What happened
Eduard Albert Meier, known as Billy Meier, a resident of the Hinwil area in the canton of Zurich, announced that on January 28, 1975, he had met for the first time with a woman named Semjase, a visitor from the Pleiades star cluster. In the following years he described hundreds of “contacts” and published numerous photographs and films showing shining disc-shaped ships, which he called “beamships,” hovering over the Swiss countryside. He also showed metal samples and recordings of the ships’ sounds. A community of followers formed around his messages and established a center in the hamlet of Hinterschmidrüti. The case attracted media attention around the world, and Meier’s photographs are among the most frequently reproduced UFO images.
Witnesses
Billy Meier and, according to his followers, a dozen or so people who claimed to have seen the ships or their lights.
Explanations and hypotheses
Analyses of the photographs showed that many of them depict small models, and pictures of the alleged “Pleiadian women” turned out to be frames from an American television program. Meier’s ex-wife, Kalliope, said in interviews that she had seen model ships he had made. Meier and his followers reject these charges, but among researchers the case is regarded as a classic hoax.
Hoax A proven or admitted hoax.
More: Wikipedia (en)