AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MEN IN BLACK
When the Condon Committee was sampling public attitudes towards the UFO phenomenon 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 paradoxical facts that there were more people who believed in a conspiracy of silence about UFO’s than people who believed in UFO’s in the first place.
It has often been said that the Americans today are a bit paranoid; that they always tend to believe that something is out to get them, or something is being kept from them. It certainly seems that they were a bit paranoid about UFO’s.
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 knew 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 (MIB’s) 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.
ALBERT BENDER AND THE THREE MEN IN BLACK
In 1953 a man by the name of Albert K. Bender was running an organization 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 MIB’s as they were known to insiders) had already been reported to be visiting 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 Cadillac’s. These cars are even supposed to “smell new”. Sometimes the MIB’s 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 MIB’s 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 UFO’s to stop talking about them, of somehow to confuse and frighten the witnesses.
People who worry about MIB’s 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 UFO’s 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.
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.
DR. HOPKINS’ STRANGE VISITATION
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. 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 Organization 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 behavior. 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.
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 center 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 with his visitor’s instruction, which was to erase the tapes of the hypnotic sessions he was conducting 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 Organization, 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 would 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 telephone that seemed to commence immediately after the visit. So it would seem that some real event occurred, although its nature remains mystifying.