Men In Black (MIB)

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.

When we hear “Men in Black,” most of us probably think of the 1997 motion-picture hit starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. But what many people do not realize is that the origin of the movie surrounds real-life encounters with “Men in Black.”There have been many paranormal, anomalous and supernatural reports throughout the years, and with these reports come encounters with intimidating men in black suits who are thought to belong to a secret organization with a secret agenda.The Men in Black (MiB) were first reported in the 1940s, and books about them soon followed. Initially, the first reports of Men in Black involved witnesses of UFOs or extraterrestrial encounters. One of the firstreports of MiB was in 1947 when Harold Dahl reported that he saw six UFOs when he and others were on a boat. After the encounter, Dahl said an intimidating muscular man wearing a nondescript black suit took him out to breakfast and threatened him and his family if he spoke of the encounter. Dahl later declared his UFO report was a hoax, but some believe that he recanted to protect himself from MiB.

Further research into other types of paranormal and anomalous phenomena, such as poltergeists, space-time disturbances, telepathy and psychokinesis, and Bigfoot, just to name a few, also reveals encounters by agents in black who collected information and silenced those specific witnesses who claimed to have experienced these phenomena.

Government agents or something weirder MiBstarted gaining popularity in the 1950s with books such as Gray Barker’s They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, and are still in the mainstream today with the Men in Black movies, which are based on a comic book inspired by the phenomenon. Over the decades, MiB have taken somewhat different forms, but their similarities are undeniable. Stiff black suits, intimidating size and black Cadillacs are often associated with MiB. Some reports of MiB described them as being eerily inhuman, taking on characteristics of an unearthly nature. Some theorists propose that many of these reports of MiB were allowed to be disseminated in order to create an air of “unbelievability” among those who reported them. One thing is for certain: their apparent objective is to track down true paranormal encounters and control the situation and information to suit theiragenda. ......

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...

The paranormal, specifically the UFO phenomenon, is a subject that scientists must acknowledge as being of particular interest to their fields. This is mainly a question of defense: A lot of UFO reports are hoaxes, misidentifications, or some other easily explainable problem. The public, however, has a considerable interest in the subject, and if scientists do not debunk and demystify the bumper crop of hogwash related to this subject, they may find the line between science and fantasy irreparably blurred. Even these seemingly useless hoaxes, tricks, and mass hysterias can yield valuable data for scientists in the fields of psychology and sociology. Some things, such as "lights in the sky" may also have a value to physicists, meteorologists, and other 'hard' scientists.

One thing associated with UFOs that will never, ever, give up any hard scientific data is the phenomena of the so-called "Men In Black." Basically, it goes like this: If you see a UFO and talk about it, eventually some men wearing dark suits, perhaps acting oddly, will call on you and threaten that you'd better stay quiet. Some believe these men to be government agents, some to be harmless cranks, and some to be alien visitors or travelers from other dimensions. Other than incredible stories, there is no hard evidence to show that these men are anything other than regular flesh-and-bloodhuman beings. I'm sure that disappoints all the computer scientists itching to get their hands on a remote-controlled robot built from alien technology, but it should delight scientists working on the mind: Stories of Men In Black can surely point you to some interesting case studies in mental disorders.Men In Black encounters fall into basically four categories. The first doesn't involve actual contact. Threatening phone calls, letters, faxes, or e-mails that warn a person not to go public about their UFO encounter. There is no proof that these are anything other than misguided pranks or regular people that want to suppress a story for some reason. The second category involves Men In Black meeting a person face-to face, but actinglike. ...