174 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
174 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
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June 24th, 1987
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________________________________________________________________________
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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 befriended
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UFO pilots from the Pleiades, a powdery star cluster more than 2 quadril-
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lion miles from Earth.
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To Meier's foes, he's the biggest hoaxer since the UFO fad began
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four decades ago.
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Meier's tales of flying aboard UFOs with lovely spacewomen have
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triggered civil war in the weird, wacky world of "Ufology," an interna-
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tional movement whose members slog through swamps and forests, night and
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day, to 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 sighting
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June 24th, 1947 - when a private pilot sighted saucer-shaped objects zip-
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ping past Mount Rainier in Washington State - and ufologists are celebrat-
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ing with conferences from Burbank to New York City and Washington, DC.
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Although few are trained scientists, they like to form clubs with
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grandiose names such as "Intercontinental UFO Galactic Spacecraft Research
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and Analytic Network, Inc." and "Aerial Phenomena Research Organization."
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But in four decades they've gained little scientific respectability,
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and some fear they'll lose even that because of the Meier controversy - a
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steaming stew of bizarre claims, ugly accusations, crude fakery, financial
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exploitation, "stolen" and "vanished" evidence, and alleged death threats
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and assassination attempts.
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"If you ever want to see a parallelism to Jim Bakker and PTL, you're
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seeing it right here," snarled one anti-Meier ufologist, William Spaulding
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of Phoenix. "I get emotional about (Meier) because I've just seen ufology
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go down the drain...it just 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 most obvious
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hoaxes in the history of the subject," said ufologist Ronald Story of St.
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Petersburg, FL, author of "The Encyclopedia of UFOs."
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Meier is a "damned charlatan - I wouldn't touch his stuff with the
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proverbial 10-foot pole," said Don Berliner, an official at the Maryland-
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based Fund for UFO Research.
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The Meier fad is part of a "credulity explosion" that is helping to
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wreck ufologists' credibility, said one of the men ufologists fear most,
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Robert Sheaffer of San Jose, author of "The UFO Verdict." Sheaffer has ex-
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posed some famous saucer sightings as hoaxes and misidentifications of nat-
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ural phenomena. Ufology "isn't dead yet, but it's dying," he said.
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Ufologist Jim Speiser firmly disagrees and accuses Sheaffer of "wish-
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ful thinking." But he acknowledges that trying to gain scientific respect
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while Meier is in the news is "like trying to get a date when your little
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brother who picks his nose is always hanging around."
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Speiser, of Fountain Hills, AZ, runs an electronic "bulletin board"
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that allows saucer buffs to rap via personal computers.
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So why on Earth has Atlantic Monthly Press, one of the nation's most
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respected publishers, just released a book - "Light Years" by Gary Kinder -
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that suggests there may be something to Meier's claims after all? A book
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whose sources include an imprisoned child molester and a San Jose chemist
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who tells ghost stories to plants? A book that, some say, whitewashes what
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has 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 green hills
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of Switzerland.
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Eduard "Billy" Meier, a one-armed, bushy-bearded farmer, amazed lo-
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cal residents by saying he had established psychic contact with saucer pi-
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lots from the Pleiades.
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He also said he had photographed and filmed UFOs that resembled hub-
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caps; tape-recorded their noises, which resembled sound effects from old
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science-fiction films; conversed with female UFOnauts, who taught him cos-
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mic truths; flew aboard a UFO into space, where he photographed God's
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"eye" and the Apollo-Soyuz docking of 1975; and traveled by saucer into
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the future, where he saw the ruins of San Francisco after an earthquake.
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But Meier's "evidence" dissolved under scrutiny, ufologists say.
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Ufologist Spaulding used a computer to clarify blurry details in Meier's
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photos and, he said, detected threads holding the "UFOs" aloft - evidence
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that they were small models suspended near the camera. Also, critics said,
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the photos of quake-ravaged San Francisco turned out to be copies of an
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artist's rendering from the September 1977 issue of Geo magazine. And in
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Meier's 8mm movies of UFOs, the objects sway back and forth as though they
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were lightweight models bobbing in the breeze.
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Yet the Meier story has survived partly because of the relentless
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advocacy of his American backers, the Arizona ufologists Lt. Col. Wendelle
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Stevens (US Air Force, retired), Tom Welch and Lee and Brit Elders. Years
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ago, they obtained the legal rights to market Meier's photos and other mem-
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orabilia, threatened to sue anyone who used the material without permis-
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sion and built a small publishing industry, Genesis III. The publishing
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arm sells books and videocassettes (for as much as $29 apiece) about
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Meier's adventures.
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Now they've landed a much bigger fish: royalties from Kinder's 206-
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page book, published May 26th. They're sharing royalties in return for
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giving Kinder access to Meier's photos and other documents.
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Much money may be made by all: Kinder will take 50 percent of the
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royalties, then the rest will be divided among Meier, Stevens, the
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Elderses and Welch.
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Sales have gone "extremely well," Kinder said. The best-seller list
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is in sight, said the book's backer, New York publishing whiz-kid Morgan
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Entrekin, who paid Kinder an advance of more than $100,000. Bay Area book-
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store owners say its selling moderately.
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The book has infuriated many ufologists who think it lends an unde-
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served patina of respectability to a vulgar hoax, although Kinder doesn't
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reach a specific conclusion about Meier's claims. "Face it, you're in it
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for the money like the rest of the writers of superficial paranormal lit-
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erature," Spaulding said in a bitter letter to Kinder.
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"It's been a real ordeal trying to fend off the entire UFO communi-
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ty," joked Kinder, 40. "There were times when I would look at Meier and
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think, `He's nothing but a clever con man.' There were other times would I
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would look at Meier and think, `Here is a sincere and warm individual who
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has experienced something far above his understanding and intellectual cap-
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abilities and is trying to deal with it.'"
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The Elderses say they've received threatening letters and phone
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calls and that Meier has been the target of several assassination at-
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tempts. They're not disturbed by evidence that Meier faked photos of, for
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example, the San Francisco earthquake; in fact, they haven't even dis-
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cussed it with Meier, Lee Elders said. His wife insists that just because
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Meier faked "one or two things" doesn't mean all his photos are phony.
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To Lee Elders, the best evidence for Meier's contentions is an analy-
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sis of metal samples from an alleged UFO. The analysis was conducted by
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Marcel Vogel, formerly a chemist at an IBM research center in San Jose. In
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the New York Times Book Review, a full page ad for "Light Years" quotes
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Vogel as saying the metallic composition was one "we could not achieve...
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on this planet."
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However, the book doesn't mention that Vogel is a very, very imagina-
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tive fellow. In fact, he also has claimed the ability to communicate psych-
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ically with plants.
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The 1937 best-selling "Secret Life of Plants" includes an entire
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chapter on Vogel. In one scene, he attempts to determine whether plants
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wired with electrodes show a physiological response to "spooky stories."
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The book says that at "certain points in a story, such as...`Charles bent
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down and raised the lid of the coffin,' the plant seemed to pay closer at-
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tention."
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Vogel, 70, said Meier's UFO movies convinced him the farmer had been
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in contact with "some form of extraterrestrial intelligence" However,
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Vogel doesn't regard the metal samples by themselves as proof of extra-
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terrestrials because he didn't have a chance to consult with other experts
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before the samples mysteriously disappeared. Vogel added that since his
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plant work of the 1970's, he had founded a psychic research institute in
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San Jose, employed his "mental energy" to bend spoons and studied the use
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of crystals to cure illness.
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"Light Years" also quotes authorities such as Robert Post, head of
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the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, as saying: "From a photography
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standpoint, you couldn't see anything that was fake about the Meier pho-
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tos... I thought, God, if this is real, this is going to be really
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something."
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Or is it? In an interview with The Examiner, Post recalled that sev-
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eral years ago, Wendelle Stevens visited him at JPL and requested an ex-
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pert opinion on the pictures. Post acknowledges he was fascinated by the
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images, but was unable to perform a scientific analysis for two reasons:
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First, he isn't a photo analyst but rather the operator of a photo proces-
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sing lab ("like you take your film to K-Mart", he said); and second, the
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pictures weren't originals but rather copies of originals - perhaps even
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copies of copies of copies. Such multiple copying tends to obscure deli-
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cate details, making it hard to detect evidence of fraud - e.g., threads
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supporting hubcaps.
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In addition, when Post examined some images with a magnifying glass,
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he realized "a lot of the pictures weren't really photographs at all -
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they were lithographs," or high-resolution ink prints made from photos -
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and, hence, were worthless for purposes of analysis. Furthermore, the
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photos were " a lot fuzzier than the stuff on the lithographs, and I
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thought that was a little strange."
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For that and other reasons, Post began "to think, `Nuts, maybe this
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guy is just a con man.' That's not the kind of guy I want to have anything
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to do with."
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In 1983, Stevens was convicted of child molestation in Pima County,
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AZ. He is now serving time in the Arizona State Prison and declined to be
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interviewed. But he did send The Examiner a cryptic letter in which he
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said a "number of high officials...have taken a personal interest in some
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of the things we were doing, but they could neither support nor tolerate
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them officially."
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Stevens' conviction triggered a wave of paranoia among Meier buffs.
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Some phoned Vicki Cooper, editor of California UFO Magazine in Los Ange-
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les, and said Stevens "was `set up,' that certain witnesses were being
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killed," said Cooper, who is not unsympathetic to Meier's claims. "I was
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discouraged and disgusted with the people I was talking to."
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"Its a cesspool out there," she said. "Personality conflicts are
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rabid in this field...There are hoaxers, there are fraudulent people who
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are claiming outrageous things all throughout the UFO field.
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