UFO Promoter, Lawrence Brill: From Crime to Conferences

In our introduction, After the UFO Crash of 1969, we looked at how the closing of Project Blue Book seemed to cause a decrease in the public's interest in UFOs for several years, but in 1973 the topic made a big comeback and by the next year, UFOs were big business again.

In 1974, Lawrence Brill presented two UFO and paranormal conferences in Florida's Tampa Bay area featuring superstar guests; top talent, from experts and best-selling authors, to scientists and alien abductees. The events received major news coverage, but one lecturer made a stunning disclosure that overshadowed all the rest. A professor revealed that the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency directed the cover-up of UFOs, and that they possessed physical evidence of flying saucers and their occupants. It would change ufology forever. But, before we examine the story of conferences and the UFO evidence...

Who was Lawrence Brill, and how did he come to put on the show that made it all possible?

The Brill Family Business

The Morris J. Brill Agency ad from 1945.
Ready with financing help and sincere salesmen. 

1947 is known for the start of the flying saucer fever, but at that time, Lawrence Brill was a 23-year-old real estate salesman from Racine, Wisconsin. The Racine Journal Times from December 3, 1967, featured a retrospective that sets the stage:

20 Years Ago. December 3, 1947: A public hearing to determine whether Lawrence Brill should be granted a real estate brokers license was scheduled to be held in Racine by the Wisconsin Real Estate Brokers License Board. Brill formerly held a salesman‘s license and was employed by his father, Morris J. Brill. Licenses to the elder Brill and two of his salesman, George Brill and Herman Kaplan, were revoked Nov. 4 when the board found them guilty of “misrepresentation, untrustworthiness and improper dealing in real estate transactions.” The hearing was scheduled to determine Lawrence Brill’s trustworthiness to operate as a broker.

Brill's brokerage license was granted later that month, but with a stern warning:

“The board had a duty to treat Lawrence Brill as an individual and not penalize him for any misdeeds of his father, brother or brother-in-law. If the board was unable to connect Lawrence with any of the questionable cases investigated, then it had no alternative but to grant the license. But in granting the license the board warned that Lawrence must not be associated with any of the other three members of the former agency and any real estate transactions. This imposes a responsibility on Lawrence to make sure that he lives to up to the letter of the board regulations. The board and the people of Racine have a right to demand this, and doubtless will maintain a keen interest in seeing that it’s done.

- The Racine Journal Times, Dec. 22, 1947

Link to larger images of this and other Lawrence Brill articles.

In 1948, Lawrence took over the family business, renaming the real estate enterprise the “Lawrence Brill Agency.” What did not change was the family method of operation, and eventually the “misdeeds” came to a head. In 1954 Lawrence and his brother George Brill were among those arrested for a real estate scheme. The storm passed and they got back to business as usual, but it was a strong clue of what lay ahead. Lawrence managed to avoid getting his photo in the paper, and this picture of George is the closest we found to a picture of him anywhere.

Racine Sunday Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1954

The cards came tumbling down in 1967, with the legal proceedings following for several years. The two clippings that follow show how fraud and financial irregularities brought the Brill Agency down.

One of the biggest upheavals on Racine's commercial scene in many a year came with the collapse of the Lawrence Brill Agency's rental housing empire. Once the largest manager of rental housing in the city, controlling as many as 2,000 units, the Brill Agency folded in 1967 and went into bankruptcy, listed about $1 million in unsecured debts, $9 million in contingent debts and assets of $344,000. The bankruptcy proceedings are still in progress. In a related action, the state this year brought a variety of charges against brothers George and Lawrence Brill, who operated the agency as a partnership. The charges allege violations of Wisconsin securities law, theft and theft by fraud.

- The Racine Journal-Times, January 11, 1970:

"'60s Racine's Eating, Buying Habits"

Betty Flannery, former bookkeeper for the Lawrence Brill Real Estate agency testified in 1969 that, “by and far most of the properties lost money” in the year leading up to the bankruptcy, with losses running about $30,000 to $40,000 per month. “I told him five or six times that he was losing money but it was difficult for him to believe it because he planned things so carefully."

- The Racine Journal-Times, Feb. 17, 1969

Jumping ahead in the story, ultimately the Brill brothers were found guilty, but served no time or paid no penalty, only given five years probation. In 1974, they were ordered to repay 11 cents on the dollar for their bankruptcy debts.

Flight to Florida

In 1967, while the legal proceedings were just beginning, George and Lawrence Brill left Rancine and moved to Florida for a fresh start in Tampa. There, Lawrence Brill became a member in local social clubs and civic organizations, and his wife Nora (nicknamed Noni), took an active role in the Tampa arts community. The connections they made in these social circles would prove to be important later, when they were introduced to psychics.

Lawrence Brill reinvented himself as the president of Pandora Enterprises Inc., a company based in Tampa, both retailing and wholesaling hair pieces, wigs and fashion accessories. The company also operated under the names, Hair Goods, Inc., Wig Factory Inc. and reportedly, Palucha Enterprises. In a 1970 interview with The Tampa Tribune, Brill was asked about the rising popularity of synthetic wigs. Fake hair had caused his sales of human hair wigs to drop by 90 percent. Brill was no seer, but, “He predicts that within a year the demand for human hair will return if New York designers create styles that demand genuine hair for their execution.”

By 1974, Brill’s company had three retail stores under the name of Wig Wardrobe. In the registration, Brill’s wife Nora was named as vice president, and Cynthia B. Stanley was listed as the director. It was through friend and business partner, Cynthia Stanley, that the initial connection was made that would lead to the UFO and paranormal conferences. The story “Saucer Symposium Held” in Willoughby, Ohio’s The News-Herald, Nov 3 1974 by Joel Greenberg told how it all began:

The seed for this unlikely gathering was planted nine months ago in the mind of Cynthia Stanley, who works for Palucha’s three Wig Wardrobe Stores in Tampa. While driving around town last February, Ms. Stanley suddenly decided to stop at Halarion House a now-defunct spiritual church. There, psychics Ernest and Bernadine Villanueva “read my aura,” the electrical field that surrounds the head, she recalls. Ms. Stanley says she has now become an adequate “table-tapper” — she can induce spirits of dead persons to tap answers on a table (one tap for yes, two for no). At Palucha director Lawrence Brill’s home, where the Villanuevas psychically swung a 150-pound chandelier, got PSI (Psychic, Spiritual, Intuition) Conferences off the ground.

High Society

Lawrence Brill took on the role as director of PSI Conferences, and with the help of rising psychic star, Bernadene Villanueva, they were able to gather an impressive roster of celebrities for their first conference, PSI ’74. The Tampa Tribune, Aug 1, 1974, describes a social event held in honor of two of the starring psychics.

Tampa Tribune, Aug 1, 1974

The article also names one of Brill’s other PSI directors, Dr. Edwin L. Stover, the chairman of

the Humanities Department, St. Petersburg Junior College (who also played with the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony). A later article lists Bob Mims, as a PSI Conferences director, another contact that Brill seems to have made through the high society clubs he and his wife belonged to. Lawrence Brill was the voice of the organization, however, and it was run through the company he owned.

With the support of advertising and media coverage, Brill's PSI ’74 was ready to launch. It was held on Aug. 2, 3 and 4, 1974 in St. Petersburg, Florida, with events at the Hilton Inn and the Bayfront Center arena. Lawrence Brill's story continues in our coverage of PSI '74 and the epic UFO conference that followed it.

In our next chapter: The first PSI conference, and the unpredicted response to the UFO witness.

PSI ‘74: Psychics and the UFO Witness from Pascagoula

1946, Before Saucers, Kareeta: UFO Contact in California

Hannes Bok art for Imagination, Sept. 1951, with bird-like space ships similar to Kareeta. 

Before Saucers: Kareeta

1947 has gone down in history for Kenneth Arnold's June sighting launching the modern UFO era, however, in 1946, seven months before, another report was making international news. And while Arnold's mysterious objects were merely unknown, the San Diego object was identified. It was a space ship from another planet.

Meade Layne of Round Robin and psychic Mark Probert

Meade Layne launched The Round Robin in 1945, "A Bulletin of Contact and Information for Students of Psychic Research and Parapsychology." It was the foundation for "an association of spiritualists and parapsychologists, New Thought writers and Theosophical thinkers... their field of research 'the borderlands' of science, those murky areas where quanta overlap with spirit..." It later came to be known as the Borderland Sciences Research Associates. Layne and many of his friends were also interested in "the data of the damned," following in the footsteps of Charles Fort.

San Diego, California, Oct. 9, 1946

Marine Corps Chevron, Oct. 18, 1946 

"On the evening of 9 October 1946, a bulletish, winged structure appeared over San Diego... Among those who witnessed this mysterious object was Mark Probert... (Meade) Layne suggested Probert establish telepathic communication—which he did. He learned: The strange machine is called the Kareeta...  powered by people possessing a very advanced knowledge of anti-gravity forces... The people are nonagressive and have been trying to contact the earth for many years." 

From the site, From an Oblique Angle, Newton Meade Layne as Fortean

Are Men From Mars Knocking?

Loren Gross, in Charles Fort, the Fortean Society, and Unidentified Flying Objects, 1976, reported how the extraterrestrial hypothesis made it on to page one on Oct. 14, 1946:

The Los Angeles Daily News thought the message made a good story and headlined its article on the incident: "Are Men From Mars Knocking?" According to the story there was a machine in the sky called a "Kareeta" piloted by creatures from outer space that were seeking contact with earthmen, but wary of the hostile instincts of mankind. The pilots of the "Kareeta" according to Probert, sought a meeting with earth scientists at an isolated location.

While most other papers didn't mention aliens from Mars, the term "space ship" was prominent in most of them.

Eugene Register-Guard, Oct. 14, 1946

The story was carried by wire services across the US and also in newspapers around the world.

The News Adelaide, South Australia Oct. 16, 1946

Space ships were the stuff of science fiction, and the most recognizable names were from the comic strips. This headline refers to space travelers, Flash Gordon, and the first alien hero, Superman.

The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Queensland. Australia,  Oct. 16, 1946

The Borderlands of Science

Meade Layne in  The Round Robin from Oct. 1946  gave a report far beyond what the newspapers printed, the full story of the Kareeta sighting, additional witness testimony, and psychic Mark Probert's channeling of the messages from the space visitors. "This ship comes from west of the moon... Yes, these people come in peace . . . They are much more advanced than you are..." Layne had only one doubt about the encounter, that the beings within the spaceship might not be trustworthy. "The account of the Kareeta, received clairaudiently by Mark Probert, may be an elaborate hoax by the communicating intelligences."

Readers of Round Robin were way, way, ahead of Kenneth Arnold, Donald Keyhoe, flying saucers and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. In the November 1946 issue of Round Robin, Meade Layne said, 

"'Space-ship' Kareeta has come and gone, but is not yet, we are glad to say, wholly forgotten. The Editor's mail bag shows that Round Robin readers, at any rate, do not dismiss such happenings as trivial and fantastic... The literature on mysterious sky-visitors is extensive - and appalling; if you don't believe it, read Charles Fort, and forthcoming articles by Vincent Gaddis, and start collecting the data for yourself."

Then, in the April 1947 issue of Round Robin: 

Oahspe, Charles Fort, and space ships (From letter to RR, by B.F. Greenlee)

"At the end of God's Book of Ben are several pages of comment which would do justice to Charles Fort and the Book of Cosmogony would have delighted him. I have tried to find evidence that Fort was familiar with Oahspe, but have come to the conclusion that he never read it... Re the 'Kareeta': Oahspe mentions space ships under a variety of names: Abattos, Arrow-Boat, Adavaysit, Airavagra, Avalenza, etc. See Book of Osiris, Son of Jehovih, Ch.1, para. 5 for references to what may have been the nature of Kareeta."

The Coming of the Saucers

Meade Layne continued to explore the topic of visitors from beyond and took the 1947 arrival of flying saucers in stride. The rest of the world struggled to find out: were saucers secret military weapons, and if so, whose? If not, what were they, and where did they come from? Layne already had it all worked out. His take on flying saucers was a mystical metaphysical one, that they were peaceful advanced visitors traveling here in ships from an etheric and psychic realm.

No, they just have scrapbook on UFOs.

Layne's Round Robin article on the nature of the Etherians creates a stir every time it gets rediscovered in the FBI's files by people who mistake it for a government memorandum. It is not. The FBI, CIA and Air Force are among the US government agencies that have articles from UFO magazines in their files.

The FBI's copy of Meade Layne's article.
Click link for larger copy at the FBI site.

"A Memorandum of Importance" was dated July 8, 1947, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with Roswell. Among its claims, Layne stated:

"Part of the disks carry crews... Their mission is peaceful... These visitors are human-like... but come from their own world... They do NOT come from a planet as we use the word, but from an etheric planet..." 

Amazing if true, but many modern readers failed to note the author stated, "the data herein was obtained by so-called supernormal means..." which referred to psychic communication such as Mark Probert's channeling. Layne neglected to include the 1946 caution that it might only "be an elaborate hoax by the communicating intelligences."

The “4-D” Explanation, the 1950s and Beyond

Layne's 1955 article Mat and Demat elaborated on the Etherians nature, how they existed in four dimensions instead of our mere three. In the 1950s, Layne's strain of ufology was ignored by the Donald Keyhoe and nuts-and-bolts type ufologists, but the Contactees and their fans were far more open to it. In a sense, Mark Probert was the first Contactee, but since his contact was telepathic, not physical, that honor would go to another Californian. Probert continued his psychic communication and part of his story can be found in the 1957 book, Flying Saucer Pilgrimage.

Meade Layne's two UFO volumes, The Ether Ship Mystery
and Its Solution 1950), and Coming of the Guardians (1954).

Layne died in 1961, but his 4-D concept of "Etherians" was forerunner to the interdimensional hypothesis and paved the way for Jacques Vallee and John Keel to speculate on occult and paranormal UFO notions a few years later. Within ufology, support for a paranormal origin was rising in the 1970s, but the nuts-and-bolts materialist camp got propped up in a big way by the Roswell UFO crash story. 
In recent years, the lack of anything tangible to further Roswell or similar cases has caused many UFO seekers to look in other directions. Many of them have turned to a more spiritual path, seeking the positive reassuring messages from above like those from Kareeta and aimlessly drifting towards Layne's murky borderlands.

Today, Meade Layne's legacy is carried on by the Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, a California non-profit research and education organization.

As with so many of the most interesting UFO cases featured here at The Saucers That Time Forgot, Project Blue Book has no file on this incident.