Alien Base: The Evidence for Extraterrestrial Colonization of Earth – MEN IN BLACK
Carlos de los Santos Montiel’s story received extensive coverage in the Mexican media. When Pedro Ferriz, the well-known television personality and ufologist, invited Carlos to appear on his programme, the rather retiring young pilot reluctantly agreed. As Carlos drove down the freeway on his way to the television studio, a black Ford Galaxy pulled in front of him. ‘Through the rear- view mirror he could see an identical car just behind him,’ reported Jerome Clark, a leading American researcher.
Both vehicles looked brand new, almost as if they were being driven for the first time. The cars started to crowd him and soon Carlos’ car had been forced over to the side of the road. Alarmed, he stopped his vehicle and was about to get out when the Galaxies also pulled over and four tall, broad-shouldered men jumped out.
One of the men put his hands on the door as if to prevent Carlos from getting out. ‘Look, boy,’ he said, in a rapid, rather mechanical-sounding Spanish, ‘if you value your life and that of your family too, don’t talk any more about this sighting of yours.’ Carlos was too taken aback to respond.
The men, dressed in black suits — traditional garb since the 1950s for the so- called ‘men in black‘ (MIBs), who have often been reported to threaten UFO witnesses — were described as ‘Scandinavian’ in appearance, with unusually pale skin. They returned to their cars and disappeared in the traffic. Intimidated, Carlos went straight back home. Later, he told Ferriz about the incident, who managed to assure him that nothing would come of it; that such threats by the MIBs had proved to be empty in other cases. Reluctantly, Carlos agreed to reschedule the interview.
One month later, Carlos met Dr Allen Hynek, the distinguished UFO researcher and former consultant to Project Blue Book, who was travelling in Mexico at the time. At an initial meeting, Hynek invited Carlos forbreakfast the following morning to discuss details of his aerial encounter. At 06.00, Carlos left his house and drove to the Mexicana Airlines office, where he had applied for a job as a pilot, then proceeded to Hynek’s hotel. As he climbed up the steps he was approached by one of the men who had threatened him a month earlier. ‘You were already warned once,’ the man said. ‘You are not to talk about your experience.’
‘All I did was accept an invitation,’ said Carlos. ‘Dr Hynek wants to know what I saw and I thought that maybe I could understand it better myself if I talked with him.’
‘Look, I don’t want you to make problems for yourself,’ snapped the man, pushing Carlos back several feet. ‘And why did you leave your house at six this morning? Do you work for Mexicana Airlines? Get out of here — and don’t come back!’ Carlos obeyed.
That was Carlos’s last encounter with the mysterious men in black. ‘They were very strange,’ he told Jerome Clark and Richard Heiden two years later. ‘They were huge, taller than Mexicans are, and they were so white. But the strangest thing of all is that all the while they were in my presence I never saw them blink.’
Disturbing though this story is, Carlos at least lived to tell the tale. As described in Beyond Top Secret, another young pilot, Frederick Valentich, disappeared for ever following his encounter with an unknown flying machine during a flight from Melbourne to Tasmania, in October 1978