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Men In Black Facts
Appearance
Often described as having olive complexions with Asian or Gypsy-
like features. Eyes are often described as strange, sometimes
glowing.
Clothing
New black suits, black hats and sun glasses. Clothing is sometimes
described as being made from a strange material.
Speech
MIBs tend to speak in a monotonous, mechanical tone, often with a
strange accent. Witnesses have reported that their sentence
construction and choice of words was peculiar.
Typical encounter
MIBs , traveling in groups of up to three, usually visit recent UFO
witnesses and warn them not to report their encounter. They often
claim to represent some government agency (which invariably
proves to be false) and briefly flash official-looking ID. Those
visited by MIB often feel ill afterward, sometimes for days.
Aliens or agents of the government? Or is the Men In Black
phenomena an example of a modern cultural archetype? Analytical
psychologist Carl Jung has shown that similar archetypes are
universal and reoccuring in the human experience.
Monty Python's Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, and John Cleese in
MIB garb. The outfits are actually supposed to be KGB secret
police disguises, but this example illustrates the international scope
of the "suspicious men in black suits" archetype
In 1953, the two hundred-odd members of the International Flying
Saucer Bureau were taken aback when they received the October
issue of the organization's journal, Space Review. In it, IFSB
founder Albert K. Bender announced that he had been given the
solution to the "mystery of the flying saucers" and that he would
like nothing better than to publish the information, however he had
been strongly advised against doing so by a "higher source." He
went on to urge those who planned to continue their research into
UFO phenomena to do so with extreme caution. He then folded the
IFSB and shut down publication of Space Review. (Co-incidentally, the IFSB and Space Review had been losing money at an impressive rate up to this point.)
When questioned about this state of affairs, Bender would say only
that he had been visited in September by three "members of the
United States government...wearing dark suits" who fully briefed
him on the subject of flying saucers and then proceeded to threaten
him with prison time if he ever repeated a word of what he had been
told to anyone. Bender spent the next ten years carefully avoiding
all questions on the matter. Over time, Bender's reticence on the
subject--coupled with the exploitation of it by the IFSB's chief
investigator, Gray Barker, in his sensationalistic 1956 book, They
Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers-- gradually gave rise to the
notion that the three "men in black" had not been government
agents at all, but rather were aliens themselves.
Bender more or less confirmed these suspicions when, finally, in
1962 he published a book detailing his experiences called Flying
Saucers and the Three Men. The book was, to put it mildly, totally
implausible, involving (among other things) tales of Bender's being
taken to the South Pole aboard an alien spacecraft and his
subsequent surveillance by the extra-terrestrials through 1960 when
they returned to their home planet. As untenable as the book was,
however, it did have an enormous impact on the "popular" image of
the Men In Black (or MIB, as they later came to be known). For
instance, in the book Bender claims that the three men he
encountered in 1953 had suddenly materialized in his bedroom, a
feat US government agents would surely have had difficulty in
achieving (at least back in '53). Thereafter the MIB took on a
supernatural air.
The Facts of MIB
MIB phenomena is interesting on several levels, so many, in fact,
that it is difficult to know where to begin. For instance, on the
surface it would appear that MIB is one of those very few legends
that can be traced to its ultimate source, i.e. Bender. However, a
brief perusal of human history suggests that this might not
necessarily be the case. A tradition of MIB-type entities, that is
mysterious dark-clothed individuals with sinister intentions, can be
followed back to ancient times and across virtually all cultures. At
least as far back as biblical times there has been a tradition in the
Middle East of men attired in black robes and turbans attempting to
lure victims out into the desert for unspecified sinister purposes.
Likewise, in central and southern Europe during the middle ages
there existed a genuine fear among the inhabitants of those regions
of black-clad beings who wandered the countryside performing
indiscriminate acts of vampirism on humans and livestock alike.
Fairy lore allows for otherwise human-looking fairies who dress in
black and delight in causing mischief in the human world. The fact
that MIB are often (in fact nearly always) described as having
Asian features is interesting in light of the fact that there is a long-
standing myth in China, Tibet, and India that a superior race of
humans live beneath the surface of the earth who occasionally send
"agents" dressed in black to the surface to surveil and/or manipulate
human affairs. (This is known as the "King of the World" myth.)
Native Americans feared the "Black Man" who supposedly lurked
in the forests with malicious intent. There are even what could be
considered MIB-type undertones in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1835
short story, Young Goodman Brown.
So there would appear to be a general precedence, if not an
archetype, for the beings Bender described. However Bender can be
credited with giving these beings a specific purpose, i.e.
discouraging UFO percipients from discussing what they have
experienced. What is interesting is that not only did reports of MIB
encounters begin to filter in before Bender's book was published,
nearly all MIB encounters since have involved people who have
never even heard of the phenomenon, let alone Bender.
A "typical" MIB encounter goes something like this: Soon (usually
immediately) after witnessing some type of UFO phenomena the
percipient is visited by one or more strange men. These men often
flash badges, give names, and claim to be from one government
agency or another. (Upon subsequent investigation, the names given
are invariably absent from the mentioned agency's records and often
the agency itself is found not to exist.) The "agents" usually display
not only an uncanny knowledge of exactly what the witness has
seen, but intimate personal knowledge of the witness as well. They
collect any physical evidence of the encounter that the witness may
have, such as photographs or residue from a landing site. Even in
instances where they do not threaten the witness outright not to
speak of his or her experience, the MIB usually manage to make it
clear that doing so would not be a good idea. Other times, however,
the MIB claim to be insurance salesmen, portrait photographers, or
something equally unconnected with the subject of UFOs and never
mention the UFO event in question, yet somehow leave the
impression that they are associated with it none the less.
MIB tend to run the gamut as far as physical appearance is
concerned, however some generalizations in this area can be made.
While some MIB are decidedly more human-looking than others,
they have been fairly consistently described as being olive-
complected and having thin lips, high cheekbones, and slanted
(sometimes glowing) eyes. Their height can range from very short to
very tall. They often sport garish makeup and bad wigs in a failed
attempt to look more "normal." It is usually difficult to estimate
their age. Often they move in a "mechanical" fashion and their voice
has a machine-like quality. They frequently appear to have
respiratory difficulties and seem to be drained of energy over short
periods of time. They are usually dressed, of course, in black; most
often in out of date suits that appear to be brand new and cut from
some strange type of fabric.
MIB usually travel in packs of three, although doubles and singles
are not uncommon. They tend to drive large, black American cars
such as Cadillacs, Buicks, and Lincolns which are usually at least
twenty to thirty years old, yet in mint condition. Often these cars
display strange, unidentifiable insignia. An unusual glow, as if
from a vapor lamp or the instrument panel on some type of console,
has often been reported as illuminating the interior of the vehicle.
License plate numbers are usually either obscured or missing
altogether, but in numerous instances plate numbers have been
recorded and checked out only to show that they had never been
issued.
The hallmarks of the "classic" MIB visitation are incompetence and
bizarre behavior on the part of the MIB. Seemingly mystified by
human ways, they are extremely poor taskmasters in the area of
imitation. For instance, they often express amazement at the most
mundane objects, such as bowls of jello or ball-point pens (see
Mothman), and have been known to ask inappropriate and
downright rude questions.
MIB encounters, as one might expect, are actually quite rare.
Roughly forty cases in all have been "documented." Encounters that
have the slightest hint of credibility are rarer still. Of these, the
following cases give a reasonably good overview of the entire
subject:
Yangguan, China 1963
Chinese UFO investigator Shi Bo has uncovered a story that, while
far from dramatic, raises some interesting questions concerning the
exact nature of the MIB phenomenon, for while UFOs (and, to a
lesser extent, MIB) have long been a part of American folklore,
they have until only recently been a taboo subject in mainland
China. When this set of circumstances is taken into consideration
with the fact that the witness in this case was a six year old boy, we
may justifiably find ourselves wondering how such an event could
occur in the complete absence of a cultural point of reference
(assuming, of course, that the existence of MIB is not an objective
reality).
In Shi's 1983 book, China and Extraterrestrials, he relates the story
of Li Jing-yang who, as a six-year-old boy in Yangguan, Shansi
province in May, 1963, had an encounter with a UFO. The day after
Li had seen " a shining, silvery disc" hanging in the sky while at
play with his friends, he was stopped in the street by "a very tall
man dressed entirely in black." The man, while pointing to the
exact spot where Li had seen the disc, inquired as to whether the
boy had seen anything unusual in the sky recently. Li responded
that indeed he had, which elicited from the strange man a warning
"never to tell anyone else" what he had seen. The MIB then went
around a corner and seemingly disappeared. Li claims that this
encounter was witnessed by several others who all noted and
discussed the stranger's odd, mechanical movements, his
automated-sounding voice, and the fact that his lips did not move
when he spoke. Thus, in its effort to keep the disc-sighting of Li
Jing-yang a secret, this MIB succeeded only in making a spectacle
of itself.
Maine, US 1976
Surely one of the most bizarre MIB encounters ever was
experienced by Dr. Herbert Hopkins of Orchard Beach, Maine.
Hopkins was a psychiatrist with no real interest in UFOs who had
been working, by referral, on an alleged alien abduction case. He
had been performing hypnosis on a young man named David
Stephens who claimed to have had numerous encounters with extra-
terrestrials. Hopkins had accumulated several hours of taped
sessions with Stephens, but to Hopkins it was just another case.
On the evening of Saturday, September 11, 1976, Hopkins was at
home alone (a favorite time for MIB visitations) when he received a
phone call from someone claiming to be the vice president of the
New Jersey UFO Research Organization (a group that was later
found not to exist) and asking if he could drop by to speak with
Hopkins about the Stephens case. Hopkins, for reasons he was later
unable to identify, agreed. He hung up the phone, went into the
hallway to turn on the light, and was startled to see that his visitor
was already climbing the back steps and was nearly at the door.
There was no way, not if the man had called from across the street,
not if he had called from next door, that he could have possibly
made it to Hopkins' door so quickly. Though extremely puzzled,
Hopkins opened the door and asked the gentleman to come in.
As his visitor took a seat, Hopkins was struck immediately by
several things about him. Firstly was his attire which was in
impeccable condition and entirely black ; shoes, socks, pants, shirt,
tie, jacket, and the round, polished derby hat he wore. Next was the
fact that this strange man was completely bald, meaning in addition
to lacking hair on his head, he was also missing eyebrows and
eyelashes. The man's skin was dead white except for his lips which
were bright red. His facial features were odd in general. His nose
was disproportionately small and set low and far back. He had a
receding chin and instead of having a neck his head appeared to
meld with his shoulders. His eyes, though not glowing, were
unusual in a way that Hopkins had difficulty in describing.
The stranger briefly outlined, in a mechanical voice completely
devoid of intonation or inflection, his understanding of the
Stephens case and Hopkins confirmed it as accurate. They then
discussed the case in general with Hopkins doing most of the
talking. It appeared that the MIB was far more interested in finding
out what Hopkins knew about the case than he was in learning
anything about it for himself.
Things grew gradually more bizarre with each passing minute. At
one point the MIB, who was wearing what appeared to be gray
suede gloves, brushed his lips with the back of his hand. When he
put his hand down, the MIB's face and glove were smeared with
red. Hopkins examined the MIB's mouth more closely and quickly
realized that the thing had no lips, just a slit mouth doctored with
lipstick to give the most general impression of lips. When the MIB
spoke Hopkins could discern no teeth in its mouth.
Apparently satisfied with the information gathered from Hopkins,
the MIB changed the subject. He informed Hopkins that there were
two coins in Hopkins' pocket (which was correct) and asked him to
remove one. Hopkins complied and held the coin, a shiny new
penny, in the palm of his hand. The MIB told Hopkins to watch the
coin closely. After a few moments the coin took on a "silvery"
appearance and then appeared to be going out of focus. It then
began to fade and, eventually, disappeared altogether. The MIB
informed Hopkins that the coin would never be seen "on this plane"
again. He then inquired as to whether Hopkins was familiar with
alleged UFO abductee Barney Hill. Hopkins replied that he had
heard of Hill, but was under the impression that he had died in the
not too distant past. The MIB informed Hopkins that was correct.
"Barney didn't have a heart," said the MIB, "just like you no longer
have a coin." (It should be noted that Barney Hill actually died of a
cerebral hemorrhage.) The MIB then gently suggested that Hopkins
destroy any material he had related to the Stephens case.
Hopkins noticed that the MIB's speech was slowing down
considerably. The MIB admitted that his "energy [was] running
low" and rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet. Hopkins saw him
to the door and watched him slowly descend the stairs, placing both
feet on each step before attempting to negotiate the next one. He
finally made it to the bottom and disappeared around the corner of
the house, from which a bright light emanated. Hopkins initially
took the light to be from the stranger's vehicle, but he later realized
that the light was far too bright and bluish to have come from
ordinary car headlights.
Hopkins went back inside, badly shaken and confused. His dog, a
normally fearless German shepherd/collie mix, had run into the
closet with its tail between its legs when the MIB first arrived and
was still there, refusing resolutely to come out. Hopkins sat down
at the kitchen table to digest what he had just experienced, but
before doing so he pulled his revolver out of a drawer, just to be on
the safe side. It didn't take him long to decide what he had to do.
He went into the other room, gathered all the material from the
Stephens case, demagnetized the tapes, cut them up into thousands
of pieces and then, for good measure, burned them along with some
other documents related to the case.
When Hopkins' family returned home they could see that he was
obviously quite upset. Hopkins related his incredible story which
prompted his teenaged son to grab a flashlight and go out to the
driveway to look for any evidence of the presence of a vehicle. Sure
enough he found caterpillar tractor-type markings in the sand that
had blown onto the driveway during a recent storm. The markings
were very deep and distinct, but were only about four inches wide
and a foot and a half long. What is more, they were directly in the
center of the narrow driveway where no conventional vehicle would
leave a trace. Mysteriously, while the sand was still in the driveway
the following morning and the driveway had not been used, the
marks were gone.
As is common following MIB visitations, Hopkins began to have
trouble with his telephone. He often picked it up to find the line
dead, and his patients began to complain that when they called he
either didn't answer his phone or that they would get a voice falsely
claiming that his number was out of service. On those occasions
when a connection was successfully made, it was often
mysteriously broken in the middle of a conversation. The phone
company determined that Hopkins' phone line was definitely being
tampered with, but were at a loss to explain how or by whom.
On September 24, 1976, less than two weeks after Herbert Hopkins'
strange encounter, his daughter-in-law, Maureen, received a phone
call from a man claiming to be an acquaintance of her husband,
John. The man asked if he and a friend could drop by the house,
ostensibly for a social call. John, unable to place the man but
curious, agreed to meet him at a nearby restaurant.
At the restaurant John was confronted with a very strange-looking
man and his even stranger-looking female companion, both attired
in odd-looking, old-fashioned clothes. Despite the fact that John
had certainly never met the man before and that there was
something inherently weird about the pair, he inexplicably invited
them to return with him to his home.
Both individuals appeared to experience great difficulty in simply
walking, taking rapid short steps while leaning impossibly forward.
The woman's legs, judging from her particularly odd locomotion,
appeared to be joined to her hips in a most peculiar manner.
Once back at Hopkins' home, the two put on a bizarre display.
While continuously groping and fondling his companion
(occasionally asking John if he was "doing it right"), the man
proceeded to ask John and Maureen rather personal questions, such
as what they read, talked about, and watched on television. At one
point John left the room and the man took the opportunity to invite
Maureen to sit next to him on the couch. When Maureen declined,
her extremely forward guest inquired as to "how [she was] made,"
and whether she had any nude photographs of herself available.
When John returned to the room the woman suddenly (albeit
awkwardly) stood up and announced that it was time to go. The
man also rose, but moved no further. The woman, after waiting
several moments and making no attempt whatsoever to go around
her partner, turned to John and said, "Please move him. I can't move
him myself." Suddenly the man became reanimated and the two
lurched out the door together, one behind the other. Their graceless
exit thankfully marked the conclusion to the Hopkins Family MIB
Affair.
Philadelphia, US 1980
The following case beautifully illustrates the generally inconsistent
nature of the MIB phenomenon. Not only is the MIB in this case
disheveled, he also encourages his apathetic host to take a more
active interest in UFOs!
Peter Rojcewicz is a professor of humanities and folklore at
Julliard School in New York who also teaches at the C.J. Jung
Foundation for Analytical Psychology. One day in 1980 he found
himself in a library on the campus of the University of
Pennsylvania browsing through a book on UFOs. The book had
been recommended to him by a colleague who erroneously assumed
that Rojcewicz, as a folklorist, would be interested in it. At some
point Rojcewicz became aware of a wrinkled black pant leg and a
scuffed black shoe out of the corner of his eye. He looked up to
find a man well over six feet tall and weighing no more than 140
pounds standing before him. The figure was dressed in a black suit
which "looked as though [it had been] slept in for three days." The
man's shirt was bright white, nearly matching his deathly pallor.
Completely uninvited, the man flopped down in a chair next to
Rojcewicz and asked what he was doing. Rojcewicz replied that he
was looking at a book about UFOs. The man asked if Rojcewicz
had ever seen a UFO, to which the professor replied in the negative.
The man then asked Rojcewicz if he believed that UFOs were real.
Rojcewicz responded that he really didn't have an opinion one way
or another and that, after studying the book in front of him, he
realized that he didn't have much of an interest in the subject. The
man suddenly screamed, "Flying saucers are the most important fact
of the century and you are not interested?" He then suddenly rose
as awkwardly as he had sat down and appeared to regain his
composure. He put his hand on Rojcewicz's shoulder, said quietly,
"Go well on your purpose," and with that took his leave.
Within ten seconds of the strange man's departure, Rojcewicz was
engulfed by fear. He believed that he had had a genuinely
paranormal experience, and the idea terrified him. He took a walk
around the library in an attempt to collect his thoughts. Strangely,
he could not find another living soul in the building. He returned to
where he had been sitting, absolutely befuddled. An hour or so
later he got up to walk the library again. This time everything
seemed back to normal.
It was not until later that Rojcewicz heard of MIB. He has since
become one of the leading authorities on the subject.
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