From: "Terry W. Colvin" 
Subject: IUFO: [Fwd: A Review of Men in Black [[1 of 4]]]
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   (Jan 71 - Aug 72)
Thailand/Laos
 - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand
   (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73)
 - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand
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Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[1 of 4]]
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A REVIEW OF MIBS (Men In Black): A HISTORY 

" A lot of people of heard of "something" about MIBS without really
knowing any of the details." 

"MONSTERS: Giants and Little Men From Mars" DELL Publications
(paperback) (C) 1975 Written by: Daniel Cohen 

The purpose of this file is to aquaint users with MIBs history, how
they are related to the coverup allegations, along with associated
reference material and names of files which contain more current
thoughts on the subject. Sysops are encouraged to add in the files
contained on their systems at the bottom of the file, and any other
additional reference material which would be useful in helping others
in their personal research. 


------------------------------------------------------------------------




Chapter 10 "The Men in Black and Other Terrors" 



When the Condon Committee was sampling public attitudes toward UFOs
they gave this statement to a cross section of the American Public: A
government agency maintains a Top Secret file of UFO reports that are
deliberately withheld from the public." THe respondents were supposed
to answer TRUE or FALSE. A substantial majority, sixty-one percent,
thought that the statement was true while only thirty-one percent said
it was false. Among teenagers, the credibility gap was even wider --
73 percent believed the statement to be true. 

General opinion studies conducted by the Condon Committee, and other
surveys about UFO's came up with the rather paradoxal fact that there
were more people who believed in a conspiracy of silence about UFOs
than believed in UFOs in the first place. 

It has often been said that we Americans today are a bit paranoid;
that we always tend to believe that something is out to get us, or
something is being kept from us. It certainly seems that we were a bit
paranoid about UFOs. 

Most people thought vaguely in terms of an Air Force conspiracy or a
CIA conspiracy or even of a world-wide scientific conspiracy. It was
generally acknowledged that the reason behind such a conspiracy was a
desire on the part of those in power to hide the "truth" fro the
public because people would panic if they knew that we really were
being visit by superior creatures from another world. COnspiracy
theorists constantly harkened back to the old "War of the WOrlds"
broadcast, and the panic it started. 

Such a belief, however, is rather too simple for the true connoisseur
of conspiracies. He has long ago rejected the simple, straightforward
Air Force - CIA - science establishment - cover-up as too obvious, and
really rather ridiculous. The conspiracy connoisseur pointed out quite
correctlyl that no government or group, no matter how powerful, could
possibly supress so much sensational information for so long -- no
earthly group that is. 

If the extraterrestrials WANTED to make themselves known then they
would land in a central place, and all the feeble earthly cover-up
would simply be blown away. It is out of this sort of background that
the legend of the Men in Black arose. It concerns strange little men
in dark suits who drive around in big shiny cars and harass people who
claimed to have seen a UFO. 

The origin of the Men in Black legend can be pin-pointed fairly
exactly. Back in 1953 a man by the name of Albert K. Bender was
runnong an organization called the International Flying Suacer Bureau
(IFSB) and editing a little publication called "Space Review" that was
dedicated to news of flying saucers. 

The IFSB had a small membership despite its rather grandoise title,
and "Space Review" reached at best, no more than a few hundred
readers. But they were all deeply devoted to the idea that flying
saucers were craft from outer soace. In common with other ture
believers, these saucer buffs were convinced that they were in
possession of a great truth, while most of the rest of the world
remained in darkness and ignorance. They felt very important , and
thus it was with a sense of surprise, even shock, that they opened up
the October 1953 issue of "Space Review" and found two unexpected
announcments: 

"LATE BULLETIN. A source which the IFSB considers very reliable has
informed us that the investigation of the flying soucer mystery and
the solution is approaching its final stages." 

"This same source to whom we had referred data, which had come into
our possession, suggested that it was not the proper method and time
to publish the data in 'Space Review'." 

The second and more shocking item read: 

"STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: THe mystery of the flying saucers is no
longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information
about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would
like to print the full story in "Space REview", but because of the
nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised
in the negative." 

The statement ended with the ominous sentence, "We advice those
engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious." Bender then
suspended the publication of "Space Review", and siddolved the IFSB. 

The tone of the announcemnets would have been familiar to anyone who
had much experience with occult organizations. Occultists often claim
they are in the possession of some great secret which, for equally
secret reasons, they cannot reveal. Even the appeal, "please be very
cautious" was not unique. It made those engaged in "saucer work" feel
more important . After all, who is going to bother to persecute you if
you are just wasting your time? 

Shortly after Bender closed down his magazine and organization he gave
an interview to a local paper which he asserted the he had been
visited by "three men wearing dark suits" who had order him
"emphatically" to stop publishing material about flying saucers.
Bender said that he had been "scared to death" and that he "acutally
couldn't eat for a couple of days." Some of Bender's former associates
tried to press for a more satisfactory explanation, but to all
questions he replied either cryptically or not at all. 

This state of affairs created soncsiderable confusions amoung the
flying saucer buffs. What were they to think about sucah a strange
story> Some were openly skeptical of Bender's tale. They said that his
publication and organization were losing money and the tale of the
three visitors who "ordered" him to stop publishing was just a
face-saving gesture. Yet, as the years went by the "three 

Men in Black" began to sound more rspectable and they took on a life
of their own. Some' were Bender's friends first thought that the Men
in Black were from Air Force or the CIA, and indeed Bender's original
statments do seem to sound like government agents. But after a while
the Men in Black begun to assume a more extraterrestrial, even
supernatural air. 

Finally in 1963, a full decade after he first told of his mysterious
visitors, Alber Bender elaborated further in a book called "Flying
Sauvers adn the Three Men in Black." It was a strange, confused and
virutally unreadable book that revealed very little in the way of hard
facts, but did significantly enhance the reutation of the Men in Black
as extraterrestrials. The book also introduced into the lore "three
beautful women, dressed in tight white unigorms." Like thei r mail
couterparts in black, the women in white had "glowing eys." 

But even before the publication of Bender's book in 1963, the Men in
Black (or MIBSs as they are know to insiders) had already been
reported to be vising others besides Albert Bender. By now they have
been reported so often that they have become an established part of
the UFO history. The Men in Black, naturally enough, wear black suits.
They also usually wear sunglasses, presumably to disguise their
"glowing eyes". Most of them are reported to be short and delicately
built with olive complexions and dark, straight hair. They are often
described as "Gypsies" or "Orientals". Most MIBS are reported to
travel in groups of three and usually ride around in shiny new black
cars -- often Cadillacs. These cars are even supposed to "smell new."
SOmetimes the MIBs pose as investigators from the CIA or some other
government agancy. They may flash official-looking credentials, but
these can never be checked out. Occassionally the MIBs display badges
with strange emblems on them, or have unrecognizable symbols painted
on their cars. The purpose of the visits seems to be to get people who
have seen UFOs to stop talking about them, or somehow to confuse and
frighten the witnesses. 

People who worry about MIBs tend to lump all sorts of mysterious
visitors into the category, even if they don't wear black, have
glowing eyes or show any of the familiar MIB characteristics. The
primary qualification for the Men in Black is that they be of unknown
origin, and that they appear to act oddly and vaguely menancing. 

Some of those who write about UFO's and other strange pehomena rather
casually mention "countless" cases where people have been visited by
Men in Black. In reality these "countless" cases are difficult to pin
down. In fact, there really seems to be a rather small number of MIB
cases where there are any details available at all. 

The impression given by the writers is that the publicized cases
represent only "the tip of the iceberg." Beyond these, say the
writers, are many "more sensational" cases, the details of which
cannot be revealed for a variety of reasons. In any event solid
evidence for a vast number of MIB cases is lacking. 

But we are, after all, dealing with beliefs as much as with reality,
and impression is an important one. 

Often the MIB cases that we know of are not quite as sensational as
Albert Bender's three visitors, but they are unsettling nevetheless.
Take the case of California highway inspector Rex Heflin. On August 3,
1965, Heflin claimed to have taken a series of Polaroid photos of a
UFO from his car while parked near the Santa Ana Freeway. The pictures
were quite clear and they showd an object shaped rather like a straw
hat apparenlty floating above the ground. These pictures got a great
deal of publicity, and are still among the most requently repreinted
UFO photos. Heflin's story was investigated by the Air Force shortly
after it bacome known. It was also looke into by investigators fot the
Condon Committee durring their inquiry. (The committee investigator
produced a pretty fair imitation of the photos by suspending the lens
cap of his camera in front of his car with a thread and photograph it
through the car window). In addition, a host of unofficial UFO groups
tackled the case in their own way. 

There was considerable suspicion on the part of official investigators
that the photos had been faked, but this was difficult to prove or
disprove without the original prints. Being Poaroid photos there were
no negative. 

Heflin said that he had turned over three of the four originals to a
man (or two men, the stories differ) who calimed that he represented
the North American 

Air Defense Command (NORAD). NORAD denied that they had ever sent out
an investigator or indeed that they had the slightest interst in the
photos. The mysterious person who is alleged to have taken the phots
has never been identified. 

On October 11, 1967, over two years after Heflin's original sighting,
but while the Condon investigation was going on, Heflin reported
another encounter with mysterious visitors. A man who said that he was
Captain C. H. Edmonds of the Space Systems Division, Systems Command,
a unit of the Air Force that had been involved in the first
investigation of his UFO photos, came to his home. During the
interview the man who called himself Captain Edmonds asked Heflin if
he wanted his original photos back. When Heflin said no, the man was
"visibly relieved." Inexplicably, the man then began discussin the
Bermuda Triangle. This is an area near the island of Bermuda where a
number of mysterious disappearances of airplanes and shops have been
reported. These disappearances have been linked by some to UFOs,
though the connection does not seem very convincing. 

While this strange interview was going on Heflin said that he saw a
car parked in the street. It had some sort of lettering on the front
door but he could not make it out. To quote the Condon Report
description of the indicent, "In the back seat could be seen a figure
and a violet (not blue) glow, which the witness attributed to
instrument dials. He believed he was being photographed or recorded.
In the meantime his FM multiplex radio was playing in the living room
and during the questioning it made several loud audible pops." All
attempts by the Air Foece, various civilian researchers and the Condon
Committee itself to find "Captain C. H. Edmonds" failed. As far as can
be determined, no such person has ever existed. 




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---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes ---------------------------
From: Terry Colvin
Date: 6/26/96 4:21PM
To: Terry Colvin
Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[1 of 4]]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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-- 
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean@primenet.com >
Home Page:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/8832
Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage *
  U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program
------------
Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List
  TLCB Web Site:  http://www.seacoast.com/~jsweet/brotherh/index.html
Southeast Asia (SEA) service:
Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade
   (Jan 71 - Aug 72)
Thailand/Laos
 - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand
   (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73)
 - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand
   (STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site
   (Aug 73 - Jan 74)
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From: "Colvin, Terry" 
To: fortean@primenet.com
Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[2 of 4]]
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Part 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A REVIEW OF MIB (MEN IN BLACK)
A History
By Linda Murphy

>From 'Astronet Review' No. 1 February 1992. 

A lot of people have heard of something about "MIBs" without really
knowing any of the details.

The purpose of this article is to acquaint readers with MIBs history,
how they are related to the cover-up allegations, along with
associated reference material and names of files which contain more
current thoughts on the subject.

When the Condon Committee was sampling public attitudes toward UFOs
they gave this statement to a cross-section of the American Public: "A
government agency maintains a Top Secret file of UFO reports that are
deliberately withheld from the public." The respondents were supposed
to answer TRUE or FALSE. A substantial majority, sixty-one percent,
thought that the statement was true while only thirty-one percent said
it was false. Among teenagers, the credibility gap was even wider - 73
percent believed the statement to be true. General opinion studies
conducted by the Condon Committee, and other surveys about UFOs came
up with the rather paradoxical facts that there were more people who
believed in a conspiracy of silence about UFOs than believed in UFOs
in the first place.

It has ofen been said that we Americans today are a bit paranoid; that
we always tend to believe that something is out to get us, or
something is being kept from us. It certainly seems that we were a bit
paranoid about UFOs.

Most people thought vaguely in terms of an Air Force conspiracy or a
CIA conspiracy or even of a world-wide scientific conspiracy. It was
generally acknowledged that the reason behind such a conspiracy was a
desire on the part of those in power to hide the "truth" from the
public because people would panic if they kney that we really were
being visited by superior creatures from another world. Conspiracy
theorists constantly hearkened back to the old "War of the Worlds"
broadcast, and the panic it started.

Such a belief, however, is rather too simple for the true connoisseur
of conspiracies. He has long ago rejected the simple, straightforward
Air Force-CIA-science establishment cover-up as too obvious, and
really rather ridiculous. The conspiracy connoisseur pointed out quite
correctly that no government or group, no matter how powerful, could
possibly suppress so much sensational information for so long - no
earthly group that is.

If the extraterrestrials WANTED to make themselves known then they
would land in a central place, and all the feeble earthly cover-up
would simply be blown away. It is out of this sort of background that
the legend of the Men In Black arose. It concerns strange little men
in dark suits who drive around in big shiny cars and harass people who
claimed to have seen a UFO.

The origin of the Men In Black legend can be pinpointed fairly
exactly. Back in 1953 a man by the name of Albert K. Bender was
running an oranisation called the International Flying Saucer Bureau
(IFSB) and editing a little publication called Space Review that was
dedicated to news of flying saucers.

The IFSB had a small membership despite its rather grandiose title,
and Space Review reached at best, no more than a few hundred readers.
But they were all deeply devoted to the idea that flying saucers were
craft from outer space. In common with other true believers, these
saucer buffs were convinced that they were in possession of a great
truth, while most of the rest of the world remained in darkness and
ignorance. They felt very important, and thus it was with a sense of
surprise, even shock, that they opened up the October 1953 issue of
Space Review and found two unexpected announcements: "LATE BULLETIN. A
source which the IFSB considers very reliable has informed us that the
investigation of the flying saucer mystery and the solution is
approaching its final stages. This same source to whom we had referred
data, which had come into our possession, suggested that it was not
the proper method and time to publish the data in Space Review."

The second and more shocking item read: "STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The
mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is
already known, but any information about this is being withheld by
order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in
Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very
sorry that we have been advised in the negative."

The statement ended with the ominous sentence, "We advise those
engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious." Bender then
suspended the publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB.

The tone of the announcements would have been familiar to anyone who
had much experience with occult organizations. Occultists often claim
they are in the possession of some great secret which, for equally
secret reasons, they cannot reveal. Even the appeal, "please be very
cautious" was not unique. It made those engaged in "saucer work" feel
more important. After all, who is going to bother to persecute you if
you are just wasting your time?

Shortly after Bender closed down his magazine and organization he gave
an interview to a local paper [in] which he asserted that he had been
visited by "three men wearing dark suits" who had ordered him
"emphatically" to stop publishing material about flying saucers.
Bender said that he had been "scared to death" and that he "actually
couldn't eat for a couple of days.". Some of Bender's former
associates tried to press for a more satisfactory explanation, but to
all questions he replied either cryptically or not at all. 

This state of affairs created considerable confusions among the flying
saucer buffs. What were they to think about such a strange story? Some
were openly skeptical of Bender's tale. They said that his publication
and organization were losing money and the tale of the three visitors
who "ordered" him to stop publishing was just a face-saving gesture.
Yet, as the years went by the "Three Men In Black" began to sound more
respectable and they took on a life of their own. Some of Bender's
friends first thought that the Men In Black were from the Air Force or
the CIA, and indeed Bender's original statements do seem to sound like
[the men could have been] government agents. But after a while the Men
In Black began to assume a more extraterrestrial, even supernatural
air.

Finally in 1963, a full decade after he first told of his mysterious
visitors, Albert Bender elaborated further in a book called "Flying
Saucers and the Three Men In Black". It was a strange, confused and
virtually unreadable book that revealed very little in the way of hard
facts, but did significantly enhance the reputation of the Men In
Black as extraterrestrials. The book also introduced into the lore
"three beautiful women, dressed in tight white uniforms." Like their
male counterparts in black, the women in white had "glowing eyes".

But even before the publication of Bender's book in 1963, the Men In
Black (or MIBs as they were known to insiders) had already been
reported to be visiting others besides Alber Bender. By now they have
been reported so often that they have become an established part of
the UFO history. The Men In Black, naturally enough,wear black suits.
They also usually wear sunglasses, presumably to disguise their
"glowing eyes". Most of them are reported to be short and delicately
built with olive complections and dark, straight hair. They are often
described as "Gypsies" or "Orientals". Most MIBs are reported to
travel in groups of three and usually ride around in shiny, new, black
cars - often Cadillacs. These cars are even supposed to "smell new".
Sometimes the MIBs pose as investigators from the CIA or some other
government agency. They may flash official-looking credentials. but
these can never be checked out. Occasionally the MIBs display badges
withstrange emblems on them, or have unrecognizable symbols painted on
their cars. The purpose of the visits seems to be to get people who
have seen UFOs to stop talking about them, of somehow to confuse and
frighten the witnesses.

People who worry about MIBs tend to lump all sorts of mysterious
visitors into the category, even if they don't wear black, have no
glowing eyes nor show any of the familiar MIB characteristics. The
primary qualification for the Men In Black is that they be of unknown
origin, and that they appear to act oddly and vaguely menacing.

Some of those who write about UFOs and other strange phenomena rather
casually mention "countless" cases where people have been visited by
Men In Black. In reality these "countless cases" are difficult to pin
down. In fact, there really seems to be a rather small number of MIB
cases where there are any details availabe at all.

The impression given by the writers is that the publicized cases
represent only "the tip of the iceberg". Beyond these, say the
writers, are many "more sensational" cases, the details of which
cannot be revealed for a variety of reasons. In any event solid
evidence for a vast number MIB cases is lacking. But we are, after
all, dealing with beliefs as much as with reality, and 'impression' is
an important one.

Often the MIB cases that we know of are not quite as sensational as
Albert Bender's three visitors, but they are unsettling nevertheless.
Take the case of California highway inspector Rex Heflin. On August 3,
1965, Heflin claimed to have taken a series of Polaroid photos of a
UFO from his car while parked near the Santa Ana Freeway. The pictures
were quite clear and they showed an object shaped rather like a straw
hat apparently floating above the ground. These pictures got a great
deal of publicity, and are still among the most frequently reprinted
UFO photos. Heflin's story was investigated by the Air Force shortly
after it became known. It was also looked into by investigators for
the Condon Committee during their inquiry. (The committee investigator
produced a pretty fair imitation of the photos by suspending the lens
cap of his camera in front of his car with a thread and photographing
it through the car window.) In addition, a host of unofficial UFO
groups tackled the case in their own way.

There was considerable suspicion on the part of official investigators
that the photos had been faked, but this was difficult to prove of
disprove without the original pronts. Being Polaroid photos, there
were no negatives.

Heflin said that he had turned over three of the four originals to a
man (or two men - the stories differ) who claimed that he represented
the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD). NORAD denied that they
had ever sent out an investigator, or indeed, that they had the
slightest interest in the photos. The mysterious person who is alleged
to have taken the photos has never been identified.

On October 11, 1967, over two years after Heflin's original sighting,
but while the Condon investigation was going on, Heflin reported
another encounter with mysterious visitors. A man who said that he was
Captain C.H. Edmonds of the Space Systems Division, Systems Command, a
unit of the Air Force that had been involved in the first
investigation of his UFO photos, came to his home. During the
interview the man who called himself Captain Edmonds asked Heflin if
he wanted his original photos back. When Heflin said no, the man was
"visibly relieved". Inexplicably, the man then began discussing the
Bermuda Triangle. This is an area near the island of Bermuda where a
number of mysterious disappearances of airplanes and ships have been
reported. These disappearances have been linked by some to UFOs,
though the connection does not seem very convincing. 

While this strange interview was going on, Heflin said that he saw a
car parked in the street. It had some sort of lettering on the front
door but he could not make it out. To quote the Condon Report
description of the incident, "In the back seat could be seen a figure
and a violet (not blue) glow, which the witness attributed to
instrument dials. He believed he was being photographed or recorded.
In the mentime his FM multiplex radio was playing in the living room
and during the questioning it made several loud audible pops." All
attempts by the Air Force, various civilian researchers and the Condon
Committee itself to find "Captain C. H. Edmonds" failed. As far as can
be determined, no such person has ever existed.

A much more bizarre story was supposedly told by an unnamed family who
had sighted a UFO. Sometime after the sighting they said that they
were visited by a very strange individual. Ivan Sanderson, who
reported the incident in his book "Uninvited Visitors", described the
individual thus: "almost seven feet tall, with a small head, dead
white skin, enormous frame, but pipe-stem limbs." This oddity said he
was an insurance investigator and that he was looking for someone who
had the same name as the husband of this family. He indicated that the
man he was looking for had inherited a great deal of money. Continued
Sanderson; "This weird individual just appeared out of the night
wearing a strange fur hat with a visor and only a light jacket. He
flashed an official-looking card on entry but put it away immediately.
Later on when he removed his jacket he disclosed an official-looking
gold shield on his shirt which he instantly covered with his hand and
removed."

The strange visitor asked some personal questions about the family,
but nothing at all about the UFOs. The creepiest part of the whole
affair came when the eldest daughter of the family noticed that the
"investigator's" tight pants had ridden up his skinny leg, and she saw
a green wire running out of his sock, up his leg and into his flesh at
two points. After the interview, the "investigator" got into a large,
black car which contained at least two other persons, and seemed to
disappear on an old dirt road that led from the woods. The car drove
off into the night with its headlights off.

In addition to scaring and intimidating people, visits of MIBs are
also supposed to produce a variety of unpleasant physical symptoms.
Bender said he suffered from headaches, lapses of memory and was
plagued by strange odours following the first visit of the Men In
Black. Others who say they have had similar visitations have made
similar complaints.

Another eerie thing attributed to MIB types, is the ability to look
like anyone they want to. Some UFO researchers claim that MIBs have
been posing as THEM in order to silence potential witnesses. John
Keel, who has written a number of UFO books , said that he had
encountered people who refused to believe that he was who he said he
was. "Later contactees (those who say they are, somehow or other, in
contact with the space people) began to whisper to local UFO
investigators that the real John Keel had been kidnapped by a flying
saucer and that a cunning android who looked just like me had been
substituted in my place. Incredible though it may sound, this was
taken very seriously, and later even some of my more rational
correspondents admitted that they carefully compared the signatures on
my current letters with pre-rumour letters they had received."


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---------------------------- Forwarded with Changes ---------------------------
From: Terry Colvin
Date: 6/26/96 4:21PM
To: Terry Colvin
Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[2 of 4]]
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Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[3 of 4]]
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As we said earlier, each era tries to explain strange encounters in
terms of its own system of beliefs. I have been struch by the
similarity of some of these MIB cases with medieval tales of
encounters with the devil or some of hes demons. The devil, for
example, was very often described as a man dressed in black. The
ability to change shape and appear in any form was commonly attributed
to demons, who were able to take the shape of a victim's friends and
neighbors and even assume the likeness of angels and saints. Many of
those who said that they had met the devil complained of the same
range of physical symptoms reported by those who encounered the MIBS.

The shiny new cars associated with MIBs is reminiscent of the Haitian
belief in an evil society of sorcerers called "zobops". Haitians say
that if you see a big, new car going along the road without a driver,
it's under the control of the "zobops", and you had better not try to
interfere with it.

Now, I am not trying to imply that the MIBs are agents of the devil,
or vice versa, anymore than I would try to say that the little green
men from Mars were really the fairy folk of past generations. It is
just that our visions and fears often remain the same over the ages,
and only our explanations for them change.

Of course, encounters with the devil during the Middle Ages were
generally more frightening and overpowering experiences than current
experiences with MIBs. Everbody believed in the devil, while today
everybody does not believe in the creatures from outer space. Mideval
society took devil stories in dead earnest, and anyone who made such a
report might find himself facing a painful death at the stake. The
worst one can expect from reporting a MIB encounter is a certain
amount of disbelief and ridicule. In general, MIB tales are considered
too bizarre even to be reported in local newspapers. They are
published only in magazines and books put out for and by UFO
enthusiasts.

Usually such publications are provately printed and are read by only a
few hundred. A few books however, have been issued by major publishers
and have reached a far wider audience. These cases are also
occasionally discussed on radio and TV talk shows, so the information
gets around more widely than one might think. A lot of people have
heard of "something" about MIBs without really knowing any of the
details. 

There is one incident which bared certain similarities to the
traditional MIB case that did receive very wide publicity. This is the
story of the "kidnapping" of Betty and Barney Hill. While most of the
MIB cases do not appear directly to involve a UFO, this one does. The
couple was driving to their home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from
Canada on the night of September 19, 1961. They were on an isolated
stretch of road when they spotted what they thought was a flying
saucer abouve them. Then followed two completely blank hours in their
lives. They could remember nothing from the time they saw the UFO
until a time two hours later when they found themselves in their car
several miles down the road from where they had seen the UFO. For
months after this experience both of the Hills suffered from severe
psychological distress. Finally they consulted a psychiatrist, who
hypnotized them, and under hypnosis the Hills revealed a strange story
of being kidnapped and taken aboard a flying saucer.

The Hills didn't rush out and try to get publicity about their
experience or write a book about it. In fact, they were remarkably
quiet. But the incident did ultimately come to the attention of author
John Fuller, who had already written an extremely popular UFO book.
With the co-operation of the Hills and of their psychiatrist, Fuller
produced another best seller, "The Interrupted Journey", which was
first serialized in the now defunct 'Look' magazine.

Though the book is carefully hedged with qualifications that the
experience described might be a hallucunation or a dream rather than a
"totally real and true experience", the distinct impression left by
The Interrupted Journey on thousands of readers was that the
experience was a "totally real and true" one.

The people or entities that were supposed to be controlling the
spaceship that kidnapped the Hills can be squeezed into the Men In
Black lore. Barney Hill described one of his captors as looking like
"a red-headed Irishman", hardly a MIB type. But another wore "a shiny
black coat", with a black scarf thrown about his neck.

Under hypnosis Hill drew a picture of "the leader" of his abductors.
It is a strange insect like face with a wide, thin mouth and huge
slanting eyes that seem to go halfway around the creatures' head. The
eyes were the most frightening part of the saucer inhabitant's strange
physiognomy. Once during a hypnotic session with the psychiatrist
Barny Hill cried out in terror, "Oh, those eyes! They're in my brain!"
Glowing eyes, you will recall, are considered some of the key
characteristics of the typical Man In Black.

Unlike many of the books written by or about people who say that they
had encountered the inhabitants of UFOs, The Interrupted Journey
carries real conviction. One gets the feeling that the Hills and
Fuller are intelligent, sincere and sane people who really believe
that what they described is what actually did happen.

So this idea was planted in the minds of thousands of readers of The
Interrupted Journey: UFOs can land, the extraterrestrials can kidnap
ordinary people, subject them to a degrading and almost brutal
examination and then wipe all memory of the incident from their minds,
leaving behind only an unexplained sense of anxiety bordering on
panic.

Well, what does all of this mean? Are we being invaded by some weird
bunch of extraterrestrials who have in the words of the "Shadow" radio
show, "the power to cloud men's minds"? Frankly the evidence does not
support such an alarming conclusion.

Are all the stories hoaxes and hallucinations? Psychiatrists could
certainly have a field day with many of these accounts. Symptoms such
as loss of memory, severe anxiety and other unpleasant reactions
strongly suggest that many of those who report such experiences are in
a disturbed psychological state, though they would claim the
disturbance was caused by the encounter with the strange visitor. In
any event they do not make the most reliable of witnesses. Some of the
other stories are almost certainly sheer fiction, made up either by
some practical joker or by a writer of sensational books.

Whether all the stories are real of unreal is not a question that we
can answer conclusively here. The point is that we Americans are
building a mythology for ouselves, just as the Europeans did with
their tales of dragons, ogres and elves, and just as all people have
done in all parts of the world in all ages.

We have often prided ourselves on being a practical, hardheaded,
no-nonsense sort of people who were immune to the irrational fears and
superstitious notions of less clear-sighted and realistic folk. This
proposition is demonstrably untrue and perhaps we are better off for
it. Our monsters, our space people, even if they don't exist, if
indeed they are rather silly, also make life more interisting and
exciting. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFERENCES: 

Excalibur Briefing, Thomas E. Bearden, Strawberry Hill Press 1980.
UFOs and Their Mission Impossible, Dr. Clifford Wilson, Signet Press.
Flying Saucers on The Attack, Harold T. Wilkins, Ace Books 1954.
MONSTERS: Giants and Little Men From Mars, Daniel Cohen, DELL
Publications (paperback) 1975.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHO ARE THE MEN IN BLACK? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
>From 'The Unexplained' No. 10. Orbis Publishing. 1991. 

As UFO sightings increase, so allegedly does the harassment of
witnesses - by the sinister so-called Men In Black. 

Albert Bender, director of the International Flying Saucer Bureau, an
amateur organisation based in Connecticut, USA, once claimed to have
discovered the secret behind UFOs. But unfortunately, the rest of the
world is still none the wiser - for Bender was prevented from passing
on his discovery to the world by three sinister visitors: three men
dressed in black, known as 'the silencers'.

It had been Bender's intention to publish his findings in his own
journal, Space Review. But before committing himself finally, he felt
he ought to try his ideas out on a colleague. He therefore mailed his
report. A few days later, the men came. Bender was lying down in his
bedroom, overtaken by a sudden spell of dizziness, when he noticed
three shadowy figures in the room. Gradually, they became clearer. All
were dressed in black clothes. "They looked like clergymen, but wore
hats similar to Homburg style. The faces were not clearly discernible,
for the hats partly hid and shaded them. Feelings of fear left me...
The eyes of all three figures suddenly lit up like flashlight bulbs,
and all these were focussed upon me. They seemed to burn into my very
soul as the pains above my eyes became almost unbearable. It was then
I sensed that they were conveying a message to me by telelathy." 

Bender's visitors confirmed that he had been right in his speculations
as to the true nature of the UFOs - one of them was actually carrying
Bender's report, and provided additional information. This so
terrified him that he was only too willing to go along with their
demand that he close down his organisation, cease publication of his
journal at once, and refrain from telling the truth to anyone 'on his
honour as an American citizen.'

But did Bender really expect anyone to believe his story? His friends
and colleagues were certainly baffled by it. One of them, Gray Barker,
even published a sensational book, 'They Knew Too Much About Flying
Saucers'; and Bender himself supplied an even stranger account in his
'Flying Saucers and the Three Men' some years later, in response to
persistent demands for an explanation of what had occurred from former
colleagues.

He told an extraordinary story, involving extraterrestrial spaceships
with bases in Antarctica, that reads like the far-fetched contactee
dream-stuff; and it has even been suggested that the implausibility of
Bender's story was specifically designed in order to throw serious UFO
investigators off the track.

However, believable or not, Bender's original account of the visit of
the three strangers is of crucial interest to UFO investigators, for
the story has been parelleled by many similar reports, frequently from
people unlikely to have heard of Bender and his experiences. UFO
percipients and investigators are apparently also liable to be visited
by men in black (MIBs); and although most reports are from the United
States, similar claims have come from Sweden and Italy, Britain and
Mexico. Like the UFO phenomenon itself, MIBs span three decades, and
perhaps had precursors in earlier centuries. 

VISITATIONS 

Like Bender's story, most later reports not only contain implausible
details, but are also inherently illogical: in virtually every case,
there seems on the face of it more reason to disbelieve that to
believe. But this does not eliminate the mystery - it simply requires
us to study it in a different light. For whether or not these things
actually happened, the fact remains that they were reported; and why
should so many people, independently and often reluctantly, report
such strange and sinister visitations? What is more, why is it that
the accounts are so mimilar, echoeng and in turn helping to confirm a
persistent pattern that, if nothing else, has become one of the most
powerful folk myths of our time?

The archetypal MIB report runs something like this: shortly after a
UFO sighting, the subject - he may be a witness, he may be an
investigator on the case - receives a visit. Often it occurs so soon
after the incident itself that no official report or media publication
has taken place: in short, the visitors should not, by any normal
channels, have gained access to the information they clearly possess -
names, addresses, and details of the incident, as well as those
involved.

The victim is nearly always alone at the time of the visit, usually in
his own home. The visitors, usually three in number, arrive in a
large, black car. In America, it is most often a prestigious Cadillac,
but seldon a recent model. Though old in date, however, it is likely
to be immaculate in appearance and condition, inside and out, even
having that unmistakable 'new car' smell. If the subject notes the
registration number and checks it, it is invariably found to be a
non-existent number. 

The visitors themselves are almost always men: only very rarely is one
a woman, In appearance, they conform pretty closely to the stereotyped
image of a CIA or secret service man. They wear dark suits, dark hats,
dark ties, dark shoes and socks, but white shirts: and witnesses very
often remark on their clean, immaculate turn-out, all the clothes
looking as though just purchased.

The visitors' faces are frequently discribed as 'vaguely foreign',
most often 'oriental', and slanted eyes have been specified in many
accounts. If not dark-skinned, the men are likely to be very heavily
tanned. Sometimes there are bizarre touches: in one case, for
instance, a man in black appeared to be wering bright lipstick! The
MIBs are generally unsmiling and expressionless, their movements stiff
and awkward. Their general demeanour is formal, cold, sinister, even
menacing, and there is no warmth or friendliness shown, even if no
outright hostility either. Witnesses often hint that they felt their
visitors were not human at all.

Some MIBs proffer evidence of identity; indeed, they sometimes appear
in US Air Force or other uniforms. They may also produce identity
cards; but since most people would not know a genuine CIA or other
'secret' service identity card if they saw one, this of course proves
nothing at all. If they give names, however, these are invariably
found to be false.

The interview is sometimes an interrogation, sometimes simply a
warning. Either way, the visitors, even though they are asking
questions, are clearly very well-informed, with access to restricted
information. They speak with perfect, sometimes too perfect,
intonation and phrasing, and their language is apt to be reminiscent
of the conventional villains of crime films. 

MENACING ENCOUNTERS 

The sinister visits almost invariably conclude with a warning not to
tell anybody about the incident, if the subject is a UFO percipient,
or to abandon the investigation, if he is an investigator. Violence is
frequently threatened, too. And the MIBs depart as suddenly as they
came.

Most well-informed UFO enthusiasts, if asked to describe a typical MIB
visit, would give some such account. However, a comparative
examination of reports indicates that such 'perfect' MIB visits seldom
occur in practice. Study of 32 of the more reliable cases on file
reveals that many details diverge quite markedly from the archetypal
story: there were, for instance, no visitors at all in four cases,
only subsequent telephone calls; and, of the remainder, only five
involved three men, two involved four, five involved two, while in the
rest there was mention only of a single visitor.

Although the appearance and behaviour of the visitors does seem
generally to conform to the prototype, it ranges from the entirely
natural to the totally bizarre. The car, despite the fact that in
America it is by far the commonest means of transportation, is in fact
mentioned in only one-third of the reports; and as for the picturesque
details - the Cadillac, the antiquated model, the immaculate condition
- these are, in practice, very much the exception. Of 22 American
reports, only nine even include mention of a car; and of these, only
three were Cadillacs, while only two were specified as black and only
two as out-of-date models.

On the other hand, such archetypal details tend to be more conspicuous
in less reliable cases, particularly those in which investigators,
rather than UFO percipients, are involved. The case that comes closest
to the archetype is that of Robert Richardson, of Toledo, Ohio, who in
July 1967 informed the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation (APRO)
that he had collided with a UFO while driving at night. Coming round a
bend, he had been confronted by a strange object blocking the road.
Unable to halt in time, he had hit it, though not very hard.
Immediately on impact, the UFO vanished. Police who accompanied
Richardson to the scene could find only his own skid marks as
evidence; but on a later visit, Richardson himself found a small lump
of metal which might have come from the UFO.

Three days later, at 11 pm, two men in their twenties appeared at
Richardson's home and questioned him for about 10 minutes. They did
not identify themselves, and Richardson - to his own subsequent
surprise - did not ask who they were. They were not unfriendly, gave
no warnings, and just asked questions. He noted that they left in a
black 1953 Cadillac. The number, when checked, was found not yet to
have been issued.

A week later, Richardson received a second visit, from two different
men, who arrived in a current model Dodge. They wore black suits and
were dark-complectioned. Although one spoke perfect English, the
second had an accent, and Richardson felt there was something vaguely
foreign about them. At first, they seemed to be trying to persuade him
that he had not hit anything at all; but then they asked for the piece
of metal. When he told them it had gone for analysis, they threatened
him: "If you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, then you'd
better get the metal back". 

The existence of the metal was known only to Richardson and his wife,
and to two senior members of APRO. Seemingly, the only way the
strangers could have learned of its existence would be by tapping
either his or APRO's telephone. There was no clear connection between
the two pairs of visitors; but what both had in common was access to
information that was not freely and publicly available. Perhaps it is
this that is the key to the MIB mystery. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------


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From: Terry Colvin
Date: 6/26/96 4:23PM
To: Terry Colvin
Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[3 of 4]]
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 - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand
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[On the page is also a boxed article titled; 
IN FOCUS THE MAN WHO SHOT A HUMANOID,
reproduced below.]

One inclement evening in November 1961, Paul Miller and three
companions were returning home to Minot, North Dakota, after a hunting
trip when what they could only describe as 'a luminous silo' landed in
a nearby field. At first they thought it was a plane crashing, but had
to revise their opinion when the 'plane' abruptly vanished. As the
hunters drove off, the object reappeared and two humanoids emerged
from it. Miller panicked and fired at one of the creatures, apparently
wounding it. The other hunters immediately fled.
On their way back to Minot, all of them experienced a blackout and
'lost' three hours. Terrified, they decided not to report the incident
to anyone. Yet the next morning, when Miller reported to work (in an
Air Force office), three men in black arrived. They said they were
government officials - but showed no credentials - and remarked
unpleasantly that they hoped Miller was 'telling the truth' about the
UFO. How did they know about it? 'We have a report,' they said
vaguely.
'They seemed to know everthing about me; where I worked, my name,
everthing else,' Miller said. They also asked questions about his
experiences as if they already knew the answers. Miller did not dare
tell his story for several years. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AGENTS OF THE DARK 

>From 'The Unexplained' No. 39. 

Rarely - if ever - do the threats of the mysterious Men In Black,
following a close encounter, come to anything. So what could be the
purpose behind their visits? 

In September 1976, Dr Herbert Hopkins, a 58 year-old doctor and
hypnotist, was acting as consultant on an alleged UFO teleportation
case in Maine, USA. One evening, when his wife and children had gone
out leaving him alone, the telephone rang and a man identifying
himself as vice-president of the New Jersey UFO Research Organisation
asked if he might visit Dr Hopkins that evening to discuss certain
details of the case. Dr Hopkins agreed; at the time, it seemed the
natural thing to do. He went to the back door to switch on the light
so that his visitor would be able to find his way from the parking
lot, but while he was there, he noticed the man already climbing the
porch steps. "I saw no car, and even if he did have a car, he could
not have possibly gotten to my house that quickly from any phone,"
Hopkins later commented in delayed astonishment.

At the time, Dr Hopkins felt no particular surprise as he admitted his
visitor, The man was dressed in a black suit, with black hat, tie and
shoes, and a white shirt, "I thought, he looks like an undertaker,"
Hopkins later said. His clothes were immaculate - suit unwrinkled,
trousers sharply creased. When he took off his hat, he revealed
himself as completely hairless, not only bald but without eyebrows or
eyelashes. His skin was dead white, his lips bright red. In the course
of their conversation, he happened to brush his lips with his grey
suede gloves, and the doctor was astonished to see that his lips were
smeared and that the gloves were stained with lipstick!

It was only afterwards, however, that Dr Hopkins reflected further on
the strangeness of his visitor's appearance and behaviour.
Particularly odd was the fact that his visitor stated that his host
had two coins in his pocket. It was indeed the case. He then asked the
doctor to put one of the coins in his hand and to watch the coin, not
himself. As Hopkins watched, the coin seemed to go out of focus, and
then gradually vanished. "Neither you nor anyone else on this plane
will ever see that coin again," the visitor told him. After talking a
little while longer on general UFO topics, Dr Hopkins suddenly noticed
that the visitor's speech was slowing down. The man then rose
unsteadily to his feet and said, very slowly; "My energy is running
low - must go now - goodbye." He walked falteringly to the door and
descended the outside steps uncertainly, one at a time. Dr Hopkins saw
a bright light shining in the driveway, bluish-white and distinctly
brighter than a normal car lamp. At the time, however, he assumed it
must be the stranger's car, although he neither saw nor heard it. 

MYSTERIOUS MARKS 

Later, when Dr Hopkins family had returned, they examined the driveway
and found marks that could not have been made by a car because they
were in the centre of the driveway, where the wheels could not have
been. But the next day, although the driveway had not been used in the
meantime, the marks had vanished.

Dr Hopkins was very much shaken by the visit, particularly when he
reflected on the extraordinary character of the stranger's conduct.
Not surprisingly, he was so scared that he willingly complied wdith
his visitor's instruction, which was to erase the tapes of the
hypnotic sessions he was conductiog with regard to his current case,
and to have nothing further to do with the investigation.

Subsequently, curious incidents continued to occur both in Dr Hopkin's
household and in that of his eldest son. He presumed that there was
some link with the extraordinary visit, but he never heard from his
visitor again. As for the New Jersey UFO Research Organisation, no
such institution exists.

Dr Hopkins' account is probably the most detailed we have of a MIB
(Man in Black) visit, and confronts us with the problem at its most
bizarre. First we must ask ourselves if a trained and respected doctor
whould invent so strange a tale, and if so, with what conceivable
motive? Alternatively, could the entire episode have been a delusion,
despite the tracks seen by other members of his family? Could the
truth lie somewhere between reality and imagination? Could a real
visitor, albeit an impostor making a false identity claim, have
visited the doctor for some unknown reason of his own, somehow acting
as a trigger for the doctor to invent a whole set of weird features?

In fact, what seems the LEAST likely explanation is that the whole
incident took place in the doctor's imagination. When his wife and
children came home, they found him severely shaken, with the house
lights blazing, and seated at a table on which lay a gun. They
confirmed the marks on the driveway and a series of disturbances to
the telepnone that seemed to commence immediately after the visit. So
it would seem that some real event occurred, although its nature
remains mystifying.

The concrete nature of the phenomenon was accepted by the United
States Air Force, who were concerned that persons passing themselves
off as USAF personnel should be visiting UFO witnesses. In February
1967, Colonel George P. Freeman, Pentagon spokesman for the USAF's
Project Blue Book, told UFO investigator John Keel in the course of an
interview:

"Mysterious men dressed in Air Force uniforms or bearing impressive
credentials from government agencies have been silencing UFO
witnesses. We have checked a number of these cases, and these men are
not connected with the Air Force in any way. We haven't been able to
find out anything about these men. By posing as Air Force officers and
government agents, they are committing a federal offence. We would
sure like to catch one. Unfortunately the trail is always too cold by
the time we hear about these cases. But we are still trying."

But were the impostors referred to by Colonel Freeman, and Dr Hopkin's
strange visitor similar in kind? UFO sightings, like sensational
crimes, attract a number of mentally unstable persons, who are quie
capable of posing as authorised officials in order to gain access to
witnesses; and it could be that some supposed MIBs are simply
psuedo-investigators of this sort.

One particularly curious recurrent feature of MIB reports is the
ineptitude of the visitors. Time and again, they are described as
incompetent; and if they are impersonating human beings, they
certainly do not do it very well, arousing their victims' suspicions
by improbable behaviour, by the way they look or talk, and by their
ignorance as much as their knowledge. But, of course, it could be that
the only ones who are spotted as impostors are those who are no good
at their job, and so there may be many more MIB cases that we never
learn about simply because the visitors successfully convince their
victims that there is nothing to be suspicious about, or that they
should keep quiet about the visit. 

UNFULFILLED THREATS 

A common feature of a great many MIB visits is indeed the instruction
to a witness not to say anything about the visit, and to cease all
activity concerning the case. (Clearly, we know of these cases only
because such instructions have been disobeyed.) One Canadian UFO
witness was told by a mysterious visitor in 1976 to stop repeating his
story and not to go further into his case, or he would be visited by
three men in black. "I said, 'What's that supposed to mean?' 'Well,'
he said, ' I could make it hot for you... it might cost you certain
injury." A year earlier, Mexican witness Carlos de los Santos had been
stopped on his way to a television interview by two large black
limousines. One of the occupants - dressed in a black suit and
'Scandanavian' in appearance - told him: "Look, boy, if you value your
life and your family's too, don't talk any more about this sighting of
yours." 

However, there is no reliable instance of such threats ever having
been carried out, though a good many witnesses have gome ahead and
defied their warnings. Indeed, sinister though the MIBs may be, they
are notable for their lack of actual violence. The worst that can be
said of them is that they frequently harass witnesses with untimely
visits and telephone calls, or simply disturb them with their very
presence.

While, for the victim, it is just as well that the threats of violence
are not followed through, this is for the investigator one more
disconcerting aspect of the pnenomenon - for violence, if it resulted
in physical action, would at least help in establishing the reality of
the phenomenon. Instead, it remains a fact that most of the evidence
is purely hearsay in character and often not of the highest quality;
cases as well-attested as that of Dr. Herbert Hopkins are
unfortunately in the minority.

Another problem area is the dismaying lack of precision about many of
the reports. Popular American writer Brad Steiger alleged that
hundreds of ufologists, contactees and chance percipients of UFOs
claim to have been visited by ominous strangers - usually three, and
usually dressed in black; but he cites only a few actual instances.
Similarly, John Keel, an expert on unexplained phenomena, claimed
that, on a number of occasions, he actually saw phantom Cadillacs,
complete with rather sinister Oriental-looking passengers in black
suits; but for a trained reporter, he showed a curious reluctance to
persue these sightings or to give chapter and verse in such an
important matter. Such loose assertions are valueless as evidence; all
they do is contribute to the myth.

And so we come back once again to the possibility that there is
nothing more to the phenomenon than myth. Should we perhaps write off
the whole business as delusion, the creation of imaginative folk whose
personal obsessions take on this particular shape because it reflects
one or other of the prevalent cultural preoccupations of out time? At
one end of the scale, we find contactee Woodrow Derenberger insisting
that the "two men dressed entirely in black" who tried to silence him
were emissaries of the Mafia; while at the other, there is theorist
David Tansley, who suggested that they are psychic entities,
representatives of the dark forces, seeking to prevent the spread of
true knowledge. More matter-of-factly, Dominick Lucchesi claimed that
they emanated from some unknown civilisation, possibly underground, in
a remote area of Earth - the Amazon, the Gobi Desert or the Himalayas.

But there is one feature that is common to virtually all MIB reports,
and that perhaps contains the key to the problem. This is the
possession, by the MIBs, of information that they should not have been
able to come by - information that was restricted, not released to the
press, known perhaps to a few investigators and officials but not to
the public, and sometimes not even to them. The one person who does
possess that knowledge is always the person visited, In other words,
the MIBs and their victims share knowledge that perhaps nobody else
possesses. Add to this the fact that, in almost every case, the MIBs
appear to the witness when he or she is alone - in Dr Hopkin's case,
for example, the visitor took care to call when his wife and children
were away from home, and established this fact by telephone beforehand
- and the implication has to be that some kind of paranormal link
connects the MIBs and the persons they visit. 


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From: Terry Colvin
Date: 6/26/96 4:25PM
To: Terry Colvin
Subject: A Review of Men in Black [[4 of 4]]
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