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   SUBJECT: MEIER A SECOND OPINION                              FILE: UFO1012   
      
   PART 1   
      
   THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER   
   June 24th, 1987   
      
                          FARMER'S TALES OF SPACE TRAVEL   
                          WON'T FLY WITH MANY UFO BUFFS   
                                 by Keay Davidson   
                             EXAMINER Science Writer   
      
         To  Billy Meier's fans, he's a gentle Swiss farmer who has   
   befriended UFO  pilots  from the Pleiades, a powdery star cluster   
   more than 2 quadrillion miles from Earth.   
      
         To  Meier's  foes,  he's  the  biggest hoaxer since the UFO   
   fad began four decades ago. Meier's  tales  of  flying  aboard   
   UFOs  with lovely spacewomen have triggered  civil  war  in  the   
   weird, wacky world of "Ufology," an international  movement  whose   
   members slog through swamps and forests, night and day,  to   
   investigate  sightings  of unidentified flying objects or "flying   
   saucers."   
      
         Wednesday  is the 40th anniversary of the first "modern" UFO   
   sighting June  24th,  1947 - when a private pilot sighted   
   saucer-shaped objects zipping  past Mount Rainier in Washington   
   State - and ufologists are celebrating with conferences from   
   Burbank to New York City and Washington, DC.   
      
         Although  few  are  trained  scientists, they like to form   
   clubs with grandiose  names such as "Intercontinental UFO Galactic   
   Spacecraft Research and Analytic Network, Inc." and "Aerial   
   Phenomena Research Organization."   
      
         But  in four decades they've gained little scientific   
   respectability, and  some  fear they'll lose even that because of   
   the Meier controversy - a steaming  stew of bizarre claims, ugly   
   accusations, crude fakery, financial exploitation,  "stolen"  and   
   "vanished" evidence, and alleged death threats and assassination   
   attempts.   
      
         "If  you ever want to see a parallelism to Jim Bakker and   
   PTL, you're seeing  it right here," snarled one anti-Meier   
   ufologist, William Spaulding of  Phoenix.  "I get emotional about   
   (Meier) because I've just seen ufology go down the drain...it just   
   reeks of money, a slick way to make a buck."   
      
         He  isn't  alone. "The Meier case is probably one of the   
   most obvious hoaxes  in  the history of the subject," said   
   ufologist Ronald Story of St. Petersburg, FL, author of "The   
   Encyclopedia of UFOs."   
      
         Meier  is  a  "damned charlatan - I wouldn't touch his stuff   
   with the proverbial  10-foot  pole," said Don Berliner, an official   
   at the Maryland-based Fund for UFO Research.   
      
         The  Meier  fad is part of a "credulity explosion" that is   
   helping to wreck  ufologists'  credibility,  said one of the men   
   ufologists fear most, Robert  Sheaffer of San Jose, author of "The   
   UFO Verdict." Sheaffer has exposed some famous saucer sightings as   
   hoaxes and misidentifications of natural phenomena. Ufology "isn't   
   dead yet, but it's dying," he said.   
      
         Ufologist Jim Speiser firmly disagrees and accuses Sheaffer   
   of "wishful  thinking."  But he acknowledges that trying to gain   
   scientific respect while  Meier  is in the news is "like trying to   
   get a date when your little brother who picks his nose is always   
   hanging around."   
      
         Speiser,  of  Fountain Hills, AZ, runs an electronic   
   "bulletin board" that allows saucer buffs to rap via personal   
   computers.   
      
         So  why on Earth has Atlantic Monthly Press, one of the   
   nation's most respected publishers, just released a book - "Light   
   Years" by Gary Kinder - that  suggests  there  may be something to   
   Meier's claims after all? A book whose  sources  include an   
   imprisoned child molester and a San Jose chemist who  tells ghost   
   stories to plants? A book that, some say, whitewashes what has   
   been called "the most infamous hoax in ufology"?   
      
         Its  a  strange story that began in the mid-1970's in the   
   green hills of Switzerland. Eduard  "Billy"  Meier, a one-armed,   
   bushy-bearded farmer, amazed local  residents by saying he had   
   established psychic contact with saucer pilots from the Pleiades.   
   End of part 1   
      
                
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