Who Was Frederick von Mierers, Eternal Values Founder and Self-Proclaimed Alien?

In 1978, 16-year-old John Richards Hoyt was spending the summer with his family on Nantucket when he met a charismatic man in his 30s on the beach. The man introduced himself as Frederick von Mierers and began talking to Hoyt about Eastern philosophy, astrology, reincarnation and New Age thinking. 

The teenager was captivated. “When you’re that age, having an adult who will talk to you like an adult gets your attention,” Hoyt later told DuJour. 

The two stayed in touch and, after Hoyt enrolled at Princeton University, he began traveling back and forth to New York City to visit von Mierers. Later, von Mierers helped Hoyt get signed by the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency. Working under the name Hoyt Richards, he became a successful model, posing for top-tier brands like Versace and Cartier and working alongside supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford.

Richards believed everything was falling into place. But, little did he know, he was also slowly being indoctrinated into von Mierers’ doomsday cult, Eternal Values. 

Von Mierers claimed to be an alien from the distant star Arcturus, sent to Earth as a prophet to save humans from an impending apocalypse. Swayed by von Mierers’ teachings, the group’s members believed they were destined to guide humanity forward after civilization collapsed at the turn of the millennium. 

Meanwhile, von Mierers was bilking them out of tens of thousands of dollars for gems with purported healing powers and personalized psychic “life readings.” As a highly successful model, Richards became one of the group’s primary funders, turning over an estimated $4.5 million to von Mierers over two decades.

Richards eventually left Eternal Values and has since spoken publicly about his experiences in hopes of helping others avoid similar manipulation. His story—and the damage wrought by von Mierers—is the focus of the three-part HBO docuseries Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult. 

“I’m hoping all of my information helps people make choices that are healthier for them,” Richards told Main Line Today.

Von Mierers was born Freddie Meyer on December 25, 1946, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He worked as a model, then as an interior decorator, all while rising through the ranks of Manhattan’s socialite scene. In the 1970s, von Mierers began teaching himself astrology and hanging out at a bookshop that specialized in spiritual texts. As his interest in mysticism deepened, he started offering astrology charts and psychic readings.

In January 1978, von Mierers claimed to have experienced a “bewildering substitution of egos” alone in his New York bedroom, according to journalist Ruth Montgomery’s 1985 book Aliens Among Us, which helped popularize and spread von Mierers’ teachings. 

“During the next seven days, three beings materialized before me in my room, and deep secrets were revealed to me,” he told Montgomery. “Overnight I became an adept in the science of Hindu astrology. I knew that I had come from Arcturus, where I had lived in a hydrogen-light body, and I knew why I had come back … In a series of visions, I saw the coming wars, the destruction of New York City, my own mission, and the future of the Earth.”

His mission, he told Montgomery, was to reach as many “wholesome” young people as possible, in order to help prepare them to found and lead a new society after the Earth shifted on its axis around the year 2000.

“Freddy would espouse that when the end times come, these space people were going to come down in their ships and pick us up,” Richards told Nantucket Magazine. “He said that while the majority of the world’s population gets wiped out, we would have access to the rejuvenation chambers and be trained by our benevolent space brothers and sisters. Then they would bring us back to Earth in the aftermath where we would become great leaders to the next eon of prosperity on Earth.”

Positioning himself as an expert on metaphysics and Eastern philosophy, von Mierers began to attract followers, many of them young models and wealthy, attractive professionals. As part of his Eternal Values movement, he encouraged them to eat a strict diet, practice abstinence, cut ties with their friends and family and address what he saw as their problematic egos. At its peak, Eternal Values’ inner circle, known simply as “the group,” included roughly 100 members who lived together in the same apartment building in New York City.

“It was the go-go ‘80s,” Richards later wrote in MEL Magazine. “There were a lot of drugs and greed in the air, but we considered ourselves people who were seeking a greater understanding of the universe … We spoke what you’d call New Age jargon. We talked a lot about becoming ‘highly evolved personalities.’ We did a lot of ‘ego renunciation.’”

Over time, Eternal Values evolved into a sophisticated business operation, offering seminars and selling books and cassette tapes. Von Mierers became the host of a public access television show and appeared on radio shows, using the platforms to spread his teachings to an even wider audience. 

Von Mierers also began offering "prescriptions" for expensive gems, which he claimed would help his followers overcome their emotional and spiritual struggles. With help from several New York jewelry appraisers, who agreed to inflate the stones’ value in exchange for a cut of the profits, he sold an estimated $2 million worth of gems for cash and traveler’s checks. 

As time went on, Eternal Values’ doctrines became more extreme. Von Mierers began spewing anti-Semitic propaganda and praising Adolf Hitler, describing Germans as the Aryan master race. New members were required to participate in sexual initiation practices, and some followers began taking large amounts of hallucinogens, according to former members. 

Von Mierers rose to power amid the HIV/AIDS epidemic and, eventually, he contracted the disease himself. 

As the illness ravaged his body, he left New York City and retreated to a home the group owned on Lake Lure, located roughly 40 miles southeast of Asheville, N.C. According to the Associated Press, he died on February 4, 1990, at the age of 43 “surrounded by a pink marble interior and numerous mirrors” on a 3.38-acre property Eternal Values had purchased for $400,000 in 1987. 

In its March 1990 issue, Vanity Fair published a lengthy exposé of von Mierers and Eternal Values, which had gone to press before his death. In the piece, titled “East Side Alien,” writer Marie Brenner reported that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office was investigating von Mierers for several potential criminal charges, including his involvement in a multimillion-dollar gem ring. But authorities later dropped the investigation.

Though its leader was gone, Eternal Values lived on. The group split into two factions, with one taking refuge at the North Carolina home, where they stockpiled guns, gold and food. “We went underground,” Richards told Nantucket Magazine. 

After several failed attempts, Richards managed to escape from Eternal Values for good in 1999, nearly a decade after von Mierers’ death. It took him a while to comprehend what he’d endured, but one day, he was “doing some research, and it hit me,” Richards told DuJour. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God! I’m a textbook cult victim.’”

Three years after leaving Eternal Values, Richards successfully sued the group, which not only allowed him to recover some of the money he’d lost over the years, but also caused the group to disband due to lack of funds. Since then, he’s been focused on healing, repairing relationships with his family, acting, writing, filmmaking and sharing his story.

“This is not a burden I’m carrying around any longer,” Richards told Nantucket Magazine. “I’ve had plenty of counseling, therapy and self-reflection, but now I wear my cult chapter as a badge of courage. I can say I got myself into a situation that I never dreamed would happen to me, and found my way out of it—and actually, I’m a better person because of it.”