Joe Tysk ret. USAF OSI/Dept. of Defense Investigator/Case Supervisor Concludes Billy Meier UFO Case Real

“Now the first question in everyone’s mind should be – where did Billy Meier get a photo album with dozens of UFO photos back in 1964? There obviously were no ‘UFO Photos R Us’ stores in India at that time, so how and where could he have accumulated all these photos if he didn’t take them himself as he said?”

Joe Tysk

Billy Meier – UFO Photos, Films and ET Contacts

What the Skeptics and Others Need to Know

20 Jan 2018

Arguably, the Billy Meier story is one of the most controversial UFO/extraterrestrial cases of all time. It actually spans over 75 years and is still ongoing, as Billy Meier is alive as of this date and will soon turn 81, on 3 February 2018.

While many think the Billy Meier case starts in the mid-1970’s, 1975 to be more exact, we really need to zero in on the year 1964. That’s because Billy Meier was first interviewed about UFOs in 1964, while he was in India, by a reporter for the New Delhi Statesman newspaper.

And why is this important? It is important because what was reported in the interview lays the foundation for building the case that the Billy Meier contact story is real.

It is why we need to examine the 1964 newspaper article, and other corroborating evidence at that time, in detail before we jump ahead to 1975, the starting point for where most skeptics launch their attack and call it all a hoax.

So let’s get to the article.

Billy Meier, age 27 and known at that time by his real name, Eduard Albert Meier, had been in India for about 5 months when he was approached by a reporter from the New Delhi Statesman newspaper, who had heard about the strange “flying saucer man”.  Though Meier was agreeable to being interviewed, he made it clear to the reporter that he was not seeking publicity, nor did he care if anyone believed his story. And what a story it was.

Billy claimed he had not only seen objects from outer space but had also taken photographs and even travelled in them.  Such a claim on face value would quickly be dismissed by most but Meier showed the reporter a photo album he had and in it, according to the reporter, were about 80 photos of UFOs.

Now the first question in everyone’s mind should be – where did Billy Meier get a photo album with dozens of UFO photos back in 1964? There obviously were no “UFO Photos R Us” stores in India at that time, so how and where could he have accumulated all these photos if he didn’t take them himself as he said?

Some skeptics actually answer this question with statements like “he had a photo enlarger” or “he had access to a photo lab/dark room”, which is ridiculous because these quite far-fetched explanations still do not address the basic question:

 “Where did Billy Meier get a photo album with dozens of UFO photos back in 1964?”

Now, even if one were to admit that the logical explanation is Billy Meier took the photos himself, the next question becomes were the photos hoaxed?

To help answer this question we now turn to two individuals who were at the location where Billy Meier claimed to have taken a number of the UFO photos – the Ashoka Ashram, a Buddhist temple where Billy had stayed during part of his time in India.

What is interesting about these two individuals is they claim to have seen the same UFOs that Billy took photos of and that were in his photo album. Not only that, but these same two people related this story at the UFO Congress held in Laughlin, Nevada, back on 29 February 1999 – 35 years after the sightings and photos were claimed to have been taken.

The first to tell her story at the convention was Phobol Cheng, the granddaughter of the Buddhist monk who founded the Ashoka Ashram, and she remembered Billy and reported seeing the UFOs for herself, at age 9.

After telling her story to the attendees, Phobol’s long-time friend Sashi Raj, who had come from India, confirmed she had also seen UFOs in the skies above the Ashoka Ashram, as had others who had worked there.

To put this into perspective, we have two people with nothing to gain, willing to come forward years later to tell their story, even though it was not an easy thing to do. On top of this, the connection and impact Billy Meier had made on Phobol Cheng was something special, as she actually flew from the US, where she was living, to Switzerland to visit him – not once but twice. In fact, on her second trip there, she brought her husband and they ended up staying two weeks at Billy Meier’s home.

Let’s put what we have together and see where we are at now. An easy way to do this is to apply 3 aspects used in criminal law to determine whether or not someone could be guilty of a crime, or in this case, a hoax.

Those 3 aspects are Means, Motive and Opportunity and we will apply each one to ascertain what is the logical conclusion as to whether or not Billy Meier perpetrated a hoax going back to the year 1964.  If no hoax could be found in 1964, then a strong case can be made there was no reason for him to perpetrate a hoax in 1975, or anytime later.

We will begin with the Means. In 1964, Billy Meier was basically backpacking his way from country to country, earning meager amounts of money doing an assortment of odd jobs.

At the time of the interview, the reporter noticed the only items Billy had were a few articles of clothing, a folding camera, two small bags, and his photo album. Not the best of times to try to get into the UFO hoaxing business when basic survival was already a challenge.

For Billy Meier to fake dozens of different UFO photos, some of which he still has today and which are clearly pictures of some type of spacecraft, would be more than just extremely difficult at the time, it would have been closer to impossible.

The second and perhaps most important aspect we need to deal with is the Motive.

As the newpaper reporter stated in his article, and I quote: “But he clearly is not eager to talk about his experiences which, to say the least, are remarkable. Indeed, the little that he has to say has to be pried out of him. He doesn’t want publicity, he doesn’t care if anyone believes him or not.”

What is important to point out is that Billy Meier, while in serious need of funds, never once offered to sell any of his photos to the reporter, or anyone else for that matter. If this was all a hoax, you would have expected to hear stories about how Meier had gone around telling his strange tales to others while trying to profit from it. It would be logical to assume that if he was able to produce fake UFO photos at will, he also would have been able to make some money from it. But there is no record of that ever being the case. So, with no known motive, check that one off from the list.

The third element is the Opportunity. Meier is in an area and country he is unfamiliar with. He has no known friends or contacts, and one of the few items he has is an old camera. Yet, he is somehow able to fake dozens of UFO photos without being detected and without having any known accomplice? And since we already have other witnesses that have come forward, and have reported seeing the same objects in the sky that ended up as photos in Meier’s album, I think we can also put the opportunity aspect to rest as well.

So where does all this lead us?

If, as far back as 1964, we have documented evidence Billy Meier had amassed a collection of UFO photos and then, 11 years later, started taking clearer and more detailed UFO photos in Switzerland where he lives, is there any reason to still be skeptical?

One could say yes, if it were not for the fact that in addition to the photos, Meier was also able to make films of the ET spacecraft he claims he has been in contact with. Trying to hoax still shots of UFOs is one thing – hoaxing a UFO film is quite another.

Enter Wally Gentleman. At the time Wally Gentleman viewed UFO photos and films that Billy Meier had taken, he had already been involved with special effects for over 35 years. He was such an accomplished expert in the art of special effects that Stanley Kubrick specifically sought out and hired Wally Gentleman to be the Director of Special Photographic Effects for the epic science-fiction movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. He worked at this position for a year and a half until the film was finished.

While in charge of all the special effects, Gentleman was also responsible for building the model spacecraft used in the movie. Needless to say, if anyone at the time could debunk faked UFO photos and films it was Wally Gentleman.

Here is what Wally Gentleman found and reported after viewing the Billy Meier material, as quoted from the book, Light Years: An Investigation into the Extraterrestrial Experiences of Eduard Meier, by Gary Kinder:

After studying the films, Gentleman concluded that considering the expertise necessary, the logistics, and the expense, a one-armed man with no assistance could not possibly have produced the footage. (note:  Billy Meier lost his left arm in a bus accident in 1965 while in Turkey)

“That’s the bottom line of everything,” he said. “This Meier really had to have a fleet of clever assistants, at least fifteen people, who would know what the interface reflections of a shiny object were at certain times of the day, how to support these objects so that wires are not seen, how to rig it, how to watch it and stand by with their little air guns to spray the strings when they begin showing up.”

“What we would do is go out and shoot the scene, and then bring it back to the studio, and then shoot the object onto that film by duplication processes, which is a very sophisticated procedure. It’s difficult to do on 35mm, even worse with the 8mm film he was using. And the equipment was totally out of his means. If somebody wanted me to cheat something along those lines, $30,000 would probably do it, but this is in a studio where the equipment exists. The equipment would cost another $50,000” (note: at the time the films were taken Billy was barely scraping by and just making ends meet was a challenge)

“I think the one telling part of all this is that a single man with one arm, if he indeed was on his own, could not have done it. I think it would be miraculous for a person with even two arms to do that sort of work by himself up on a mountaintop. Even if you get a balloon and you hang your object on a fine piece of thread underneath, it’s going to blow in any direction it wants to go. And with a lot of those pictures where you’ve got three or four flying saucers, you would need balloons with strings of varying length, otherwise you could pick out where the string comes from. It would be very difficult to do those shots in that sort of condition outside. And the fall of the land makes it very risky to do anything like that. It’s all that sort of complication that leads me to think that the objects he’s photographed and filmed were there independently and he simply snapped the shutter.”

To summarize what Wally Gentleman, one of the foremost special effects experts in the world, said there was no way Billy Meier could have faked the films. Anyone doubting this assertion, read what he said again. Billy Meier simply did not have the means to do what it would have taken to produce the UFO films that Wally Gentleman reviewed and about which he gave his professional and expert opinion.

In addition to Wally Gentleman, over the years there were a number of other experts in different fields who, after doing extensive research, could only say that if Meier was perpetrating a hoax, they had no idea how he was doing it. Others, not wanting to say they were stumped, offered that maybe he had real-size models hung from a helicopter, as a possible explanation for how he faked it. Seriously?

Of course, all this is still not good enough for the diehard skeptics. What the  skeptics prefer to do, instead of looking at the best hard evidence that would support the authenticity of the UFO photos and videos, is to only zero in on what they think proves the entire Billy Meier UFO story to be a hoax.

However, any good investigator knows that when looking at evidence you look at ALL the evidence and not just what you think will make the case you want it to make. And, contrary to what many think, it’s not how much apparently incriminating evidence you have that wins the day, it’s whether or not you have even one single piece of evidence that proves your position.

To better explain this,  let’s use a hypothetical example, of which there are actual similar cases on record.

In this example, let’s say someone is shot and killed outside a nightclub and next to the body is found a drivers license with a photo of John Doe, who has been known to have quarreled with the victim. There are also two eyewitnesses that saw the shooting and then, after looking through police mug shots, both are certain that the John Doe identified in the driver’s license photo was the shooter. On top of this, the police are able to determine that the suspect had owned a handgun of the same caliber used in the shooting.

Based on what appears to be concrete evidence against John Doe, many including law enforcement professionals would say they have a solid case to have him arrested and eventually convicted of the crime in a court of law. There is, however, only one little problem.

John Doe has one single piece of evidence that trumps everything else. He claims, and it is later proven, that at the time of the murder he was 1,000 miles away attending a wedding. So, what looked like conclusive evidence proved to be wrong and it only took one irrefutable piece of evidence to exonerate John Doe and prove him innocent.

Rather than looking at just the parts of the story that may be controversial and can be debated, it’s important to keep an open mind and not come to any conclusion until ALL the evidence is reviewed – especially when there is more than enough evidence to support the Billy Meier UFO contact claim, if one were to only look.

Even if it were determined that among the massive collection of Billy Meier’s UFO photos, there were some photos of models, or pictures of other objects that did not support Meier’s story, this still in no way invalidates the authenticity of photos (and films) that experts like Wally Gentleman say are real.

When using logical deductive reasoning, an argument can still be valid even if one or more of its premises are false. In other words, if a claim was made that all of Billy Meier’s photos were real and it was later determined not to be true, we don’t discard the evidence that does support the case, which is what the skeptics often do.

Again, it is ALL the evidence that needs to be reviewed but not all of the evidence needs to support the case to make it authentic, and that’s a fact.

Assuming people are now accepting the proposition that Billy Meier did take authentic photos of UFOs, and even authentic films of these spacecraft, we now must ask the big question: “In addition to taking real photos and making real films of UFOs (actually ET spacecraft) did Billy Meier ever have contact with extraterrestrials?”

Remember, he made this claim beginning way back in 1964, with the interview he gave to the reporter in India.

To reason this out, we can conclude that the only way Billy Meier could have taken the photos and made the films that he did, was if he had prior knowledge of when and where the UFOs were going to appear. It would have been literally impossible for him to just coincidentally be at the right place and right time to have collected all the UFO photos and films he did over the years.

Somehow, Billy Meier had to have been contacted in advance about when and where to be, and the only ones that could have provided him with that information were the ones aboard or controlling the UFOs. Rather than trying to elaborate on this, I will leave it to the reader to see if there are enough dots to connect here, as I think there are.

In conclusion, I would say that, based on all the available evidence and expert testimony, the only logical conclusion one could come to is that Billy Meier has taken numerous authentic photos of UFOs and, more importantly, actual films of UFOs. And he has done it over a span of many years.

There is also much more corroborating evidence to support the Billy Meier case that is not covered in this article but can easily be found at various sources on the internet. Of course, none of this will ever be enough for the die-hard skeptics. Once people take a side or stance, as they often do with politics and religion, literally nothing will change their position, no matter how strong the evidence that is presented.

I will end by saying I did not write this article with the intention it would change even a single skeptic because I know it won’t.  It was simply written for those with an open mind, reasonable intelligence and a desire for the truth.

Joe Tysk

Joe Tysk served with the USAF Office of Special Investigations (OSI) during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  During his assignment with the OSI, he supervised hundreds of personnel investigations at the highest level for the USAF and other agencies of the Department of Defense.

While his time and experience with the OSI was helpful in researching and evaluating the Billy Meier case, he doesn’t believe any special training or knowledge is required to properly research and evaluate the Billy Meier UFO story. Just follow the evidence, use logic and common sense and he believes you will come to the right decision.

See also:

India 1964

Billy Meier UFO Case: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

NASA Engineer: The Billy Meier UFO Case Is Real

Corroboration & Evidence

The REAL UFO Films the Pentagon Hid from You

Pentagon Spent $110M to Not Find Billy Meier UFO Case

Multi-Media Presentations on Billy Meier UFO Case

It’s 1964 All Over Again