Meade Layne
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Meade Layne (September 8, 1882May 12, 1961) was an American academic and early researcher of
ufology Ufology, sometimes written UFOlogy ( or ), is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary claims, extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial hypothesis, extrate ...
and
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...
, best known for proposing an early version of the
interdimensional hypothesis The interdimensional UFO hypothesis (IUH) is the proposal that unidentified flying object (UFO) sightings are the result of experiencing other "dimensions" that coexist separately alongside our own. The hypothesis has been advanced by ufologists ...
to explain
flying saucer A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined in 1947 by the United States (US) news media for the objects pilot Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, Kenneth Arnold claimed fl ...
sightings.


Early life

Layne was born in
Viroqua, Wisconsin Viroqua is the county seat of Vernon County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 4,504 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is in the Viroqua (town), Wisconsin, town of Viroqua. Etymology The town was originally name ...
and raised in
San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
. Layne sold office supplies, worked as a real estate agent, managed an oil and gas company, and wrote poetry. He claimed to have earned a PhD in English literature. In 1934, one of Layne's poems inspired a piece of music.


Career

Layne was the founder and first director of Borderland Sciences Research Associates. Prior to his public work studying ufos, Layne was professor at the
University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
, and English department head at
Illinois Wesleyan University Illinois Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college in Bloomington, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1850, the central portion of the present campus was acquired in 1854 with the first building erected in 1856. History The in ...
and
Florida Southern College Florida Southern College (Florida Southern, Southern or FSC) is a private college in Lakeland, Florida. In 2019, the student population at FSC consisted of 3,073 students along with 130 full-time faculty members. It offers undergraduate, gradua ...
. In February 1945, Meade began publishing a mimeographed newsletter titled "Round Robin". On October 14, 1946, nearly a year before Kenneth Arnold's first sighting of "flying saucers", Layne achieved national notoriety when the wire service carried a story of Layne's claims of a medium who was in telepathic communication with people in a space ship. The following year, during the
1947 flying disc craze A rash of unidentified flying object reports in the United States were publicized in June and July1947. The craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold's Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting, story of witnessing di ...
, media again quoted Layne on his ethership theories. Layne speculated that, rather than representing advanced
military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...
or extraterrestrial technology, flying saucers were piloted by beings from a parallel dimension, which he called Etheria, and their "ether ships" were usually
invisible Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen. An object in this state is said to be ''invisible'' (literally, "not visible"). The phenomenon is studied by physics and perceptual psychology. Since objects can be seen by light fr ...
but could be seen when their
atom Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a atomic nucleus, nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished fr ...
ic motion became slow enough. He further claimed that Etherians could become stranded on the terrestrial plane when their ether ships malfunctioned, and that various governments were aware of these incidents and had investigated them. In 1948, Layne was featured in media for his proposal to use "underwater radar" to search for the mythical lost continent of Atlantis. In 1950, press covered Layne's publication of "Flying Discs: The Ethership Mystery and its Solution". Layne also publicized earlier stories of a crashed saucer with 30 inch-tall bodies found inside. In 1951, Layne promoted Paxson Hayes's claims ancient giants in Mexico. Furthermore, Layne argued that Etherians and their ether ships inspired much of earth's
mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
and
religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
, but that they were truly mortal beings despite having a high level of technological and spiritual advancement. He claimed that their motive in coming to the terrestrial plane of existence was to reveal their accumulated wisdom to humanity. These revelations would be relayed through individuals with sufficiently developed
psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...
abilities, allowing them to contact the Etherians and communicate with them directly; in particular, he relied extensively on the mediumship of Mark Probert as confirmation of his theories. .


Death

Layne died in San Diego in 1961.


Works

* Layne, Meade, ''The Ether Ship Mystery And Its Solution'', San Diego, Calif., 1950. * Layne, Meade, ''The Coming of The Guardians'', San Diego, Calif., 1954.


See also

*
Jacques Vallée Jacques Fabrice Vallée (; born September 24, 1939) is an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California and Paris, France. His scientific career bega ...


References


Sources

*


External links

* https://obscurantist.com/oma/layne-meade/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20060409105450/http://www.internationalnewsagency.org/us_astronauts_and_the_ufo_encoun.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Layne, Meade 1882 births 1961 deaths American parapsychologists Ufologists