Intimidation and the “Weird” Factor
UFOlogist Albert K. Bender established the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) in the spring of 1952. He used the October 1953 issue of his magazine Space Review to warn his readers that they would place themselves in danger if they reported sightings of UFOs.
(Magazines are advancedated, so this issue went on sale in August.) Bender’s piece was a peculiar, and anxious, bit of text, particularly because Bender said that although he had uncovered information proving the existence of flying saucers, he was afraid of being intimidated into silence. Space Review ceased publication immediately because (as he related later) a trio of mysterious men in black suits arrived in September 1953 to warn him to stop publishing saucer material right now. Bender also dissolved the IFSB.
Bender described himself as having been “scared to death” by his visitors (who threatened him with, among other things, summary transport to prison).
Although he was sufficiently mindful of the threats to suspend much of his activity, Bender did give interviews later, claiming that the MiB had informed him that the government would reveal all about the aliens within four years, that is, by 1956.
Accounts of MiB came to an initial peak throughout the 1950s and 1960s with Gray Barker’s 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, an early and enduring classic. (Not of This Earth, a superior 1957 B-movie from director Roger Corman, is dominated by a sullen Man in Black, a burly businessman type who has come from the planet Davanna to harvest humans for “blood pasturing.”) Gray Barker formalized the notion of dark-clad strangers, and filled his book with shakily verified stories of flying saucer publications intimidated into suspending operations. Although now dismissed by some as lightweight, even campy, Barker’s volume captures a meaty portion of the distressed, sometimes paranoiac thought that crept across Cold War America.
In 1962, Albert Bender was back, with a book of great significance to MiB studies, Flying Saucers and the Three Men. In it, Bender asserted he had been abducted and flown to the South Pole. The aliens’ goal, he explained, was extraction of vital elements from Earth’s water. Bender further used his book to explain that MiB were not human agents, but extraterrestrials. He revealed that the MiB showed up in 1953 and revealed to him the source of flying saucers— information apparently so momentous that an intimidated Bender did not require threats of imprisonment to hold his tongue. A clue to the nature of the situation, though, is Bender’s stated conviction that “his” MiB had been sent by the U.S. government. Indeed, some in the UFO community are convinced that Bender was visited by CIA agents, not MiB. The thinking that supports this belief is that U.S. intelligence had been concerned with Bender’s IFSB, particularly its attempts to plot the courses of UFOs and trace them back to their bases.
As MiB encounters multiplied during the 1950s, similarities became apparent, as if the mysterious men had all read the same employee handbook. Although some MiB appear from, seemingly, nowhere, they typically arrive in large, four- door sedans painted black. The cars are generally unadorned, sometimes with clear deliberation manifested in blacked-out trim and plain “dog-dish” wheel covers, or no wheel covers at all. Windshields may be grayed out, and side glass is often tinted or completely blacked out. Police-style whip antennas are occasionally seen. In keeping with the notion that MiB originate in Washington or are contracted by people who are professionally active there, the cars are almost invariably American. Although no longer produced, a pair of law-enforcement favorites, the Ford Crown Victoria and Mercury Marquis, still figure in MiB incidents. Of more recent automobile models cited in reports, Dodge Chargers and Chevrolet Impalas are particularly familiar. The MiB that visited UFOlogist John Keel arrived in a Cadillac. Witnesses with the means to trace license plates usually find that the ones on MiB vehicles are unregistered or phony.
MiB automobiles may be joined by hovering black helicopters. The “black” in that descriptor is a direct reflection of the previously mentioned “black ops.” The U.S. military does not paint its copters that color, so black helicopters seen in conjunction with MiB are disguised or in the employ of civilian agencies. The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk is frequently cited as a “black helicopter.” Thanks to the popular “Men in Black” and “Matrix” film series of recent years, public perception of MiB is one of carefully groomed, physically robust persons dressed in unimaginative but well-tailored black suits. The popular image also invokes sunglasses and, sometimes, fedoras. But during the 1950s and into the ’60s, another, less hardy type came to the fore. Some UFO witnesses who received MiB noted that the visitors arrived wearing rumpled, ill-fitting suits that hung loosely on the men’s slight frames. These MiB had a queerly deferential manner, as well: no strong-arm men, these fellows; no, they discreetly knocked on the doors of the people they had come to see, and did not enter home or apartment until they were invited inside. Many walked with a stiff or otherwise unnatural gait.
In normal light the MiB were very pale, even sickly. Some witnesses reported a slight Asian cast to facial features; others recalled “bug eyes.” The men’s skin was dry and fragile, causing John Keel to dub this breed of MiB “the cadavers.” (Keel clarified his position by saying the MiB represent a paranormal entity that has meddled with people since the human race began.) The hats and sunglasses gave these undernourished MiB an unintended comic air—though all of that went out the window when the men began to speak, and gave their warnings.
Speech might be halting, or monotone—and the warnings were intended to be taken seriously.