A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.

The British philologist Robert Nares (1753–1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb hocus, which means "to cheat", "to impose upon" or "to befuddle often with drugged liquor".Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, which in turn is a contraction of the phrase Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, mentioned in Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. According to the book, the Latin-like gibberish phrase was uttered by a conjuror to distract his audience from his sleight of hand.

Alternatively, hoax could have been derived from the Irish Gaelic olcas, pronounced olkəs and h-olkəs, an adjective used to describe behaviour similar to mischief, naughtiness, spite, wickedness, evil. Similarly, hocus could have been derived from the same word.

"Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (February 3, 1937) is a citizen of Switzerland who claims to be a UFO contactee and prophet. He is also the source of many controversial UFO photographs, which he states are evidence of his encounters. Meier reports regular contact with extraterrestrials he calls the Plejaren (aliens from beyond the Pleiades) describing them as humanoid Nordic aliens.

A farmer born in the town of Bülach in the Swiss Lowlands, Eduard "Billy" Meier's claimed his 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. (BZ, 1/08).