Billy Meier and Core Group-49. Source: Armin Grässl (20/05/2000), Photobuch (pg. 81, 2001).
Sitting on the ground in the front row (L to R): Jacobus Bertschinger, Christina Gasser, and Philia Stauber.
Sitting in the second row (L to R): Eva Bieri holding Selina Beiri, Edith Beldi, Maria Wächter, Engelbert Wächter, Louis Memper, Guido Moosbrugger, Elisabeth Moosbrugger, Andrea Grässl, Simone Holler, and Brigitt Keller.
First row standing (L to R): “Billy” Eduard Albert Meier, Atlant Bieri, Stephan A. Rickauer, Brunhilde Koye, Bernadette Brand, Karin Wallen, Christian Krukowski, Freddy Kropf, Günter Neugebauer, Barbara Harnisch, and Conny Wächter.
Back row (L to R): Pius Keller, Natan Brand, Wolfgang Stauber, Christian Frehner, Hans Lanzendorfer, Piero Petrizzo, Aroona Wächter, Andreas Schubiger, Silvano Lehmann, Elisabeth Gruber, and Madeleine Brügger.

Contents

1 Introduction
2 Investigation
3 Footnotes

Introduction

Billy Meier – after supposedly travelling 42 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia and performing around 352 different jobs¹ – has returned to Switzerland with his family in the year 1970. In the year 1974, while staying at a rented farmhouse in Hinwil, Meier borrowed some money from his friend of several years, Jacobus Bertschinger, to place an advertisement in the German Magazine Esotera. The ad solicited anyone who might wish to form a group for discussing and studying metaphysical or paranormal subjects. Reportedly, several people responded, and by the end of that year, Meier’s newly formed study group had 10 members and they met often. It was during the course of one of these meetings that Meier made a startling announcement. He proclaimed that on January 28, 1975, he had established direct physical contact with a group of human-looking aliens from the Pleiades star cluster.² The initial reaction to Meier’s astounding claim from some of the members of his study group was one of skepticism but Meier stuck to his story and soon produced hundreds of clear day time beamship photographs as evidence of his encounters with the Pleiadian/Plejaren extraterrestrials.³

As time passed, some members of his study group who were skeptical have simply left, while others who were either on-the-fence or sympathetic to the Meier’s story had stayed around. In 1975, on advice of the Plejaren ETs, Meier has transformed his informal metaphysical study group into a group that is now called – Freie Interessengemeinschaft fur Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien (aka Free Community of Interests for Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufology), otherwise known as FIGU – in order to help him with publishing and distributing his documented experiences, facts, spiritual teachings and evidences of contacts. As the number of believers grew, so did Meier’s extravagant claims and his purported extraterrestrial evidence. Many members of FIGU, who once closely lived or worked with Meier, over the years have left the group and disavowed their support to Meier/FIGU for a variety of reasons. For some, reportedly, it was the dubious and outlandish claims and the incriminating evidence of hoax that ended their affair with FIGU. But for others it was basically how the FIGU was run internally by its own members and their leader Meier who oversees them. These developments and many intricate details pertaining to the inner functioning of FIGU have led many to conclude that either FIGU is a cult or has many cult-like characteristics with Meier as its charismatic leader and his followers unquestionably embracing his self-proclamation of being the Prophet for the New Age, as well as for the entire Universe.

Now, let us begin our investigation by considering a body of documented evidence that purports to show exactly that.

Investigation

What follows below is compilation of evidence – in the form of testimonies, resignation letters, interviews, commentary, etc. – collated either directly from the Meier’s own family or individual FIGU members or from the contact notes of Meier. While there are 4 different types of memberships within FIGU, almost all of the evidence in this category comes from the former members of that group that is closest to Meier i.e. the Core Group. This group heads and leads all the FIGU society’s commercial activities as a collective group. It determines the statutes and rules and lends advisory support for all questions and information as the highest decision-making body of FIGU.⁴

1. Ex-FIGU Members

2. Billy Meier’s Family