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