# Billy Meier, whats the verdict? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 16, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000 "2013-09-16T20:03:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/21 "2013-09-17T20:43:10Z")
Rejecting ideas without evidence is not silly or closeminded - it is rational. The moment real, convincing evidence is presented for alien life, I’ll be the first in line to board the spaceship and take some samples. Poorly staged photos of garbage can lids stuck to a tree don’t count as “real, convincing evidence”. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/22 "2013-09-17T20:44:12Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > It’s important to be realistic, Feel free to apply this concept to the linked photographs. Seriously, they look like Ed Wood grade special effects. The only reason you don’t see a wire is because the UFO is sitting on a garbage can, or stuck in a fake tree. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/23 "2013-09-17T21:00:56Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Hmm…This is about typical of most message boards. Nothing real constructive said here. It’s important to be realistic, but I can see alot of contempt for open minds here. Thinking that we know that some phenomenons are by default wrong, closes the door for actual factual scrutiny. If there’s one thing I know is that we as a species are adolescents in the knowledge of the universe. Aliens seem a little silly I’ll admit, but once a phenomenon has grown to a certain point, when do we start taking it seriously? Thanks for the posts…I think I’ll continue reading Cecil Adams, but not asking “silly” questions. I do appreciate your time folks. If you’re having trouble deciding whether to believe Meier when he claims that the Men In Black changed his photographs to make them look like Dean Martin’s dancers, and they were able to manipulate his mind so that even _he_ didn’t notice the change, then I would say that any trouble you are having with us is taking place on your side of the monitor, not ours. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/24 "2013-09-17T21:03:40Z")
Not that I don’t take the Billy Meier thing with a grain of salt, but I would rather have an active curiosity driving me to learn then to dismiss anything on face value. Maybe I’m wrong…who knows. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/25 "2013-09-17T21:05:50Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Not that I don’t take the Billy Meier thing with a grain of salt, but I would rather have an active curiosity driving me to learn then to dismiss anything on face value. Maybe I’m wrong…who knows. Then why give us his account to deal with if even you take it with a grain of salt? If you want to stimulate conversation, give us your best example, not your worst. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/26 "2013-09-17T21:06:28Z")
Actually the Billy Meier thing is most likely b.s, but I’ve read plenty of comments from plenty of other sites with the same clicks of pseudo-intellectuals sitting on their pedestals. Cecil Adams articles are fantastic, but this is the dredges of intellectual pursuits. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/27 "2013-09-17T21:07:34Z")
Why comment if you’ve never read or know nothing of the subject? How are you being subjective? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/28 "2013-09-17T21:08:50Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Why comment if you’ve never read or know nothing of the subject? How are you being subjective? That’s quite a dismissive assumption you’ve made there. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/29 "2013-09-17T21:14:30Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Hmm…This is about typical of most message boards. Nothing real constructive said here. It’s important to be realistic, but I can see alot of contempt for open minds here. Thinking that we know that some phenomenons are by default wrong, closes the door for actual factual scrutiny. If there’s one thing I know is that we as a species are adolescents in the knowledge of the universe. Aliens seem a little silly I’ll admit, but once a phenomenon has grown to a certain point, when do we start taking it seriously? Thanks for the posts…I think I’ll continue reading Cecil Adams, but not asking “silly” questions. I do appreciate your time folks. I would LOVE it if somebody proved extraterrestrials or beings from another dimension were visiting us. It would be horrifying and fabulous. But, I have yet to see any proof of such visitation. Re Billy Meier As a wise man once said “If I shove a hundred reindeer off of a cliff, I have not proven that reindeer cannot fly. All I’ve proven is none of THOSE reindeer could fly.” Based on the evidence, I can only conclude that Billy Meier is a hoaxer. If you have other evidence, please present it. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/30 "2013-09-17T21:23:49Z")
How much evidence do we need? How many astronauts need to come forward? How many international new coverages of closed airports due to Unidentified flying objects? How many statesmen need to come forward? What constitutes as evidence? I guess its all relative… Anyway here’s a few good links that might make us ask the hard questions…Though I doubt your closed mind will let you watch for any length of time. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFB7Bu4z9Wc) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/9eBHdFpmpHs/maxresdefault.jpg "Incredible UFO Flies Into Volcano 2012 HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBHdFpmpHs) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/BQiiQAW91DI/maxresdefault.jpg "UFO SIGHTING 5 MARCH 2013 PILOT SEES UFO WHILE LANDING AT JFK AIRPORT") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQiiQAW91DI) [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8AvHDYe9bI) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/31 "2013-09-17T21:32:50Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > How much evidence do we need? Everybody say it with me “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” > [@](#): > > How many astronauts need to come forward? A few. I haven’t heard of one. > [@](#): > > How many international new coverages of closed airports due to Unidentified flying objects? An unidentified flying object is just that. It cannot be identified. It does not mean it is alien craft. > [@](#): > > How many statesmen need to come forward? That depends on what kind of evidence they have. I personally do not give much weight to the word of a politician. > [@](#): > > What constitutes as evidence? I guess its all relative… It is relative and depends on the claim being made. > [@](#): > > Anyway here’s a few good links that might make us ask the hard questions…Though I doubt your closed mind will let you watch for any length of time. My mind will let me watch them. It’s this ancient and slow dial-up connection that prevents me. Can you summarize them? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/32 "2013-09-17T21:34:16Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Maybe I’m wrong…who knows. No maybe about it. You are wrong. Just so you know I’ve been looking at the “evidence” for much longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve read the original articles from 1947 and the stories in Fate magazine that started explaining the sighting as “aliens” and the believer books and the government reports and tons more. It’s junk. That’s not the opinion of a closed mind. It’s the opinion of someone who has done a whole lot more than look at a couple of Youtube videos and thinks that Billy Meier is someone to bring up without laughing. You’re giving us the same kind of “evidence” that birthers and truthers and moonhoaxers use. That’s embarrassing company to be in. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/33 "2013-09-17T21:40:35Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > How much evidence do we need? How many astronauts need to come forward? How many international new coverages of closed airports due to Unidentified flying objects? How many statesmen need to come forward? What constitutes as evidence? I guess its all relative… Anyway here’s a few good links that might make us ask the hard questions…Though I doubt your closed mind will let you watch for any length of time. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFB7Bu4z9Wc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFB7Bu4z9Wc) > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBHdFpmpHs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBHdFpmpHs) > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQiiQAW91DI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQiiQAW91DI) > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8AvHDYe9bI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8AvHDYe9bI) Yes, my mind is too closed to be convinced by a few links to a few youtube videos. Show me some evidence. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/34 "2013-09-17T21:41:30Z")
Atronaughts that have come foward about UFOs…and I’d take their word over many people including Exapno… Major Gordon Cooper Donald Slayton Major Robert White Joseph A. Walker Commander Eugene Cernan Ed White & James McDivitt James Lovell and Frank Borman Neil Armstrong & Edwin Aldrin Maurice Chatelain Scott Carpenter ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/35 "2013-09-17T21:42:46Z")
**Moderator Note** **TheBodhi** , welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. The General Questions forum is for questions with factual answers. While your original post is perfectly acceptable here, your subsequent criticism of the board and its members does not fall within the scope of this forum. Please focus on the topic rather than your opinion of the responders. I think that at least some of what you are perceiving as a lack of tolerance for open minds is actually just this forum’s focus on facts and cites over opinion and speculation. The In My Humble Opinion forum is for questions involving speculation and opinion if you seek those kinds of responses. There is also the Great Debates forum which would be more appropriate if you wish to debate the existence of things like aliens, UFOs, etc. Each of these forums has its own rules and culture. I would recommend reading each forum’s descriptions, FAQs, and rules before posting further. You may also benefit from reading through other General Questions posts to get a better feel for what is accepted here and not. ---
**Author:** ![TheBodhi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@TheBodhi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBodhi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/36 "2013-09-17T21:43:08Z")
I guess I couldn’t convince you of atoms or of other planets. I only have videos to show… ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/37 "2013-09-17T21:44:51Z")
I can see other planets- and their moons- using instruments I own or can build. I can deduce and measure, though not see, atoms, using materials and resources I have available. Now show me some aliens. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/38 "2013-09-17T21:45:45Z")
Look at this from another perspective. The whole “UFO” field is rife with fraud - much of it completely ludicrous, bare-faced, crazy nutso type of fraud. You’re hanging out with a group of people and somebody says “What if even a fraction of those stories are true, like John Smith’s book?” You don’t know who John Smith is so you take a few minutes to look him up and discover that he claims to have proof of a brave Earth woman fighting off ravenous star beasts from planet Murgatroyd, and here’s the evidence: [![](http://thebooksmugglers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ripley-and-the-queen.jpg) ](http://thebooksmugglers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ripley-and-the-queen.jpg) And then you read that when it was pointed out to John Smith that this was just a still from a popular movie he said “Well the Murgatroidians used retrograde mental alteration to replace the REAL photos with those, I don’t know how that made it into my book!” And he goes on to claim that he’s got photos of a flying saucer hovering between the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower. Somebody points out that his flying saucer looks amazingly like an Aerobie painted silver and that the ESB and the Sears Tower are nowhere near each other, to which he replies that the Murgatroidians tell him that they actually moved the Sears Tower to Chicago and then went back and modified everybody’s memory so they just THINK that the Sears Tower was always in Chicago. And that Aerobie means “Murgatroidian Scout Ship” in their native hieroglyphics. Now I’ll assume that you and your friends are just as interested in the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence as I am, or frankly as many folks here at the SDMB are, but if somebody tries to start the conversation off with that kind of dreck (as opposed to talking about the Drake Equation, or “What do you think would happen if SETI discovers a clearly artificial pattern?”) don’t you think that would kind of be getting off on the wrong foot? Wouldn’t you find the whole thing so ludicrous that you’d just be laughing at the sheer lunacy of John Smith? If I want to start a conversation about current events and I pull out a newspaper, it better not be the Weekly World News, right? It doesn’t make everyone who rolls their eyes at that “evidence” a snobby pseudo-intellectual. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/39 "2013-09-17T21:46:52Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > Atronaughts that have come foward about UFOs…and I’d take their word over many people including Exapno… > > Major Gordon Cooper > Donald Slayton > Major Robert White > Joseph A. Walker > Commander Eugene Cernan > Ed White & James McDivitt > James Lovell and Frank Borman > Neil Armstrong & Edwin Aldrin > Maurice Chatelain > Scott Carpenter [From here.](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48790315/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/debunking-myths-about-neil-armstrong/) > [@](#): > > Myth: Armstrong observed UFOs on the way to the moon, and again once he was down on the surface. > > **Fact: Most Apollo crews on the way to the moon noticed flashing lights “pacing” them, which turned out to be segments of their Saturn 5 launch vehicle, and especially the four panels of the “LM garage,” which got jettisoned soon after launch.** > > “Secret moon transcripts” from science fiction writer Otto Binder and in tabloid newspapers of that era seem to have been entirely fabricated, since amateur radio operators back on Earth independently monitored many of the actual transmissions and heard the same things that NASA officially released live. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000/40 "2013-09-17T21:47:02Z")
> [@TheBodhi](#): > > I guess I couldn’t convince you of atoms or of other planets. I only have videos to show… Pretty sure humanity figured out atoms and planets before Youtube was created. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billy-meier-whats-the-verdict/669000.md?page=3)