Mystery of the Men in Black: The UFO Silencers

by Timothy Green Beckley

  THE

  SILENCERS

  INNER LIGHT PUBLICATIONS

  Editorial Direction & Layout Timothy Green Beckley

  Manuscript Production Cross-Country Communications

  Copyright© 1990 by Inner Light Publications All Rights Reserved

  ISBN 0-938294-87-3

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the author and publisher..

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Special thanks to Jim Dallmeier for his excellent cover art.

  Published by: INNER LIGHT PUBLICATIONS

  Box 753

  New Brunswick, NJ 08903

  Free catalog upon request.

  Introduction: Watch Out Behind You!

  By John A. Keel author, Disneyland of the Gods

  and Strange Mutants

  "Close the doors! They're coming in the windows!"

  That was a popular expression about thirty years ago, taken from the lyrics of a hit song now long forgotten. "Close the windows! They're coming in the doors!" The songwriter had probably never heard of the mysterious Men In Black (MIBs) but he might have been writing about them. They have been sneaking up on unwary UFO wit­nesses and ufologists for generations, often causing great confusion and sometimes outright terror. In more recent years they have been the sub­ject of a number of commercial motion pictures and, back in the 1960s, an actor named Roy Thinnes chased them week after week in a highly rated TV series. In England, a rock group named The Men In Black has achieved great notoriety. The MIBs have become a part of the underground culture everywhere.

  Most UFO fans credit the late Gray Barker with having "in­vented" the MIBs for his classic book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers Actually Gray simply rediscovered an ancient phe­nomenon. Their presence has been observed throughout history, in many different contexts. In the Middle Ages, there were constant reports of sinister gentlemen in black garments who appeared in remote areas of Greece, Hungary, Poland, etc. where they were credited with acts of vampirism. Dead animals and humans were often found in their wake, sucked dry of blood. Like our modern MIBs, they were often described as having an oriental cast to their features and they spoke with strange accents.

  In the ancient religion of Wicca or witchcraft a Man In Black holds a prominent symbolic meaning. In many rites of witchcraft, a member of the coven dresses in black to represent the MIB.

  The fairy lore of the Celtic countries is also filled with tales of Men In Black. In fact, part of the fairy belief includes fairies who are the size of normal men and who walk almost unnoticed among humans except for their black clothing. Like their smaller counterparts, they were said to be great mischief-makers.

  When the MIBs began appearing in areas where UFO sightings were numerous, the early UFO investigators tried to connect them exclusively to UFOs and their usual reasoning was that the mystery men were somehow related to the government or the Air Force. It was true that some government agents were—and are—fond of black suits and wrap-around sunglasses. For example, after Lee Harvey Oswald was linked with the assassination of President Kennedy it was reported that a group of men in black suits descended on his old military unit and rifled the files. Obviously they must have belonged to some Intel­ligence group like the C.I.A. Their black suits were almost a uniform, like the dark clothes worn by the Secret Service men who attempt to protect the President.

  When, in August 1967, an enraged grizzly bear killed two campers deep in the woods in the Glacier National Park in Montana, a mystery man in a black suit, tie and black oxfords appeared briefly. What he was doing in the middle of the forest in such impractical clothing...and how he managed to hike there...was never explained. He briefly joined the horrified group of campers clustered around the mutilated victims and then faded back into the night. Was he a true MIB or just an out-of-place tourist?

  Men In Black are also an integral part of the Oriental belief in the King of the World. Ancient tradition in parts of China, Tibet and India claims that there is an underground city where the King of the World runs everything by sending spies and minions to the surface. They dress in black robes and suits and, of course, their countenances are very Oriental. In the Middle East, they move around the deserts in

  black robes and headdresses. All of these characters are known liars and hoaxers...and kidnappers. They might claim to be from Agartha, the underground city, or from a far-off kingdom or even a distant star sys­tem like the Pleiades. This is why the Christian bible pointedly warns us to beware of those who profess to "represent powers and principali­ties" and tells us not to go out into the desert to meet with them. No Oriental would be surprised to hear that an MIB had turned up deep in the Glacier National Park on the night of two terrible deaths.

  As you can see, Men In Black is really a generic term. Many types of mystery men can...and do...fall into this ominous category. There are literally thousands of detailed reports scattered throughout the UFO literature describing very peculiar strangers who appeared during UFO flaps. Sometimes their clothes are ill-fitting and their demeanor is very weird. Sometimes they themselves are hunchbacked, crippled or grotesquely malformed. They can speak in a mechanical-like voice or appear to have trouble breathing. They behave irrationally, too. They might try to drink a bowl or jello...or they might eat a cigarette.

  In many cases, they appear to be wearing ill-fitting wigs. Wit­nesses have often commented on their bad toupees. If they repre­sent some superior technology from some other star system, as many UFO fans like to believe, why can't they cover their bald pates with a decent wig?

  Very often the witness doesn't even realize he or she has encoun­tered an MIB-type. They can pose as salesmen, Seventh Day Adventists or just lost tourists. If they arrive in an automobile, it is likely to be an expensive model with mud-stained license plates. In many cases, they have visited isolated farms in hard-to-reach places without any car in sight and walking through mud and goo without dirtying their pristine shoes. How can you tell if they aren't who they claim to be? Simple, they don't really try to sell you anything if they say they are a salesman. Instead, they try to pump you for information or they make disquiet­ing remarks about your past or your future. They also have a startling way of simply disappearing after they speak with you. That is, instead of walking back down the muddy road they just seem to vanish when you look away and then look back again.

  Some of our MIBs could be apparitions or hallucinations. They need not be a part of our reality although they may seem very real while you are confronting them. Some witnesses have, in fact, reported spells of dizziness, lapses of memory and other symptoms that clearly indi­cate their MIB encounter was not real. Many of the same symptoms occur in close UFO sightings so there is a positive relationship between some MIB experiences and some UFO manipulations. The human mind is being assaulted and the powers of perception are being deceived. This could be a form of hypnosis or something more subtle.

  In the fairy lore, victims of this process were said to be "enchanted."

  There doesn't seem to be one simple answer to the MIB mystery. As you read the many varying accounts in this book you will realize the frightening complexity of it all. Some reports seem to be pointless prac­tical jokes. Others contain elements that suggest these beings are des­perately trying to convey something to us, that they are trying to communicate with us on our own level and usually botching it.

  One thing is certain, though. The reports in this book will keep you awake at nigh
t and make you nervous whenever you see a black Cadillac parked near your home. There is someone or some thing out there.. .and they are watching YOU.

  _________ John A. Keel - New York, N.Y.

  The Men in Black: Agents of Terror

  Visits by unknown agents are seeded throughout UFO literature and newspaper accounts of flying saucer sightings. For many years they were overlooked or not recognized for what they were. Today just about every UFO investigator has encountered these "Men in Black" during their research. The history of Demonology, Witchcraft and the Occult are filled with similar incidents leading one to speculate that the UFO phenomena is at least partly "psychic" in nature.

  For example, researcher Allen Greenfield has pointed out that there is usually a consistent reference associating the term "Black Men" with the Devil, along with a mention of an Indian-like appearance sup­posedly attributed to the Devil by Witches. There appears to have been a "wave," Greenfield notes, of these cases starting at about the time of the Elizabethan post-Reformation era in the 1600s. Several occult vol­umes classify these beings into a group of their own and refer to them as Men in Black, Demons, Devil, apparition, or Black Man—the latter being the most commonly used.

  One such instance (taken from Montague Summers book The Werewolf) involves the case of a werewolf, and a "Lord of the Forest," described as being tail and dark, dressed in black. And in Witchcraft by Penethore Hughes, there is an allusion to the Devil's form of dress as being black.

  But such tales from the 1600s were not uncommon to the North American colonies at that time. There is a brief mention by Cotton Mather, the famed witch-hunter of colonial New England, of the "Black Man" mentioned by the Indians. Most interesting is the instance of a man dressed in black alluded to at the Witch trials in Salem, supposedly being the Devil who had been the cause of all the disturbance.

  American folklore holds many frightening tales of the Devil, or demons, who roams the countryside on a dark horse—as opposed to today’s MIB who arrive in dark autos. There are other tales of encoun­ters with the Devil in the woods and of apparitions which seem to fit within the context of this enigma.

  In the book Flying Saucers in the Bible by Virginia Brasington (Saucerian, 1966), there is a fantastic story of the "Great Seal" of the United States and its mysterious origin which seems to hint of an "MIB." Supposedly the design was given to Thomas Jefferson while walking in his garden one night by a man in a flowing black cape. The seal is actually a reproduction of the lost city of Petra in northern Arabia, once controlled by a mysterious Arabian race known as Nabataeans. Many persons have described the ancient city as "half as old as time" and is obviously the work of a very advanced technology for its time.

  The above material is taken from an article by Dennis Stamey which appeared in the Truth About the Men in Black published by Kurt Glemser, which is one of the increasing number of sources for material on this subject.

  The Men in Black also appeared during several UFO flaps in the last century. In 1864, a UFO dropped several artifacts over a small community in Texas. They were placed by the citizens of the town in the front window of a store on the main street of town. The next day a "traveling dealer" stopped by and offered the shop keeper a "good price" for the objects and carted them away with him. Several similar incidents happened in 1897 and '98. Many of the occupants observed during this period were said to have Oriental features, dark complex­ions, slight stature and a heavy, undefinable accent—identical to the features described by observers of the MIB, who continue to harass and frighten witnesses to this very day.

  The Current Era

  Off the coast of Tacoma, Washington, on Maury Island, three lumberjacks watched as a giant doughnut-shaped craft blew up, spew­ing a heavy stream of white-colored metal over the ground. The stunned men collected samples, which in falling had killed their pet dog and damaged their boat. They then proceeded home without telling anyone what they had seen. The next morning, June 22, 1947, at 7:00 o'clock there was a loud knock on the door of one of the wit­nesses, Harold Dahl. A man dressed in a black overcoat and a black suit said that he wanted to talk about something that concerned them both. Despite the fact that none of them had breathed a word to anyone, this man described to Dahl in vivid details exactly what had happened on Maury Island, and warned him not to talk with anyone about what he had accidentally stumbled upon—that is, if he valued his welfare and that of his family.

  Certainly, Dahl and the others would have consented to this request. They felt it was a matter of national security and feeling the object was a secret weapon of the U.S. government, they wouldn't want a foreign power to get hold of any classified information.

  Three days later, Kenneth Arnold was flying his single engine plane over the thin cloud-covered peaks of Mt. Rainier when he saw something flitter in the sunlight. Looking out over the mountain tops he watched as nine gleaming objects, in perfect formation, flew just below the cloud layer. They were traveling at tremendous speed and their maneuverability indicated that they were manufactured by a superior intelligence.

  After Arnold landed, newsmen clustered around asking for a description of what he had observed. The pilot told them that the objects closely resembled the motion of "saucers skipping over water." The term "flying saucer" was born—it has stuck to this day.

  Harold Dahl, having read of Arnold's sighting felt there was no reason for him to remain silent about what he had seen only days before. Above all he was one up on Arnold—he had actual fragments from one of these ships.

  When news of the exploding object over Maury Island reached Kenneth Arnold, he decided to make a special trip to Tacoma to talk with Dahl and the other witnesses. He felt that together they might be able to come up with some joint conclusion as to what they had seen.

  Upon arriving in Tacoma, the man who gave flying saucers their name, met a battered Harold Dahl. Arnold describes this first meeting in his book The Coming of the Saucers (Amherst Press): "For nearly two hours Harold Dahl told me of all the sad experiences he had had since the 21st of June.... He said you couldn't blame any of the experiences he had to anyone, that just by coincidence he nearly lost his job, just by coincidence he nearly lost his son, his wife had become ill, and he had lost a tremendously good boom of logs that he had salvaged from the bay when an unusual tide had somehow broken the moorings one night. This was a major loss to his finances as the boom was worth over $3,500. The engines on their boat wouldn't start in the mornings; the boat sprang leaks. All in all, he had had a horrible time in keeping from going completely broke and from losing his family and home through sickness or accident." It almost seemed as if someone, or something had placed a curse on him!

  Determined not to give up his investigation of this affair, Arnold interviewed all of the witnesses in his hotel room. During the course of the grueling cross-examination, they were disturbed several times by phone calls from a reporter for the local Tacoma paper who insisted that he was receiving tips from an anonymous caller who knew exactly what was going on inside Arnold's suite. The voice on the other end of the phone had somehow managed to give the papers feature writer a word-by-word description of their conversation. Arnold knew that it was impossible for any of those present to be leaking information to the press, since no one had left the room. A careful check for concealed microphones revealed nothing. Yet someone, somewhere, knew their every move.

  The saddest part of any saucer incident took place when two young Army investigators, Captain William Davidson and Lieutenant Frank Brown, were killed as they were returning to Hamilton Field in California with specimens of the material believed to have been part of the UFO which disintegrated over Maury Island. The plane they were piloting caught on fire and crashed. Although the other men aboard the military aircraft had parachuted out in time, Brown and Davidson were not so lucky.

  Tacoma Times reporter Paul Lance wrote a story the following day with screaming headlines—"SABOTAGE HINTED IN CRASH OF ARMY BOMBER." Lance claimed that the my
sterious telephone informer had once again called his office and indicated that the plane had been "sabotaged or shot down to prevent shipment of (the) flying disc fragments" to Hamilton Field. "Lending substance to the caller's story," continued Lance's account, "is the fact that 12 hours before the Army released official identification, he correctly identified the dead in the crash as Captain William Davidson, pilot, and First Lieu­tenant Frank M. Brown....At McChord Field an intelligence officer confirmed the mystery caller's report that the ill-fated craft had been carrying 'classified material.'" Directly or indirectly, two young offi­cers died because of a flying saucer. They were the first, but there have been others!

  The Bender Episode

  In 1952, a Bridgeport, Connecticut, man named Albert K. Ben­der, organized a UFO research group which he called the International Flying Saucer Bureau. The IFSB was well received and in no time at all became a thriving organization with members in most states, and in various foreign countries.

  Suddenly, one day, Bender announced that he was closing his group upon orders of a HIGHER AUTHORITY. Bender insisted that he had been visited by three men, who although otherwise very normal in appearance, had worn black suits and hats. They revealed to the Connecticut group leader the secret of the saucers and then warned him not to discuss anything about their visit.

  We shall probably never know the complete circumstances sur­rounding the visitation, but from the little Bender revealed at the time, we can state the following with a reasonable amount of certainty: Ben­der had been thinking of a UFO theory, which he eventually sent to a certain other person. Shortly thereafter the three men came, and one of them was carrying in hand the same sheet of paper that Bender had mailed. The visitors were very threatening in their manner, hinting at dire consequences if Bender printed his theory, as he had originally intended to do. For several hours two of the men drilled the researcher