
movies that have been imperfectly spliced together. (When two sections of the
film are spliced together the sprocket holes along the edge of each piece of
film must be matched perfectly. Otherwise the film slips a small amount as the
splice travels through the framing mechanism. This slippage appears as a
vertical jump in the picture on the screen until the sprocket teeth again match
the sprocket holes exactly.) Hence one concludes that Meier's film itself had
been cut and spliced at the locations of these frames."

By not referring to the history of Meier's
film segments, Maccabee probably leaves a misleading impression here. The cuts
and splices were made while the original movie film was out of Meier's
possession, loaned out to the TV station in Munich. After the reel had been
returned it was learned that only a copy of the original was on it. During the
process of making a copy, any jumps in the film's position initiated at splice
points naturally carry over onto the film copy. Thus, the telltale jumps
indicative of cutting and splicing show up on the later video copies of the film
copy.

It would not be surprising if, at the points of splicing, film had been
snipped out that showed the treetop having been briefly swayed over as the
beamship passed near it, with the one episode of this still on the film being an
oversight of those who did the cutting and splicing. Meier was as upset as
anyone over the loss of his originals, and there is no need to assume he or an
unknown accomplice doctored the film. Evidently, those who wish that Meier's
contacts had never happened feel that by destroying or altering his evidence
they can lead others to believe it was all hoaxed.

Maccabee went on to refine his earlier estimations on pendular motions,
obtaining an average period for the oscillation or swinging motions of 4.5 sec,
which corresponds to a pendulum length (or suspension string length for a model
UFO) of about 16 ft. Since the maneuvers varied, however, between transverse
oscillations, nearly longitudinal oscillations, and conical or elliptical
oscillations, he reasoned that the object's suspension point must have been
moved around considerably, and that this would lead to a somewhat shorter period
of oscillation on the average, corresponding to a pendulum length of around 14
ft. This, combined with measurements of the amplitude of the swinging motion
relative to the width of the oscillating object in the film, led to the
conclusion that if a model UFO were involved that was about 1 ft in width, the
tree about which the object maneuvered would then have been 2 to 3 ft in height.

Maccabee's more
recent finding. A few of the object's maneuvers involved swinging
motions towards and away from the camera, but still centered over the tree.
Maccabee realized that the change in apparent size of the object when closest to
the camera versus farthest away, combined with the estimate of the amplitude of
the object's oscillation (covering roughly an arc of 10-ft width as determined
with the aid of the "pendulum's" length), yields an estimate of its distance
from the camera. For example, if the tree were only 6 ft from the camera and the
object were a 1-ft model UFO, then when the model was only about 1 ft away from
the camera it would appear huge, while when it was 11 ft away, on the opposite
extreme of its oscillation, it would appear an order of magnitude smaller in
size. His calculations on this yielded a distance away of some 50 or 55 ft,
since the ratio of apparent sizes, near and far, was only about 1.2, not an
order of magnitude greater. Since this is a rather critical finding, I have
repeated the exercise, below.

Two frames below, a few seconds apart, show the object when it was close to
the camera, and most distant, respectively.

Fig. 11,
above: Frame from Genesis III's video "Beamship: The movie footage",
when the craft was
near the end of a longitudinal swing close to the
camera. March 18, 1975. In this portion
the video camera had zoomed in
on the movie screen.

Fig. 12,
above: Frame from Genesis III's video "Beamship: The movie footage"
2.7 sec later, when the craft was
near the end of a longitudinal swing
away from the camera.

There were about 3 oscillations of this nature at this time, not directly to
and away from the camera but at an angle of perhaps 20° off. The amplitude of
the swings at this time appears to be about the same as in its previous
transverse oscillations, which Maccabee estimated as being 5 ft. I find the
ratio of the object's apparent width when closest (w1
and Fig. 11) to when it was farthest (w2 and Fig. 12)
to be 1.22 (the extra non-significant digit is carried temporarily to avoid
buildup of round-off error). Had the motion been viewed from a point to the
right where the oscillation was exactly to and fro, this ratio would have been a
little greater, namely 1.22 divided by the cosine of the angle, or 1.30. Now if
the distance to the tree is D and the 5-ft amplitude of the oscillation is r,
then for a direct to-and-fro oscillation we have:

w1 / w2 = (D + r) /
(D - r) = 1.3

since the apparent width is inversely proportional to the distance of the
object. The solution for D above is 38 ft, and does not require quantitative
knowledge of the object's diameter. Maccabee arrived at D = 55 ft, perhaps due
to the variability in the object's oscillations and his having utilized
different frames of the film than the above.

For a model UFO suspended from the tip of a pole above the camera's view, one
sees then that the length of the pole would have to be somewhere between 50 and
70 ft in length, if the pole were held by someone standing just behind or
alongside the tripod-mounted camera, and if one end of the pole were grounded
for necessary stability of support. It might be argued that a hoaxer could be
standing to the left of the postulated tiny tree and would then be out of sight
if he were only 10 ft away -- the distance then to the left side of the frame.
However, for a support pole extending in from the left not to be visible within
the upper left of the frame of view would require a pole (angled upwards at
about 45°) even longer than 70 ft; this is, because the distance above a 1-ft
model UFO at tree-top to the top of the frame would then be about 15 ft, whereas
the length of the hypothesized support string attached to the pole is only 16
ft. Any such pole would be far too long to expect that a model UFO could be held
stationary for many seconds.

Towards the end of the UFO's maneuvers, it hovers completely motionless over
the tree for 14 sec; movements as small as 1/10 of the craft's width (about 1
inch for a 1-ft model) would have been clearly visible. Such stationarity would
not be achievable if it were a model freely suspended from even a 21-ft
hand-held or hand-guided pole. Using a 21-ft pole with one end anchored in the
ground, and a 3/4 pound simulated UFO model (skillet lid) at the end of a 14-ft
line, the minimal swaying motions of a model I could achieve, with breezes less
than 5 miles per hour, was 3 inches. If this had been a 70-ft pole, these
unavoideable movements including bobbing motions would have been amplified by a
factor of at least 3.

Maccabee (1989c, p. 24) had suggested that such a maneuver could have been
accomplished if string(s) had been attached to a model (presumably to its rim).
However, it would require three hoaxers spaced triangularly apart,
simultaneously pulling equally (and somewhat downward) on three thin lateral
strings attached to the model, in order to try to hold it motionless during this
period, while a fourth hoaxer tried to hold the pole steady. It seems very
unlikely that this attempt would succeed, even if the hoaxer holding up the pole
were to have rested it in a well braced support; oscillations of as little as
1/10 of the UFO model's height (about 1/2 inch) would be readily noticeable in
running the film.

There is still another problem with the "lateral strings" portion of the
model hypothesis. All the while the model would be oscillating back and forth,
and around the tree top, the three hoaxers holding onto the lateral strings
would need to keep the strings almost taut, without interfering with the
object's pendular-like oscillations. Otherwise, slack in one or more lateral
strings would cause it to become entangled in the tree and quickly put an end to
the attempted hoax. Two of these strings would need to be some 15 to 25 ft or
more in length, and the third about 50 ft as mentioned earlier, so that the
hoaxers holding them could stay out of the movie camera's view. (At a distance
of 55 ft a 1-ft object having the apparent size of the UFO in the 8mm movie
would indicate a camera focal length of about 35 mm, which yields a field of
view of width 13°. From this the minimal length of any such lateral strings may
be estimated.) The whole operation would be totally impractical, even if the
postulated lateral strings were wielded using fishing poles; just ask any fly
fisherman! For such reasons we have not seen videotapes presented in which
skeptics have attempted to discredit this film segment of Meier's using a model
UFO, a long pole, lateral strings and a small tree, whether such tree were to be
located 38 ft or 55 ft from the camera.

It may be mentioned that an Italian ufologist, M. Verga, has tried to
debunk this movie film segment, pointing to Maccabee's earlier presentation
on it. However, he was apparently unaware of these points of genuineness and of
why a hoaxing attempt would not have been successful.

•  7A. NO PHOTO OF A TRANSPORT BEAM. Here Maccabee's
(1989a) criticism was: "Billy talked of being transported onto the spacecraft,
but he produced no pictures (of which I am aware) depicting any phenomenon
associated with that transportation." Again, Maccabee failed to mention the
strict precautions Meier's ETs took for their craft not to be in a position
where others could get any clear daytime photographs of it. I.e., he failed to
allow for an alien strategy involving plausible, or semi-plausible, deniability.
Any photo showing Meier being transported into a craft would of course have
violated this precaution. Most of the time, when Meier was "beamed up" for a
contact session, however, or beamed back down, it was by some means of instant
dematerialization and rematerialization. Witnesses have on occasion come very
close to observing the former (see Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 117-118), as well as
the latter (click here, here or here). Either event
occurs far too unexpectedly and suddenly for anyone to be prepared to film or
videotape it.

On one occasion
a witness in a car accompanied Meier towards a contact session one night as far
as was permitted, after which Billy went on alone for quite a ways on his moped,
and was then taken aboard by one means or another. From inside the craft up in
the sky, Meier was allowed and able to speak to his friend via his two-way
radio, one set of which was inside the car. The verification involved his friend
sighting the "UFO" (a faintly illuminated oval disc) from the vicinity of his
car, and telling Meier over the radio that it was too faint, and asking if he
could get Semjase to make it brighter. Just a few seconds afterwards the UFO
shone brighter and started blinking in intensity. Though not photographic
evidence, this, along with the rest of the report written by the witness
himself, indicates that Meier had indeed been taken aboard the craft, and is
excellent confirmatory evidence of the reality of his contacts. See also Stevens
(1993, pp. 290-293), which includes Meier's conversation during this contact
(#73) while he was within the beamship, including his words to the witness down
below.

•  7B. BEAMSHIP-INDUCED "CROP" CIRCLES. There was a
circular area of dead grass left behind in connection with the Ed Walters UFO
case (Walters & Walters, 1994, p. 143, Photo F), and so Maccabee mentioned
the "saucer nests" many times left behind after Meier's many contacts for which
the beamship had descended to ground level. His apparent criticisms of this were
that (a) the grass within the swirls of pressed-down meadow grass in Meier's
case did not die, (b) the swirls' diameters of about 6 feet were much smaller
than the reported 23-foot diameter of the beamships, and (c) no tests were
afterwards performed on the swirled grass or soil underneath.

Regarding (a), the fact that the grass remained alive and growing yet
remained bent over next to the ground within counterclockwise swirls (Elders, et
al., 1979, p. 60-61; Elders & Elders, 1983, pp. 52-53; Kinder, 1987, photo
facing p. 155; Stevens, 1989, pp. 213-220, 464-473; Moosbrugger, 2001, Figs.
37-44), is more impressive than if the grass had died. I.e., killing the grass
would be much simpler for a hoaxer to accomplish. These circular swirls were
first commented upon by Meier in 1976 (Stevens, 1993, p. 143: Contact #60 on
July 29th, 1976), while the first crop circles of similar nature did not start
receiving much attention until 1981 when the matter was first brought to the
attention of the British press (Delgado & Andrews, 1989, p. 5).

Fig. 13. A set
of three counter-
clockwise swirls appearing after
one contact. From
the video
"The Meier Chronicles."
Courtesy Lee & Brit
Elders.

Fig. 14. Closeup
shot of one such swirl.
From the video "The Meier Chronicles."
Courtesy Lee
& Brit Elders.

Fig. 15. A set
of three counterclockwise
swirls after another contact. From
the
video "The Meier Chronicles."
Courtesy Lee & Brit
Elders.

Regarding (b), in a serious oversight Maccabee failed to mention that the
imprint left behind in the meadow grass, by the craft his alien contactors used
most often, always consisted of three such counterclockwise swirls
equilaterally spaced. These fit within a greater circular area about 17
feet in diameter. Meier of course already knew that the three circular areas
corresponded to the beamship's three broad touchdown supports, and in response
to his questioning he was told by his contactor in general terms about there
being anti-gravity oscillations associated with these supports that affected the
underlying grass or plants (Stevens, 1993, pp. 143-144).

Re (c), these early "crop circles" occurred years before crop-circle
investigators had made it an accustomed procedure to test samples of bent-over
grain and associated soil in the laboratory (see Delgado, 1992, pp. 145-153). If
it had occurred to Meier or his close followers, or to Stevens, to have such
tests performed, would they have felt there was a university department
somewhere that would look into the matter seriously?

•  8B. TESTING FOR HOAXED PHOTOS. Maccabee claimed,
"There is no evidence that Billy carried out any experiments which would help
investigators determine whether or not the photos were fake. He did not use a
camera provided by UFO investigators." However, he did nothing to discourage
Stevens from carrying out such tests. Stevens had a Hollywood studio construct a
1.5-foot diameter, lightweight model of one of the craft Meier photographed in
1975, and brought it with him to Switzerland on one of his trips circa 1979 or
1980. Then, using the same camera Meier had used in 1975-76, plus one of his
own, they took photos of the model suspended by a monofilament line from a long
pole, with a scenic background, using various lens aperture settings and shutter
speeds. They found that when the horizon was in good focus, the model was not.
When Stevens focused on the model even when it was as far away as 30 feet, so as
to yield a clear image of it, the horizon features were in poor focus. Or, in
testing Stevens' camera on a 6-inch model five feet away, "all other objects
beyond 10 feet from the camera were badly out of focus" (Stevens,
1981b, p. 12). Also, in comparison with the beamship images in Meier's photos,
the model reflected light too brightly and its lines were too distinct (Stevens,
1982, p. 290). The model UFO did not pass the test. Stevens left the Hollywood
model beamship with Meier.

It should be noted that according to Moosbrugger (2001, pp. 195-196), while
Meier was taking his early Jakobsberg-Allenberg photos on Feb. 27, 1975, he
approached the beamship too closely, and both the viewfinder of his Olympus 35
ECR camera and its exposure meter were rendered inoperative from then on (in the
book, the wrong photo number is assigned here).

By the time Stevens and his team first arrived in Switzerland in late 1977,
Meier had had no photo opportunities for an entire year, and Meier did not then
anticipate being allowed to take further photos (which did happen in 1980-81,
however). So the thought may not have occurred to supply Meier with some kind of
range-finding or stereo camera that he might be able to operate with one hand.
By the time of his 1981 photos, someone had equipped him with a zoom-lens video
camera, however, as already noted.

•  8C. BEAMSHIP MODELS. Here it is claimed that
"Investigators found burned slides of model UFOs...Billy's explanation was that
he carved models of the craft to get better pictures." Better than what, one
wonders—better than his genuine photos? Early on, after Meier had received
criticism that his photos could be hoaxes involving models, he acquired one or
more rather crude models of beamships to photograph and see if they would look
at all realistic compared to his many genuine photos. According to Kinder (1986,
p. 225), he made one of these models himself, carving it. The resulting slides
of models didn't measure up at all, so he trashed some of them (Stevens, 1982,
p. 285), and was going to trash others but was convinced not to (Kinder, 1986,
pp. 225-226). Meier's wife evidently tossed some of these slides into the
fireplace, but Billy arrived on the scene in time to retrieve some of them. The
accounts differ somewhat (see also Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 196-199), but none
indicate that Meier acquired model UFOs to get better pictures. Instead,
it was to see if the critics' claims could be true. Only two models closely
resembled a craft in Meier's photos: One was that which Stevens had a Hollywood
studio construct, and the other was one that Meier's contactor Semjase
temporarily left with Meier in 1975 (Moosbrugger, 2001, Fig. 65). The latter is
listed in Meier's photo collection (Verzeichnis, photo #63, Sept. 18,
1975) and clearly labeled as a model. Meier's contactors, however, utilized some
six or seven different types of "UFO" craft during his contacts of 1975-81.

It is otherwise unheard of for an ET to leave a model UFO in the hands of a
witness or contactee, but in the Meier case it fits in with the large number of
contacts and photo ops he had, and the uniqueness of the case in many other
respects. The supposed reason why Semjase left this model was so that if the
"heat" grew too strong for Meier to take, he could show the model and falsely
confess that he was a hoaxer; for who would bother to try to assassinate a
confessed UFO hoaxer? But Billy did not go that route, although the many
assassination attempts against him commenced in January of 1976 (Moosbrugger,
2001, pp. 251-269). However, I view this alien model "UFO" as being, for the
most part, but another piece of plausible deniability, since
skeptics can assume it was a model Meier somehow acquired, then used and later
destroyed. Semjase insisted on receiving the model back from Meier a few weeks
later (Moosbrugger, 2000, p. 198). Otherwise, it would have been an interesting
artifact for analysis.

In summary of Meier and models, it would be surprising if an intelligent
person who became a UFO contactee and was supplied with many photo opportunities
of their craft, and who received criticism that the photos could have been faked
through use of models, would not want to take pictures of one or more
models to see if the critics' claims were reasonable. Meier found they were not.

•  9A. LIE-DETECTOR & PSE TESTS. "Billy has not (so
far as I know) taken a lie-detector test." This is true, but it is surely worth
mentioning that he did submit to a psychological-stress-evaluation—PSE—test in
1978. Five of the key witnesses to the genuineness of various aspects of Meier's
experiences were also given the PSE, worded differently of course for them than
for Meier. After the voice tapes were analyzed, it was found that all had passed
the tests; "no indication of conscious or deceitful intentions was detected on
the part of either Billy or any of the other participants" (Moosbrugger, 2001,
pp. 219-221).

A peculiarity was found in Meier's charts, however, in that his graphical
responses uniformly showed considerably less than the expected amplitude
(Stevens, 1982, pp. 161-173). Possible explanations put forward for this were
that he had been asked stressful questions often in the previous three years, or
that he exhibited a uniformly high stress level that might have been due to
being in constant pain, or being hypnotized or having positive control over his
own autonomic system, as a yogi might have. Stevens pointed out that these were
possibly relevant, because Meier had been in bed suffering from stomach cramps
for several days just before he took the tests, and he had years earlier studied
yoga in India. However, even if Meier's PSE results were then to be considered
too uncertain to draw any conclusion from, the fact that all five key witnesses
passed their tests does strongly favor the reality of Meier's experiences.

•  9B. DID BILLY VISIT A PSYCHOLOGIST? "Billy has
not...been studied by a clinical psychologist (or any other professional). He
has not been hypnotically regressed." As far as I know this is true, but also
irrelevant for judging his credibility. Although such an evaluation could give
indications as to how close to normal the man appears to be, there are quite a
few accounts from first-hand witnesses to indicate Meier possesses psychic
abilities that are very substantially above-average (Kinder, 1987, pp. 112-114,
213; Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 75-83; a simple example is presented here). This degree of
psychic ability would be considered abnormal by the clinical psychologist, and
might cause a psychologist to pronounce him abnormal. However, it would not bear
on Meier's honesty. Yet, it should not be surprising that a true contactee can
demonstrate strong psychic abilities, as even UFO abductees have a tendency in
this direction (Mack, 1994, p. 398; Sprinkle, 1999, p. 137).

CONCLUSION. In summary of Maccabee's article entitled "Billy,
no; Ed, yes": with respect to topics under the first half of the title I have
found all kinds of problems. With respect to the second half of the title, I
believe Maccabee's statements were accurate.

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Contents

References

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Review 46/4 (Winter 2001/2002), p. 14.

Deardorff, J., (1989). Pleiades pendulum (Letter). International UFO
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