By Charles Lear
What was the first civilian organization solely dedicated to research on the subject of UFOs and when did they form? After a little research, most should agree that it was the Los Angeles based Civilian Saucer Investigation formed in 1951. What may surprise many is that there was a group interested in all things paranormal that was looking at aerial phenomena reports even before the June 24, 1947 Kenneth Arnold sighting. What may be equally surprising is the longevity of the organization, which started in 1945 and is still represented by an active website today.
Borderland Sciences Research Associates was formed in San Diego, California in 1945 by Meade Layne along with fellow intellectuals interested in exploring subjects that lay between the realms of spiritualism and science. Layne was an academic with a masters in English who supported his family as a teacher, taking jobs across the country. In the course of his career, he was the English Department Head at Illinois Wesleyan University and Florida Southern College and a professor at the University of Southern California. Prior to his involvement with BSRA he had contributed various writings and research papers to journals devoted to parapsychology, spiritualism and the occult. As soon as the group was formed they published their own monthly newsletter, the Round Robin, and Layne was the editorial director. The subjects that were written about covered the range of what can be best described as “Western esotericism.”
In the January, 1946 issue we get the first story of interest for UFO historians. In an article titled, “Do You Hear Voices?” the writer addresses the “Shaver Mystery” which involved a man who heard voices while welding and believed them to be from degenerated humanoids living underground who flew through tunnels in technically advanced vehicles. These vehicles were later thought by some to be responsible for Arnold’s sighting and those that followed. This was likely due, in large part, to the influence of the men responsible for the mystery: writer, Richard Shaver and publisher, Ray Palmer. What may be of equal interest to UFO enthusiasts are comments taken from a letter in that same issue regarding ball lightning and “will-o’-the-wisps” mentioning marsh gas being a common prosaic explanation offered for strange lights. Read more