A farmer born in the town of Bulach in the Swiss Lowlands, Eduard "Billy" Meier's first extraterrestrial contacts occurred in 1942 at the age of five with an elderly extraterrestrial human man named Sfath.   Contacts with Sfath lasted until 1953. From 1953 to 1964 Meier's contacts continued with an extraterrestrial human woman named Asket.  Meier says that after an eleven year break, contacts resumed again (beginning on January 28, 1975) with an extraterrestrial human woman named Semjase the granddaughter of Sfath.

In his teens, Meier joined the French Foreign Legion but says he soon left and returned home. He traveled extensively around the world pursuing spiritual exploration, covering some forty-two countries over twelve years. In 1965 he lost his left arm in a bus accident in Turkey. In 1966 he met and married a Greek woman, Kalliope, with whom he has three children. The nickname "Billy" came by way of an American friend who thought Meier's cowboy style of dress reminded her of "Billy The Kid". This anecdote was told by Meier himself in an interview with Bob Zanotti of Swiss Radio International in June, 1982. 

Meier has accumulated a large collection of controversial photographs. these photos show a spaceships (called beamships) as well as extraterrestrials (humanoids called the Plejaren). Meier says that the Plejaren gave him permission to photograph  and film their beamships in order to produce some of the evidence for extraterrestrial visitation. Meier's claims are disputed by UFO skeptics as well as some UFO enthusiasts.  Many Meier proponents and believers exist among UFO enthusiasts, and his evidence has seen increased exposure through the efforts of an American representative, Michael Horn,  who has appeared on popular late-night paranormal programs such as Coast to Coast AM.

Beginning in 1975, Meier allegedly began his official contacts ("official" in that evidence was to be provided publicly, unlike earlier contacts), communicating both directly (face-to-face) and by telepathy with a core group of the Pleiadians/Plejaren, or Errans as he also refers to them (Erra being their home planet), who gave their names as Ptaah, Semjase, Quetzal, and Pleija, among numerous others. According to Meier himself in the video documentary 'Contact', he says that his first contact with extraterrestrials began on January 28, 1975.

These visitors reportedly hail from the Plejares star system which is beyond the Pleiades and in a dimension that is a fraction of a second in the future from our own (an alternate timeline). These Plejaren have allegedly afforded Meier a more interesting sampling of evidence than derive from most such encounters, including highly detailed photography, videos, multi-toned sound recordings, the temporary use of a weapon which he employed for trial on a nearby tree, and metal alloy samples.

Meier claimed the visitors charged him with certain informational and consciousness-raising tasks.   As he undertook this mission he met with a great deal of scorn and derision including, his center says, twenty-one assassination attempts. Some of these were allegedly initiated by hostile extraterrestrial entities and then defeated largely through the intervention of his Plejaren friends.   Meier was uncomfortable with the megalomaniacal associations others would attach to his role as a representative, since they employed the term "prophet", but he undertook the effort nonetheless.

In 1975 Meier established the Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien ("Free Community of Interests for the Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and UFOlogical Studies") , or FIGU, a non-profit organization for the benefit of researchers into this field, and headquartered it at the Semjase Silver Star Center.

Meier claims that he was instructed to transcribe his conversations with the various extraterrestrials, some of which have been published in the German language. These books are referred to as the Contact Notes (or Contact Reports). Currently there are nine volumes of the Contact Reports (titled Plejadisch-Plejarische Kontaktberichte) published. Some of the Contact Reports were translated into English, extensively edited and expurgated, and published in the out-of-print four-volume set Message From The Pleiades by Meier case investigator Wendelle Stevens.

Meier's alleged discussions with the Plejarens are highly detailed and wide-ranging, affording a body of claims running from religion and the afterlife to human history to science andastronomical phenomena to ecology and environmental dangers and prophecies of future historic trends and events.  An additional aspect of the Meier case is the highly controversial book the Talmud Jmmanuel. It is said to be the translation of ancient Aramaic scrolls that were discovered by Meier and a colleague in Jerusalem in 1963. The book claims to be the original teachings and life events of the man named Jmmanuel. Extensive study has been made of the book by James Deardorff.