| Meade Layne | |
| Birth Date: | September 8, 1882 |
| Other Names: | Newton Meade Layne |
| Death Date: | May 12, 1961 (aged 78) |
| Discipline: | English Ufology Parapsychology |
| Sub Discipline: | Interdimensional hypothesis "Etheria" |
| Workplaces: | University of Southern California Illinois Wesleyan University Florida Southern College |
| Birth Place: | Viroqua, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Death Place: | San Diego, California, U.S. |
Meade Layne (September 8, 1882May 12, 1961)[1] was an American academic and early researcher of ufology and parapsychology, best known for proposing an early version of the interdimensional hypothesis to explain flying saucer sightings.
Layne was born in Viroqua, Wisconsin and raised in San Diego.[2] 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.[3] In 1934, one of Layne's poems inspired a piece of music. [4]
Layne was the founder and first director of Borderland Sciences Research Associates.[5] [6] [7] Prior to his public work studying ufos, Layne was professor at the University of Southern California, and English department head at Illinois Wesleyan University and Florida Southern College.
In February 1945, Meade began publishing a mimeographed newsletter titled "Round Robin".[8] 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.[9]
The following year, during the 1947 flying disc craze, media again quoted Layne on his ethership theories. Layne speculated that, rather than representing advanced military or extraterrestrial technology, flying saucers were piloted by beings from a parallel dimension, which he called Etheria, and their "ether ships" were usually invisible but could be seen when their atomic motion became slow enough.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] In 1951, Layne promoted Paxson Hayes's claims ancient giants in Mexico.[13] [14]
Furthermore, Layne argued that Etherians and their ether ships inspired much of earth's mythology and religion, 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 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.[15] .
Layne died in San Diego in 1961.