Men In Black (MIB)

There are various types of MIB encounters, but they typically follow a pattern: after a presumably credible witness reports or witnesses a UFO sighting, the witness is visited by a man or men who are often dressed in black suits, lending the reports their name. The men suggest—or the witnesses assume—that they are government agents, and often flash convincing-looking badges and demand that the witness recant their story or hand over photographs or physical evidence of a UFO. If the witness refuses or questions their credentials, they often subtly or overtly threaten the witness or their family with bodily harm or other hardship.

The men are often reported driving large, late-model cars, typically Cadillacs; in rare cases, they are reportedly seen in black helicopters. While it is not known if these threats have ever been realized, there are largely unsubstantiated reports of hardships and harassment leveled against those who resist. The number of claimants of MIB encounters is unknown, and might be rather small. Chevon Wallace writes that "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 available at all. 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...

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.

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...

UFO researchers and writers today are tantalized by the increasing reports of alien abduction, photographs of alien beings, UFO crashes, possible debris, and implant removals. In a way we have become spoiled; expecting the sensational. This desire for ultimate proof has caused us to overlook the seemingly mundane, everyday reports of night lights, which were at one time sensational in their own right. With the ever growing technology of our era, pictures and video are often times called into question because of the ease of manipulation and creation afforded computer graphics experts.

 Called into question, that is, by those who are waiting in the wings to debunk any and all visible proof of UFOs as suspect of being hoaxed. This is especially true in cases with one or two photos taken by one witness. This has always been a pitfall to researchers who scratch and claw for authentication of a particular photograph or video. There are, however, those cases which have multiple photographs of the same object, taken by many witnesses. This type of case carries the heaviest weight to those who remain on neutral ground. One of the best of these is the Phoenix, Arizona lights case of 1997. Accompanied by many photographs and videos, this fantastic event is still discussed and analyzed today.

Evidence points to March 13, 1997 as the onset of this extremely compelling account of various and sundry phenomenal lights which moved over the state of Arizona. These lights, though referred to as the "Phoenix Lights," were actually witnessed in at least five other cities. Phoenix has the distinction as the first Arizona city to report the unknown light sources, which were initially spotted over Superstition Mountains, east of the city, at about 7:30 PM. The first reports indicated an object of six points of light, immediately followed by a report of eight connected lights, with a separate ninth, which moved in unison with the eight. The formation was seen again over the Gila River just before 10:00 PM. In a matter of minutes, the enormous, lighted structure had made its way over the southern part of the city of Phoenix...