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 behavior 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mention of a car; and of these, only three were Cadillac’s, while only two were specified as black and only two as out-of-date models.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 Organization (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-complexioned. 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.
[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 everything about me; where I worked, my name, everything 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.