浩瀚萬象（ONENESS）

◄第八章 ▲回目錄▲ 第十章►

NINE

第九章 不斷的挫折與求證

一

Although little known in the United States before 1979, the case of Eduard Meier would emerge as one of the most controversial in the history of UFO phenomena. No case had ever offered so much evidence; in fact, Meier seemed to possess more evidence than nearly all previous UFO cases combined. But that evidence would be seen by few and studied by even fewer, because Meier's preposterous and sometimes misunderstood stories of traveling back in time to see Jesus and photographing the Eye of God would be laughed at and dismissed as nonsense - the same as Lee Elders had reacted before he had seen with his own eyes the conditions in which Meier lived, talked with the witnesses, and walked the sites. Meier's stories couldn't be true, but neither could the witnesses and the evidence be dismissed easily. Instead of space potatoes from the Moon and piano music from Saturn, Meier offered scientists what they had asked for for thirty-two years - something they could place under a microscope or enter into a computer and examine. And Lee Elders held all of it in his hands.

雖然在 1979 年以前，美國很少有人知道愛德華．邁爾的事情，但是他的案子卻是 UFO 史上最受爭議的：從來沒有任何 UFO 案子曾經提供過如此多的證據。事實上，邁爾擁有的證據已超過以往所有 UFO 案例的證據總和。

但是，這些證據只有被少數人看到，用心研究的就更少了，因為邁爾的荒謬故事；例如穿梭到過去見到「耶穌」（Jesus），以及深入太空去拍攝「上帝之眼」（Eye of God），這些故事被眾人嘲笑並斥為無稽之談 —— 就像李（Lee Elders）還沒親眼看到邁爾本人的生活狀況並到現場與目擊者交談之前的反應一樣。大家都認為邁爾的故事不可能是真的，然而眾多證人和證據也不能視若無睹。邁爾不是提供來自月球上的馬鈴薯，也不土星上來的鋼琴音樂，而是提供了他 32 年來所想要的東西 —— 那是科學家可以放在顯微鏡下觀察或輸入電腦去作檢驗的證物，而李將這一切都掌握在手裡。

But in the late 1970s in the United States at least a dozen private groups vied for such evidence. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO), headquartered in Tucson, and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), in Sequin, Texas, were the largest now that NICAP was defunct. Both organizations boasted several scientist; and experts in various fields who lent prestige to the groups" activities and publications. But the research, the gathering of facts, the interviewing of the rancher who had observed the strange light in the night sky, often was conducted by volunteers whose only qualification was the dues they paid to be members of the organization.

70 年代末期，美國至少有上打的民間團體競相希望獲得此類證據。總部設在圖森（Tucson）的“空中現象研究組織”（Aerial Phenomena Research Organization；APRO）及在德州塞金（Sequin）的“UFO 共通網路”（Mutual UFO Network；MUFON）是“空中現象全國研究委員會”（NICAP）關閉後當時最大的兩個組織，這兩個組織都以擁有一些以它們的活動與出版為優先考慮的科學家及各種領域裡的專家，但是它們聽從事的研究、事實的搜集，以及訪問目擊證人等工作，都是由一些自費加入成為會員的自願者在進行。

"Hobbyists," Stevens called them. "Often their investigations are no more than meeting the witness in his living room and discussing his experience over tea or coffee."

史蒂芬稱他們是“狂熱分子”，因為“他們的調查工作不過就是在自家的客廳中與目擊者見面，邊喝咖啡、茶邊談淪他們的經驗”。

Usually short-lived and poorly financed, most investigations generated one or two pieces of paper to be mailed to the organization's headquarters, which most often was the home of the director.

雖然通常都是較短暫的工作且補助經費不足，但是他們大多都會撰寫一到二頁的調查報告並寄往組織的總部（通常是該組織負責人的家）。

Though united in a common cause, this small community churned with dissension. Because each organization remained viable only through the energy, dues, and contributions of its members, keeping their interest high was important, and this often led to intense competition for the more compelling stories. Should one group discover an intriguing case with claims or photographs to captivate its membership, it would often conceal such discovery as long as possible. Debate over old cases raged for years. Newsletters and bulletins mailed to memberships of a few hundred or a few thousand became forums for attacking not only cases, but other ufologists. Emotions ran high and accusations were sometimes vicious.

雖然成員都是因為擁有共同的動機而結合在一起的，但是這一小團體也常有意見不合的時候。由於這兩個組織都是依賴會員的興趣、會費及會員的捐贈維持下去的，所以使會員保持高度的興趣便是一件很重要的事了，也因此使得這些團體時常為了一些引人的故事而相互競爭。如果一個團體發現了一件有照片為證或者是可以引起會員興趣的案子，它就會盡可能地隱藏這些發現，並回頭爭論一些風行有年的舊案子。寄給數百或數千名會員的通訊及公報便成了討論會，大家不僅在這裡批評某些案例，而且還攻訐其它的 UFO 學家；會員的情緒會因而升高，有時還會引發惡意的控訴。

When Stevens returned from Switzerland after meeting Eduard Meier in the fall of 1977, he felt the case was so big, complex, and potentially sensational that if he took it to one of these groups it would become embroiled in the politics of the UFO community. He wanted to avoid this. (Stevens had his own critics: One prominent ufologist, Stanton Friedman, had labeled him a case "collector, not investigator.") Stevens also knew that most ufologists still automatically dismissed contact cases, especially claims of repeated contact. But he felt that the Meier case had hard evidence and that this evidence needed more than the typical short-term, poorly financed investigation by one of the UFO groups. Instead, he had approached the Elders and Welch, who were experienced in investigation and the preservation of evidence, and, most important, had no connection with any UFO organization. Immediately, Elders had capped the case with a tight lid of security.

1977 年秋天，史蒂芬與邁爾相遇後由瑞士回來，他覺得這案子是如此的棘手且複雜，而且可能會造成轟動，如果他將證據交給這些團體中的任何一個都可能會捲入 UFO 圈中的政治問題中，而史蒂芬則希望能避免這些情況發生。史蒂芬自己便遇到過這樣的批評。一位著名的 UFO 學家斯坦頓．弗里德曼（Stanton Friedman）說：史蒂芬只是一個 UFO 案例的“搜集者，而非研究者”。史蒂芬也知道大多數的 UFO 學家會自動擱置接觸的案子，特別是那些宣稱重複發生接觸的案子。但他覺得邁爾的案子有紮實的證據，而這些證據需要 UFO 更多的調查。因此他向擁有調查及保存證據經驗的、尤其是與 UFO 團體沒有任何牽連的李與維奇商量，李很快便同意守口如瓶。

"I guess I was overly protective with this case in the beginning," he said later. "And rightfully so. I still wasn't totally convinced it was for real, but I'd be damned if I would let anybody get near the evidence. We're talking about hard evidence. I made a lot of enemies that way. Our problems really began right after that with the UFO community."

後來史蒂芬說：“我想我開始時對這個案子的態度過於保守了，而事實也可能是如此，我們然不能完全相信它是真的，但是我如果讓任何入靠近這些證據，那我就一定會被責難的，這也使我樹敵很多。從我們碰到那些 UFO 團體開始，我們的問題就開始出現了。”

In the summer of 1978, Jim Dilettoso set out to explore, experiment, and talk to people about how the Meier evidence might be legitimately tested. If he was to organize the testing, he needed to know the latest equipment, the qualified scientists, and the proper procedures. He searched first for the experts. Then he spent a year writing and phoning them, sometimes interviewing them in person, before he understood what tests should be performed and what equipment should be used, and which scientists were not only knowledgeable, but also open-minded enough to analyze evidence associated with UFOs. After he felt he understood the procedures, he tried to locate and use the equipment at various labs and universities before he approached one of the scientists with the actual evidence in his hand.

1978 年夏天，吉米．狄特索（Jim Dilettoso）開始去探查、實驗及與人們談論如何對邁爾的證據作合理的測試。如果要由他負責規劃測試工作，他必須瞭解最新的裝備、合格的科學家以及適當的程式。他的第一步是找尋專家，然後他花費了一年的時間寫信及打電話給他們，有時候是與他們面對面交談，這使他瞭解了要使用什麼裝備、要進行什麼樣的測試，那些科學家不但具備適當的知識，而且開明到可以幫忙分析與 UFO 有關的證據。當他覺得他瞭解了程式之後，他就先試著去各種實驗室及大學中找尋所需要的裝備，然後再找到相關的科學家並將實際的證據交到他們手中。

"At times I cringed about it," said Welch. "It would have been much nicer to have somebody with a Ph.D. who'd spent five years in research at Harvard to be there carrying on that conversation for us. Also, I cringed many times because we couldn't be sitting there with a 820,000 check in our hand when approaching someone to ask to use their equipment or to do the work." Once he understood what needed to be done, Dilettoso then had to convince the scientists themselves to perform the actual procedures on the metal, sound recording, and photographs, and that proved difficult. A scientist's reputation remains only as good as his credibility, and many if not most scientists felt their credibility would be seriously threatened if it were known they were studying UFOs. But after many tries, Dilettoso discovered an Achilles' heel he suspected might exist - the natural curiosity of the scientist.

維奇說：“有時候我也會退縮，我的確想過如果有一位曾花費 5 年時間在哈佛作過研究，並且具備博士學位的人坐在那裡和我們討論會好許多；同時，我也多次因為手中拿著兩萬美元的支票，要求使用某人的設備或要求他們去作測試而退縮。”

當狄特索瞭解到必須完成那些工作之後，他就希望說服科學家們親自執行金屬、錄音及相片的實際測試程式，而這一點卻是極難做到的。一位科學家的名譽取決於他的可信度，而很多科學家都認為如果被人知道他們介入 UFO 的研究時，就會嚴重威脅到他們的可信度。經過一再地努力之後，狄特索發現了一個科學家可利用的致命的弱點，那就是他們天賦的好奇心。

二

Marcel Vogel was a research chemist, one of less than a dozen senior scientists at the IBM facility in San Jose that employed 9,000 people. The holder of thirty-two patents, he had worked for IBM for twenty-two years, inventing for the huge computer company the magnetic disk coating memory system still used in IBM disk memories throughout the world. Research begun in 1960 by Vogel also had introduced the use of liquid crystals for optical display. Now a specialist in the conversion of energy inside crystals, Vogel probed the interior of crystalline structures with the most complete optical microscopic equipment available in the world - a system of scanning electron microscopes costing $250,000.

馬賽．沃傑（Marcel Vogel）是一位研究化學的專家，是 IBM（國際事務機器）公司在聖荷西雇用的九千人中的 12 位資深科學家之一。他是 32 項專利的保有者，在 IBM 公司工作了 22 年，為這家大型電腦公司發明瞭磁片的塗裝記憶系統，這項發明如今仍應用在世界各地的 IBM 公司的磁片記憶功能中。沃傑在 1960 年開始利用液態結晶作光學顯示的研究。如今他是一位元晶體內部能量轉換的專家，沃傑利用目前世界上最完整的光學顯微鏡設備探測結晶體的內部結構，這是一套價值 25 萬美元的電子掃描顯微鏡系統。

馬賽．沃傑（Marcel Vogel）

In his forty years as a scientist, Vogel had received many unusual requests for his expertise, but the strangest came in mid-April 1979, in a phone call from Jim Dilettoso. Searching for scientists to examine the Meier evidence, Dilettoso had discovered Vogel at IBM and felt he represented the perfect blend of expertise and curiosity: Eminent in his field, he had a reputation for being open to new ideas, even those on the fringe of science. When Dilettoso contacted Vogel, the scientist seemed amused with the story, but intrigued as well. Stevens followed with a letter cataloguing the samples in his possession - various crystals that Meier had labeled as coming from certain planets in other star systems, and four states of metal used in forming the hull of the Pleiadian beamships.

40 歲的沃傑曾接受過很多向他專業技術挑戰的考驗．但最不尋常的是 1979 年 4 月中旬一通由狄特索打來的電話。為了要找尋科學家去檢視邁爾的證據，狄特索發現了在 IBM 公司服務的沃傑，並感覺他具備了專業技術及好奇心的完美組合：他是他專業領域中的卓越之士，他能接受各種新觀念，即使是這些在科學界邊緣的事務亦然。當狄特索找到沃傑時，這位科學家似乎覺得這個故事很有趣，也引起了他的興趣。然後，史蒂芬寫了一封信列出他所擁有的樣本給沃傑看，那些都是邁爾標示著來自其它星系中某個特定行星的結晶體，以及四種用來組合昴宿星人太空船船身的金屬樣本。

"These specimens are available for any kind of nondestructive analysis," wrote Stevens.

史蒂芬寫著：“這些樣本可用來作任何非破壞性的分析。”

Both men explained to Vogel that the samples had been entrusted to Stevens by a Swiss farmer named Eduard Meier, who claimed since 1975 to have met face-to-face over one hundred times with beings from the star cluster known as the Pleiades. "I am personally convinced that the contact is actually taking place," wrote Stevens, "and is still to this date proceeding on an irregular basis."

這兩個人都向沃傑解釋，此樣本是一位叫愛德華．邁爾的瑞士農民託付給史蒂芬的，此人宣稱從 1975 年開始已經與昴宿星人有過一百餘次面對面的接觸。史蒂芬寫著：“我個人相信接觸是真正發生過的事情，而且到目前為止仍然不定期地在發生中．”

Skeptical but curious, Vogel agreed to conduct an analysis. Later he admitted, "I've had a rather negative feeling toward UFOs because, I said, 'Unless I have something physical that I can get my hands on, just reported sightings and things like that have no interest to me.' "

既懷疑又好奇的沃傑同意進行分析，後來他承認：“我對飛碟的感覺相當不好，因為我覺得除非我能親身獲得一些證明，否則單憑那些報導及類似的事情，是不能提起我的興趣的。”

One Saturday morning, not long after he had agreed to examine the Meier evidence, Vogel found lying on his doorstep a small padded mailer addressed to him. Upon opening the package he was surprised to find a note from Stevens and four smaller packages, one enclosing a lavender crystal, two filled with darkened metal specimens, and the last containing a half-inch triangle appearing to be an alloy of silver and gold.

就在他同意檢視邁爾證據後不久的一個週末早上，沃傑在他的門口階梯上發現一個郵差送來的小包裹，打開包裹時，他驚訝地發現一封史蒂芬的便箋及四個小包，一個裝著淡紫色的結晶，兩個裝著顏色暗沉的金屬樣本，最後一個則是裝著類似一種銀與金合金的半英寸三角座。

Vogel studied the samples in his hand and conducted elementary testing in his IBM laboratory. Except for its clarity and the beauty of its soft violet tinge, the amethyst crystal revealed no unusual properties. And the two metal specimens darkened by oxidation contained only small and impure quantities of aluminum and sulphur, with some silver, copper, and lead. But they held at least one surprise for him.

沃傑研究著手中的樣本，並且在他 IBM 公司的實驗室內進行基本測試。除了它柔和的紫羅蘭色澤和清澈美麗的外觀外，這紫色晶體並沒有什麼特別的晶體特性；那兩個被氧化而顏色暗沉的金屬樣本包含的是一些不純的鋁和硫磺，也有一些銀、銅及鉛，但它們有一點的確讓他驚奇。

"When I touched the oxide with a stainless steel probe," Vogel later remembered, "red streaks appeared and the oxide coating disappeared. I just touched the metal like that, and it started to deoxidize and become a pure metal. I've never seen a phenomenon like that before. It's just something that was unusual." Though the two darkened samples exhibited this unusual property, Vogel considered them no better than standard silver solder. "You could have gone to a jeweler and gotten a specimen of that," he said. "The other fragment that I had, the triangle, was different."

沃傑後來回憶道：“當我用一個不銹鋼探針接觸那兩個氧化物時，它會有紅色的條紋出現，隨後外層的氧化物就消失了。我只是像這樣接觸它，它就開始除氧並變成一個純金屬。我以前從來沒有見過這種現象，這真是一件極不尋常的事。”

雖然那兩個暗沉的樣本展現了這種不尋常的特性，但沃傑認為他們實際上和標準銀接合劑是一樣的。他說：“你也許可以在一個珠寶店中獲得這種樣本，而剩下那最後一個碎片 —— 那個三角座就真的不太一樣了。”

In the separate packages, Vogel had found handwritten notes with information about each specimen. The note enclosed with the triangle said that when the Pleiadians gave it to Meier in 1975, Meier recorded in the contact notes that they had warned: Earth scientists would easily be able to analyze the components of the alloy, which included the basic building blocks of the universe. But the alloy was bonded in a unique way involving seven separate development stages that by twentieth-century earth technology would be impossible to duplicate.

在每個包裹紙上，沃傑找到了關於每一個樣品的手寫說明，和三角座放在一起的說明中寫著：此三角座是昴宿星人在 1975 年送給邁爾的，邁爾在接觸的筆記裡寫道昴宿星人曾警告他：“地球科學家很容易就可以分析此合金的成分，它包含了宇宙的基本元素。但是這種合金具有七種分別冶煉的階段，且以獨一無二的方式結合而成，這是二十世紀地球上的技術所不可能複製的。”

"This information," one of them told Meier, "can be only a suggestion to the earth scientists for the still distant future."

他們其中之一曾告訴邁爾：“這個訊息只是給地球科學家對未來發展的一個建議，”

One evening, several days later, Vogel remained late at IBM to begin analyzing the burnished triangle. Placing the metal in the electron microscope, he turned on a video tape to record his analysis and peered through the lens. Though he had expected to encounter nothing new in the specimen, to his surprise he was looking at the most peculiar maze of elements he had ever seen.

幾天後的一個晚上，沃傑在 IBM 公司停留到很晚才開始分析那光亮的三角座。他將該金屬放在電子顯微鏡下，再扣開錄影機錄下他的分析過程，並仔細透過鏡頭觀察，原先他並不認為會有什麼新的發現，然而出乎意科，他發現了從未見過的奇妙元素。

Since arriving in Tucson in 1966, Stevens had investigated cases for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, sometimes piloting a private plane to the sites. Though he was friends with Jim and Coral Lorenzen, who had founded APRO in 1952, he told them nothing of the Meier case for over a year. "I didn't want them meddling in it yet," he said, "because I didn't know where it was going." But after visiting the farm and talking to Meier in April 1978, he and Elders had discussed bringing APRO in on the case: The UFO organization had connections in the science community that might prove useful in having the evidence analyzed.

自從 1966 年到達圖森之後，史蒂芬就幫空中現象研究組織調查案子，有時候他會駕駛私人飛機到發生地觀察。雖然他是吉米（Jim）和可拉．羅瑞生（Coral Lorenzen）夫婦（也就是 1952 年成立空中現象研究組織的人）的朋友，但是直到一年以後他才告訴他們有關邁爾案子的事。他說；“我還不希望他們介入它，因為我不知道它將會發展成什麼樣子。”但是在 1978 年 4 月他拜訪了農場並與邁爾談話後，他就和李研商讓空中現象研究組織參與這個案子，因為該機構與科學界素有交情，它或許能夠找到人分析那些證據。

"So we decided to invite APRO to come into the case with us," said Elders. "I really respected at that time the work they were doing, and so did Steve. They were the oldest and largest UFO group in the world, and they had a great reputation, they were dedicated, they had pioneered in a lot of areas. I liked Jim Lorenzen. And Jim was interested in the case, he seemed sincere."

李說；“所以我們決定邀請空中現象研究組織和我們一起調查案子，當時我真的很尊敬他們所做的工作，而史蒂芬也有同感．他們是當時世上歷史最久且最大的 UFO 團體，他們有很好的聲譽，他們都是義務的，他們也是很多領域的先驅者，我很喜歡羅瑞生，而他對這個案子也有興趣，他似乎是很誠懇的。”

Lorenzen said later he had "serious doubts" about the case. But he would reserve judgment until the evidence had been examined by "outside experts." For the present, he said, he considered Meier's photos to be "art." "They were exciting and interesting," he added, "but we didn't consider them proof of anything."

後來羅瑞生說他對這個案子有“重大的疑問”，但是他要等到“客觀的專家”檢驗過那些證據之後才肯發表他的看法。他說，目前他認為邁爾的相片是“藝術品”，那些照片都很棒，也很有趣，但是他不認為它們能夠證明任何事。

The alliance with APRO began with a basic misunderstanding. Lorenzen saw the gesture as an invitation to him to supervise the investigation so that the APRO stamp would make the efforts of Stevens and Intercep "beyond question."

與空中現象研究組織的合作一開始就有誤解，羅瑞生也認為這是在邀請他監控調查工作的進行，這樣空中現象研究組織就可以為史蒂芬及監聽公司的努力“背書”了。

"I got involved in this with the idea it was to be an objective investigation and that I was to have control of the investigation," said Lorenzen. "I would decide what tests would be done and what scientists and labs to use."

羅瑞生說：“我介入這件事情時原以為它會是客觀的調查，而我也將主控整個調查過程，我可以決定要做哪些測試及邀請哪些科學家和使用哪些實驗室。”

"Mostly," said Stevens, "he asked questions about where I was on the investigation. Had I tested this? Had I looked at it this way or that way? Did I ask this or that question? The only inclination he gave me that he was sympathetic to it was that he said several times, 'There seems to be an awful lot here for one party to fake. Either it's a big group with a big scam, or something is going on.' "

史蒂芬說：“很多時候，他會問我在這些調查過程中的角色，我作過這項測試嗎？我是否用過某種方法來看這個案子？我是否問過某個問題？他讓我覺得有必要一齊幹的理由就是他曾多次說道：‘如果有人要偽造這個還真需要非常好的運氣呢，如果不是有一個很大的團體擁有大的場地就不可能造出這些，不然就是真的有什麼事情的確發生了。’”

For a while Lorenzen met frequently with the investigators. He talked at length with the producer John Stefanelli and traveled to San Francisco to speak with Marcel Vogel, the scientist Dilettoso had discovered at IBM; he met with representatives of a computer company that manufactured image processing equipment for analyzing photographs. But as time went on, Stevens held back on much of the evidence and information coming from the case. He did not want to lose control to Lorenzen. Furthermore, Dilettoso was now digging into the science for them, and he had begun to establish his own contacts; they no longer needed APRO's connections in the science community.

羅瑞生一度經常和一些調查者見面，他長時間地與導演史蒂芬尼談論，並且到三藩市與沃傑討論；他也約見過製造分析相片的影像處理設備電腦公司的代表。但是隨著時間的過去，史蒂芬保留了許多這個案子所釋出的資訊與證據，他不希望將主控權交給羅瑞生，而且狄特索已經開始致力於他們的科學研究，開始建立他自己的接觸管道，所以他們再也不需要透過空中現象研究組織與科學團體聯繫了。

At the same time, Lorenzen had been speaking with other ufologists who had European contacts, and one of them passed on a rumor that the whole case was a big joke, that each time the Americans left Switzerland to return home, the Meier group laughed behind their backs at how easily they had been fooled. Lorenzen also heard that affidavits from alleged witnesses not only failed to support Meier's claims, but actually refuted them.

與此同時，羅瑞生也與其它在歐洲有些關係的 UFO 學家談論，他們之中有一人就傳遞了一個謠言說這整個案子其實是一個大笑話，每當美國人離開瑞士回國時，邁爾那一群人就會在背後譏笑他們怎麼會如此容易被愚弄。羅瑞生也聽說有所謂的目擊證人宣誓不僅不支持邁爾的說法，而且還完全否定它們。

"I think he used models," Lorenzen said later, "and he threw away those pictures that didn't turn out. See, they never checked out his avenues of developing and printing to see if they stood up. They never checked anything like that, which is one of the first things I would have checked." Lorenzen said that as far as he knew, no scientist ever analyzed the photographs.

羅瑞生後來說：“我認為他使用了模型，他把洗不出來的相片丟掉．你看，他們從來沒有檢查過他沖洗的方法是否成立，他們從未檢查過此類的事，而我認為這類檢查應該是優先要做的事。”羅瑞生說據他所知，到目前還沒有科學家曾分析過這些相片。

Then, over a year into the investigation, Lorenzen and Elders had a disagreement.

在開始調查的一年之後，羅瑞生與李之間也出現了歧見。

"Lorenzen asked if we would cover his expenses to Europe," said Elders. "At that time, we were using our own money, Intercep money, to cover our segment of the investigation. Wendelle was using his retirement pay from the Air Force. So we were operating on the 'ten dollars a day through Europe' program to save money to try to conduct the investigation. We told APRO no, we couldn't do it. APRO said, 'Okay then, fine, we want all the evidence turned over to the APRO organization.' Hell, who needs someone to help you under those conditions? So we said, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' Made them mad."

李說：“羅瑞生希望我們提供經費讓他去歐洲，而那時候我們都是自費的，或靠監聽公司的錢去作我們這一邊的調查。溫得利則是用他由空軍獲得的退休金。我們在歐洲是以“一天僅花十美元”的方式節省開銷去進行調查。所以我們告訴空中現象研究組織那是我們不可能做到，也不可能做的。而他們卻說：“好，既然如此，我們希望所有的證據都轉交給我們機構。”在這種狀況之下，我覺得借助於這些人已經沒有什麼意義了。所以我說：‘謝了！不必了。’這樣一來把他們都氣瘋了。”

"We all finally agreed," Stevens admitted later, "that we wouldn't discuss the facts in the case anymore with anybody outside our group, and if anybody pressed for answers, try to get out of it, and if we couldn't get out of it, try to drag a hare across the trail and throw them off. It was probably not the best thing to do, but we were trying to keep people from stirring our pot at that time. We already were inside government laboratories, and we didn't need anybody else trying to help us get in there."

史蒂芬後來承認：“我們最後達成了協定，不再與我們團體以外的任何人談論案子的證據，如果任何人遇到困擾，就試著去解決它，如果我們實在無法解答，就先放到一邊去。這種作法可能不是最好的，但在當時我們不得不試著不受別人的干擾，我們當時已經走進了政府的實驗室，我們已經不需要任何人幫忙走進那裡了。”

Before 1978 scientists had used image processing exclusively to extract data from a photograph everyone knew was legitimate: A satellite had beamed it back from the Moon or Mars; it was real. The challenge with the Meier photos was to detect possible fabrication. Dilettoso discovered a UFO group in Phoenix, Ground Saucer Watch, that claimed to have a reliable computer method for authenticating UFO photographs. Since 1974 they had received five hundred photographs from around the world, subjected them to their new process, and pronounced a large majority hoaxes. A few, less than 5 percent, they proclaimed to be genuine.

1978 年以前，科學家僅利用影像處理從相片中找出資料，如衛星從月球或火星傳送回來的相片；而邁爾的相片所面對的挑戰卻是要偵測它偽造的可能性。狄特索在鳳凰城發現了一個 UFO 團體 —— 地面飛碟體觀察組織（Ground Saucer Watch），它宣稱擁有可靠的電腦方法可以鑒定 UFO 相片，從 1974 年起，該組織就收到由世界各地寄來的 500 張相片，經過他們新方法的處理，宣佈其中大部分是偽造的，而他們公開宣稱只有極少數（小於百分之五）可能是真的。

Unknown to Dilettoso, a West German researcher had sent ten Meier photos to GSW for analysis two years earlier. After analyzing the photos, GSW had reported: "All of the pictures are hoaxes and they should not be considered evidence of an extraordinary flying craft." Nearly every method of photo fakery possible had allegedly been employed by the one-armed Meier - a suspended model, the double exposure technique, the double print method. The West German UFO group had immediately ceased their investigation of the Meier case.

狄特索並不知道在兩年前有一位西德的研究者曾將 10 張邁爾的相片送到地面飛碟體觀察組織作分析。那些相片經過分析之後，他們的報告是：“所有的相片都是偽造的，他們不能被認為可以作為外星球飛行載具的證據。”並宣稱幾乎所有可能的偽造相片技術都已經被這位獨臂的邁爾先生使用了，如一個懸吊的模型，重複曝光技術及重疊曬印的方法。西德的 UFO 團體也因此立刻停止了他們對邁爾案子的調查工作。

Later, Ground Saucer Watch had received a photograph of a disk-shaped craft taken by a man in Calgary, Canada. They analyzed the photograph and found it to be "genuine," which they announced publicly. Sometime later, through an intermediary, the man from Calgary sent a second photograph he had taken of the same disk on the same roll of film. GSW concluded that the photo "depicts the crudest attempt at a hoax that we have ever seen." Since that blatant contradiction was publicized, few people had given weight to the findings of the organization.

後來，地面飛碟體觀察組織接到了一位先生在加拿大卡加利（Calgary）拍攝到的一架碟形太空船的相片。他們分析相片後發現它是真的，並且將它公諸於世。不久之後，這位先生透過一位媒介者由卡加利送來第二張他在同一膠捲上拍攝的相同碟形物相片。地面飛碟體觀察組織認為“這一張相片是我們所見過最粗糙的一張偽造照片”。由於這項明顯的矛盾被公開，使得人們對該機構缺乏了信心。

In his research of equipment and procedures, Dilettoso learned that GSW performed none of the alleged computer work. They sent all photographs to a firm in California, where technicians entered them into a computer by taking another picture with an inexpensive video camera, and applied basic software programs to enhance the photographs with bright colors. Then they took another picture off the computer screen and sent these pictures back to GSW to be studied with the naked eye. By then, the information in the original photograph had been greatly distorted.

在狄特索研究裝備和流程的過程中，他發現地面飛碟體觀察組織並沒有執行所謂的電腦分析工作，他們將所有的相片送到加州的一個影片公司，在那裡，技術人員用一個普通的攝錄影機拍下另一張相片，並將相片放入電腦中，再利用基本軟體程式增強相片的明暗對比。然後他們再為電腦螢幕拍下另外一張相片，然後把這一張送回到地面飛碟體觀察組織用目測法去研究。而這個時候，原始相片的資訊早已完全被扭曲了。

"This frustrated Jim," said Welch, "it frustrated Steve and me. Because there was no structured approach. They could have been looking at stuff that came from a dirty lens."

維奇說：“這讓狄特索感到很挫折，也讓史蒂芬和我感到不滿。因為沒有任何有系統的方法，他們可能只是經由已被污染的鏡頭看到了一些東西罷了。”

"Or," said Dilettoso, "the angle of the light on the photo could be wrong and create surface reflection from the gloss on the picture. There's a hundred things that could happen. I spent a lot of time talking to GSW and found I wasn't going to get anything out of them. They really were playing with toys."

狄特索認為；“相片中光線的角度可能會有誤差，會造成相片上不同色彩的表面折射；各種狀況都可能發生。我花了很多時間與地面飛碟體觀察組織討論，但是我發現根本無法從他們那兒獲得任何結果，因為他們實際上是在玩玩具。”

After GSW, it took Dilettoso little time to discover the father of image processing, Dr. Robert Nathan at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Dr. Nathan had conceived image processing in the 1960s and developed it for nearly twenty years. Although other government labs now had comparable equipment, as well as scientists competent in image processing, JPL was considered first in the field.

在此之後，狄特索沒有花多少時間就找到了影像處理之父，美國航空及太空總署在巴沙迪那（Pasadena）噴射推進實驗室的羅伯．諾頓（Robert Nathan）博士。諾頓在 1960 年就已經開始從事影像處理，並且研究了將近而二十年。雖然其它的政府實驗室已經有了相當的設備以及合格的科學家，但在影像處理的科學家中，噴射推進實驗室仍被認為是首屈一指的。

羅伯．諾頓（Robert Nathan）博士

After several calls form Dilettoso and Stevens over a period of months, Nathan finally agreed to look at the photos, but he would not commit himself to examining them: The procedure was costly and time consuming, and though Nathan's job was to detect and analyze objects in space, whatever their nature, he had no time to waste. Still, he kept an open mind.

在狄特索和史蒂芬一個月來多次的電話聯繫之後，諾頓終於同意去看那些相片了，但是他並不同意去研究它們，因為整個過程將是非常昂貴且耗時甚久的，諾頓的工作是偵測及分析太空中的所有物體，工作相當忙碌，他沒有太多時間可以浪費，不過他仍願意保持一顆開明的心抽空幫忙。

In his office, before even viewing the photographs, Nathan told Stevens and Dilettoso he would look at the photos as an individual, not as a scientist at JPL, and that any opinion he rendered would be his own, not that of the NASA facility. That made clear, Stevens pulled out several 11 x 14 prints he had had made of Meier photos and laid them on Nathan's desk. The scientist perused them, saying nothing. Then he reached for the phone and called the photo lab to tell them he was coming over. After looking at the photos for a few more minutes, he escorted Stevens and Dilettoso to the lab to have copies made of a set of transparencies also in Stevens's possession.

在他的辦公室看相片前，諾頓先告訴史蒂芬和狄特索他是以私人身分而不是以噴射推進實驗室科學家的身分來看這些相片的，任何他所提出的建議都是他自己的看法，而不是美國航空及太空總署人員的看法，在澄清了這個立場之後，史蒂芬取出幾張 11 X 14 的相片，是他用邁爾的相片做的，並將其放在諾頓的桌子上。這位科學家閱覽後一句話也沒說，然後他走到電話機旁打電話到照相實驗室，告訴他們他要過去，在繼續看過相片幾分鐘後，他帶史蒂芬和狄特索一起去照相實驗室，並用史蒂芬所持有的相片製作了一組幻燈片。

"We took the internegatives that I had to their processing facility," recalled Stevens. "And they made copies from those. They wanted to keep the internegatives, but we wouldn't let them, because every time somebody has kept one they end up talking with it in front of them and little spit balls fall on it, and when you put it under super magnification the next time you've got little blues in the picture."

史蒂芬回憶道；“我拿著底片交給他們的處理人員，他們將這些複製。他們希望能保留底片，但我們不同意，因為每次被借就很少再歸還，他們也不會好好保存它，每當你將它放大到很大時，總會在相片上看到些微損傷。”

Bob Post, the head of the photo lab where every JPL photo of planets, stars, asteroids, and comets was processed and printed, had worked there for twenty-two years. "Over the years of looking at photographs and judging photographs," he said, "you get to the point where you can see a lot of things in a photograph that the average person doesn't see."

包伯．波斯特（Bob Post）是照相實驗室的負責人，所有有關行星，星球、星狀及彗星等的相片，都是在他那實驗室裡沖洗的。他在那裡已經工作了 22 年。他說：“常年檢視相片並分析相片，你可以駕輕就熟從相片中某一點看到一般人所看不到的東西。”

About four o'clock in the afternoon, Nathan entered the lab and showed the large prints to Post. "I'd seen pictures of UFOs before," said Post, "and I looked at them as a bunch of bull. There's no definition to anything. But these were good. Whatever they were, they were good. You've got a nice spacecraft sitting there, you've got some good ground out here, you've got a sky with clouds in it once in a while, and you can see some detail. The pictures look good. Under further scrutiny you might find out, 'Yeah, they're fake.' But some of his pictures I thought were gorgeous, absolutely the best stuff I've ever seen for UFO pictures. From a photography standpoint, you couldn't see anything that was fake about them. That's what struck me. They looked like legitimate photographs. I thought, God, if this is real, this is going to be really something." Nathan reserved judgment.

大約下午 4 點，諾頓進入實驗室並展示出他的相片，波斯特說：“我以前曾看過 UFO 的相片，我把它們當成是無稽之談，毫無意義。但是我眼前的這些卻是非常好，不論它們代表什麼都非常好，照片中有很清楚的太空船，有很清楚的地面，天上有一些雲彩，有些細節可以看得很清楚。相片看起來製作得很好，也許吹毛求疵者會發現“它們是偽造的”。但是我認為這些相片有些是很絢爛的，是我所看過的飛碟相片中最好的照片。站在攝影學的角度，你不能從相片中看到任何偽造的跡象，而這也是令我困擾的原因。如果這是真的，天啊，那麼的確是有些事情發生了。”

諾頓保留他的判斷。

By the summer of 1979, the Elders, Welch, and Stevens had spent over $30,000 traveling to Switzerland to see Meier, traveling to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other locales to speak with scientists and computer companies, and telephoning all over the United States. With Dilettoso beginning to open doors at major laboratories, they decided they needed more money if they were to continue investigating the case properly. A few scientists had conducted preliminary tests on some of the evidence, and so far they were getting interesting results, but nothing conclusive as yet.

到 1979 年夏天，李、維奇及史蒂芬已經花費超過 3 萬美元去瑞士看邁爾；到三藩市、洛杉磯及其它地方與科學家及各電腦公司商談；並打電話到美國各地。由於狄特索已經敲開了各大實驗室的大門，他們認為如果要持續適當地調查這個案子就需要更多的經費。至此為止已經有一些科學家曾初步測試過一些證據，也得到一些有趣的結果，但卻一直沒有結論。

Without consulting Lorenzen further, Intercep formed Genesis III Publishing and produced UFO . . . Contact from the Pleiades, a large-format photo journal containing many of the Meier photos, a sampling of quotes by Semjase, a brief outline of Meier's experiences since 1975, astronomical and mythological information on the Pleiades, and some of the preliminary findings on the testing of the evidence. "Sort of a mix of what we had done up to that point," said Elders.

在沒有和羅瑞生作進一步諮商的情況下，監聽團體成立了創世紀出版社，並且出版了《飛碟 —— 昴宿星來的接觸》（UFO . . . Contact from the Pleiades），這是一本大開本的實錄，刊登了很多邁爾的相片、一件 Semjase 提供的樣本、自 1975 年以來邁爾經驗的一個簡介，天文學及神話學中有關昴宿星的知識，以及一些對證據測試的初步發現。李說：“這是到目前為止我們曾作過調查的資料的綜合整理。”

Seventy-one pages long, the Pleiades book claimed that a number of scientists had been consulted on the Meier evidence and that some now were conducting "a most exhaustive and painstakingly detailed investigation." But the text mentioned no names. The book displayed pictures of various people sitting around a table in the Meier kitchen and noted there were "a substantial number of local witnesses who had personally observed these remarkable events," though it identified no one in the pictures. The book informed that scientists were analyzing the Meier photos more thoroughly than any UFO photos had ever been analyzed, "utilizing additional, highly advanced procedures and technology drawn from sophisticated aerospace and nuclear medicine applications," but it included no signed reports or statements from the scientists. Near the end of the book was one page comprised of two short paragraphs entitled "Metal Samples Analysis." The first paragraph claimed: "From the beginning, unique qualities in the metal samples were detected." But the text referred to those who had performed the analysis only as "the scientists involved." Then it claimed that these scientists "had never seen anything like it before," and that "these detailed analyses continue today." The text failed to divulge even one source, yet the writing abounded in hyperbole.

其中 71 頁長是有關昴宿星的，它宣稱曾經就邁爾所提的證據諮詢過科學家，而且有一些科學家現在正在進行“最徹底、最費力的細部調查”。但是沒有提到他們的名字。書中附了一張一群人圍坐在邁爾廚房桌子旁的相片，注釋寫道：“有相當多的當地目擊證人曾親眼目睹那些非比尋常的事件”，但是沒有任何一位目擊者正面出現在相片中。

書中指出科學家分析邁爾的相片是有史以來最慎重的，“使用精密先進的、由太空及核子醫學應用上引用來的過程和技術。”但是書中卻沒有任何由科學家署名的報告或聲明。書的最後一頁是由名為《金屬樣本分析》的兩小段文字所組成，第一段指出：“從一開始，在金屬樣本中就偵測到獨特的特性。”但是書中對於那些進行分析的科學家只以“有關的科學家”稱之；而後文中又指出這些科學家：“以前從未看過任何像這樣的東西，而這些精細的分析直到今天仍在繼續當中。”這本書從未表明它的任何來源，因此給人的感覺有點誇大其辭。

Elders's earlier refusal to release any of the evidence to the UFO community had caused considerable controversy over the Meier case months before publication of the photo journal. Many ufologists thought Meier's claims of having traveled in space and time were outlandish; they laughed when he said that a tree in a photograph had later disappeared because Semjase had "erased its time," and reports constantly drifted back from Europe that someone had seen small models hanging in Meier's barn. With Intercep's extravagant claims now public and totally unsupported in the text of the photo journal, accusations from the UFO community increased and became more heated. While pretty to look at, alleged the kinder criticism, the pictures, and whatever other evidence the Elders and their group claimed to have, represented no proof of anything. Harsher critics screamed fraud.

李早先拒絕提供任何證據給 UFO 團體的行為，在這本書出版前幾個月就引起了對邁爾案子相當廣泛的爭議。很多 UFO 專家認為邁爾宣稱曾旅遊在時空中是相當怪異的；當他談到相片中的一顆樹後來曾經因為 Semjase“消去了它的時間”而突然消失時，曾引起大家的譏笑，再加上一直有人曾看到邁爾的穀倉中掛有小模型的報導從歐洲傳來，更加引起人們的譏笑。而今，監聽公司公開出版有關此案的書中卻又完全沒有任何證據支持它，因此使 UFO 團體的指控也增加了，而且越鬧越大。比較和善的批評指出這些看起來很不錯的相片以及其它任何李和其所屬的團體所宣稱擁有的證據，根本就無法證明任何事情，比較不友善的批評則說他們是騙子。

Mutual UFO Network director Walt Andrus wrote in 1980 in the MUFON UFO Journal that the photo book produced by the Intercep group "is an outright fraud perpetrated upon the public for financial gain." He added: "A U.S. investigation had identified a balloon in several of the photographs that supports the model on a string while Billy Meier, with one arm operating his camera, moves through several different angles." Andrus lamented even mentioning the photo journal in his group's publication. "However,* he wrote, "it is imperative that such opportunists be exposed."

中立的 UFO 共通網路組織（Mutual UFO Network）負責人華德．安德魯（Walt Andrus），於 1980 年在《UFO公報》中寫道；“監聽團體出版的實錄是徹底的欺騙的行為，是為了獲取經濟利益而做的壞事。”他接著說：“根據一項美國的調查指出在很多相片中發現，飛碟是邁爾用細線吊著氣球模型偽裝的，然後邁爾用一隻手操作他的照相機，從很多不同的角度拍攝照片。”安德魯極為氣憤，甚至在他所隸屬的團體刊物中特別提到這一本書，他寫遭：“然而，絕對有必要將此投機者予以揭穿。”

A 1980 book review in Fate magazine concluded: "I think this book is nonsense - handsomely packaged, to be sure, but nonsense all the same." The reviewer, George Earley, later wrote in a spring 1981 edition of a UFO newsletter called Saucer Smear that what Stevens offered as proof was "cheap twaddle."

1980 年《命運雜誌》（Fate magazine）書評中結論道：“我認為這本書毫無意義 —— 徒有漂亮的包裝，這是可以確定的，但是它們都是毫無意義的廢話。”這位評論家，喬治．爾利（George Earley），後來在 1981 年春天一本名為《飛碟斑點》（Saucer Smear）的 UFO 通訊中指出史蒂芬所提供的證明是“無用的廢物”。

"Stevens well knows what constitutes legal and/or scientific proof here on planet Earth," he continued, "but he and his compatriots have consistently and persistently failed to provide any such proof. Until they do, they deserve every bit of criticism sent their way by the rest of us."

他繼續寫道：“史蒂芬很清楚地球上合法的科學證據需具備哪些條件，但是他和他的同僚卻刻意不提出任何這種證明，除非他們能夠提出合法的科學證明，否則他們就應該受到大眾的批評。”

In the fall of 1979, Jim Lorenzen, who had had more exposure to the evidence than anyone outside the Intercep group, told the audience gathered at UFO '79, the APRO convention in San Diego, "My present disposition is that the Meier case is a hoax." Then he paused and added, "It's not that simple though." Some aspects of the case and some of the evidence presented, he felt, were "very difficult to explain." But too often Meier's inflated claims required Lorenzen to suspend common sense. He accused Stevens and the Intercep group of going to Meier "as skeptics and as investigators" but becoming "disciples spreading the word. .. . Part of it, I would say, is mysterious and I can't account for it," he concluded, "but that doesn't mean I have to buy the whole package."

1979 年秋天，比監聽團體以外任何人都看過更多證據的羅瑞生，對在聖地牙哥參加“七九年 UFO 年會”（空中現象研究組織年會）的觀眾說：“我現在的看法是邁爾的案子是一個騙局。”他暫停一下並說，“但是它並不是那麼單純，”他認為這個案子的某些角度與某些證據的確是“很難解釋的”。但是由於邁爾事件的過度膨脹使羅瑞生不得不暫時拋去常識；他控訴史蒂芬和監聽公司是以“懷疑者與調查者的姿態”去找邁爾，但是卻變成了“邁爾的宣傳弟子… 但是我要說，他所說的一些話都太神秘了，使我不能解釋，但是這不表示我就一定要接受這所有的事情，”

In the APRO Bulletin of October 1979, Lorenzen's words were more pointed. Addressing Stevens he wrote: "I submit, seriously, that you and your associates have rushed to judgment on this matter because of a strong will to believe - a predisposition toward exotic explanations.... So far, each instance of evidence that Meier has offered, when pursued to its logical limit, ends up being a zero as far as compelling proof is concerned. Add any number of zeros and you still have zero."

1979 年 10 月號的《空中現象研究組織通報》特別刊出羅瑞生的話。他在給史蒂芬的信中寫著：“我慎重地提出，你們是因為強烈地想去相信（對怪異解釋的預設立場）這件事，所以才急於作出判斷，但是到目前為止，在探究邁爾所提供的每一個證據的邏輯時，結果都是無法獲得確實的證明。不論你有多少勉強的解釋，你的結果仍然是無法證明的。”

One ufologist, Lucius Farish, a columnist for the MUFON UFO Journal, publicly defended Stevens and the Intercep group. "You are free to think anything you wish concerning the Meier case or Stevens's investigation of it," he wrote to the journal's editor. "However, the fact remains that you have no proof that the case is a hoax. I've heard all kinds of accusations, but I have yet to see one iota of real evidence.... When anyone takes thousands of dollars out of his own pocket to investigate UFOs, I think he deserves to be heard without a bunch of clowns harassing him because he showed them up at their own game."

UFO 學家露西斯．佛瑞斯（Lucius Farish）是《UFO公報》的專欄作家，他曾公開為史蒂芬及監聽公司辯護。他寫給公報編輯的信中說道：“你可以對邁爾的案子或史蒂芬的調查自由地思考，但是在你面前的這個案子你也無法證明它是個騙局。我曾聽過各種控訴，但我仍未看到任何證據能支持這些控訴。當有人從口袋掏出大把鈔票去研究不明飛行物時，我認為應該有人聽聽他們的看法，而不應該受到一些小丑影響，這些小丑因自己表現不如人而嫉妒。”

Later, in a letter to another ufologist, Kal Korff, who more than anyone else had repeatedly attacked the Meier case, Farish wrote: "The opinions of persons who have never bothered to investigate the case and who are willing to accept negative statements concerning it without investigation are totally worthless. ... I would say that 98% of the criticisms of the Meier case which I have read/heard are merely 'sour grapes'. . . ."

後來佛瑞斯在他一封寫給另一位 UFO 學家卡．可夫（Kal Korff）的信中（可夫是不斷重複攻訐邁爾案子最嚴厲之人）寫道：“那些從未調查過此案，且在此非客觀的情況下就接受一些負面意見的人，他們的看法是不足取的。但我必須指出的是，我所讀到或聽到對邁爾案子的評論文章，有百分之九十八是‘酸葡萄’心理作祟。”

In the MUFON UFO Journal of December 1980, Korff published an article entitled "The Meier Incident: The Most Infamous Hoax in UFOlogy," which he later expanded into a booklet and distributed among other ufologists. Korff concluded: "After a careful review of all of the major purported events as stated by Genesis III and those individuals involved with the Meier case, it can be conclusively shown that none of the events as claimed contain the slightest shred of evidence to support their authenticity. Therefore it must be stated that the Meier case gives every appearance of being nothing more than a grandiose and elaborate hoax. It is certainly the most extravagant of all of the known contactee cases contained within the records of UFOlogy."

在 1980 年 12 月的《UFO公報》中，可夫發表了一篇題為《邁爾意外事件 —— UFO界最不名譽的騙局》的文章，後來被編成小冊子並傳送給其它 UFO 學者。可夫結論：“在仔細看過所有參與邁爾案研究者所提出的報告後，我可以指出沒有一件他們宣稱的事件能夠稍微證明它們的可信度，因此，我必須指出邁爾的案子根本就是一個誇張及精心策劃的慌言。它確實是所有已知 UFO 案例中最奇怪的案例。”

"At UFO '79 in San Diego," remembered Lee Elders, "the character assassination started against us. They started attacks that were unbelievable. They sent out flyers and brochures talking about this Meier hoax that we had perpetrated. We went through a bloody mess for a year and a half after that, so we quietly rallied our forces together. We're being attacked day and night for perpetrating 'the wildest hoax since time began,' and we can't lay this card on the table with IBM or any of the other labs. We don't want people bothering the scientists. So at that point we refused to release any more information on the case. We took it underground. And this haunted me for two years. I felt we had tangible evidence as an investigator. I didn't know if we could prove the case to be real, but I knew we had tangible evidence. Not one of these UFO people had ever been to Switzerland. They hadn't spent five minutes with Meier. None of them has been there. So how can they say it's a hoax? That's what frustrated me the most."

李記得：“在聖地牙哥的‘七九年 UFO 年會’中，我們開始面對無情的暗殺，他們開始攻訐說這是不可信的事，他們放話及使用小冊子來指責我們捏造了邁爾的騙局。在那之後我們經歷了一年半的苦戰，我們默默地團結我們的力量。從那時開始，我們就不分晝夜地被指控為捏造了‘有史以來最大的騙局’，但我們不能將任何實驗室曝光，我們不希望人們給科學家帶來困擾，所以我們不再發表任何與案子有關的資訊，我們將它地下化，就這樣持續了兩年。身為一名調查員，我覺得我們掌握了確實的證據，雖然我不知道我們是否能證明案子是真實的，但我知道我們握有確實的證據。那些談論 UFO 的人非但沒有去過瑞士也不曾與邁爾談過。所以他們如何能說它是騙局？這也是最讓我痛心的。”

"Then," added Brit, "letters started coming in here saying, 'We want to see what you have. Send it to us.' We wrote back saying, 'No. If you want to see what we have, you come to Phoenix and look at it. It does not leave our possession.' So then everybody starts saying, 'They don't have anything. They're not going to let anyone see what they have because they don't have anything at all.' That's how this little merry-go-round works. I said, 'It's here, but if you want to see it you come here to see it.' None of them ever did."

“後來，”佈雷特說，“信件開始陸續地寄來並表示：‘我們要看你們所擁有的資料，請把它們寄給我們。’我回信告訴他們：‘不行，如果你要看可以到鳳凰城來看，我們不會把它轉交給任何人。’於是有人開始說：‘他們不想讓任何人看是因為他們什麼都沒有，只是虛晃一招。’我說：‘資料都在這裡，你只要來就可以看到，’但他們都沒有來。”

While Dilettoso conducted his campaign with the scientists, Lee Elders returned from Switzerland with a new sound tape from Meier. Eva Bieri, one of the witnesses present when the sounds were recorded, had described to Elders the experience of listening to the sounds as a beam-ship, unseen, hovered overhead. An attractive Swiss woman in her mid-twenties, Eva had stood in a meadow only two miles from the farm, balancing her two-month-old son on her hip. Popi, a tape recorder in her hand, stood nearby. Near the edge of a pine forest 200 to 300 yards away, Meier had sat on his tractor, as another tape recorder turned in the small trailer behind it. Soon, Engelbert and Maria Wachter and others had joined them, and then everyone had watched the sky and waited.

當狄特索在說服務方科學家時，李從瑞士帶回來了一卷新的邁爾錄音帶。錄音時的目擊者伊娃．貝薇（Eva Bieri）曾向李描述聆聽太空船在頭上翱翔、聽得到聲音但看不到它的經驗。伊娃是一位雙十年華的迷人女士，當時她站在距農場僅兩英里的一塊草地上，抱著她兩個月大的兒子，波比則握著一個錄音機站在附近。在 200 到 300 碼的地方有一片松樹林，邁爾坐在樹林邊他的牽引機上，而另外一個錄音機則放在牽引機後面的小拖車上。很快地，安柏伯．瓦奇特（Engelbert Wachter）和馬瑞．瓦奇特（Maria Wachter）及其它人也加入了他們，然後每個人都注視著天空並等待著。

Eva, who had sensitive ears, disliked loud music and loud people. But when the deafening sounds suddenly filled the sky over her, she became angry not for her own discomfort, but because she felt it would harm the ears of her baby.

伊娃有一雙靈敏的耳朵，因此不喜歡嘈雜的音樂和人群。當震耳欲聾的聲音突然在空中出現時，她變得有些不安，她的不安不是因為她的不舒服，而是因為她覺得聲音會傷害到嬰兒的耳朵。

"On tape it sounds different than it really was," she said. "It was like the sky was full of sound, not from one place. The sound was everywhere, and we were thinking it must be very loud because people came from far away to see what had happened, and they were running, not walking."

她說：“帶子上的聲音和實際的還是有點差距，當時就像是整個天空都充滿了聲音，聲音不是來自一處，那聲音充滿各方，我們都覺得那聲音非常大，而且很多人都從大老遠趕來看發生了什麼事，而且他們是用跑步而非走路來的。”

Shrill and unnatural, seeming to echo from within as it rose and fell, the sound, though loud, seemed almost pleasant to Eva's ears. Her child did not cry, but only craned his neck and blinked his eyes and listened.

那聲音尖銳又不尋常，聲音升降時似乎會產生回音，雖然很大但是伊娃聽起來卻不是很刺耳。她的小孩子也沒有哭鬧，只是伸著脖子、閉著眼睛傾聽。

For years Dilettoso had worked at creating sound using digital sound synthesizers; whereas analyzing photos involved techniques new to him, he understood the analysis of sound. Through a former employer, Micor Corporation, he arranged one evening to examine the recording with a digital audio analyzer. But after taking the sounds apart he could not figure out how to duplicate them.

多年來，狄特索都在利用數位聲音同步儀從事聲音創作的工作。分析相片對他而言是新的技術，但是分析聲音卻是他很在行的。他透過以前的雇主麥可（Micor）公司安排了一個晚上去使用數位音訊分析儀來分析那一卷帶子，但在分解聲音之後，他卻不知道應該如何去複製他們。

"That was the point at which I was blown away," he said. "To the ear they don't sound that unusual. It sounds like what you'd expect a sci-fi flying saucer to sound like. But upon analysis, they're continually shifting and changing, and combinations of them are getting louder and softer and doing things at such a rapid rate that even with a synthesizer being able to generate that many sounds it would be really, really complex."

“我真的被它擊敗了，”他說，“在我們聽起來它們並沒有多少不尋常，它就像我們能想像的科幻飛碟的聲音，但是在分析時它會不斷地移位及改變，而它們組合之後音量會變得較大且較柔和，即使是一個可以產生那麼多聲音的合成器來製作像它頻率那麼快的聲音，都是非常困難的。”

But needing independent verification, Dilettoso sent the tape to Rob Shellman, a sound engineer with the United States Navy sonar sound laboratory in Groton, Connecticut. Also intrigued with their complexity, Shellman immediately eliminated one major possibility: Meier could not have used any electrical AC source to create the sounds.

為了分別證實，狄特索將帶子送交一位康乃狄克州格羅頓（Groton）美國海軍聲納實驗室的聲音工程師羅伯．雪門（Rob Shellman）去分析。由於這個聲音的複雜性引起了他的興趣，雪門立刻排除了一個主要的可能性：邁爾不可能使用任何交流電源去創造這種聲音。

The equipment was set up to analyze for 50 or 60 hz ute frequencies, which are common electrical outlets." Shellman wrote to Dilettoso. "If the device that generates the sound was an electric motor or machine the line frequencies would be evident. No such frequencies were detected."

雪門寫信給狄特索：“我們的裝備可以用來分析 50 或 60 赫茲的線型頻率，那是一般電流的頻率，如果產生這種聲音的設備是一種電子馬達或機器，那就一定可以看出它的線型頻率，但是我並沒有找到任何頻率。”

Seeking further verification of what seemed to be an unusual recording, Stevens located in Los Angeles an electronics consultant and computer engineer, Nils Rognerud. A designer with a large electronics firm, Rognerud took the tape to a sound lab and converted the sounds to wavy lines on a spectrum analyzer. As he watched, the various frequencies vibrated up and down across the screen, converged into a thick zigzag, then split apart and converged again.

為了進一步辨明此不尋常的錄音，史蒂芬在洛杉磯找到了一位電子兼電腦工程顧問尼斯．隆那魯（Nils Rognerud），他是一家大型電子公司的設計師。隆那魯將帶子送到一個聲音實驗室，並且將聲音用頻譜分析儀轉換為波動線。當他注視時，種種的頻率穿過螢幕並上下振動，合併成密集的鋸齒線，然後分開並再次合併。

"I was being very skeptical from a scientific viewpoint," Rognerud said later, "but the sounds were unusual."

後來隆那魯說道：“以科學的觀點來看，我是非常懷疑的，但此聲音的確不尋常。”

At a loss to explain them, Rognerud called in a second consultant, Steve Ambrose, who built custom microphones for rock stars and was the sound engineer for Stevie Wonder. Recently, Ambrose had built a tiny wireless radio receiver and speaker that fit inside Stevie Wonder's ear. The radio, called a Micro Monitor, was one of two inventions Ambrose had patented. He also toured regularly with Simon and Garfunkel, Engelbert Humperdinck, Diana Ross, and other popular singers as a sound specialist. He understood sound synthesizers and their capabilities. Rognerud had asked him to listen to the Meier recording to see if he thought Meier somehow had fabricated the sounds with a synthesizer.

由於很難向他們解釋，隆那魯求助於另一位顧問，史蒂夫．安保（Steve Ambrose），他專門替搖滾樂明星開演唱會時統籌音效工作，同時也是史提夫．汪達（Stevie Wonder）的聲音工程師。安保最近才剛剛建立了一個微小的無線接收器及放大器，並裝置在史提夫．汪達的耳朵裡。這個收音機稱為微監聽器，是安保獲得專利的兩項發明之一。他同時也以聲音專家的身分經常與賽門（Simon）及加方克（Garfunkel）、英格伯．漢伯丁（Engelbert Humperdinck）、戴安娜．羅斯（Diana Ross）及其它著名的歌星們巡迴演出。他瞭解聲音合成器及它們的功能。隆那魯希望安保能聽聽邁爾的錄音，並判斷邁爾是否使用合成器來偽造那些聲音。

Later Ambrose said, "Nils knew that if I thought it was a hoax I would just flatly say, 'I'm sorry, I could do this.' He's like that, too."

後來安保說：“隆那魯知道如果我認為它是偽造的，我一定會斷然地說：‘很抱歉，我也可以製造出這種聲音。’他也和我一樣是個直腸子。”

Over the phone Rognerud explained to Ambrose that the alleged source of the sounds was an interstellar beam-ship coming to earth from the Pleiades. He added that from everything he could discern the sounds seemed to be authentic. Such a strong endorsement from Rognerud piqued Ambrose's interest, but the recording still held surprises for him. After listening to it awhile and watching it on the spectrum analyzer, he told Rognerud the sounds could not possibly have been made with a synthesizer. They were analog, or natural, sounds, and he agreed with Rognerud that they seemed authentic. "If someone is perpetrating a hoax," he said, "they went to some length."

在電話中，隆那魯向安保解釋，那聲音是由昴宿星來地球的星際太空船產生的。隆那魯說以他的專業來鑒定，這個聲音似乎是可信的。隆那魯這麼強力的保證激起了安保的興趣，但是那卷錄音帶仍然令他感到非常驚訝。在聽了一小段錄音，並注視其頻譜分析後，他告訴隆那魯那種聲音不可能是由合成器產生的。這是模擬或自然的聲音，他也同意隆那魯的說法是可信的，他說：“如果是有人在製造騙局，那他們的確是了不起。”

"Synthesizers use oscillators that are capable of making things that sound real," Ambrose explained later. "But the frequencies that this sound generated were so random and varied it was beyond the capabilities of an oscillator or even a group of oscillators. You'd have to use a microphone of some analog, natural sound like a lathe, metal cutting metal, which has low frequencies and high frequencies, and if you speeded it up or slowed it down you could get the various frequencies that would resemble what this had on it. But even then you'd have to take that and layer it several times, mixing one sound in with another, and this just didn't sound like something that had been layered, track upon track upon track. When you've dealt with recording and electronic sound you get to be able to hear what happens when you layer one sound on top of another. This was a single sound source recording that had an amazing frequency response."

安保解釋：“使用振盪式的合成器是可以製造這種聽起來很真實的聲音，但是這個聲音的頻率是隨機變化的，這就超出了振盪合成器，甚至一整組振盪器的能力範圍了。你必須使用一個類比的麥克風，產生像車床運作的聲音，再配合金屬切割器（可以產生低頻及高頻的聲音），而且如果你再加速或減速，就可以得到類似這卷錄音帶裡的各種音訊了。但即使如此，你也必須這麼做很多次，將一種聲音和另外一種聲音混合，而這一卷錄音帶聽起來並不像是做過多層合成的。當你從事錄音及電子聲音工作時，必須能夠聽出來一個聲音加到另外一個聲音上面時會發生什麼變化，而這一卷帶子裡面的聲音卻是單一音源的，它的頻率響應非常迷人。”

Ambrose knew many people in Hollywood involved in creating special effects, and the sounds, he said, were something none of them could have conceived.

安保認識很多在好萊塢從事特殊音效製作的人，但這種聲音卻是他們無法想像的。

"How would you duplicate that sound?" he asked. "I'm not just talking about how it sounded to your ears, but how do you show those various things on a spectrum analyzer and on the 'scope that it was doing? It's one thing to make something that sounds like it, it's another thing to make something that sounds like it and has those consistent and random oscillations in it.

他問：“你可能複製這聲音嗎？我說的不僅僅是你耳朵的感覺，而是你要如何在頻譜分析儀及示波器上顯現這卷帶子上的各種不同的東西。製造一個和它聽起來一樣的聲音是一回事，但是製造一個聽起來一樣，而且又具有那些一致而隨機的振盪頻率的聲音又是一回事。”

"If it is a hoax," he continued, "I'd like to meet the guy who did it, because he could probably make a lot of money in special effects."

他繼續說；“如果它是偽造的，我真想認識這個偽造的人，因為他如果從事特殊效果的製造，他應該可以賺一大筆錢。”

三

Since the spring of 1977, the farm had been slowly transformed into a functional place complete with electricity and hot and cold running water. Finally the mud was gone; the water that had once spilled down the hillsides was now dammed, directed, and fashioned into small pools. Running in long, well-tended rows, a huge garden spread from the old carriage house along the path to Schmidruti. Pear and apple trees produced large fruit in the fall and provided fresh juices kept on the back porch in large glass jugs. At the entrance to the farmhouse, screen mesh covered the large aviary filled with canaries and finches, one snow-white, fluttering back and forth between nests made of little baskets. From the front porch came a constant chirping and twittering.

自 1977 年的春天開始，農場已漸漸變成了一個有電、有冷熱水的好地方：泥濘終已遠離；原本溢出山澗的水流如今也被引導流入小池中；一個巨大的花園從舊馬車房前沿著又長又有條理的花圃直通向西密魯提村。秋天時，由梨樹和蘋果樹上摘下的鮮果製成的果汁，並排放在後陽臺上的大玻璃罐中。在農莊的入口處，網狀鐵絲圍成的大禽舍充滿了金絲雀和麻雀，一隻雪白色的鳥在鳥巢附近來回飛著，陣陣鳥叫與歌唱聲從前陽臺傳進屋內。

But one thing at the farm had not changed. It continued to attract large numbers of strangers - the religious, the scientific, the philosophical, the cynical, the merely curious - all wanting to speak with Meier. Families came, as well as priests, ufologists, film crews, couples on motorcycles, single women, reporters, and an occasional disciple searching for the Messiah. At dinner the Meier kitchen often filled with people they had never seen before, and because of Semjase's request that he educate earth humans on the existence of other races in the universe, Meier felt obligated to speak to them all.

但在農場裡有一件事卻沒有改變．那就是這裡仍然吸引了大量宗教界、科學界、哲學界愛嘲笑及好奇者前來，而這些異鄉客都希望和邁爾談話。有神職人員、UFO 學家、攝影族、機車族，單身婦女和記者，他們一個人或一家人前來。晚餐時，邁爾的廚房裡常擠滿了一些以前從未見過的人，由於 Semjase 曾經要求他去教導地球人瞭解宇宙中其它族群的存在這一實事，所以邁爾也認為他有義務去告訴這些人。

In November 1978, after a dozen or more articles about Meier had appeared in the European press, Der Spiegel, the huge international magazine, had run an eleven-page cover story on UFOs: "Apparition or Reality? The UFOs Come." The magazine cover was a dramatic Meier photograph - a beamship accompanied by a remote-controlled craft, the latter just below the horizon.

1978 年 11 月，在很多關於邁爾的文章出現在歐洲的各大報章雜誌之後，一家大型的國際雜誌新聞週刊便以飛碟故事為主題作了十一頁的報導：《幻影或真實？飛碟來了》（Apparition or Reality? The UFOs Come.），雜誌封面是一張引入注目的、邁爾所拍的相片船，兩架太空船上下對齊排列著。

The people who now sought out Meier came from all over the world. An old guest book signed by only a very few of the visitors bore addresses from Tahiti, Japan, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Mexico, and Belgium. Actress Shirley MacLaine flew to Switzerland to spend five days with Meier, helping to weed the garden and trim tree branches by day, and at night probing Meier for answers about the universe. When MacLaine left she signed the guest book: "To Billy and his loving fight for all. Thank you for your dedication, your patience, and your LOVE. Always shine. Shirley."

想找邁爾的人來自世界各地。一本舊的來賓登記簿雖然只有少數幾個訪客簽了名，但這些人中就有來自波利尼西亞、日本、法國、德國、西班牙、義大利、墨西哥及比利時的人。演員莎莉．麥克琳（Shirley MacLaine）也曾飛到瑞士與邁爾相處 5 天，她白天幫他整理花園裡的樹與草，晚上則向邁爾探討宇宙的問題。當莎莉離開時，她在簽名簿上寫著：“獻給比利及他奮戰世人的可愛行為，感謝你的奉獻、你的耐心、以及你的愛。願你永遠照耀世人。莎莉。”

Popi remained disgusted with the visitors. "I was fed up many times," she said later, "but we didn't have a choice. They would come into my house and say, 'Okay Billy, let's go.' Not a word to me. I got aggressive, I could not see why people could not understand when I told them that Billy was busy right now. They came here with their problems and Billy had to be here no matter what. He didn't care about his health, and the people didn't see that he needed time to relax, to take care of himself, and to be my husband. Nobody ever asked Billy, 'So you have a problem? Can we help you with anything?'

波比對於不斷的訪客仍然感到厭惡，後來她說：“我有很多次都已經受不了了，但我們沒有選擇，他們會走進我的房子，說：‘比利，我們走吧’。也不向我說一句話，我覺得很委屈，我不明白為什麼當我告訴他們比利正在忙時他們都無法諒解。他們帶著他們的問題前來，而比利似乎時時都在備詢中，他不在乎他自己的健康，而人們也不體諒他需要時間休息、照顧自己及做我的丈夫。沒有任何人關心過比利：‘你有問題嗎？我們是否能幫你任何事嗎？’”

"I learned to accept the way it is. Von Daniken came. He wanted information. Billy talked to him. I was glad that I didn't have to speak with these famous people."

“我學習著去接受這種方式。馮．丹尼肯（Von Daniken）也來過這裡，他需要一些資訊，比利和他交談，我很慶倖自己不必和那些名人說話。”

"We were there," recalled Lee Elders, "when cars came in from France, Holland, Denmark, from all over Europe. It created a nightmare for him."

李回顧道：“我們在那裡時的確看到有來自法國、荷蘭，丹麥及歐洲各地的汽車．而且也對邁爾造成了一場噩夢。”

"At the very beginning," added Brit, "Billy sincerely questioned his sanity. 'Why me? Why here? Why now?' Then he got to where it became fun. All of these people he'd never met before, coming to talk to him. Then the photographs hit the magazines, and all of a sudden he was swamped with people. They started lining up outside. Literally lining up. And that he didn't enjoy. People would say, 'Give me this photograph.' or 'Let me have that photograph; Then they would disappear and he would never see them again. Here I think all of the fun left it, because half of everything got stolen. The kids were being harassed in school. His wife was unhappy, and he wasn't real happy. Because there was a constant flow of human bodies. Always."

佈雷特說：“開始時，”比利曾經認真地問；“為什麼要挑上我呢？為什麼要挑上這裡呢？為什麼要是現在呢？”但事情很自然地演變成這樣：來和他談談的人都是他以前未見過的，後來相片登在雜誌上，突然之間又來了這麼多人，人們開始在外面排隊（實際上卻擁擠得不成隊形），但他並不喜歡這樣；人們會說：‘給我這張相片’或‘讓我擁有那張相片’，然後他們就消失了，他也不會再看到這些人了。我認為這裡已漸漸失去了樂趣，因為有半數的東西都被偷了，小孩子在學校被攻擊，他的太太不快樂，而他也不是真的快樂，主要原因就是這裡一直有一些固定的人潮。”

Popi still would have nothing to do with any aspect of the contacts. She refused even to discuss them with her husband. "Popi was very jealous of the contacts anyway," said Brit, "not just the fact it was with a female space traveler, but also that Billy was doing something she couldn't be a part of, and that she, deep down inside, didn't want to be a part of. She didn't want anything to do with the contacts, she didn't want to know what was being said, she didn't want to see the photographs. And she didn't want to talk to the people who were invading her privacy. I've seen her take on everybody in the kitchen, tell them to get out, leave, leave the house, go away, she never wants to see them again. Because they were making demands on her husband, and in her mind that was separating her husband from her. She finally got to the point where she didn't care. She didn't care if anybody showed up, she didn't care if her house was a mess. She didn't care what happened to her kids, herself, or her husband. Everything around her was overrun with strangers."

波比對於接觸的事還是無法插上手，她甚至於拒絕和他丈夫談論它們。“波比非常嫉妒接觸的人，”佈雷特說，“不僅僅是因為比利面對的是一位女性的太空訪客，而且也是因為比利做了許多她無法參與而且她也不想參與的事，她不想和接觸有任何牽連，她不想知道外太空人說了什麼，她也不想看照片，而她更不願意和侵犯她個人隱私的人說話。我曾看到她對在廚房裡的每一個人說，要他們離開這裡，離開這間房子，她不希望再看到他們。由於他們一直要找她的丈夫，因此讓她覺得這將使她與丈夫分開。最後她變得什麼都不在平，她不在乎是否有人出現，也不在乎她的房子是否混亂；她不在乎她的小孩發生的任何事，甚至也不在乎她自己，或她的丈夫。她身邊的每件事都變得陌生了。”

Meier predictably had become a cult figure, visited by individuals searching for something to give life meaning. Some of those who had gravitated to him looking for an answer even took up residence at the farm, as rooms were completed and outbuildings renovated. They always wanted more contacts, notes, and photographs. The new people helped keep the farm going and assisted Meier in printing his contact notes, but now he spent much of his time and energy settling disputes among his "followers." Women frequently clashed with Popi, and men vied to become Meier's confidant. Even the contact notes had acquired a decidedly terrestrial tone, often concerned merely with the problems and personalities inhabiting the farm, and attributing conflict among the members to the acts of dark forces called the "Gizah people." The warm and stimulating, even magical atmosphere that many had experienced in Meier's presence began to erode with the arrival of more and more people.

邁爾可預期地變成了一位宗教人物，希望找尋生命意義的人來拜訪他。有些人被他吸引來找尋答案，甚至就在農場上住了下來（房間已經可以住人，而附屬建築物也被整修好了）；他們總是希望獲得更多的接觸筆記及相片。新來的人幫忙農場的運作及幫邁爾印刷接觸筆記，而今他卻花費很多時間為他的“追隨者”排解糾紛。女士們時常與波比發生衝突，但男士卻爭著要做邁爾的密友；甚至於連接觸筆記也被曲解得面目全非，經常變成用來解釋農場上的人事問題，並且將所有的衝突都歸因於一種魔力的影響。原先在邁爾那裡感受到的溫暖、有生氣甚至於奇妙的氣氛，都因為有越來越多的人來此而開始消失了。

Finally, rules had to be drawn, work schedules enforced, and dues collected from those who lived at the farm, as well as from regular visitors. Everyone remaining at the farm longer than thirty minutes was expected to work. And if anyone wanted to speak with Meier they either had to do so in the field as they worked next to him or in the kitchen after they had earned a piece of his time.

最後，農場上漸漸訂立了一些規定，產生了參與工作的時間表；同時，住在農場上的人和定期訪客還必須繳交一些費用，凡是在農場停留超過 30 分鐘的人就必須從事某項工作，而任何想要和邁爾談話的人就必須在與他交談完之後在田中工作，或者是與他並肩工作，或者是在廚房中幫忙。

In the fall of 1979, with a Japanese production crew from the Nippon Television Network Corporation waiting in London, the Elders had traveled ahead to Schmidruti to see if Meier would agree to being interviewed for a documentary on his experiences. But when they arrived at the farm they found Meier locked in his office not speaking to anyone.

1979 年秋天，由於有一批來自日本電視網路公司的製作小組在倫敦等待，所以李就先一步到西密魯提去看邁爾，看他是否同意接受採訪他的經驗以作為紀錄；但是當他們到達農場時，卻發現邁爾將自己鎖在書房中不願與任何人說話。

"He wouldn't come out of his office," Lee Elders remembered. "He wasn't eating. They would take a tray of food to the door and it would sit there. All he wanted was his cup of coffee and his cigarettes and 'leave me alone.' "

李記得：“他不願意走出他的書房，他不肯吃東西了。一盤食物到他的門旁，但是他卻不肯去碰那些食物，他所要的只是一杯咖啡及他的香煙以及‘讓我安靜’。”

For three days Meier remained alone in the small room he used for an office. When he finally broke silence it was to send an urgent summons to Elders.

有三天的時間邁爾都獨自留在他自稱辦公室的小書房裡，邁爾最後終於打破沉默，那是因為他要傳達一個緊急訊息給李。

"What an experience that was. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I walked in, the room was dark, there was one little lamp on, and he was sitting there in the chair. We were about this far apart. And the light was on my side. I couldn't see him fully but he could see me. His hair was wild and he had this wild look in his eyes and he would just sit there. I mean he was just a beaten man, totally withdrawn, staring at me.

“這真是一個令我一生難忘的經驗，我走進去，房間很暗，只有一盞小燈，而他就坐在那邊的一張椅子上，我們大約相隔這麼遠，燈光在我這一邊，所以我不能完全看清楚他，只有他能看清楚我。他的頭髮很散亂，眼神古怪地坐在那裡。我覺得他像一個剛被打敗的人，極度地畏縮，凝視著我。”

"Somewhere along in my life I was told that the first man that speaks under conditions like that loses. So I thought, I'll wait him out. I went through three cigarettes. Nothing. Him staring at me, and me looking at him and smoking a cigarette and waiting and waiting.

“在這一生中曾經有人告訴我第一個在那種情況下說話的人就是輸家，所以我想我應該等他開口。我抽了三根煙。他仍然凝視著我不說一句話，而我只好抽著煙，看著他，繼續地等待。”

"Finally I knew he wasn't going to say anything, and I could have been there all day, so I said, 'How are you, Billy?' And he goes, 'Oh, Lee.' And then he poured his heart out to me for two hours. Talked and talked and talked about problems on the farm and how the pressure was getting to him, and he couldn't go on anymore and he was going to break the contacts. He says, 'I will break them. Break them.' He kept talking.

“最後，我知道他不會說任何話了，而我也可能整天都耗在這裡。所以我說：‘比利，你好嗎？’然後他說：‘噢！李’然後他向我傾訴了兩個小時心中的話。他不斷地談關於農場上的問題，以及他受到的壓力，這使得他不能再繼續下去，他想中斷接觸，接著他不停地說：“我要中斷它們。”

"So I sit for two hours in this darkened room listening to him and finally I said, 'How about some tea?' So I got up, went to the kitchen, got some tea, then went back over.

“所以我坐在這昏暗的房間裡聽他說了兩個小時的話，最後我說：‘要不要喝點茶？’接著我就站起來，走到廚房，拿了一些菜，再走回去。”

"I was there six hours total with the man. I did everything in my power to convince him to continue what he was doing. I'll never forget... it sounded hokey at the time, but in a way, when I started thinking about it, it wasn't that hokey because it worked. I drew the analogy of Michelangelo. I said, 'Look Billy, you're familiar with Michelangelo, aren't you?' He nods. 'Well, look at this man, look what he created, look what he did while he was on this planet, look at his artwork, look at the things that he accomplished, look at what he gave to humanity. You're doing the same thing. Your photographs are like Michelangelo, they're the best anybody's ever seen.' I said, You're contributing to raising the consciousness on this planet, and that's very important.'

“我總共在那裡和他相處了六個小時，我盡我所能地去說服他繼續做他正在做的事。我記得很清楚那時我覺得像是在欺騙他，但是當我仔細想想，又覺得並不是在欺騙他，因為這種說法蠻有效的，我以米開朗基羅為例，我說：“比利你看，你很熟悉米開朗基羅嘛，對不對？”他點頭，“那我們就來看看他，看看他所創造的一切，看看他還在世時所做的一切，看看他的藝術工作，看看他的成就，以及他帶給人類的文明，你也是在做相同的工作。你的相片就像是米開朗基羅的作品，它們是任何人所能看到的最好的。你對提升這個行星的良知極有貢獻，這是非常重要的。”

"I went on and on. And he started listening, and then he started thinking about it. His problems were minute because he was accomplishing something great. See, by that time we had gone through a period where people were hounding us day and night over Volume I, letters from kids and letters from doctors and letters from people with terminal illnesses trying to get to the Pleiadians for help. We had undergone this onslaught of individuals. There was meaning behind it to them, and they weren't UFO nuts. It was sort of like hope during troubled times. So I knew what he was going through, but I also knew what it meant to these other people. Finally I said, 'Billy, I've got some Japanese waiting in London, what'll I tell them?' And he says, 'Bring them in.'"

“我繼續說，而他開始傾聽，然後他也開始思考。與他所成就的大事相比，他的問題實在不大。你看，那時候我們已經走過那段人們成天追逐我們的日子，我們收到孩子們、博士們以及患了絕症希望昴宿星人給予協助的人寫來的信，我們經歷了攻訐與戰爭，對他們而言它的背後是有意義的，邁爾絕對不是飛碟怪人；這就像是動亂時的一線希望，我明白他所遭遇到的一切，但是我也知道這對其他人的意義。最後我說：‘比利，有一些日本人在倫敦等候，我將如何告訴他們？’然後他說：‘把他們帶來。’”

四

While they waited for the film crew to arrive, Brit continued to record everyday life at the farm in her diary. "Popi fixed three-minute eggs, bread, sausage, cheese, enough for an army. Last night we had potatoes and cheese.

當他們在等待攝影小組抵達時，佈雷特繼續在她的日記中記錄了農場上的生活：“波比烹調的水煮蛋、麵包香腸及乳酪足夠一連人食用．昨晚我們吃的是馬鈴薯和乳酪，他們笑我們因為我們吃馬鈴薯皮，而他們是不吃皮的。我將教波比做美式煎蛋、蛋捲與香腸。”

They laughed at us because we ate the potato skins - they peel theirs. I'm going to teach Popi how to fry eggs, make omelets and sausage the U.S. way."

記得有一晚，我們 8 個人擠在一輛車子上，邁爾在後面的拖車上和我們越過草原到一個小餐館。

One night eight people piled into a Land-Rover, and Meier drove on back trails across meadows to a small guesthouse restaurant.

"Billy drives like a madman," wrote Brit, "lights off, shifts with his foot, laughs all the time, says he's protected, 'Don't worry,' At the restaurant Lee had his first coffee kirsch, we all joined in, had coffee kirsch, coffee schnapps. Came home same way - no lights, Billy shifting with his foot, 'Don't worry, we're protected.'

佈雷特寫著：“邁爾開起車來就像瘋了一樣，不開燈，用腳換檔，不停地笑，並說他是受到保護的：‘不用擔心。’李在餐廳喝了他的第一杯櫻桃酒咖啡，然後我們也加入，喝櫻桃酒咖啡及杜松子酒咖啡。回家時也是一樣，沒有燈光，邁爾用腳換檔：‘不要擔心，我們是受到保護的。’”

"Back home after a jigger of the strongest rum anyone could ever make, we all felt extremely 'relaxed.' Billy asked if we had ever seen this done before, and at that point he threw a spoon across the table and when I picked it up it was bent, twisted. Then he did one for Lee."

“回到家以後，大家又喝了一杯沒有人能夠承受得了的烈酒，然後大家都完全‘放鬆’了。邁爾問我們以前是否看過這種事，那時他隔著桌子丟過來一個湯匙，當我拾起它時它已經被扭彎曲了。然後他也丟給李一個。”

After Meier had bent the spoons, Brit said, "Are you the next so-called Prophet?"

當邁爾使湯匙彎曲之後，佈雷特說：“你就是下一個所謂的預言家嗎？”

"No," said Meier. "All people are prophets, and everyone has the power to bend spoons."

邁爾說：“不，所有的人都是預言家，而且每個人都有力量將湯匙弄彎曲。”

Meier explained that he used the force from the people around him and the force of his own mind in channeling it.

邁爾解釋他的力量來自他周遭的人們，而他則利用自己的意志去控制它。

"I call them 'foolish turnarounds,'" he said. Then he held up one of the spoons he had bent. "This I do only for Brit."

他說；“我稱它們為‘愚笨的旋轉者’，”然後他舉起一個他曾經弄彎的湯匙說，“這是我為佈雷特做的。”

"And between his thumb and index finger," Brit wrote in her diary, "he melted the spoon and broke it in half."

佈雷特在她的日記中寫著：“他將拇指與食指間的湯匙融化，並將它分為兩半。”

Lee still watched Meier closely, searching for a weak point or a clue. But Meier was so quick and so natural, Elders had yet to see anything suspicious or revealing. "I was fascinated with what he could do with a nail," said Elders, "with what he could do with a compass making it spin around without touching it. He'd say, 'It's just power of the mind,' so he didn't equate it to his Pleiadian contacts. It was something he had learned perhaps years ago, perhaps in India. But this fascinated me, because at this point I was pretty well convinced in my own mind that he was not hoaxing this thing through normal means."

李仍然密切地觀察著邁爾，想找尋一點暗示或破綻，但邁爾非常地敏捷與自然，李也沒有發現任何懷疑或可揭穿的事。李說：“我對他用手指做的事感到困惑，而他能在不碰觸的情況下使一個指南針一直旋轉，這也令我感到困惑。他說：“這就是意志力量。”他並沒有把這件事與他的昴宿星人接觸事件相提並論。這可能是他幾年前在印度學會的，但我不確定，因為當時我的心裡早已經相信他的一切都不是一般人能理解的。”

五

Jun-Ichi Yaoi and the Japanese production crew arrived in Schmidruti the latter part of September to begin three weeks of filming. Their first night at the farm, they sat in the living room watching and filming Meier's 8mm footage of the beamships off a white screen. In the first sequence the ship darted back and forth over a farmhouse and a tall pine tree, and then appeared to cut quickly in front of the tree as the top branches suddenly bent as if caught in a backwash. Talking excitedly in Japanese, the crew had Meier run the sequence over and over as they focused on the top branches of the tree. Then while watching another series filmed at Hasenbol, one of the crew members noticed something unusual about a seeming reflection off the ship's flange. Meier ran it back, and the Japanese cameraman zoomed to the edge of the ship. There on the silver rim, like the slow brightening of a lighthouse beacon, a distinct red light flashed on and then off again.

野中奇（Jun-Ichi Yaoi）及日本的製作群在 9 月下旬到達西密魯提，並開始為期 3 週的拍攝。他們在農場的第一個晚上就是坐在客廳觀看並拍攝白色螢幕上所顯現的邁爾 8 釐米太空船影片。第一段是太空船在一個農場和一棵高的松樹上方來回加速，然後它忽然飛到樹的前方，使頂端的樹枝因為突然來的一陣逆流而彎曲。

日本人用日語興奮地討論著，他們要求邁爾不斷地重複放映此一段影片，並將焦點集中在樹枝的頂端。後來在觀看黑森堡所拍攝的另一系列影片時，其中一人注意到在船緣似乎有不尋常的折射。邁爾便重複放映，好讓日本的拍攝人員瞄準船的邊緣調焦距錄影，在那個緩緩明亮起來的、似燈塔的銀色金屬環圈上有一道清楚的紅色閃光。

During the day Elders and Welch accompanied the film crew to the sites where Meier's alleged contacts had taken place. They both had surmised for some time that if Meier's story were true, each of the landing sites would have some degree of radiation left behind by the beamship. The proper instrument at the right sensitivity might be able to detect that radiation. After several phone calls they located a gamma radiation detector at Wild-Heerbrugg, a precision instruments company in Switzerland. Similar to a Geiger counter, the instrument measures electromagnetic radiation, and Welch spoke to a physicist there who had used it many times.

白天時，李和維奇陪同攝影組的人到達邁爾的接觸現場。他們兩人都曾經推測如果邁爾的故事是真實的，那麼每一個著陸地點都應該會有某種程度的太空船遺留下來的輻射，正常感測的適當儀錶應該能偵測到這些輻射。在打了許多電話聯繫之後，他們向瑞士的希爾堡荒野（Wild-Heerbrugg）公司（一家精准儀器公司）借到了一個「伽馬輻射偵測器」，這一個和「蓋氏（Geiger）計數器」相似的儀器，可以測量電磁輻射，而維奇也向一位曾使用過很多次這個儀器的物理學家請教了。

"I told him what we were trying to determine," said Welch, "and he indicated that this would be the equipment to use."

維奇說：“我告訴他我們要試著澄清什麼，而他指出那可能就要使用這個儀錶。”

The physicist told Welch that the instrument would detect any artificially caused change in the molecular structure of grass and soil.

這位科學家告訴維奇，這種儀錶可以偵測到任何因人為造成的草及土壤分子結構的變化。

While the crew filmed Meier in a meadow not far from Hinwil, where Meier claimed the first Pleiadian beamship had landed and remained for an hour and a quarter nearly five years earlier, Elders and Welch set up the radiation detector. To establish a comparison, they first took readings in the grass of the surrounding area, which measured a low .00 to .05. Each time a stronger reading appeared on the dial, they marked the spot on the ground. But before they had finished taking readings in all of the areas, they noticed that the spots marked on the ground were beginning to form roughly the shape of a circle. Inside the circle the radiation level consistently measured .2, roughly 400 percent higher than the background measurements. And the readings inside the circle pulsated.

當攝影組的人在離欣維爾鎮不遠的草原上拍攝時（此處正是邁爾宣稱大約五年前昴宿星人太空船第一次登陸，並停留了 1 小時又 15 分鐘的地點），李和維奇便將輻射偵測器放在那裡。為了比較，他們先在周圍的草地讀表，測量的結果指數低到 0.5 以下。每當有較強的指數出現在儀錶上時，他們就在地面標識並注明之。但在他們完成所有區域的讀表前，他們注意到在地面的標示漸漸開始形成一個類似圓圈的形狀。在圓圈內的輻射平均量是 0.2，大約高於其餘部分 4 倍，而且圓圈內的讀表還會規律地振動。

"It didn't go up and hang," remembered Welch. "It went up like this and then down a little bit, and then went back up, back down a little bit. We didn't expect this."

維奇記得：“指數高懸在那裡，它會升高上去，然後再下降一點，然後再升高，再下降一點，我們根本就沒想到會這樣。”

In diameter, the circle in which the readings pulsated and the radiation rose so much higher measured roughly twenty-one feet.

指數會上下振動，而且輻射量最高的圓圈半徑大約有 21 英尺。

According to Welch's notes taken at the time of the measuring. "Immediately after that we went back to the hotel and I contacted the physicist who provided the equipment to determine if there was any significance at all to the findings, or if it was a calibration of the equipment that needed to be done. The physicist, who was somewhat reserved in his personality and approach, was surprised."

維奇量測筆記上寫著：“在那之後，我們立刻回到旅館與那位提供儀器給我們的物理學家聯絡，問他這些發現是否有任何意義，或者是這些儀錶需要作校準。這位物理學家雖然在個性及舉止上是比較保守的，但是他也感到非常吃驚。”

"Tell me again the background readings," said the physicist.

Welch read them over the phone.

"And the other readings?" asked the physicist.

"One point five, up to two point zero," said Welch.

"Where did you find these readings? Specifically."

物理學家說：“再告訴我一次背景的指數。”

維奇透過電話讀給他。

物理學家問：“其它的指數呢？”

維奇說：“1.5 至 2.0。”

“你能明確地指出在哪裡發現這些指數的？”

As nearly as he could describe the area. Welch told the physicist its location. The physicist then told Welch that he and others had been using the equipment in his laboratory and in the field for about ten years, and it had always read accurately. No brand name appeared on the equipment, and the physicist could not remember its manufacturer.

 維奇盡可能地告訴物理學家它的確切位置，然後物理學家告訴維奇，他和其它人在他的實驗室中使用這個儀錶已經大約十年了，而它一直都是很精確的。這個儀錶上並沒有廠牌，而物理學家也記不得它的製造商。

When Welch suggested that either the readings were insignificant or the equipment needed calibration, the physicist dismissed both possibilities: The equipment was sound and the readings were indeed significant, since they represented gamma radiation levels of between 100 and 400 percent above the highest background levels.

維奇認為如果不是指數無意義，就是儀錶需要校正，但是物理學家卻排除了這兩種可能：此儀錶是不錯的，而且讀數也是有實質意義的，因為他們偵測到的伽馬輻射強度高於背景約 1 到 4 倍。

The physicist recommended they immediately contact the Swiss Nuclear Safety Commission for further information and guidance, and allow their team to investigate. He did not know what the readings indicated, but he felt that a specialist should take them again and analyze them.

物理學家建議他們應該立刻聯絡瑞士核能安全委員會提供更進一步的資料與協助，並請他們的小組去調查。他不知道讀數具有什麼意義，但他覺得應該要有另外一位專家再作一次偵測，並且分析那些資料。

"He did not go into further detail," read Welch's notes, "except to explain what would be required to cause any such gamma radiation detection - an unnatural source strong enough to change the electromagnetic nature of every molecule where the readings were obtained." Like a paper clip that has been magnetized, articles near a strong electromagnetic field would acquire a "memory" of that force.

維奇的筆記寫著：“他並沒有再繼續作進一步的說明，只是說明瞭哪些因素可能造成這種伽馬輻射的現象，那就是一種非自然的輻射源，它的強度強到足以改變那些讀數所在地上每一個分子的電磁場特性，這就像是一個已經磁化的回紋針，任何靠近一個強力電磁場附近的物體都會受到這種磁力的影響而殘留同樣的磁力。”

After this experience, they took the instrument to the Meier farm and got .00 readings in the vicinity, until they got within four hundred yards of the house, a giant circle. Within the circle, the needle suddenly jumped from .00 to .15.

經過這試驗之後，他們把儀錶帶去邁爾農場，在附近量到的指數是零，直到他們進入距離房舍 400 碼內時，就出現了一個大圓圈，在圓圈內，指標突然從 0.00 跳到 0.15。

"But it wasn't consistent," said Welch. "You'd be walking and there'd be no reading, and all of a sudden you'd get this jump. And it would hang at .15 for a second, and then it would start to go down."

維奇說：“但這不是完全一致的，你在那裡走，先是讀不到東西，然後突然跳到很高，之後指數就一直維持在 0.15，約 1 秒鐘之後，它才又開始下降。”

At one alleged landing site at the edge of the forest below the farm, Welch again got sporadic readings up to .15. At another landing site in the gravel road leading to the front of the house, he got lightly pulsating readings from .05 all the way up to .2.

在農場下方樹林邊緣一個據稱著陸的地點，維奇再度發現指數會偶爾升到 0.15。在房舍前面砂石路的另一著陸地點，他量到的指數是在 0.05 到 0.2 之間變動。

At this point they decided to check all of the articles Meier carried to the contacts. They went into Meier's office and got his gun. First they took out the bullets and got no reading on those. When they asked Meier how long he had had the bullets, he said they had been purchased only recently. On the gun the meter went to .01. Meier's watch registered .05. A metal charm Meier kept in his pocket registered .1.

在這種情況之下，他們決定檢查邁爾帶到接觸地的所有物品。他們進入邁爾的書房，並取走他的槍。首先，他們先量子彈，但是指數是零；他們問邁爾擁有這些子彈多久了，邁爾說是最近買的。槍的指數是指著 0.01；邁爾的手錶是 0.05；另外一個放在邁爾口袋裡的金屬飾品是 0.1。

While checking the objects, they discovered that Meier himself gave off readings. His left shoulder fluctuated from .1 to .15, and his right arm from .05 to .1. Welch again called the physicist at Wild-Heerbrügg.

在檢查這些物品時，他們發現邁爾本人也帶有指數左肩在 0.1 到 0.15 變動，而右臂則是 0.05 到 0.1 之間．

維奇再打電話給那位物理學家。

"Did you slam a door on it?" asked the physicist. "Did you crush it, or anything like that?"

物理學家問：“你是否心情不好或量測時情緒不穩？”

"Absolutely not," said Welch. "Is it something you have to handle like a feather? Because if that's the case, maybe a slight bump when you're picking it up out of its case could knock it off."

維奇說：“絕對沒有，這儀錶是不是一件像羽毛一樣敏感的東西？如果是這樣，那麼在你從盒子中把它拿出來時，只要有一點點的振動都能能使它失靈的。”

"No," said the physicist, "it's not like that. That's a steel plate you're hitting."

物理學家說：“不，不是這樣，這像鋼板一樣堅固。”

"So at this point," Welch remembered later, "I was very intrigued. He didn't have any answers. And we sure as hell did not want to go to the Swiss Nuclear Safety Commission."

“在這種情況之下，”維奇日後回憶道：“他也沒有任何答案，而我們也非常確信我們不想去找瑞士核能安全委員會了。”

After obtaining the unusual readings, Welch experimented with the instrument for a few days before they had to return it. He turned it on in his hotel room, while they were in restaurants, in open fields and forests; but each time, he recorded nothing near the readings he had gotten at the sites, at the farm, on the small articles, and on Meier himself.

在獲得此不尋常的指數之後，維奇在儀錶歸還前利用幾天的時間作了一些實驗。他在旅社房間、餐廳、野外及樹林中開啟儀錶，但每次他都沒有再記錄到他曾在接觸現場、農場、小物品及邁爾身上所量到的指數。

六

Herbert Runkel rarely came to the farm now. Whereas the Hinwil house had been a place of intellectual freedom, and the farm in the early days a joy to help rebuild, the new religious "feel" of the group with their enforced meditation and their regulations had stifled what remained of that earlier atmosphere. Meier had disenchanted Herbert two years earlier when he produced a series of photographs he said resulted from time travel with Semjase. The pictures showed the rubble of San Francisco following a massive earthquake that would occur sometime in the future. Later a friend of Herbert's discovered an article in GEO magazine that showed an artist's conception of what the long-predicted catastrophe might do to the city, and Meier's photographs obviously had been taken of this lifelike painting. With all of the beautiful photographs that no one seemed able to duplicate or explain, Herbert had been unable to understand why Meier would resort to such an obvious fabrication. Meier had said that the Pleiadians simply placed in the artist's mind an accurate picture of the real future, the same one Meier had photographed. And then the photographs had disappeared. The pictures of San Francisco had confused Herbert because he had seen so many things for himself, some trivial, some remarkable, that contributed to a fascinating story he still could not explain.

藍哥現在已很少來農場，欣維爾鎮的屋子曾經是知識份子聚集、自由發揮的場所，而早期幫忙重建農場也是一段令他感到快樂的時光，如今，那些帶有宗教意味的新團體，以及他們的舉動和作法已喪失了早期的氣氛了。

邁爾在兩年前曾使藍哥有所醒悟，當時邁爾展示給藍哥看一系列他說是與 Semjase 旅行時拍攝到的照片，相片中顯示的是三藩市（San Francisco）未來發生大地震後的斷垣殘壁景象。然後藍哥的一位朋友在《地理雜誌》（GEO magazine）發現了一篇文章，文中描述一幅某藝術家所繪預測大地震後三藩市的景象，而邁爾的相片拍到的就是這一幅栩栩如生的繪畫。藍哥不明白邁爾在拍了那麼多似乎沒有人可以複製或解釋的照片之後，為什麼要去複製這一幅畫呢？邁爾曾說昴宿星人只是在藝術家的心中放了一幅未來的真實圖片，這個圖片與邁爾所拍的相片是一樣的，可是後來相片卻不見了。這幅三藩市的相片使藍哥感到非常困惑，因為他自己已經看到這麼多事情了，有平凡的，有顯著的，而這些事情構成了一段他仍然無法解釋的神奇故事。

One October afternoon after he had been interviewed by the Japanese and they had departed, Herbert wanted to show Lee Elders a site that long ago had particularly intrigued him. He drove to the site, one that he and Harold had once visited with Meier shortly after Meier had had a contact there. Herbert stopped the car in a field crossed by railroad tracks, where he and Elders got out and walked down a dirt trail into the forest. After about a quarter of a mile they came to a secluded clearing the size of four or five football fields and surrounded by fir trees a hundred feet tall. A short way in from the meadow two trees in the forest bore large wounds frozen in sap and black from singeing.

Herbert told Elders that on the day he and Harold had come to the site with Meier three years earlier, they had wanted specifically to see these two trees: Meier allegedly had shot them with a laser gun the Pleiadians had demonstrated to him. And when Herbert and Harold had looked at the two trees that Herbert now pointed out to Elders, they could not figure out how Meier had created these marks that ate through the thick tree bark unless maybe he had used some kind of laser gun.

一個十月的下午，在一群日本人離開之後，藍哥要帶李到一個很久以前特別引起他興趣的地點。他們開車到那裡，那是一個邁爾剛剛經歷一次接觸之後不久就帶他和伯奇拜訪過的接觸現場。藍哥將車停在一條鐵路越過的空地上，他和李下車。穿過一段髒亂的小徑到達樹林中。大約走了 0.25 英里後，他們來到一個與外界隔離、空曠的，約有四、五個足球場那麼大的地方，四周圍繞著一百英尺高的樅樹。從草地走來的一段小路上有兩棵樹受到嚴重的損傷，樹液流出並凍結在外，樹幹變得焦黑。藍哥告訴李三年前他和伯奇與邁爾曾經到過這個地點，他們特地要求看那兩棵樹的痕跡：據邁爾說是昴宿星人在他面前展示鐳射槍並射向樹所造成的。

That day, while Herbert and Harold were studying the two trees, sometimes up close, sometimes stepping away to check distances, Meier had gone off nearby to look for mushrooms. At the edge of the clearing rambled a thicket of waist-high bushes. As he stepped all the way back to the meadow to eye one of the trees, Harold spotted from the corner of his eye a twig on a small bush. Something had snapped it in two. Something also had charred both of the broken tips. When Harold bent to examine the twig, he saw another one broken a few inches from the first. It, too, was charred. He called Herbert over and they discovered a perfectly straight line of broken twigs, each of them charred, that went through the tangle of thin branches, bush after bush after bush. It looked as though a narrow beam of intense heat had shot through the thicket.

Harold had called to Meier, who came over with his mushrooms to look at the small broken branches. After examining them for a moment, he said he remembered aiming the laser gun at the two tall pine trees, but not in the direction of the bushes. Maybe he had, he couldn't remember.

那一天，當藍哥及伯奇研究這兩棵樹時，他們有時走近，有時遠離並檢查距離，邁爾則到附近尋找一些草菇。在現場的邊緣有一片與腰齊高的長春藤，當伯奇看著那些樹並逐步倒退時，他從眼角瞥見在一小叢長春藤上面有一些被折成兩面的樹枝，兩頭都被燒焦及損傷了，當伯奇彎下身去檢查樹枝時，他在距離這一根樹枝幾寸的地方又看見了另外一枝，而且也被燒焦了。他把藍哥叫過來，他們發現那些斷枝都有一道無瑕疵的燒痕，雖然也是燒焦的，但燒痕直直地穿過細枝糾纏的樹叢，看起來就像是一道狹窄發熱的光束曾射穿過這些雜樹林。伯奇叫邁爾，邁爾帶著草菇去看這些折斷的樹枝。當檢視了一段時間後，他說他記得鐳射槍是瞄向兩棵高大的松樹的，而不是對著樹叢的方向。也許他瞄過吧，但他已記不得了。

Three years later the charred branches no longer could be found, but Herbert had pictures of them he showed to Elders. The straight line that ran through the bushes, Herbert estimated, continued for at least a hundred feet.

三年後，燒焦的樹枝已找不到了，但藍哥保有當時的相片並展示給李看。藍哥估計穿過樹叢的燒痕至少持續有一百英尺長。

Later in Munich, Elders also questioned Harold about the incident and Harold told him, "You could recognize the line of fire by the cracked branches and the blackened tips. It was so thin you could not do it with a welder."

後來在幕尼黑，李也向伯奇詢問過此事，而伯奇告訴他：“你可以從樹枝的燒焦及折斷看出那道火線燒痕是如此的細，細到不可能是用一把焊槍造成的。”

At the site Elders had seen immediately that a bullet fired through the bushes would not leave the branch tips so finely charred, and the painstaking use of matches could not be carried out in a straight line. What mystified Elders even more was why Meier would go to so much trouble to fabricate such intricate evidence, when it seemed highly doubtful anyone would ever see it.

在那裡，李立刻發現：一顆穿過樹叢的子彈是不可能在傾斜的樹枝中留下如此美好的燒痕，即使費盡心力去配合也無法造成如此的一條直線。最讓李感到神秘的是為什麼邁爾要費盡心思去偽造這些別人可能永遠不會發現的複雜證據呢？

The trip that afternoon with Herbert typified how Elders and Welch spent most of their time in Switzerland - stumbling further and further into the unexplainable. The discovery of the charred twigs offered little concrete evidence that Meier's alleged contacts had taken place, but they were one more item on Welch's list of "gross consistencies."

那一天下午和藍哥的會勘過程正可以代表李和維奇在瑞士的情形：那就是一再地遭受挫折及無法解釋的事。雖然發現了燒焦的樹枝並不能有效證明邁爾所謂的接觸確實發生過，但是它們被維奇列入“未經證實”並待查證的項目。

While the Elders and Welch were in Switzerland, Stevens and Dilettoso traveled to Pasadena to meet with Dr. Nathan at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Since Nathan could not work from the prints Stevens had showed to him, he had instructed Bob Post at the photo lab to have 4x5 color film positives made from Stevens's internegatives. These copies then would be "digitized" and the information stored in & computer where Nathan could analyze it later.

當李和維奇在瑞士時，史蒂芬和狄特索到巴沙迪那去見噴射推進實驗室的諾頓博士。由於諾頓不能直接用史蒂芬給他看的相片作測試，於是他指示照相實驗室的波斯特利用史蒂芬的底片去製成 4 X 5 的彩色正片，然後將這些複製品“數位化”，並將資訊儲存在電腦中以利諾頓爾後作分析。

Post asked an Englishwoman, Audrey Adkins, who had worked in the photo lab almost as long as he had, to remain after work to process the transparencies, and Stevens instructed her not to discard any of her test strips or rejected copies. But when Adkins retired to the darkroom, placed the first internegative in the enlarger, and brought the actual grain in the film into perfect focus with a 20X microscope, the picture itself remained blurred. As Adkins brought each of the internegatives into the finest focus possible, she thought to herself, If Dr. Nathan can make anything of these, he's lucky.

波斯特請一位英國婦女奧德瑞．阿得金（Audrey Adkins；她在照相實驗室工作的日子和波斯特差不多長）那天下班後留下來處理那些幻燈片，而史蒂芬則請她不要丟棄任何測試帶或不良的拷貝。當阿得金進入暗房，將第一套底片放在放大機上，用 20 倍的放大鏡頭對準焦距時，相片仍然是朦朧的，不論她放入多少張底片對好焦距，情況依然如此；她對自己說，如果諾頓博士可以研究這些底片，那真是他的運氣。

Both Post and Adkins skipped dinner that night to work on transferring the Meier photos from the internegatives to positive transparency film. After Adkins had finished her work around seven, she handed Stevens a large padded envelope and said to him, "This is all trash." She left the copies she had just made for Dr. Nathan.

波斯特和阿得金當晚都沒有吃晚餐，一直忙於將邁爾的相片轉換為幻燈正片。當阿得金完成她的工作時大約已是 7 點，她將一包信封交給史蒂芬並且告訴他：“這些都是失敗品。”她將複製品留下來交給了諾頓博士。

The new transparencies revealed that Stevens's internegatives were several generations away from the originals. In fact, they appeared to be so inferior to the beautiful prints Stevens had shown him at the outset that Nathan immediately suspected Stevens of using him, of deliberately offering evidence that could not be tested.

新的幻燈片顯示史蒂芬的底片已經是原版的好幾代了。事實上，它們比起剛開始史蒂芬曾給諾頓看的美麗相片差太多了，這使得諾頓馬上開始懷疑史蒂芬是在利用他，而且還煞有介事地拿一些根本無法測試的證物給他測試。

"All I know is the negatives he gave us to work with were already out of focus and that's all he would let us have," said Nathan. "They had to be a different, later generation, or a generation specifically made that was intentionally out of focus. They couldn't have been used to make the very high resolution prints he flashed by me. He was not giving me his best data, he wasn't showing me anything that I could work with."

諾頓說：“我所知道的是他給我們處理的底片原來就焦距不對，而那也正是他願意交給我們的。這些照片是不一樣的，不是原版的，或者是刻意不對好焦距的照片，那絕對不是他當初給我看的高解析度照片的底片，他沒有給我他最好的資料，他沒有給我任何我可以處理的東西。”

"The key problem here," recalled Lee Elders, "was a problem that originated with Meier himself. Because there had been so much theft of the original material, we didn't know if we had originals. If we had had the originals going in, it would have made life much easier for us. But we didn't. We knew we had a negative, but we didn't know how far down it was. Is it first generation, fifth generation?"

Nathan placed the new negatives in a drawer and never looked at them again.

李回憶道：“關鍵的問題在邁爾身上。由於有很多人偷走原始資料，所以我們也不知道我們持有的是否是原版品。如果我們帶著原版去，我們的日子就會好過很多了，但是我們沒有，我們只知道我們擁有底片，但我們不知道它是第幾代的複製品，我們完全不知道它是第一代或者是第五代呢？”

諾頓把新的底片放入抽屜中，再也沒有看他們了。

"I was never impressed with the pictures," he said. "I was very unhappy with them. At no time was I ever of the feeling they were anything but a hoax. But don't forget, all of my examination on this was extremely cursory. These things have not really been given a good examination because it isn't worth the time, from the quality of the images given us, to do anything. I have no proof that this is a fraud. But I have no proof that it is real. That's the second statement that should always accompany the first."

他說：“我從未對這些相片有深刻的印象。我對他們感到很不高興，因為我一直覺得它們只是一些沒有價值的偽造品。但不要忘記，我對這些相片所作的檢測都是很匆忙的，這些相片都沒有經過很好的測試，因為我們不值得花時間去測試它們，我沒有證據證明這是一個騙局，但我也無法證明它是真實的。這兩個聲明是必須放在一起考慮的。”

For some time Lee Elders had been trying to track down a key witness, Martin Sorge. Of the many Europeans who had once traveled to Hinwil to investigate Meier's early claims, Sorge repeatedly had been mentioned as the chief detractor, the man who, some alleged, had exposed Meier as a fraud. After finally locating Sorge by phone and arranging for an interview through an interpreter, the Elders drove to Locarno, a summer retreat on Lago Mag-giore, one of many narrow lakes forming the border between Switzerland and Italy three hours south of Zurich. They found Sorge in a fine white house surrounded by summer hedges a few blocks up from the lakeshore.

李曾經一直期望去找到一位關鍵的目擊者 —— 馬丁．索吉（Martin Sorge），他是早期到欣維爾鎮調查邁爾的其中一位，索吉經常被指為是主要的反對人物，據說他曾揭發邁爾是騙子。李從電話上找到了索吉，並且通過一位翻譯人員安排好面談之後，便驅車到羅卡諾（Locarno），那是在拉哥馬吉歐（Lago Mag-giore）湖邊的一處避暑勝地．拉哥馬吉歐是瑞意邊界眾多狹窄湖泊中的一個，距離蘇黎世南方約三小時路程。他們發現索吉住在一間四周圍繞著樹籬、距離湖邊不遠的一棟漂亮房子裡。

Sorge was an articulate man in his late forties, and though his interests over the years had turned to psychology and the paranormal, he held a university degree in chemistry; he had published two books, one on hypnosis. Like many others in the summer of 1976, Sorge had read of Meier's claims of contact with extraterrestrials in a magazine, and, pulled by his own curiosity and the urging of a friend who had met Meier, he had traveled to Hinwil.

索吉是一位將近五十歲，口齒清晰的人，這些年來他的興趣一直放在心理學及超時空上，他是化學學士，曾出過兩本書，其中一本是談催眠的。1976 年夏天，他和許多其它人一樣在一本雜誌上讀到了邁爾宣稱與外星人接觸的報導，由於好奇心以及一位曾與邁爾相遇的朋友的激勵，他來到了欣維爾鎮。

"I used to go there with my girlfriend at the time," he told the Elders, "and we would stay there for three or four days. As a personality I felt a certain fascination with the man." But Sorge had soon found himself in a quandary: On the one hand he thought Meier's pictures were convincing: on the other, he was skeptical. "So I wanted to be around to see what happened."

他告訴李；“我通常是和我那時候的女朋友一起去的，我們會在那裡停留三或四天。我個人對這個人的個性感到非常迷惑。”但索吉立刻發現自己陷入了窘境，一方面他覺得邁爾的相片相當令人信服；而另一方面他又持懷疑的態度，“所以我決定留在他身邊觀察發生了什麼事。”

Sorge discovered that at the Meier house on Wihaldenstrasse the family was never alone. Always there was one, two, or three of the curious, often many more, squeezed into the modest living space.

"They stayed the whole night," he remembered, "or they left in the middle of the night, or they came in the middle of the night. And the whole atmosphere there was overshadowed by Billy's mission. He was like a dictator, he said what had to be done and that would have to be done. Even the needs of his family were overruled by his ever readiness to be at Semjase's call."

索吉發現在威登斯的邁爾住處，他的家人從未寂寞過。那裡經常有幾位好奇者，這些人擠在這一個普通的生活空間裡。“他們整個晚上都留在那裡，有時他們到半夜才離去，或者他們在半夜才來此。那裡迷漫在比利使命的氣氛中。他好像是一個獨裁者，他指示要做什麼就一定要有人把事情做好，甚至連他的家庭都必須配合 Semjase 的召喚。”

As he had watched and reflected on Meier, one thing had impressed Sorge above all others: the certainty with which Meier spoke. As Sorge put it, "The man appeared to be one with his story." He said he sometimes saw Meier so lost in his thoughts he could not communicate for days; he seemed filled with a power that originated from without, and this power so possessed him he was able to put people under a spell. Sorge recalled watching Meier point to the sky one night. "See that," Meier had said. Sorge himself had seen nothing. "But," he said, "I can imagine how he could persuade others to believe that they had."

當索吉注意力轉向邁爾時，有件事最讓他印象深刻，那就是邁爾說話非常的確定，索吉說：“他就好像是活在他的故事中一樣。”他說他有時候看到邁爾陷入思考中，好幾天都無法與人溝通；他的心中彷彿充滿了從他自身發展出來的能量，而這份力量使他能夠指使人們。索吉記得有一天晚上曾看到邁爾指向天空說：“看那個，”但是索吉卻沒有看到任何東西，但是索吉卻說：“我能想像他是可以說服其它人去相信他們確實看到了東西．”

Sorge remembered well the electric atmosphere that pervaded the Hinwil house when Meier was about to have a contact in those early days. There was always great excitement, he told the Elders. People hurried about, bringing Meier his gun, his hat, his boots, his walkie-talkie, his leather coat, preparing him to venture into the forest. Others brewed strong coffee, or warmed the engine of their cars. The ones to accompany Meier wondered if this might be the night they would see the beamship descend or glimpse the ethereal figure of Semjase.

索吉記得很清楚在早期邁爾準備接觸前會有強烈的熱力充滿欣維爾屋，他告訴李：“那裡充滿著興奮的氣氛，大家都急忙將他的槍、他的帽子、他的靴子、他的手提無線電話機、他的皮外套交給邁爾，準備讓他進入森林探險；其它人則調製濃咖啡，或發動他們的汽車引擎；負責伴隨在邁爾身邊的人則懷疑是否就在今夜他們能看到太空船下降或瞥見天上的人物 Semjase。”

The only nights that compared with these were the nights before publication of the pamphlet Meier called Wassermannzeit, The Age of the Waterman, who was Meier himself. On those nights Meier would be up all night, sweating in the lighted room on the third floor, feeding and pumping the printing machine furiously with one arm, not resting or even slackening his pace until the job was finished.

唯一可以和那些日子相比的晚上，就是邁爾小冊子《運水人時代》（Wassermannzeit）出版前的那些夜晚（運水人就是邁爾本人），邁爾在那些夜晚整晚都不睡，站在三樓有燈光的房間內努力工作，他用一隻手輸送及猛烈地踩踏印刷機器，不休息也不放鬆，工作的步調一直不停，直到工作完成。

"It was unbelievable to see him running around this machine working it with one hand," said Sorge. "Real fast, real hard, like an obsessed person."

索吉說：“看到他用一隻手操作他的機器實在令人難以置信，雖然這麼難卻做得非常快，非常認真，像是一個全神投入工作的人。”

As Meier in a frenzy cranked out the pages of the pamphlet, music boomed from two speakers, the same pounding beat, over and over, causing the walls to quiver, a tempo that matched his own slamming of the press.

當邁爾快速印製小冊子時，兩個喇叭也發出隆隆的音樂節奏，那相同的打擊聲一再重複著，使得牆壁震動，這種節拍正好和他不斷地踩動印刷機的雙腳節拍相符。

After describing his early experiences with Meier, Sorge began telling the story of how he had turned up the most damaging evidence anyone had ever discovered against Meier: several partially burned slides obviously taken of a model that looked similar to the beamships. It was the story the Elders had come to hear.

在描述過他早期與邁爾相處的經驗後，索吉開始說出他是如何發現從未有人發現過對邁爾最為不利的證據：一些明明就是用來拍攝模型太空船的幻燈片，發現許多已被燒毀。這正是李來此想聽的故事。

According to those in the UFO community who claimed Meier was a fraud, Sorge had reached into a fire to rescue the slides before Meier could dispose of them. But when told of his alleged role in the story, Sorge said no, the incident had happened differently; he had never pulled anything from a fire. While in Hinwil, Sorge had shrewdly cultivated a friendship with Popi, surmising that the man's wife, if anyone, would know the truth behind the story, and that in the right situation she might reveal that truth.

根據那些 UFO 團體指稱邁爾是騙子的說法是：索吉曾在邁爾企圖燒毀那些幻幻片時進入火堆搶救那些幻燈片。但當談到他在這個故事中被捏造的角色時，索吉說：“不是如此，那件意外的發生經過不是如此，我也從來沒有自火堆中拖出任何東西。”在欣維爾鎮時，索吉曾逐漸與波比建立友誼，索吉說如果任何人想要知道故事背後的真相，只要場合適合她都會實話實說的。

"Billy and his wife always had many 'disturbances,'" he explained.

索吉解釋：“比利和他的妻子一直有很多‘摩擦’。”

One day when Sorge was visiting, Popi had suddenly run from the house crying and screaming at her husband; when she returned hours later, she went to Sorge and secretly gave to him many color slides that had been charred by fire. "She had the feeling she had to confess to someone," thought Sorge.

有一天當索吉拜訪比利時，波比突然對著她丈夫又哭又叫地跑出房，當她在一小時後回來時，她去找索吉，並且偷偷交給他很多已被火燒焦的彩色幻燈片。索吉認為：“當時她感覺她必須找一個人懺悔。”

When Sorge examined the partially burned slides he saw immediately they were of a model, either suspended in the setting or somehow superimposed. A prominent shadow appeared against the background. With proof that Meier had apparently experimented with models, and being himself skilled with his hands, Sorge had resolved to fabricate pictures of the same quality as Meier's better photographs.

當索吉檢視那些部分燒焦的幻燈片時，他立刻就看出相片中的是模型，可能是懸掛的，也可能是疊影的，因為背景中有一個明顯的影子出現。有了邁爾曾明顯使用模型作實驗的證據，索吉下決心去偽造一張和邁爾相片一樣好的相片。

"To prove it could be done," he said.

他說：“為的是要證明它是可以做出來的。”

Sorge had studied the burned photos at length, then built a ten-inch model and photographed it with a plain background from different angles. Next he had gone into the forest and shot many scenes of trees, sky, and green rolling hills. Using two slide projectors, he had then cast one forest scene onto a silvered screen and simultaneously introduced another slide of the model he had constructed, centering the model in the background of forest. Then he had brought both slides into sharp focus and photographed the screen. As he spoke now of his photography experiment, he began laying before the Elders a sampling of his fabricated pictures.

索吉曾仔細研究過那些燒焦的相片，然後建造了一個 10 英寸的模型，然後在素面背景上用不同的角度拍照；第二步，他進入森林拍攝樹、天空，及碧綠環繞的山丘。他使用兩台幻燈投影機將一張森林的佈景投射在銀幕上，同時再將另一張他拍的模型幻燈片放入以森林為背景的景象中。然後他將兩張幻燈片的焦距調好並向銀幕拍照。當他在談論他的拍照經驗時，他開始將他偽造的相片樣本攤在李面前。

Sorge's photographs showed a crude and somewhat stark beamship frozen in an otherwise familiar setting; but they lacked the feel of Meier's, the natural relationship that appeared to exist between his background and his ships. They had no depth. Lou Zinsstag had referred to Sorge's photography experiments three years earlier in her final letter to Timothy Good: "A lot of them [former friends of Meier]," she had written, "even faked some UFO photos, doing pictures on a window pane, showing them around and telling everybody how easy this was. I've got two of those fakes. I fell for them only for a few seconds."

索吉的相片中有一個粗糙而且有些堅硬的太空船停在一個不熟悉的背景上，除此之外這些相片也欠缺邁爾相片中的那種感覺，那是一種太空船與背景之間應自然存在的關係，索吉的這些相片沒有縱深。早在三年前辛斯塔寄給古德的最後一封信中曾提到索吉的相片實驗，她這樣寫著；“很多邁爾以前的朋友甚至於偽造了一些 UFO 相片．他們在玻璃窗上面製作相片，他們會展示給所有的人看那是多麼容易的事。我就有兩張這種偽造的照片，我只被它們騙了幾秒鐘而已。”

Sorge admitted that his pictures were of lesser quality than the ones Meier had produced, but his experiment convinced him that by superimposing projected images or using some similar technique Meier somehow could, and in fact did, fabricate this part of the evidence.

索吉承認他的相片的確比邁爾製作的那些品質差一些，但他的實驗使他確信借投影的重疊，或使用一些類似的技巧可能是邁爾偽造的手法。

"I saw pictures of a UFO and it really was a model," he said. "In the first place I saw that it was a model, and in the second place I learned it from his wife. She said, 'Yes, he is working with models.'"

他說：“我曾看過一些很像是模型的照片，後來我從他太太口中得知這的確是邁爾用模型照的，她說：‘是的，他是用模型拍的。’”

What Sorge didn't know is that long before he had seen the slides, Meier himself had shown them to Hans Schutz-bach, the one who had driven Meier to so many contacts and who had been with him the day the first sounds were recorded. According to Schutzbach, he had been in Meier's study one day in the early fall of 1976, when Meier presented the slides and explained to him that he had carved a model of one of the beamships and then tried to photograph it. In the pictures the model sat on three blocks of wood and lacked the luster and refined appearance of the glistening beamships in Meier's other photos. Meier said he thought the photographs should be destroyed to avoid confusion, but Schutzbach had persuaded him to keep them.

索吉不知道的是早在他看到那些幻燈片之前就有人看過那些幻燈片了，邁爾本人曾放映給漢斯（Hans Schutzbach）看，他曾載邁爾到很多接觸地點，並曾與他一起錄下第一次的聲音。依據漢斯的說法，漢斯曾在 1976 年早秋某一天介入邁爾的研究，當時邁爾放幻燈片並告訴漢斯他曾雕刻一個太空船模型，並且試圖為它拍照。在那些相片中，模型擱置在三排木板上，與邁爾相片中的其它太空船比起來，它缺乏光澤及平滑的外表。邁爾說他認為應該銷毀這些相片以免造成混淆，但漢斯曾勸他保留它們。

"I told him. 'These are an important document; " Schutzbach had explained later. " 'You can't throw them away.'"

我告訴他“這些都是一些重要檔案”，漢斯後來解釋，“你不能把他們丟掉。”

Meier agreed and gave the slides to Schutzbach, who kept them safely in his apartment. Then one day Popi went to Schutzbach and asked that she be allowed to have the slides. A few weeks later, after fighting with her husband, she snatched up various documents, photographs, and slides, including those of the model, and threw them into the fireplace. Schutzbach said he had arrived at the house in time to see Meier himself stamp down the flames and then reach into the fire to save the slides. The next time Popi fought with her husband, Sorge had been visiting Hinwil with his girlfriend, and in a rage, instead of setting fire to the surviving slides, Popi had given them all to Sorge. This had caused problems, said Schutzbach, because Sorge had later written to Meier and promised to expose him as a fraud. When Popi denied knowing anything about how the slides had gotten into Sorge's hands Meier had threatened her, she pulled out his gun, and he took it away from her. Then Popi had tried to kill herself with pills.

邁爾同意，並將幻燈片交給漢斯，漢斯則將他們安全地保存在他的公寓裡。有一天波比到漢斯那裡說她奉准來拿幻燈片。幾週以後，在一次和丈夫打架後，她奪走了各種檔、相片及幻燈片，也包括那些模型的照片，並將他們投向壁爐。漢斯說當他到達那裡時看到邁爾正在設法熄火，並試圖救出幻燈片。另外一次則是波比和她丈夫因故爭辯，當時索吉正和他的女友遊訪欣維爾鎮，在一陣憤怒後，波比就將這些剩餘的幻燈片全都交給了索吉。漢斯說這就是問題發生的原因，因為索吉後來寫信給邁爾要以此偽造品去揭發他。當波比否認她知道索吉是如何取得那些照片時，邁爾曾威脅波比，她拿走了他的槍，而他則把槍奪下，然後波比試圖服藥自殺。

Interested only in "scientific proof supporting Meier's claims, once Sorge had seen the obviously contrived photographs and heard the accusations from Popi, he considered Meier a "swindler" and lost interest in the case. Since then, he had neither seen nor communicated with Meier; Meier, he said, was now far in his past. But his opinion of the man and the contacts curiously had changed.

由於索吉只對邁爾的“科學證據”有興趣，所以當索吉看到偽造品並聽到波比的控訴時，使他認為邁爾是一個“騙子”，因而對此案子失去了興趣。從那時候起，他就不再拜訪也不與邁爾聯絡了。他說邁爾已經是他生命中的過去式了，但是目前他對邁爾以及那些新奇的接觸觀念已經有所改變了。

"At that time," he explained to the Elders, "I was not as far along as I am now. There is more behind it."

他向李解釋道：“那時候的我和現在的我不大相同，因為它的背後隱藏了太多的問題。”

Sorge then paused for a long while as though he were organizing his thoughts. When he spoke again he said, "The result of my investigation is that these things can be made, but... now comes the big but... this is no proof that the other 'thing' does not exist. I doubt that these pictures are real, but that doesn't mean that all of the pictures are faked or that the story is a hoax."

然後索吉暫停並思考了一段時間，好像他要整理一下他的想法。接著他說：“我的調查結果是：這些事是可以作假的，但是現在關鍵問題是，這也不足以證明其它的事都不存在。我懷疑這些相片是假的，但那並不表示所有的相片都是偽造的，或者整個故事都是騙局。”

Lee Elders wanted this statement clarified. Sorge answered immediately. "Billy's intellect and his spiritual level are much below the message he preaches, therefore it is not possible that he could have invented this. So this indicates he must have gotten it from some other source. I am certain that these are messages from a spiritual being unseen by us but seen by him, coming from another world, and he's capable of hearing these messages."

李希望獲得更進一步的說明，索吉立刻回答：“比利的心智和他的靈性層次遠低於他的說教，因此他是不可能發明這些的，這表示他的說教必定是獲自其它來源。我相信這些訊息是來自我們看不見而只有他能看見的靈性層次高等生物，是來自另外一個世界，而只有他能夠聽到這些訊息。”

The interpreter and Sorge talked back and forth in German, as the interpreter made sure he understood Sorge's position.

翻譯的人和索吉用德語反復地談論直到譯者能完全瞭解索吉的立場為止。

"I am certain he has these contacts," Sorge continued, "but not in the way he's telling us. He may receive them in the form of visions, the way mediums receive things. He may not even know himself if these visions are real. But for him it is reality, and to prove it he has to go out and build these things."

索吉繼續說：“我確定他有過這些接觸，但不是以他告訴我們的方式。他甚至可以接受他們的幻影，就像靈媒接受一些訊息一樣。對他而言，那些幻影是相當真實的，為了要證明它，所以他就創作了這些事情．”

For technical reasons Sorge felt that Meier must have had at least one accomplice to help him, but he believed Meier actually had two or three, though he had no idea who they might have been.

從技術的觀點來看，索吉覺得邁爾至少有一位共犯在幫助他，雖然他不知道他們是誰，但他相信邁爾實際上應該有二或三位助手。

"He is not flying away," he concluded, "and he is not meeting with Semjase, but he is able to put himself into a parallel world, and he has experiences in this parallel world. He fakes the evidence to make people understand his experiences."

他結論道：“邁爾從來沒有飛離過我們的地球，他也沒有看到過 Semjase，但是他能把自己變到他那個幻想的時空中，而且他在那個並行的世界中還有一些經驗，所以他偽造了這些證據來讓世人瞭解他的經驗。”

（第九章 結束）

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