Mystery of the Men in Black: The UFO Silencers

by Timothy Green Beckley

  Before I begin to recount all that has been happening, let me state that I am only reporting. I have seen nothing, nor has anything hap­pened to me. Sometimes I wish it would, for I feel sort of left out.

  I have no reason to doubt my informants—and as for one of them, I had better not, for she is my wife!

  The beginning of this report might be said to start on the battle­fields of Korea, for it was while one of my informants, George Smyth, was fighting in that land that he became interested in UFOs. He and two other soldiers saw a flight of two saucers sweep over them, and reported the incident to their commanding officer. They were requested to report to Intelligence. When they did so, they were then told that they were suffering from battle fatigue. Regardless of this "battle fatigue," however, they were not relieved of their front-line fighting duty.

  Smyth then became very interested in the UFO phenomena and began to seek information regarding it. When he returned to civilian status he proceeded to study it from his home in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He also became a Saucer News subscriber.

  On October 10, 1966, two teenage boys of Elizabeth reported observing a very tall (more than six foot) being, which was green in color, while they were walking in nearby woods. Before they ran away, however, they also noted that the green-headed being had two small beady red eyes and a mouth which seemed to be drawn into a horrible grimace. The creature had no nose, ears, nor hair on its head.

  Smyth learned of the incident and joined a crowd of people who were questioning the lads. As he did so he also noticed a large black car parked a good distance from the crowd. While the excited crowd ques­tioned the teenagers, he observed two dark-visaged, heavy-set men who emerged from the car, leaving one of their party seated behind the wheel. The two men joined the crowd as Smyth watched them and once or twice he heard them question the boys. Smyth also noticed they had a slight slant to their eyes and spoke with an accent which he was unable to identify.

  Smyth informed Saucer News about the incident, and a team of investigators from the magazine investigated the report. Smyth, who remained outside the home of one of the lads while the team inter­viewed the witness inside, again noticed the same black car parked down the block from the house. Again the same two men got out; they came close and watched the house until the Saucer News investigator emerged; then they returned to the black car. Other witnesses in the neighborhood reported to him later that the car remained in the vicin­ity for at least ten minutes before it departed.

  Two weeks after the incident, Smyth received a mysterious phone call. An unidentified voice told him to give up UFO investigation and then broke the connection. A year passed without any further incident. Then on Thanksgiving eve of 1967 a black car stopped in the dark, a short distance from his home, while Smyth was in front of the house, walking his dog. A swarthy looking man got out of the car and approached Smyth, calling him by his name, as the dog arched its back and began to howl like a wolf. The man, who never identified himself, told Smyth that he wanted all the material on any UFO investigation he had obtained. When asked for identification, the man would give none. Smyth refused to show him anything.

  "Are you sure you want it that way?" the swarthy man asked.

  "Yes," Smyth replied.

  "You'll be sorry!" stated the visitor, as he returned to his car, the door of which opened weirdly for him without his touching it. The door had no handle which Smyth could observe. He was able to get a glimpse of a red upholstered interior before the car moved off silently, as if it might have been electrically powered. He also noticed a gold "V," with a lightning bolt superimposed upon it, decorating the door, and the license plate which bore the number, "U 1496."

  Smyth reports that the man's eyes seemed to have a hypnotic qual­ity and tended to affect him in an unexplained manner.

  The next day a battered car driven by a black-leather-jacketed man wearing large sun glasses almost ran him down in a deliberate manner; the day after, a very tall, white-faced man, with silver-colored hair, followed him to the usual bus he took for work, passing him as he got on the bus, and turning the corner. As the bus reached the corner, Smyth observed a large dark car speeding away. The next day was uneventful until an evening telephone caller advised him to give up his interest in UFOs. Then the phone went dead.

  About a month later, a man phoned, claiming to be a Major White, of "UFORICE." When Smyth said he had never heard of any such group, White said it was a California organization, that he was visiting New Jersey and had received information about Smyth from a friend. He knew a great deal about Smyth, including incidents which the latter had not mentioned to anybody. White refused to identify the friend, explaining, "I do not wish to get him into any trouble."

  The next day Smyth observed the same white-faced man with the silver-colored hair following him again, this time from work to the bus stop. Once again he disappeared rapidly. A week later Major White called and asked him if he would be interested in seeing a UFO. When Smyth answered in the affirmative, he was told to be at Montana Park, in Elizabeth, at 8:30 PM. Smyth complied, but no UFO appeared as promised.

  About the same time the above events were transpiring, a Mrs. Caporino, of Jersey City, reported to me that she had sighted a UFO out over the ocean, from the shore of Ocean Grove, New Jersey. The sighting was reported in the Robinson Report (a limited UFO news report service made available to the author's colleagues in the UFO investigative field) and carried in several UFO publications. Mrs. Caporino later reported to me that just after dark on three consecutive Fridays at exactly the same time (7:00 P.M.), a large black car with red upholstery pulled up under a tree, which left the car in the dark, and on each occasion two men got out, mounted the steps of her house, stood in the darkest spot of the porch after ringing her bell. One of the men carried some sort of case with him.

  Mrs. Caporino did not answer the door on any of the three occa­sions, after peeking through the Venetian blinds to ascertain who was ringing. She was too frightened to find out who the men were, and also unable to get their license number and other pertinent information.

  Chased By Men in Black

  A person in North Jersey (who did not wish his name or research group identified) called me about the same time to give me some unusual information. This man, Ron (I am permitted to use only his first name), had extensively investigated the Wanaque Lake sightings in the 1960s and had continued to investigate the entire area.

  He was particularly interested in a convent which had previously housed children each summer, but which had closed down after the wave of strange sightings; and a college in the same area which had also closed its doors, and erected a steel barricade on the road leading to it.

  Ron was driving over the roads surrounding the reservoir when suddenly his companion in the car called his attention to a parked car with some kind of electrical equipment set up in the rear seat. The equipment, with extensive dials, illuminated in a bright, bluish light, reminded him of a large amateur broadcasting set a friend of his once possessed. As they drove on, discussing this development, he noticed a roadside telephone booth in his rear view mirror. A man suddenly emerged from it and darted to a car across the road which began to fol­low him. Ron drove up a dead end road and stopped. The other car drove past him, with only one man, carefully keeping his face in the shadow, inside it. It parked 50 feet beyond Ron's car. When Ron turned his car around and drove off, the other car took off after him.

  Ron drove into the town of Wanaque and parked outside the police station. The other car drove about 100 feet beyond him and also parked. This alarmed Ron and his companion further, so he made a U-turn and left the town, with the other car in hot pursuit. An expert driver, Ron managed to elude the pursuing car in turnpike traffic and swiftly drove home. Since this incident he requested and received a per­mit to carry a gun.

  The Imposters

  During the first week of May, 1968, a car pulled up across the street from the home of George Smyth. Three men stepped out. Altho
ugh Smyth had never seen the men before, he quickly identified them from a picture published in Saucer News. They were John Keel, Gray Barker, and James W. Moseley—or so he thought. Smyth, who had observed the men from an upstairs window, ran down the stairs to greet them, only to see their blue Volkswagen speeding away up the street. It bore no license plate.

  Feeling there had been something strange about the men, he tele­phoned Moseley and Barker, who told him they had not been away from home all day. He checked again with the picture. Although the men bore facial characteristics identical to the men in the picture, including Keel's then-copious beard, Smyth knew there had been something wrong with what he now believed to be an impersonation. Then he remembered: Barker and Keel had been of the same height— that is the impersonators—while Moseley was the shortest of the group. In reality, the actual order of height in the picture was Barker-Moseley-Keel! Whoever the impersonators had been, they had "goofed" on heights.

  A week later, while he was passing a parking lot on his way home from work, three men stepped out of a black Plymouth, of 1960-62 vintage, and which bore West Virginia license plates (strangely dis­torted, since the "West Virginia" was printed at the top instead of properly at the bottom—while the numerals, "1436," have since been determined not to exist on such plates without some other type of pre­fix or designation).

  The men accosted him as if they knew all about him, even though they asked him if his name was George Smyth. When he replied in the affirmative, they displayed S.A.U.C.E.R.S. membership cards (as members of Saucer News operating organization), bearing the names of Arthur Davidson, Thomas Murphy and Walter Mulburry (or Mul-barbery). They next asserted that they were well aware of all the events which had happened to Smyth and which he had related to the Saucer News staff. They simply wished him to relate once more the events as they occurred. Smyth then reviewed for them the entire series of strange happenings, while one of the trio wrote in a notebook. Then they urged him to continue to report all future events to Saucer News.

  Later, when Smyth spoke to Gray Barker by telephone, he learned that neither Barker nor any of the staff had disclosed any of the infor­mation to anybody!

  Our House is Watched

  During the last week of May the strange series of events seemed to be drawing closer home, when my wife, Mary, mentioned during a supper conversation that she had noticed some odd people near the house each morning as she went marketing.

  A large black car was parked near our front door and a statue-like, tall, corpse-white man with very light hair was always standing beside it. The car, she told me, had bright red upholstery. The tall man, how­ever, had not caused her any alarm. But a dark, swarthy-faced man in a dark or black suit had looked piercingly at her as she emerged from the outer door, and then had peered into the vestibule, as if to determine if anyone else were coming out. Since this had occurred on four succes­sive days, it was getting on her nerves. She had hesitated to mention it, she told me, for fear I would think she was "imagining things," and assured me that she actually had seen the men.

  I pondered on this, for I knew that when I left work at 8:00 each morning, I had seen nobody on the street. Whoever the men were, they were avoiding me and showing up half an hour later, when

  Mary went shopping. Why did they not try to frighten me, for I had been involved with the Saucer News investigation of the experiences of Smyth, and other strange events?

  Suddenly I remembered that James W. Moseley's name was on my mail box. He did this so that he could receive mail from certain con­fidential sources at our address—and then he often stayed for several days at a time at our house when engaged on research projects which involved much reading and concentration (thus he would avoid tele­phone calls and the many personal visits by friends and people inter­ested in interviewing him).

  Could it be that the visitors were checking up on Jim and were relatively disinterested in Mary and me?

  I immediately phoned Jim and told him about the men, though noises on the line led me to believe the line was being tapped. Jim told me to instruct Mary to secure the license number of the car, should she see it again, and suggested I familiarize her with the Cadillac emblem so that she might recognize it. (Both Jim and I knew that most of the men-in-black reports included a large car, usually a Cadillac.)

  The phone call evidently set off another series of happenings which are difficult—or impossible—for me to evaluate.

  Next morning when Mary went to shop, nobody stood at the fac­tory entrance as usual; nor did a large black car with a pale-faced indi­vidual occupy its usual position. However, as she returned home, she noticed Jim Moseley standing in the middle of the nearby street acting almost, it seemed, like a traffic policeman! She stood and watched him for perhaps three to four minutes, while he turned and looked in all directions, apparently without noticing or recognizing her. Mary had the impression that he was attempting to see what would happen if he exposed himself, and that he evidently did not wish her to approach him. So she entered the house. She gave it little further thought, except for thinking that it was a very early hour for Jim, who usually arose about noon, to be in Jersey City (Jim at that time lived in Manhattan and the trip to Jersey City would have consumed about 45 minutes).

  A grocery item she had forgotten to purchase made it necessary for her to return to the market, so she went out again. Jim was still standing in the same position, still looking in all directions and not appearing to notice her. She observed that while he was dressed in the usual business suit, he was also wearing the gray topcoat he had worn the past winter. She knew that I had gone to work dressed only in a business suit, and that I had remarked how warm the morning was. In fact, the topcoat was the only circumstance which really struck her as odd about his being at the intersection.

  She went to the store, and when she returned, she again stood and watched Jim at his "station." Then she entered the house and pro­ceeded to clear the breakfast table, with the thought that Jim probably would ring the bell, have a cup of coffee and a chat before he returned to New York. She also again wondered how Jim had managed to get up so early—for he liked to do his UFO research late at night, and into the early morning hours, away from the pressures of his office and the many telephone calls.

  In about ten minutes the phone rang and it was Jim on the line. He explained he was still in bed, but has awakened and was wondering about the "MIB" situation. He had an impulse to call her briefly before going back to sleep. He asked her if she had looked outside yet to see if the men were still there.

  Without explanation, she asked Jim to hold the phone. Then she ran outside (our windows do not overlook the street). Jim or the man who had looked exactly like him, was no longer there, and, for the first time, this was very upsetting to my wife. She wondered if she were "imagining things," due to her worrying about the visitors. She ran back into the house, and tried to explain what she had seen to Jim; though by that time she had become quite shaken.

  Although he couldn't quite understand just what she had seen, Jim advised her either to stay in the house, or dash over to her neigh­bor's house and stay with her until I returned that evening.

  When I returned I found a very frightened wife, who by that time had regained her composure and was able to give me all the details in a coherent manner.

  I called Jim, and although I kidded him about Mary's seeing his doppelganger, I secretly wished that I were able to get my hands on the impersonator. Later that Night I called Gray Barker and gave him all the details, and he tended to connect it with the Smyth report of the impersonations described above.

  Days passed without further incident. Mary, however, had begun to leave the house the same time as I did on weekdays, and would visit various neighbors while I was away. On Saturday, May 18, Jim called to make arrangements for Timothy Green Beckley and himself to visit us and make copies of some of my many tape recordings. It was agreed that they would arrive early (for Jim), at ten o'clock the next morning.
r />   As they approached my house, they observed a black Cadillac parked in front of the closed factory next door. They decided not to stop, but to drive around the block and make some passes in front of the house, to observe and take pictures (Jim had thoughtfully brought his camera). They also noted the swarthy man Mary had described, standing in the factory entrance. They managed to make only two passes and to secure the two pictures accompanying this article, before the man evidently fled; on the third circuit of the house both he and the Cadillac were gone.

  Mary had identified the man in the photograph as the same per­son who had looked at her so piercingly on those five mornings.

  At this writing (July 1st), there has been no repetition of any of the visitations. Yet, on June 11, George Smyth had called me with a report which seemed to tie in with Mary's experiences.

  He asked me what I thought Jim had been doing in Elizabeth that morning, and I replied that he had not been there, for I had just talked to him at his apartment, having awakened him in order to get a tele­phone number which I urgently needed.

  Smyth then related what had occurred. He had been on the bus, going to work as usual, and had observed Jim standing in front of the Carteret Hotel in Elizabeth, as he passed there on his usual route. Jim, he said, had smiled and waved at him. Smyth stated that Jim had worn a gray suit, with striped tie and white shirt (Moseley’s favorite mode of dress). The only relevant information concerned a trench coat "Jim" carried on his arm, which Smyth described. Jim has never worn that type of coat, to my knowledge.

  A day or two after the incident, Smyth began to hear from acquaintances who told him they had been questioned by a very tall, gray-haired man, who also made inquiries about him. All but one of the people had asked the man for identification, whereupon he departed abruptly without further questioning. Those questions by the tall stranger had one thing in common: all were employees or owners of the various eating places Smyth frequented near his place of work. Only one person, the operator of a hot dog stand, had spoken at length with the person. Apparently the tall man already possessed a great deal of information about Smyth (although the stand operator knew much about Smyth, it seemed he was unable to supply the man with any­thing he did not already know!).