On Wednesday, the 17th of August (1977), Englebert, Hans and Koni (Konrad), Jacobus and I were standing by the garage in the evening, around 21:00 hours. We were observing Semjase's ship moving high in the evening sky, along with Billy, who obviously [and strangely] felt bad and looked quite distressed. After the ship had nearly disappeared from sight, we stood talking together, when suddenly from the front side of the kitchen we heard a loud crackling noise. If we could trust our ears, somewhere some wood had been splintered.

Naturally we now no longer watched the sky, and very soon had success in seeking the source of the noise. The old, small apple tree [for its location, see map, No. 10], whose trunk had once served as a test target for Billy to take a shot at with a ray-pistol [loaned to him from a Plejaren], had in some unexplained but noisy way, had its crown broken off. Billy could only assume that for some unexplained reason Semjase had caused this damage. He had been expecting her for a Contact. It was a week after the event that Semjase gave him an explanation, on Contact No. 80 of 24 August 1977.

She explained to Billy that she had, with her ship, actually smacked into the top of the apple tree at the very moment when she quite unexpectedly caught a very strong external pain impulse from him. For that reason she did not then appear at the Contact as intended, but quickly decided to turn to Quetzal in order to discuss the incident with him.

During this Contact conversation with Billy yet another mystery was solved, namely why some of us, between the 12th and 20th of August 1977, had been inflicted with very strong flu-like symptoms, and felt sick and very distressed. This had to do with a praying-mantis-like insect, which Billy observed on August 12th in the vicinity of the old apple tree (which in the meantime has been renamed "the Semjase tree"). According to Semjase's explanation it involved an artificial insect which, purely and simply, served the purpose of spreading a mutated bacillus that causes a certain sickness unknown on Earth, of which Billy had already become infected when Semjase in her beamship was struck by his mentally outgoing pain impulse. In the meantime the Pleiadians not only had the spreading of this bacillus under control, for they had developed a remedy for it, but before the Contact meeting on the 24th they had also located the bacillus source or nest, which the artificial praying-mantis insect had created for itself. It was located in an upper part of the Semjase tree. During this contact Semjase allowed Billy to operate the on-board instrument that wiped out this bacillus nest, as evidenced by a large surface burn on the tree's trunk [see photos on pp. 179-80 of the Zeugenbuch]. In the early afternoon after Billy's Contact we naturally promptly inspected this burned area.

It turns out that the Gizeh-Intelligences [a rival Pleiadian group] once again were behind the whole incident, along with recent renegades from the Pegasus region. One of the Pegasus renegades, who have very large eyes and are totally unknown to us on Earth, had been seen by both Billy and Renato Ventura on the Center grounds on the evening of August 16th. The technique for the manufacture of the artificial praying-mantis insect stemmed from the aliens, who in the meantime were captured by Ptaah [or Quetzal] and sent back to their homeland.

Added here:

Semjase... 1/You have been hurt [distressed] because during the last time I made no contact with you. 2/But this, my dear friend, is in keeping with justified reasons, which I want to explain to you now. 3/When I was here last Wednesday, the 10th [correction: 17th] of August, I first announced myself; thus some of you could see my ship suspended high above in the night sky. 4/Then I came back while you all were still waiting according to my order at the dugout [garage] of the vehicles. 5/According to your wish I wanted to leave then at that tree, where you tested the beam-pistol, a sign for all of you, but which doing thoroughly failed for me. 6/This happened so: 7/I was just floating above the top of the tree, when I registered such strong impulses of pain from you, that I was shocked, and pressed down in a reflex moving of the steering means of the ship, which doing caused by that, with the under side of the ship I destroyed the whole top of the tree, and pressed it down.

Meier... This we have heard, because there was quite a loud crash.

Semjase... 9/Surely, and after that I moved away very fast and analyzed the event, where I found, you being heavily sick and radiating uncontrollably strong headaches, when you wanted to make contact with me. 10/Your pains were so strong, that you sent them out in full strength and could no longer control them., for which reason I by no means expected such, and was fully hit by your impulses of pain. 11/Unused to such events with you, it was at once evident to me that some matters had to exist, which were not right. 12/From somewhere thus you had to be subjected to an influence, about which you were not able to control. 13/But so as not to disturb you, I just went away without a word and consulted Quetzal. 14/During several days then I explored together with him for a reason for the occurrence, during which we also caught up different thoughts from you, which we regarded very peculiar. 15/But as well the catching-up of your uncontrolled thoughts was uncommon for us, because they witnessed about a hitherto still never appeared uncontrolledness in you. 16/So this all had to have a reason, for which we followed your ways of thought and found your observation of the 12th of August, where you stood in thoughts at the mentioned tree and had observed a great insect, which would not have been allowed to exist there, because this sort of insect is no more existing elsewhere in your region, and moreover is fully abnormal at a size of 14 cm. 17/Thus something here had to be incorrect. 18/So Quetzal researched the event in the past, and found drawn, by help of an area-analyzer, on the screen the enlarged insect: a praying mantis. 19/From the pictures, still a routine work for him, it showed that he was dealing there with an artificial insect, which had a complicated body construction that housed a mutated bacillus. 20/When now this artificial insect flew two times around you and the tree, by remote control, it diffused from an outlet-opening a small part of the mutation bacillus, which at once attacked you and infected you with an unknown to you disease, which at circumstances could have caused very heavy consequences, if Quetzal had not interfered. 21/He and some other ones meanwhile had elaborated a means, which since yesterday he diffuses throughout the atmosphere, because meantime the bacilli have spread themselves, and threaten to spread themselves throughout the planet. 22/Especially menaced were all those persons who have stood at the Center during the last days, because most of them were attacked directly by the bacilli. 23/By the artificial insect namely, as we realized less than 20 minutes ago, a seat was established inside the tree, in which the mutated baccilli are breeding and propagate themselves. 24/Now I am here to destroy this wicked seat. 25/Further on, I am here to clear up some other facts which are still evident to us, as for example the event of the 16th of August when you sighted a figure which had extraordinary large organs for seeing. 26/It is...

Meier... Yes, that thing owned lanterns as great as mats. They also did fluoresce. The figure was about as tall as Herbert, as Renato also noticed.

[The contact conversation contains 40 more sentences from Semjase.]

[Seven photos of the tree and its wounds are shown in Zeugenbuch, pp. 177-180. Later, the tree died.]