More about the Fir Tree

THE TREE'S FOCUS.  Meier's photo #57 is shown again
below, in Fig. 1. An estimate of the length of the branchlet designated by the
two arrows is 20cm.

Fig. 1. Photo #57 with
left portion cropped. Arrows
at upper right delineate a typical
branchlet on the
close-up, out-of-focus tree
branches.

A practical, model UFO close to
the camera would be of similar or somewhat greater width, and hence would have
about the same apparent width on the photo as the beamship has in front of the
tree about which it posed. The distance of this branchlet from the camera is
estimated from the "camera equation" to be some 3m. This equation is:

Distance = (Actual width) x (focal length) ÷ (width on film)

where the focal length was 42mm and the film width was 35mm (film height
about 23.4mm). For this camera's focus mechanism stuck just one notch short of
the infinity setting, corresponding perhaps to a 20m distance of optimal focus,
a 3m distance is indeed too close for an object to be in good focus. According
to Stevens' estimate, an object needed to be about 10m away to show up clearly
in one of Meier's photos (Stevens, 1982, p. 259).
Consistent with this, a similar calculation for a beamship of 7m diameter
indicates that in Fig. 1 it was some 78m away from the camera, and therefore
well within the range of best focus for the jammed focus and f-stop settings on
Meier's Olympus 35 ECR camera. Stevens' estimate agrees with a depth-of-focus calculation, which,
for a camera focal length of 42mm, an f-stop setting of 11 (Stevens, personal
communication), and a central focus distance of 60 ft, yields the region of
satisfactory focus lying between 13.7 ft (4.2m) and "infinity." The tree on the
right is thus too close to lie within this depth of field.

Unfortunately, this clear focus of the UFO and adjacent tree in front of
which it posed here, relative to the out-of-focus nearby tree on the right-hand
side of photo #57, went unmentioned in the key attempt at debunking the case (Korff, 1995). By Korff’s
hypothesis, the tree about which the UFO posed was a small potted tree close to
the camera, and the UFO a model attached to it (Korff, 1995, p. 188). As is
evident, however, such hoaxing gear would then have been too close to the camera
to be in the excellent focus the UFO and adjacent tree display. We pay primary
attention to the Korff 1995 reference here because it is the only Meier-case
debunking attempt that is located in the available literature.

THE TREE'S MATURITY.  In 1985 I showed the photo that best displays the
tree's trunk (#66), plus another of this series, to two professors of Forest
Science at Oregon State University to determine if they could identify the type
of tree. These were Profs. Richard. K. Hermann (now retired) and Edward. C.
Jensen. Hermann was raised in western Germany and was very familiar with this
species of tree. With certainty they stated that it was a mature abies alba,
i.e., a European silver fir. Other forestry experts contacted more recently were
less unanimous about the species identification, with picea abies (Norwegian
spruce) suggested as an additional or secondary possibility (Hanley, 2001; Hansen, 2001; Holdenrieder, 2001).
However, none suggested that it could have been a small potted tree or model
tree. Thus it was no mere 1- or 2m tree, which would exhibit an unmistakably
juvenile appearance in its profile, density of branches and trunk, as will be
discussed soon. Prof. Hermann pointed out that its crown was already showing
signs of “stork-nesting,” or near cessation of vertical growth, due, they
presumed, to the environmental stress of excessive smog east of Zurich and/or to
acid rain. A potted, “baby” tree is far too young to exhibit such effects.

The tree’s trunk alone indicates its general maturity, as seen here in Fig.
2. One may notice a nodule on each side of the upper trunk,

Fig. 2. Enlargement of tree’s
trunk, from photo #66, brightness
and contrast enhanced. See also Elders & Elders
(1983, p. 64).

which the forestry
professors pointed out as being spots where a couple of limbs had been pruned or
broken off, such that later growth had not yet obscured those spots.
Unfortunately, these most important considerations were not investigated by
Korff. This tree was at least 13m tall if the information Meier was told by his
contactor is correct: that the width of this beamship was 7m. In this case, the
trunk diameter down as low as it is visible in the photo would be about 64cm.

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE PHOTO SITE.  "When I was in
Switzerland in May of 1995, I went to Fuchsbuel with a friend and videotaped
what we determined to be the precise spot where Meier took that series. This was
based on Guido Moosbrugger pointing to that area a day or so prior when we were
driving by the Pfaffikersee.

"I stood back where Meier had taken photo #57 showing the out-of-focus tree
limbs on the right side and lined up my shots accordingly. I noticed that many
of the lower tree limbs at the top of the hill seemed to have been sawed off, so
I had to break off a small branch with similar vegetation and had my friend hold
this several feet in front of my tripod-mounted video camera. Realizing that
Meier, of course, was using a still camera--not video--I was only after
establishing perspective and approximate distance relationships.

"We did our best to estimate where we thought the missing tree might have
been located. I figured that based on framing the shots and the lay of the land
there, we must have guessed the location of the tree within approximately twenty
feet of where it actually was.

"As the videotape was rolling, I walked down the hill to several points where
it seemed Meier may have walked to obtain the closer shots of the ship moving
around the tree and panned the camera to match the panorama shown in Meier's
stills. The hill sloped down gently at first but probably about 75 to 100 feet
down the hill from my initial 'tree limb' vantage point, the slope increased
more dramatically. The grass, as far as remembered, was fairly long--anywhere
from 8-14" high or so."
-- Marc Juliano

Juliano's assessment raises the further problem for a potential hoaxer that
the tips of nearby grass blades would show up in any photo that showed a small
potted tree's trunk, since strands of meadow grass two or three feet high later
in spring or in early summer would extend half way up any such portable, potted
tree. Nothing like this shws up in photo #66 (Fig. 2).

DID THE TREE "ROTATE"?   Meier stood at the top of a
hillside in taking his photos, viewing down the slope towards the south and
west.

Fig. 3. Panoramic view in
summer of 2001 looking southwest from the Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden
site.
Courtesy of C. Frehner and J. Jansen. The ground slopes downward away from
the
camera. Left-hand edge of panorama bears about 138° and right-hand
edge about 284°.

Fig.
4. Four of Meier’s photos (Nos. 65,119,57,71) superimposed on the 2001
background
panorama. Courtesy of J. Jansen. Meier walked about in
between taking pictures, seven
more of which looked towards the west or
northwest, as do #57 and #71.

A wooded area lay
behind him. The lowest portion of the tree's trunk had not been visible, due to
the increasing slope of the hillside in the downhill direction, as can be seen
in Fig. 3, a recent panoramic view. (The fact that the tree itself is no longer
existent is discussed further on.) In Fig. 4 below it we see several of Meier’s
photos superimposed upon the landscape panorama, such that the most distant
background matches. The total azimuthal range of the tree as viewed by
Meier's camera is estimated at 85° (with Meier's photo #65 showing the tree as
viewed when he had walked farthest to the northwest, and #69 showing it when he
had walked farthest to the southeast). We discuss this particular aspect because
it was claimed (Korff, 1995, p. 178) that the various vistas taken in by Meier’s
camera encompassed a minimum of 180° of azimuth during this series of photos, in
which case the vistas of the tree would have varied by some 135°. From this
claim, and the prominent gap seen on the left in the tree’s branches near its
top, Korff concluded that Meier (for unknown reasons) had rotated a potted baby
tree with a model UFO attached before shooting each photo in order that the same
side of the potted tree always face the camera. However, a hoaxer using a potted
tree would not likely take any such action that would later give away his fraud.

One may observe that the tree’s profile does differ noticeably over this net
variation in azimuthal view, which is fully consistent with the real tree it is
concluded to be, contrary to Korff’s claim. This is shown in Figs. 5 and 6

Fig.
5. Cropped enlarge-
ment of Meier’s photo #65
-- the view
farthest
towards the southeast

Fig. 6a. Cropped
enlarge-
ment of Meier's photo #66
-- tree viewed
farthest
towards the northwest.
Contrast enhanced.

Fig. 6b. Cropped
enlarge-
ment of Meier's photo #64
-- tree also viewed
towards
the northwest.
Brightness & contrast enhanced.

Fig.
6c. Cropped enlarge-
ment of Meier's photo #69
-- tree also
viewed
towards the northwest.
Contrast
enhanced.

by a detailed comparison between the
tree’s outline over this angular difference. One sees that opposite the gap on
the tree's upper left, the tree when viewed towards the northwest (Fig. 6a,b,c)
exhibits a dense area of foliage, whereas when viewed to towards the south (Fig.
5) the region on the upper right exhibits a relative sparsity of branches. And
viewing the tree's very top, the same 6 or 7 branches can be identified in the
view to the northwest (Figs. 6a,b,c), while they are not present in anything
like the same configuration in the view to the south (Fig. 5).

The rather significant gap seen in the tree's left side somewhat lower down
in Fig. 6b, but not seen in 6a, appears to be a result of damage done to the
tree when the beamship wedged nearly a half of its width into this spot, while
Meier took photo #64 (see blue arrow in Fig. 6c).

All around, the detailed occurrence, positions and orientations of the outer
branchlets are quite different. However, it is the tree's crown that best shows
its distinguishing features, since there the branches are sparsest, allowing
them to show up from all sides without being obscured by intervening branches.
If one compares the top of the tree in these figures, one sees that the branches
there look essentially identical in occurrence and configuration in Figs.
6a,b,c, which were all shot towards the northwest, while they appear entirely
different in Fig. 5, shot towards the south. The photo in Fig. 6b was taken from
a position that looked almost as far to the northwest as does Fig. 6a; the
latter was taken from a spot a little farther down the hillside toward the tree
than Fig. 6b.

This, then, is an instance in which one must pay attention to the details. It
is not too surprising that a couple large-scale features of a tree's outline --
in this instance the gap on the upper left in particular -- could persist over a
90° quadrant and therefore show up on all photos taken within that quadrant.
Careful comparison of the tree's top thus shows that the notion the tree
“rotated” as Meier moved part way around, taking pictures at various times, is a
fiction.

PHOTOGRAPHIC TRICKERY?  In the photos of Figs. 7 and 8
below, we see the UFO directly behind and within the upper part of the tree.

Fig.
7. Meier's photo #71, cropped

Fig.
8. Meier's photo #76, cropped

The fact that
both the craft’s upper bright side and lower dark side are visible through the
manifold irregular gaps in the branches, along with aspects of shadowing seen in
other photos of the craft, plus the sheer number of photos in the series, rule
out photographic trickery. In addition, it has been determined that Meier had no
photo-development equipment of his own. His use of a particular
photo-development shop to take his exposed reels of film to for processing has
been thoroughly investigated and found to be just as Meier related it (Kinder, 1987, pp.
177-180); however he gave some of his exposed reels on other occasions to an
acquaintance to have them developed at a minimal price, and Meier does not rule
out the possibility that some of those photos were manipulated without his
knowledge -- in particular, photos taken on his lengthy space trip (Stevens,
1982, pp. 100-118).

The possibility of computer manipulation to produce the photos shown here is
ruled out by their early date of 1975, well before personal computers became
available and even before the first “Star Wars” movie introduced special effects
in 1977. Hence Meier-case skeptics have settled for the potted “baby” tree
hypothesis here, or even a model tree, in conjunction with a model UFO -- a
hypothesis we see to be fatally flawed.

NOT A POTTED OR MODEL TREE.  This conclusion is so
pivotal that it may be instructive to remind ourselves of the differences to be
expected between a young, potted abies alba and mature ones, if they are not
already

Fig.
9(a). Young, 2m-
tall, potted abies alba
tree (contrast
en-
hanced). Courtesy of
Forest Farm nursery,
Williams,
Oregon.

Fig.
9(b). Abies alba in
Meier’s photo #66,
with contrast
enhanced

Fig.
9(c). Abies
alba in the Black
Forest, Germany
(Gruber,
1994).
This material used
by
permission of John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Fig.
9(d). Abies
alba at Hoyt
Arboretum,
Portland, OR

Fig.
9(e). Artificial tree
for Christmas use
(Tree Classics,
Inc.)

evident. Upon comparing an example
of the former, Fig. 9(a), with the latter (Figs. 9(b),(c),(d)), we see that the
mature trees have developed many offshoots to their main branches along their
greater length, while the very young tree has not had time to grow any in its
upper portion. The abies alba, as well as other species, can develop quite
different profiles and foliage densities, depending upon their age, immediate
and past environments, climate, etc., as in Figs. 9(b),(c) and (d).

The mature abies alba, and Norwegian spruce as well, may exhibit extensive
and numerous preventitious shoots (successive re-branchings), while the very
young tree will not have had time for such development to occur (Gruber, 1994,
p. 278). When present extensively, these additional re-branchings give the
mature fir tree a dense foliage, as in Figs. 9(b),(c) above, in great contrast
to the very young fir, Fig. 9(a). Also, the young fir exhibits a conical outer
shape while the older, mature fir tends to be much more cylindrical, especially
if its crown has suffered from inhibited vertical growth.

Just as important, the diameter of a 30cm model UFO, for example, would not
exceed three lengths of annual limb growth, or about three times the typical
length of one of the twigs seen dangling from the lower portion of the tree in
Fig. 2. Instead, the UFO’s width is seen from Meier's photos to be some 20 times
this length. This order-of-magnitude distinction alone negates the small
potted-tree hypothesis.

A model-tree hypothesis, which has been proposed over the Internet, fails for
similar reasons. In addition, model trees, especially in those days, were not
constructed to look like any particular species of tree, and could not have been
identified as a mature abies alba. Instead, they are constructed to be of
pleasing appearance, symmetric and conical, as in artificial Christmas trees
(Fig. 9(e)), where deformities are undesired. If a symmetric model tree had been
trimmed to have an irregular outline and a bare trunk, the trimmed edges would
then also give it away as a model tree in comparison with the
Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden tree. Also, artificial trees available from stores do not,
of course, exhibit nodules where limbs once grew out.

A VERY LARGE MODEL UFO?  The remaining possibility that
the UFO was not “genuine” is that it was a very large model, many meters in
diameter. This has not been proposed by Meier-case skeptics, probably because of
the tremendous logistical problems that would be encountered in:

(a) constructing and storing such a model without news of this reaching the
ears of anyone in the area who could report their awareness of it to Meier’s
friends or to Wendelle Stevens and his investigative team on their many trips to
Switzerland;

(b) attempting to transport a 7m model UFO, too wide to fit into a two-car
garage, to that location on narrow rugged roads, unnoticed by owner and
neighbors along the way;

(c) setting up ladders, scaling them and attaching such a huge model to the
tree without any support lines or bracing showing up in the photos, and without
attracting the attention of the landowner or a group of curious spectators;

(d) repeating procedure (b) five or six times in the short period of one
afternoon for the different locations of the UFO relative to the tree. A further
reason is:

(e) precisely the same UFO appears in several dozen of Meier’s other photos
taken on other occasions, and in these the UFO has been claimed by debunkers to
be a small model.

A large metallicized balloon has not been proposed either, no doubt because
its manufacture in sufficient structural detail would be very complicated, its
existence also could not likely be kept secret, it would lack sufficient
rigidity to penetrate into the tree’s branches, as in Figs. 6, 7 and 8, and
because of (e) above.

THE VANISHING TREE.  A key reason the baby-tree or
model-tree hypothesis has been promoted, no matter how fatally flawed, is that
within a few weeks after this photo session took place the tree vanished.
After the photos were developed, two of Meier’s friends (Margarite Rufer and
Jacobus Bertschinger) visited the site and noticed that the upper portion of the
tree was faintly glowing. On a subsequent visit to the site not too long
afterward they noticed that the whole tree was dead. On a third trip to the
site, with Meier, they were startled to find the tree entirely absent with no
indication that it had ever existed -- no hole in the ground, no disturbed grass
or dirt, no bark chips or sawdust, no branches, no needles. The only difference
noted was that in the area where the tree had been the grass was up to a foot
taller than elsewhere (Stevens, 1982, pp. 48, 126-127). Hence Fig. 3 does not
show the tree in question.

When Meier, on a later contact, asked his alien contactor what happened to
the tree, she told him that they had “changed its time.” Now, the turning brown
and withering of tree foliage that UFOs approach too closely is well-known
within ufology (Phillips, 1981), and the
glowing of tree branches soon after a UFO was hovering close to them is not
unknown (Faruk, E. A.,
1989). However, the disappearing act that occurred here was again unique and
therefore unacceptable to many ufologists. Although they may concede that what
an advanced alien civilization could do should seem like magic to us (Newman and Sagan, 1981),
if or when any such deed occurs in a particular case, this piece of wisdom is
all too likely to go unnoticed and unheeded. Thus some alternative hypothesis,
no matter how contradictory to the facts, gets promoted, as with the photos
under discussion and the potted-tree fiction. However, as one leading ufologist
has said, “We shouldn’t be surprised at anything we find. We’re ignorant!” (Friedman, 2001).

Friedman’s advice is pertinent regarding other aspects of Meier’s photo
opportunities. How could it be, one may ask, that no one in the Swiss
countryside nearby ever reported seeing the beamships while Meier was
photographing them? When Meier asked Semjase this question on one of his
contacts, she told him that they normally keep their craft invisible, but for
the photo sessions they allowed it to be visible from a very narrow, selected
viewing angle, namely just that of Meier himself. Certainly, if Meier were a
hoaxer whose unknown accomplice(s) had been utilizing helium balloons from which
to support an array of tethering and support wires from which one or more model
UFOs were suspended, as suggested by Korff (1995, pp. 219-220), all this would
have been noticed, reported on and publicized. There was no lack of effort on
the part of the early investigators to uncover reports of this nature from
neighbors living in the general vicinity, and no shortage of skeptical
neighbors. However, no such reports were forthcoming.

A report that relates to this photo series is relevant here. In 1976 or 1977
Meier was told by his alien contactor, Semjase, that they had removed all
specific memories of this particular tree from the mind of its property owner,
in a manner undetectable by him (Moosbrugger, 1977).
Moosbrugger also reports that this man had for years been sawing off the lower
limbs of the tree for use as firewood (Moosbrugger, 2001, p.
137), and this helps explain the extra dense foliage seen in the tree's upper
half. One can scarcely imagine how advanced a level of
psychics/psychology/telepathy would be involved in suppressing such memories
without suppressing other memories. Presumably this man is the Herman Wyss
mentioned by Korff (1995, p. 187), whose residence was located down the hill
from the tree in question, and who declined having knowledge of the tree when
Korff queried him in 1991. Any such alien mind-altering action is, of course, as
unacceptable to us as it is incredible. However, reports abound in the
ufological literature of aliens eliminating or suppressing abduction memories
(e.g., Hopkins, 1981).
It is only prudent to assume that aliens greatly advanced over us in their
evolution would be greatly advanced in all fields of science and technology,
including fields we are not yet aware of, and would not be advanced just in
space travel. They may well be capable of remotely removing selected memories
from a person, as well as implanting thoughts or memories. The implantation of
"screen" memories into the minds of some abductees is a well-known UFO
phenomenon (e.g., see Sandow, 1998; Butler, 1994; Bartley, 2000).

It can well be appreciated that if this tree had not been caused to vanish,
and if Swiss authorities would in that event not have cut it down, it and the 11
photographs would constitute proof positive that the UFO was a large craft, or
beamship, and no small model. This then provides a good example of the Pleiadian
implementation of the plausible
deniability strategy. Without the tree existing as everpresent proof,
negative skeptics can just argue that it's impossible for aliens to do things
that seem impossible to us to do with our present level of science and
technology, and they will generally gain the approval of any scientists who
become informed of the matter.

SHOULD THE TREE HAVE APPEARED IN AN EARLIER PHOTO?

Fig. 10. Meier's
photo #25 taken in February,
1975, from the Fuschsbüel-Hofhalden
site

In discussing this photo-series, we need to
mention one of the beamship photos (#25) that Meier took earlier, on 27
February, 1975, from about the same location (Korff, 1995, pp. 161,188,193). In
that photo, Fig. 10, the tree in question does not appear, whereas the same
forested hill in the middle background does appear in photos #65 and #119 (see
Fig. 4); Korff considered this proof that the tree had never existed. However,
it will be shown below that for photo #25 Meier had stood farther to the
southeast than for photos #65 and #119, and had not pointed his camera far
enough to his right (towards the northwest) to have allowed the tree in question
to appear.

Two distinct features in tree-line height in the middle background are
discernable in both color photos #65 and #119, and these are shown in Fig. 12
below.

Fig. 12.
A cropped portion of Meier's photo #25, top; and below, a cropped portion
of
#119.

Arrow (a) points to a distinctive jump in the far foreground tree
line, and arrows
(b),(c)

to distinctive jumps in tree-line height in the
background.

The angular spacing a-b relative to b-c in photo #119 is seen to be
significantly greater than in photo #25, indicating that #25 was taken from a
position significantly to the southeast of #119. The angular difference, or
parallax, is about 1.3°, relative to the original photo’s 45° field of view.

Fig. 13. Overhead
view of the layout where
Meier took photo #25 in February
from
position 1, and #119 in July from position 2.
Dashed lines
indicate camera's lateral field
of view. Arrows labelled "to 'a'" point
to
feature "a" in Fig. 12. T = tree, which should
not and does not
appear in photo #25.
Drawing thanks to M. Rea.

If the foreground tree line is 300m
distant, simple triangulation indicates that Meier had been standing at least
6.8m farther to the southeast when taking photo #25 than when taking #119.
[tan(1.3°) x 300m = 6.8m.] This is a minimum, because the two lines of sight to
one of the background tree-line features are not quite parallel since the far
background is not infinitely far away.

A plan-view diagram of the layout is shown in Fig. 13. In constructing it,
care was taken to properly position the edges of the photos relative to point
"a" in #25 and #119, and also the location of the tree, which was some 66 meters
from the camera for a beamship width of 7 meters. The 45° arc of each photo's
field of view is indicated. We see that when taking photo #25, Meier’s camera
would need to have been swung at least 5° to the right in order that the
left-hand edge of the abies-alba tree just barely appear in view. Thus, there is
no basis whatever for the claim that the vanishing tree had not been existent in
February, 1975. Yet, it is a conclusion a negative skeptic could easily jump to
if not interested in looking into the details.

A VANISHING TREE TEST CASE.  The vanishing of the abies
alba, or “Wettertanne,” as some of the locals call such a tree, raised
persistent questions and incredulity among some of Meier’s friends, as to how it
could possibly have been accomplished. He was eventually able to convince his
contactor, Semjase, that she should demonstrate that it could actually be done,
and she set a date of Oct. 17th, 1976, for a demonstration. However, she imposed
several confidential conditions: no one could be present when the event
happened, Meier must not point out the tree in advance, and she would not make
her craft visible to anyone on this occasion. On the afternoon of the 17th,
Meier, on his moped, led a group of about a dozen in their cars to a grassy spot
next to a wooded area, where they released a hot-air balloon that Meier and two
friends had constructed a short while before (with some aluminum attached, to
see if it would attract the attention of a nearby radar station). Meier stated
that the vanishing-tree demonstration would occur in that general area, and that
those present should take a close look all around and take photos if desired.

Meier also took some photos, they released the hot-air balloon, and then
Meier left on his moped in the general direction of the balloon’s drift, but
then rode on home. The group followed the balloon along in their cars for a
ways, and later hunted Meier up at his house, where he had been waiting for
them. They all went back to the site where they had released the balloon, whence
Meier asked them if they noticed anything different. They didn’t, until he
pointed out where a 3-5m tall young fir tree had been standing an hour before,
close alongside a shorter shrubby beech tree that still stood, in the grassy
area close to the woods. His beforehand photo proved that this small fir had
existed, and the contorted shape of the beech shrub, where the fir tree had
blocked its growth on one side, helped confirm the fir’s prior existence. There
was no disturbance to the grassy ground that would indicate another tree had
been there (Moosbrugger, 2001, pp. 137-139; Stevens, 1982, pp. 149-152). The
available before- and after-photos, shown in the Moosbrugger reference, are not
shown here, as they are not close-ups. He was one of the dozen witnesses,
another of whom is also identified by name.

This demonstration could not satisfy the witnesses’ desire to know how it was
accomplished, but persuaded them that the Pleiadians could actually perform such
a “magical” act. However, it will not satisfy a skeptical non-witness who
demands conclusive physical evidence and disregards witness testimony. And the
uniqueness of this kind of alien-human interaction tends to further deter
ufologists from examining the Meier case in depth. This is notwithstanding the
fact that numerous UFO sightings are on record in which the witness
unpremeditatedly wished that the UFO would do something and it immediately
obliged: e.g., come closer or shine brighter, or reply to a flashlight or car
headlight signal to the UFO.

THE UFO's "ANTENNA".  It may be necessary to briefly
discuss the antenna-like appendage atop the beamship, or UFO, seen in Fig. 10,
as the skeptic may assume it to be a support rod on a model UFO to which an
invisible line, like fish-line leader, could be attached. It is present also in
the photo series just presented, and is best seen in photo #119 (Fig. 12,
bottom). Since in this series the UFO was a large object and no model, it
follows that the same UFO in Fig. 10 was no small model either. Thus this
appendage may serve some UFO function. When Meier asked his ET contactor about
it, he was told it was part of an energy-collecting device. Whether it was or
wasn't, I don't know, but it was no model-support rod.

DOES ANOTHER TREE LOOK LIKE THIS ONE?   In one of Meier's
8mm-movie-film segments, the beamship or UFO circled repeatedly above a tree
whose outline may superficially resemble that of the abies alba under
discussion. Although Korff did not present and discuss any of Meier's movie-film
segments in his book, he is on record on television for claiming that the tree
at the different site within the movie film looks the same as the
Fuchsbüel-Hofhalden tree (Korff, 1994).

Fig. 14. Left.
Meier's photo #66 from the Fuschsbüel-Hofhalden site,
with insert of a
section from 8mm frame of the 18 March, 1975 movie, enhanced. Courtesy J.
Jansen.
Right. Another video-frame capture of the tree with the
beamship above it, 18 March, 1975.

From this
assumption, Korff brazenly claimed that Meier again utilized the same small
potted tree in a UFO hoax, again facing it the same way towards the camera. This
"movie" tree is quite blurry due to the movie camera and film's poorer
resolution. Nevertheless, very significant differences can be seen between the
two trees. The movie-film tree shows a region of active growth at the center of
its crown that is completely missing in the in-focus tree. On its upper
right-hand side, it exhibits two strong out-branchings not matched at all by the
in-focus tree. While there is a similar gap at the upper left of both trees, at
the underside of its gap the in-focus tree exhibits a much more
pronounced "shelf" of branches, below which the profile is significantly more
vertical than for the movie-film tree. Lower down on the left the in-focus tree
bulges out significantly while the movie-film tree does not. Such differences
are only to be expected, since we have already shown conclusively that the
Fuchsbüel tree was a mature tree.

In conclusion, after ruling out the hoax hypothesis, we are left with the
result that Meier's photos here back him up 100%, and support the witnesses to
the two vanishing trees. Thus, truth can be stranger than fiction, except that
after some 55 years of having experienced the UFO phenomenon, the ET "magic"
involved should not seem so strange to us.

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References

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