After picking a handful of spring flowers he positioned his daughter on the banks of a grassy creek and took several snapshots. There was not another soul around, Templeton later recalled. It was a clear, sunny day, perfectly ordinary except for the fact that they noticed that the cows and sheep there were behaving oddly, huddling close together as if against some unseen force like they do just before a thunderstorm.
But the weather was clear. They’d never seen them do that before, he said. A week or so later, when Jim went to the photo shop to pick up the prints, the clerk, whom he knew, said, “Jim you have some nice photographs, but it’s a pity that the best one of Elizabeth has been spoiled by that man in the background wearing a space suit.”
Jim thought she was joking, of course. He knew there had been no man there, other than him. Certainly not one wearing a space suit. “What are you talking about?” he asked. The clerk took out the photos and pointed to the print. Sure enough, right there in the picture, standing behind his daughter’s head, there appeared the image of a man dressed in a white suit, not unlike an astronaut’s outfit. Jim was nonplused. The strange man wasn’t visible when he’d snapped the picture.
He sought the aid of the local police, who noticed that the figure was “floating,” not standing behind his daughter. It was all just too incredible to believe. Through the efforts of the authorities the film was thoroughly examined by government and Kodak experts, who declared it to be authentic and unmanipulated in any way. The story, and the photo, appeared in the local papers and, even though it garnered much international attention and scrutiny, no one was ever able to explain just what it was that he’d photographed that day. Even the experts were baffled.
About the end of June, as the story of the “Cumberland Spaceman” had begun to die down, Mrs. Templeton took a call concerning the photo from a well-spoken man who claimed that he “investigated such things.” He wanted to discuss the case in detail with her husband who readily agreed to help in any way he could. A couple of days later the caller, along with a colleague, showed up at their home. They briefly flashed identity cards stating that they were from some government agency or another, most likely the Ministry of Defense.
“They were extremely well dressed in black suits and looked very officious,” Mrs. Templeton recalled. “They appeared very courteous but were somewhat off hand. They drove a large, dark jaguar car. It was very shiny as if new. But there was something rather odd about them. For one thing, during the entire hour-long interview, they never once referred to one another by name. Instead they called each other ‘number nine’ and ‘number eleven.’
Surprisingly, they then asked Jim to accompany them to the site, which he did, riding with them in their new jag out to the marshes. They parked and all three men got out and walked to the spot the photo was taken. Then they started acting really odd. They wanted to know, in perfect detail, what the weather had been like that day. How had the animals acted that day? Had he seen any birds? Noticed any sounds? Wind in the trees, distant traffic or anything like that? The questions baffled Jim, who’d expected to answer questions about the camera and film and such. Then they asked him to show them where the man was “of whom you took the picture.”
Jim asked them what man. “The man who was standing there when you took the photograph.” Jim repeated that there was no one there when he’d taken the photograph. He had seen no man, to which they replied, “Really?” as if they didn’t believe him and wanted him to admit to a hoax. “I told them that there was no man and they looked at one another and then said “Oh, right.”
And with that, just marched off across the grass. Before I had my wits about me they were halfway back to the car. I could not catch up with them. They got in and drove off, leaving me stranded on the marsh; “...I had to walk five miles home.” Templeton later lamented his treatment by the MOD, who officially denied that they had sent anyone to the Templeton residence.
Former California police officer, Rex Heflin was visited by a MIB in August of 1965. On August 3d he had been out doing his job of Orange County highways inspector when he noticed some tree limbs that were obscuring the line of sight to a railroad crossing sign. Concerned, he tried to contact his Santa Ana base but the radio was mysteriously dead.
It was then that he noticed a curious aerial object come into view, flying above the road at a height of about 150 feet. The craft was hat-shaped with a flattened base and flew in a “wobbling” manner. At its closest approach, Heflin claimed he saw a “rotating beam of light coming from the underside of the object.”
Thinking quickly, he grabbed his polaroid and snapped three pictures before it disappeared, leaving a ring of smoke in its wake which Heflin photographed as well. Convinced that he’d seen nothing more than an experimental government aircraft from a nearby Marine base, Heflin didn’t promote the sighting, merely showing the pictures to a few friends as a conversation piece.
When one of these friends posted the photos in his shop they drew the attention of the local newspaper. It took them some time to persuade Heflin to let them run his photos. He wasn’t exactly pressing to tell his story. Nonetheless he did finally agree and, soon after they were published, ufologists, and the government, took note.
Mr. Heflin was asked to loan his pictures to the staff at the Marine base, which he did without hesitation, and the photographs were returned rather quickly. He didn’t think twice when a man dressed in a dark suit showed up at his home, announcing that he was from “North American Defense Command G-2” and asking for the photographs. Heflin handed them right over. This turned out to be a big mistake. NORAD later denied that they’d sent anyone to see Heflin, informing him that they were not responsible for evaluating UFOs and was not in the business of collecting UFO photographs for evaluation; that was the Air Force. Heflin was stunned.
Nevertheless, on September 23rd Heflin was interviewed by the USAF and his case examined for Project Blue Book, which was little more than an official attempt at ‘debunking’ the entire phenomenon. Not surprisingly, they quickly concluded that the sighting and the pictures were a hoax, a conclusion which did not sit well with anyone involved in the whole affair, especially Heflin who vehemently denied the accusations.
The validity of the case was debated for nearly two years. Then, in 1967 the University of Colorado, under the directorship of Dr. Edward Condon, began a two year re-evaluation of Blue Book’s collected evidence including the Heflin case. It was ultimately rated ‘unexplained’ but, soon after the Condon team’s renewed interest in the photos, Heflin was to claim a second visit by the MIB.
This time they arrived in a dark-colored car with a peculiar violet glow emanating from behind the darkened windows. He could see a figure within, but couldn’t make out any details from the glow. That person remained seated in the vehicle while two Air Force uniformed intelligence officers got out and asked to speak with Heflin. He led the two inside and things got downright strange.
A radio that Heflin had left on began emitting strange ‘popping’ sounds which continued during their visit. They began asking a series of questions which seemed odd to Heflin. Peculiarity is, after all, the calling card of the MIB. They asked what he thought about the (then) recent stories of the disappearances of ships and airplanes in the Bermuda Triangle. The tone of the strangers was “threatening” but they made no demands. Mindful of the artful swindling of his original Polaroid prints, Heflin insisted on taking down the officers names and ranks. The USAF later denied sending anyone to Heflin’s residence, and when ufologists checked the names supplied by the two men, no government record of them could be found. The antics of the MIB, just as with the saucers, had become a thorn in the side of the feds, who started taking the matter seriously.
On March 1st, 1967 the assistant Vice Chief of Staff in Washington, Lieutenant General Hewitt Wheless, circulated a memo to all staff entitled, ‘Impersonations of Air Force Officers,’ outlining Heflin’s story along with one other incident in which “...a person in
an Air Force uniform approached local police and other citizens who had sighted a UFO, assembled them in a school room and told them that they did not see what they thought they saw and that they should not talk to anyone about the sighting.” The memo urged any further evidence of MIB activity to be forwarded to OSI, the Air Force special intelligence investigation unit.
Forteans may be familiar with the name, Mrs. Mary Hyre. She was the journalist responsible for collecting much of the “high strangeness” reports that occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in 1966 and ‘67 concerning Mothman (see Unidentified Flying Humanoids) and UFO sightings in that area. These same reports were later written about by author John Keel in, The Mothman Prophecies, and other books.
In January of 1967, as she was working late in her office, Mrs. Hyre was visited by a very curious man. He stood about four foot six inches tall, she later said, and had very strange eyes masked by a pair of thick-lensed glasses. He had long black hair, cut squarely “like a bowl haircut” and, even though it was well below freezing outside, was wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt and blue trousers of thin material. He had his right hand in his pocket, Mary said, and kept it there the whole time. He asked her for directions to Welsh, West Virginia, speaking in a low, halting, odd-sounding voice. She thought at first that he had a speech impediment, but for some reason, the man terrified her. “He kept getting closer and closer,” she said, “his funny eyes staring at me almost hypnotically.”
Alarmed, she ran into the back room where the newspaper’s circulation manager was working and asked him to join her. Together they spoke to the little man, who seemed to know more about west Virginia than they did. Presently, the telephone rang and, while she was speaking on it, she noticed the man pick up a ball-point pen from her desk and stare at it in amazement “as if he’d never seen a pen before.” She gave him the pen and, as he took it from her hands, he laughed in a loud, strange manner, then ran out into the night and disappeared around a corner. Thinking the fellow might be an escaped lunatic, Hyre checked with local authorities, but none were reported missing.
Several weeks later she saw this same man a second time as she was crossing the street near her office. He’d appeared startled when he noticed her watching him. He suddenly turned and ran for a large black car which had just rounded a corner. It was driven by a very large man, Hrye said. The little man jumped inside and it sped off.
During Christmas week of that year, while divers were still searching the Ohio river for the bodies of victims of the recent bridge collapse, a white station-wagon drove into town and stopped in front of Mary’s office. A short, dark-skinned man then got out and entered. He was wearing a thin black suit with a black tie.
According to Mary, the man looked oriental, with high cheek bones, narrow eyes and an accent she couldn’t quite place. Moreover, the man had strikingly long fingers, to the point of almost being freakish. He wasn’t interested in the bridge collapse, he told her, but was concerned about all the recent UFO sightings that had been reported lately. She didn’t have time to speak with him on the subject, so she handed him a folder filled with local sighting reports, but he didn’t seem too interested in them.
Later that night he visited several local witnesses and questioned them; not about their UFO/monster sightings, but about the whereabouts of John Keel.
A personal friend of mine, T.W., whose character is impeccable, sent me this account of a peculiar bit of strangeness that happened back in the 1960’s. It is presented here unedited:
“The year was 1966 and I lived about 45 miles from Lexington Ky. We lived on a small farm. There was an old man and woman that lived across the road from me and I would go over and visit with them every day. The old man was in his 80’s and walked on a cane, he could hardly even get around. One day when I went over to talk to him he told me that a bright light had landed in his yard the night before. It woke him up and when he looked out his window it was sitting there in his yard and then it just flew off. I kind’a laughed and then he told me to go out in the yard and look, that it had left a burned spot in his yard. I walked out in the yard. He had a big front yard that I would mow every summer.
Anyway, there was a big circle burned in the grass. It was about 20 to 25 feet in diameter, A perfect circle, with three little circles in the center, like where a tripod had set. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I stared at it for a long time and then I went back and asked him if he had called anybody about it and he said no. We talked for a while and then I went home and told Mom and Dad about it. I never really gave it much thought after that, after all I was only 10 years old, and flying saucers was the farthest thing from my mind.
About three days later I was out in the front yard, when I saw this black ford pull in their driveway. It was a ‘65 or ‘66 Ford with black and yellow official license tags. When they stopped, these two men got out of the car and they wore black suits and sunglasses. They knocked on his door and went inside. They were there for about an hour and then they just got in their car and drove off. They never once looked at the circle.
As soon as they were gone I ran over to their house and asked the old man if he had called someone about the flying saucer that had landed in his yard. That’s when he told me that it wasn’t a flying saucer and that he wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, He told me to forget about it. Before those men came me and him would talk about it all the time. He never would talk about it again and I never brought it up again after that. He had a scared look on his face after they left.
I mowed his yard that summer and the grass didn’t grow back until late the next summer. You could still see traces of the circle for a long time after that. The old man died about a year after that. This was in the spring of 66. I had never heard of the ‘Men In Black’ until I was finally grown; about 25 years later or so. But whoever these guys were, shut him up real fast.
Earlier that year before this happened, it was in the fall, my Dad and me was out in the back yard and this stuff was falling out of the sky that looked like long strands of spider webs. This stuff was everywhere and I asked Dad what it was and he said that it was spider webs blowing out of the trees. I told him that there sure must be a lot of spiders around. I picked some of the strands up and it felt silky, so I thought maybe he was right. The funny thing was there wasn’t any wind blowing that day and this stuff was everywhere, strands 8 to 10 feet long and longer. I just thought it was strange and never really thought no more about it until many years later, when I heard about other people that had seen the same thing. I never once thought about getting camera and taking pictures of the circle and webs. I don’t think we even owned a camera back then.”
Another strange incident occurred in 1966 in Owatonna, Minnesota. One November evening two women happened to observe strange, twinkling lights floating above a field. As they watched one of the lights suddenly swooped down low. One of the women dropped down to her knees and began speaking in a strange robotic voice, as if the pilot of the craft were speaking through her.
The other woman, a Mrs. Butler, stood aghast as her friend, turned psychic medium said, “What-is-your-time-cycle?” This was followed by a series of questioning which indicated that the entity being ‘channeled’ did not understand the concept of time, after which the object flew up into the sky and disappeared.
Following this bizarre event, Butler claimed that she was plagued by strange telephone calls in the middle of the night. No one ever answered her when she said hello, and, like Heflin, strange noises were coming from her radio set. She later revealed to investigator/author, John Keel that, soon afterwards, she’d had a visit from a strange, olive-complexioned man wearing a dark suit that “seemed brand new.” He identified himself as Major Richard French of the US Air Force, despite the fact that he had long, dark hair; far too long for an Air Force officer. He informed Butler that he was interested in UFOs, then turned around and got back into his vehicle, a brand new looking Mustang, and drove away.
He returned
the following day, however. This time claiming to be ill, another tactic we have seen before, obviously used to gain entrance into the subject’s home, which he did. His stomach was hurting him, he claimed. Butler then told him that he needed to try some Jell-O as a soothing agent. “Thank you,” he said, “I will try some.” Butler then found herself making the long-haired ‘officer’ some Jell-O as he waited in the living room with her husband.
After it was finished she brought him a bowl and a spoon but, to her complete astonishment, the man ignored the spoon entirely, turning the bowl up to his mouth and trying to drink it like soup. Regaining her composure, she then tried to explain to him the concept of eating, with which he was obviously unfamiliar. When he left, the Butlers were so puzzled by his odd behavior that they followed him out and took down his license plate number. It turned out to be a rental car from Minneapolis. They then tried tracking down “Major French.” There was a man by that name registered in the USAF, but he denied ever having met the Butlers. The Air Force vindicated his claim when they sent the Butlers his identification. The real Major French bore no resemblance at all to the man who came to their home.
John Keel is, of course, most well-known for his investigation into the ‘Mothman’ sightings which began in December, 1966, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. By the time he arrived there UFOs were already being seen regularly, especially in the TNT area where the Mothman sightings took place. He visited the site and interviewed many of the principle witnesses, then returned to New York. Then things got really strange. The book he would later write about his ensuing visits to Point Pleasant, The Mothman Prophecies, can arguably be called today the most well-read and influential Fortean book ever written.
According to Keel, several months later one UFO witness wrote to him concerning the West Virginia events and casually mentioned that he’d already passed the information on to his “secretary.” Keel was baffled. He had no secretary. Nevertheless he was to find out that many of the witnesses had been approached by a blond woman who carried a clip board and claimed that she worked with “John Keel.”
The Inhumanoids Page 28
