Ok, let's get something absolutely clear from the start. I'm actually not a critic of the Swiss contactee Billy Meier(above), nor am I particularly sceptical about what he claims to have seen or photographed. To be either of these things, I'd need to have met Meier in person, spoken to him at length about his experiences and drawn rational, and hopefully objective, conclusions based on the above. I have done none of these things, so as far as I'm concerned, the jury is still out. If Billy says he knows where he can get his hands on a Pleiadean spacecraft, it's fine by me.

I have to admit to not being overly sceptical about the UFO phenomenon in general either. I still have a vivid memory of the time when, as a 12-year-old coming home from school with some friends, I witnessed a squadron of fighter aircraft thundering overhead at a height of only 300 ft (90m) or so. One looked like a slice of cake made of battleship-grey steel, the second was a huge cube with small fin-like structures attached to its edges, and the third, as we all later agreed, was a dead ringer for Thunderbird 2. A few years later, I would have put it down to a dodgy pint, but at that tender age the pleasures of alcohol were unknown to me.

What the RAF was doing guiding these three extremely anomalous (and aerodynamically untenable) craft at low altitude over Dagenham is anyone's guess. But I know what I saw. So, while I won't admit to being completely sold on flying saucers, I'm not about to arbitrarily dismiss the possibility of their existence either.

I first came across the name of Billy Meier in the 1980s through a fairly lengthy magazine article, accompanied by an array of the requisite (at least for Meier) spectacular photographs.

Meier, as I'm sure FT readers know, is a member of that small coterie within the UFO community that has supposedly experienced direct communication, physical contact and helpful guidance from intergalactic – or, indeed, transdimensional – beings from somewhere Out There, along with other big hitters of the contactee world such as King, Adamski and Menger.

According to Meier, his cosmic pals started the ball rolling in 1942 when, at the age of five, he witnessed a large, disc-shaped craft manoeuvring over his local church. This is interesting; not only does it give Meier the jump on most of his contactee peers, who usually joined the Space Club between the late 1940s and mid 1950s, but also predates the Kenneth Arnold saucer watershed by a whole five years.

Meier then began to experience the usual contactee weirdness, such as disembodied voices playing in his head, and being taken for rides by an old man in a pear-shaped UFO. The voices continued until he was eight years old, when a new ‘teacher voice' took over, giving him direction and guidance. This went on for some years, then the ‘presences' dissolved back into the ether.

Fast-forward to January 1975, and Meier is out taking a constitutional near his home in Hinwel, Switzerland, when he hears a strange humming sound vibrating through the afternoon air. Looking up, he sees a silver, saucer-shaped object circling slowly above his head. But this time Billy has a camera, and things start to get interesting.

According to Meier, the craft landed as he continued snapping away, and from behind it a figure emerged, coming forward to meet him. This was to be the first of over 100 encounters with a group of celestial beings from the Pleiades, a star cluster that makes up a small part of the constellation of Taurus. Appearing to the naked eye to consist of seven or so stars (also known as the Seven Sisters, after Alcyone, Maia, Asterope, Electra, Celæno, Merope and Taygeta, the Pleiades of Greek myth), it actually contains many hundreds of stars lying some 430 light-years away from Earth.

This sounds like a bit of a hike, even for experienced space-jockeys, but Meier reports that the Pleiadeans reckoned they could do the round trip in about 14 hours. Over the next few years, Meier stayed in regular contact with his other-worldly brothers and sisters, receiving insight into the internal mind as externally manifest, as well as an impressive body of 'Universal Truths' setting out the current cosmic state of play concerning the Earth and the future of the human race. Much of this was fairly predictable stuff – and mostly interchangeable with the revelations described by most other contactees. In a nutshell, we desperately need the assistance of the space people because we're making a complete dog's breakfast of the Earth and our natural environment; and what with nuclear weapons, massive pollution, global warming, and the omnibus edition of Eastenders, the whole shebang is going down the tube. You get the general idea.

During this period, Meier had shot about 1,000 still photographs and at least six 8mm movie films of the Pleiadean craft. He had also recorded sounds of the ships in flight, obtained samples of strange metal from the alien pilots and, it is said, provided other witnesses to the cosmic goings-on.

Of course there has always been an undeniable air of iffyness surrounding the whole contactee phenomenon; historically, this hasn't done its advocates any favours with the sceptical contingent, who point out, for example, that these alien ambassador-types always seem to pick the most mundane times and places to announce their momentous revelations to the unsuspecting initiate (the grand master Aetherius for example, decided to inform George King that he should jack in his cab-driving job, in favour of his new position of Earthly Spokesman for Interplanetary Parliament, while he was doing the washing up!).

Why, the sceptics ask, would alien visitors pick on a one-armed Swiss farmer out for a walk?

But does this beloved sceptical chestnut, which asks why – if the aliens are the real deal – don't they land on the White House lawn, really get us anywhere? Well, if you were zooming around the Swiss Alps on a jolly, with the hyperdrive at your back and the wind in your hair, would you want to ruin the afternoon by spending it with Dubya and his goons? Perhaps the aliens have different criteria for deciding whom to contact; perhaps they seek out subjects who can lay claim to extensive or complex life-experiences. And Meier could certainly do that. Leaving school as a 12-year-old, our Billy apparently made some highly interesting and diverse career choices: speedway driver; a short spell in chokey for having sticky fingers; tour of duty as a French Foreign Legionnaire; two years listening to reincarnation theory in an Indian Ashram; employed by an Indian village to serve in the office of Snake Catcher In Ordinary; a spell in Turkey, where he is supposed to have spied and informed on drug dealers for US smuggling investigators, who in return financed his passage back to Switzerland.

So it may well be that the Pleiadeans, crusing around Zurich canton, scanning the populace for likely candidates for contacteedom, had a quick shufty through Billy's CV, and thought: "We've got a live one here!" It's as good a theory as any, I'd suggest.

There is, of course, much more to the Billy Meier story than can be told here, but what raises his profile way above that of most other contactees is the sheer wealth of physical evidence that he has gathered around him, as well as his large group of followers and 'Celestial Believers'.

For these faithful souls, Meier's photo album carries a genuinely religious significance.

However, the huge volume of crisp, amazingly clear images quickly brought Meier to the attention of others who were not quite so ready to accept them at face value; Billy found himself caught squarely in the sights of the professional sceptics.

Meier had lit the blue touch paper of some heavyweight debunkers, including the internationally based CFI (Centre for Inquiry), sceptic and science writer Michael Shermer, and last, but by no means least, James "the Amazing" Randi, well known for his (perhaps over the top) blitzing of Uri Geller and others, and as the holder of a cheque to the value of a million dollars, payable to the successful deliverer of authentic paranormal phenomena. These two were prominent among those who immediately dismissed Meier's evidence as an outright hoax, and Meier himself as a trickster.

Despite Meier and his supporters' assertions that he is the real thing, he has been accused of deception and fraud for the past 25 years.

Meier's team, however, had been gathering their own evidence, and are said to have had Meier's material studied and dissected by a whole line-up of photographic analysts, scientific examiners and visual effects experts. Groups and organisations that are claimed to have put his evidence under the clinical spotlight include IBM, USGS, JPL, and Nippon TV, as well as visual effects personnel who had, among other things, created the FX for 2001: A Space Odyessy.

The result of all this was, supposedly, the conclusion that, even allowing for the use of cutting-edge technology, Meiers's saucer snaps were beyond the reach of any realistic attempt at replication.

Enter Mr Vaughn Rees, case investigator for CFI West, the organisation's Los Angeles branch. In February 2001, Rees decided to finally take the Meier catalogue apart, and prove once and for all that Billy's UFOs were fakes. Pictures were chosen from the 1,200 still photos and 8mm film clips. Rees shuffled through them, and, being an expert in these matters, came back with the intelligence that Meier's pictures were all "easily duplicated hoaxes", going on to explain away many images in the photos and films (a light flashing from one part of a UFO to another was, according to Rees, done by scratching the 8mm film emulsion with a pin).

Rees went to bat for the professional sceptics, and resolved to prove his assertions by accurately reproducing one of Meier's photos and a film clip. Apparently, the requirement was for Rees's material to be at least in the same visual ballpark as Meier's, not necessarily spot-on.

So, for two months Rees went to work; by May, though, no pictures had been submitted. A suggestion was made that Rees could employ photographic effects, cameras, post-production facilities, etc, to any degree of complexity or sophistication he wished. He was also given the freedom to use computer graphics of any kind. Photoshop, art packages, 3-D programmes – in fact any CG tech that he could get hold of. And, with James Randi's wallet presumably not languishing in the shadows, Mr Rees could probably afford a set-up that would give George Lucas a run for his money.

Tooled-up with this formidable array of digital and photographic ammunition, one might safely assume that satisfactory, if not exemplary, results would be swift in materialising, and that, in short order, we would be up to our ears in counterfeit Pleiadeans.

Not so.

Inexplicably, after a three-year period, and despite having access to impressive resources, the saucers were not forthcoming. This has developed into a rare, possibly unique, situation in which the shoe has been well and truly placed on the other foot, and a group of professional sceptics has been forced to place its collective backside on the line. It is ordinarily the paranormal observer who is compelled by the sceptics to provide undeniable proof, via photographic or physical evidence, of his claim.

But in this – some might say happy – reality shift, it was the sceptical fraternity that, for once, was unable to hide behind its usual "it's not our responsibility to prove or disprove anything" mantra, and was now expected to make good on its boast and put its saucers where its mouth is.

The sceptics' failure to do so has caused glee among the UFO faithful, who have taken it as final evidence of ET's existence. There have been calls for apologies and (perhaps not unjustifiably) a serious suggestion that James Randi shows how amazing he really is by shelling out his million-dollar reward to Meier, sharpish.

All of which seems to have resulted in a rather spectacular own-goal for Meier's detractors – True Believers, and no doubt the Billy Meier Fan Club in particular, have been on a cataclysmic bender ever since.

Well I'm not going to spoil the party.

Which might seem a bit odd, given that I've set out to demonstrate just how easy it is to fabricate UFO photos. The point is, I'm not saying that Meier's photos are hoaxes, I'm simply saying that mine are. Card-carrying forteans will draw their own conclusions; or not, as the case may be.

My whole interest in recreating these pictures is not to launch any kind of attack on Meier's credibility, rather to try to get to the bottom of the serious question of why a group of professional sceptics, equipped with considerable financial and technical resources, have seemingly been unable to knock out a couple of half-way decent flying saucers – which, to my mind, is just not that hard to do.

The planning and construction of the saucers, and their subsequent photography, was carried out on the basis of a (hypothetical) supposition that the pictures were fake; so although the UFOs were not, perhaps, what I would have designed myself, the essential point was to make them as compatible with the Meier œuvre – as Billyesque, so to speak – as possible.

Of course there has always been an undeniable air of iffyness surrounding the whole contactee phenomenon; historically, this hasn't done its advocates any favours with the sceptical contingent, who point out, for example, that these alien ambassador-types always seem to pick the most mundane times and places to announce their momentous revelations to the unsuspecting initiate (the grand master Aetherius for example, decided to inform George King that he should jack in his cab-driving job, in favour of his new position of Earthly Spokesman for Interplanetary Parliament, while he was doing the washing up!).

Why, the sceptics ask, would alien visitors pick on a one-armed Swiss farmer out for a walk?

But does this beloved sceptical chestnut, which asks why – if the aliens are the real deal – don't they land on the White House lawn, really get us anywhere? Well, if you were zooming around the Swiss Alps on a jolly, with the hyperdrive at your back and the wind in your hair, would you want to ruin the afternoon by spending it with Dubya and his goons? Perhaps the aliens have different criteria for deciding whom to contact; perhaps they seek out subjects who can lay claim to extensive or complex life-experiences. And Meier could certainly do that. Leaving school as a 12-year-old, our Billy apparently made some highly interesting and diverse career choices: speedway driver; a short spell in chokey for having sticky fingers; tour of duty as a French Foreign Legionnaire; two years listening to reincarnation theory in an Indian Ashram; employed by an Indian village to serve in the office of Snake Catcher In Ordinary; a spell in Turkey, where he is supposed to have spied and informed on drug dealers for US smuggling investigators, who in return financed his passage back to Switzerland.

So it may well be that the Pleiadeans, crusing around Zurich canton, scanning the populace for likely candidates for contacteedom, had a quick shufty through Billy's CV, and thought: "We've got a live one here!" It's as good a theory as any, I'd suggest.

There is, of course, much more to the Billy Meier story than can be told here, but what raises his profile way above that of most other contactees is the sheer wealth of physical evidence that he has gathered around him, as well as his large group of followers and 'Celestial Believers'.

For these faithful souls, Meier's photo album carries a genuinely religious significance.

However, the huge volume of crisp, amazingly clear images quickly brought Meier to the attention of others who were not quite so ready to accept them at face value; Billy found himself caught squarely in the sights of the professional sceptics.

Meier had lit the blue touch paper of some heavyweight debunkers, including the internationally based CFI (Centre for Inquiry), sceptic and science writer Michael Shermer, and last, but by no means least, James "the Amazing" Randi, well known for his (perhaps over the top) blitzing of Uri Geller and others, and as the holder of a cheque to the value of a million dollars, payable to the successful deliverer of authentic paranormal phenomena. These two were prominent among those who immediately dismissed Meier's evidence as an outright hoax, and Meier himself as a trickster.

Despite Meier and his supporters' assertions that he is the real thing, he has been accused of deception and fraud for the past 25 years.

Meier's team, however, had been gathering their own evidence, and are said to have had Meier's material studied and dissected by a whole line-up of photographic analysts, scientific examiners and visual effects experts. Groups and organisations that are claimed to have put his evidence under the clinical spotlight include IBM, USGS, JPL, and Nippon TV, as well as visual effects personnel who had, among other things, created the FX for 2001: A Space Odyessy.

The result of all this was, supposedly, the conclusion that, even allowing for the use of cutting-edge technology, Meiers's saucer snaps were beyond the reach of any realistic attempt at replication.

Enter Mr Vaughn Rees, case investigator for CFI West, the organisation's Los Angeles branch. In February 2001, Rees decided to finally take the Meier catalogue apart, and prove once and for all that Billy's UFOs were fakes. Pictures were chosen from the 1,200 still photos and 8mm film clips. Rees shuffled through them, and, being an expert in these matters, came back with the intelligence that Meier's pictures were all "easily duplicated hoaxes", going on to explain away many images in the photos and films (a light flashing from one part of a UFO to another was, according to Rees, done by scratching the 8mm film emulsion with a pin).

Rees went to bat for the professional sceptics, and resolved to prove his assertions by accurately reproducing one of Meier's photos and a film clip. Apparently, the requirement was for Rees's material to be at least in the same visual ballpark as Meier's, not necessarily spot-on.

So, for two months Rees went to work; by May, though, no pictures had been submitted. A suggestion was made that Rees could employ photographic effects, cameras, post-production facilities, etc, to any degree of complexity or sophistication he wished. He was also given the freedom to use computer graphics of any kind. Photoshop, art packages, 3-D programmes – in fact any CG tech that he could get hold of. And, with James Randi's wallet presumably not languishing in the shadows, Mr Rees could probably afford a set-up that would give George Lucas a run for his money.

Tooled-up with this formidable array of digital and photographic ammunition, one might safely assume that satisfactory, if not exemplary, results would be swift in materialising, and that, in short order, we would be up to our ears in counterfeit Pleiadeans.

Not so.

Inexplicably, after a three-year period, and despite having access to impressive resources, the saucers were not forthcoming. This has developed into a rare, possibly unique, situation in which the shoe has been well and truly placed on the other foot, and a group of professional sceptics has been forced to place its collective backside on the line. It is ordinarily the paranormal observer who is compelled by the sceptics to provide undeniable proof, via photographic or physical evidence, of his claim.

But in this – some might say happy – reality shift, it was the sceptical fraternity that, for once, was unable to hide behind its usual "it's not our responsibility to prove or disprove anything" mantra, and was now expected to make good on its boast and put its saucers where its mouth is.

The sceptics' failure to do so has caused glee among the UFO faithful, who have taken it as final evidence of ET's existence. There have been calls for apologies and (perhaps not unjustifiably) a serious suggestion that James Randi shows how amazing he really is by shelling out his million-dollar reward to Meier, sharpish.

All of which seems to have resulted in a rather spectacular own-goal for Meier's detractors – True Believers, and no doubt the Billy Meier Fan Club in particular, have been on a cataclysmic bender ever since.

Well I'm not going to spoil the party.

Which might seem a bit odd, given that I've set out to demonstrate just how easy it is to fabricate UFO photos. The point is, I'm not saying that Meier's photos are hoaxes, I'm simply saying that mine are. Card-carrying forteans will draw their own conclusions; or not, as the case may be.

My whole interest in recreating these pictures is not to launch any kind of attack on Meier's credibility, rather to try to get to the bottom of the serious question of why a group of professional sceptics, equipped with considerable financial and technical resources, have seemingly been unable to knock out a couple of half-way decent flying saucers – which, to my mind, is just not that hard to do.

The planning and construction of the saucers, and their subsequent photography, was carried out on the basis of a (hypothetical) supposition that the pictures were fake; so although the UFOs were not, perhaps, what I would have designed myself, the essential point was to make them as compatible with the Meier œuvre – as Billyesque, so to speak – as possible.�