by Nick Redfern
And that, Warren suggests, brings us to the presence and role of the Men in Black: “Going back to my original point: Why do the MIB dress like this? Why do we call them the Men in Black? Well, if a man puts on a black suit with a black hat and walks down the street in 1910, and you see that man, you would probably notice him. But, would you think there was anything too extraordinary, or too out-of-place about him? No, you probably would not. And if you saw a man walking down the street in 2010 wearing a black suit and a black hat, would you notice him? Probably, yes. But, would you think you think there was necessarily anything too extraordinary? No.”
What this all demonstrates, says Warren, is that the outfit of the black suit and the black hat is flexible enough to work within the social context of the culture of at least a century or more. And so, therefore, if you are someone who is in the time-travel business, and within the course of your workday you’re going to go to 1910 to take care of some business, and then a couple of hours later you’re going to be in 1985, and then a few hours after that you’ll be heading to 2003, you don’t want to be in a position of having to change your clothes three times. So what do you do? In Warren’s hypothesis, you dress in an outfit that is going to allow you access to the longest period of time within which that same outfit may not draw too much unwelcome attention. “And that’s why,” suggests Warren “in and around the whole 20th century, it just so happens that the black suit and the black hat will work for them.”
What if, however, your time-travel plans are destined to take you much farther into the past? Clearly, wearing a 20th-century suit just won’t cut it. Warren acknowledges this point when he says, “If you were to go back into the 1600s or 1700s, there would be a different wardrobe that would work within the broadest range. I don’t know what that wardrobe is, but I feel confident that if I sat down with a historian who was extremely knowledgeable of the fashions from those past periods, and who also understood the concept that I’m talking about, we could probably come up with a dress that the Men in Black may have worn at various points throughout history, in order to give them the widest range to work within at any given time.”
Perhaps those earlier Men in Black, those time travelers who chose to head even further into our past, may have been the prosperous and mysterious burghers in black to which Brad Steiger referred in a previous chapter.
Warren also weaves one of the most notorious fringe elements of the Men in Black puzzle into his paradigm-mangling ideas, too: that of Mothman. Could it really be the case that the shadowy, glowing-eyed beast that briefly haunted Point Pleasant’s long-abandoned TNT area in the mid-1960s was a real-life equivalent of Warren’s hypothetical Bear-Man or Fish-Man? And, if so, were Point Pleasant’s Men in Black dispatched from a faraway future to bring the activities of this winged nightmare to a halt? Warren thinks this may be exactly what occurred:
When it comes to the idea of Mothman, this brings up another good connection to what I was describing. If you have a situation in which the timelines are being constantly changed in an unauthorized way, by some of these para-temporal travelers, from far in the future, who are unleashing all this bizarre stuff that isn’t supposed to be there—and maybe a real Mothman, like the hypothetical Bear-Man and Fish-Man, is actually one of these para-temporal travelers— then obviously you’re going to have these Men in Black pop up there to try to get the timeline situation under control. And that’s why, when you take something like what happened at Point Pleasant in the 1960s, we have a variety, a whole spectrum of paranormal activity and strange creatures, and then the Men in Black suddenly appear.
So, it could be that the Men in Black follow all this stuff around; that’s their job. Not that they are causing these things to happen, but they’re alerted to it when there’s a dangerous timeline issue that needs to be corrected. They’re not necessarily the bad guys at all; they might be doing damage control, and maybe that includes warning and silencing witnesses to protect the time-travel secret. They might be weird, and they might look weird, but their overall mission may be just to keep order and protect the timelines.
How ironic it would be if the theories of Joshua P. Warren are indeed correct, and that instead of representing our absolute worst nightmare—as many that have encountered the MIB surely believe them to be—the Men in Black are actually heroes: the dutiful, persistent guardians of past, present, and future combined, forever fated to keeping their strange secrets from those who cross their paths as they surf the centuries, always on missions to terminate endless numbers of meddlesome, reckless time manipulators.
20
Demons and the Occult
Ray Boeche is an Anglican priest who served as the Rector of the Celebration Anglican Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, for nearly a decade. He is also the founder and the former director of the Fortean Research Center, a former Nebraska State director for the worldwide Mutual UFO Network, and the recipient of a BA from Peru State College and a Master of Theology degree from St. Mark’s School of Divinity. As someone with insight into both Christianity and the UFO controversy, and who has studied the many complexities of the MIB mystery extensively, Boeche opines today that, “Ultimately, I think a demonic deception is the foundation from which the Men in Black phenomenon springs.” This belief closely matches the conclusion of Claudia Cunningham, whose Man in Black experience was detailed earlier in this book.
The idea that the UFO presence on our world may have demonic origins is not a new one. The theory has been carefully addressed in a number of books, including UFO End-Time Delusion, written by David Allen Lewis and Robert Shreckhise; my own Final Events; and John Weldon and Zola Levitt’s UFOs: What on Earth Is Happening? Perhaps more than anyone else, however—and chiefly as a direct result of his combined background within the Christian Church and with the Mutual UFO Network—Boeche should be seen as someone in a prime position to comment on this particular theory. That Boeche—as we will now see—was also personally acquainted, to varying degrees, with both Albert Bender and Gray Barker makes his conclusions relative to the MIB conundrum all the more important. “I was actually in touch with Albert Bender in the early to mid-’70’s,” Boeche says, “which was years after his Men in Black experience. This was in California, when he was involved in helping preserve the work of film composer Max Steiner, and he just would not discuss it: the experience, the Men in Black, none of it. It had obviously affected him.”
Ray Boeche, an Anglican priest who has deeply studied the MIB phenomenon.
Boeche had much more success when it came to Barker: “I was a kid when I was first in contact with Barker, and stayed in contact right up until a few months before he passed away. He was always helpful on the phone and in correspondence; he was a very amenable guy. From the contact and conversations I had with Barker, I do think something happened with Bender. Just how much of the actual written account we have is confabulation and how much is exaggeration, I don’t know. But something did happen to Bender, and it may very well have involved FBI agents. And I tend to think that Bender’s experience was precipitated by a visit from someone in the government.”
Boeche explains his views on this integral aspect of the Bender affair:
Bender may well have been visited by FBI agents. And that whole image of black suits and threats that were possibly playing on Bender’s mind may have dictated how these forces, Bender’s MIB, appeared for him as his involvement with the occult proceeded and he had the experience in his bedroom. He did have a longstanding fascination with the occult, and I think that the FBI visit could have had a definite impact on how he might have experienced these other things, and how “they” might have appeared to him in a context that would serve their ends: the dark suits and hats. There’s a distinct possibility that the phenomenon was pulling this imagery—the FBI agents, black suits, and their visit and warnings—out of Bender’s subconscious and masquerading as something connected to the saucer people to lure him further into the occult.
Boeche continues: �
�There’s a lot we can take from some of the early research into psychedelics, where the major thrust of what type of experience the person would have would be dictated by mindset and setting. And I think that ties into the Bender story, in a sense. I think there’s this idea that if we open ourselves to outside influences—I’m speaking in spiritual terms here—or we seek contact or an experience with an alien, then you assume it to be that— an alien—if and when it appears.” However, “It may not be what it purports to be. I think these forces can play on our own mental predispositions of what we expect to see.”
Boeche notes what he sees as the hazards that may manifest when one takes the proverbial plunge into the darkest of all waters and engages such black-hearted entities, as Bender most certainly did:
I have always thought that one of the most important things that John Keel ever said was that if you have kids or teenagers, this is not something to encourage them to get involved with. Keel was a pretty dyed-in-the-wool atheist. But he understood that, at some level, there’s something, in some sense transcendent over us, that can, if nothing else, “mess” with us. And it can cause a lot of damage.... Sometimes, I think I’m singing a one-note song with this, from a Christian perspective. I would not consider myself theologically liberal or a theological fundamentalist. My beliefs are solidly orthodox, and rooted in my view of the Bible as God’s inerrant Word. But there are things that we just aren’t equipped to deal with from a mechanistic, naturalistic worldview. There are malevolent forces out there that will be happy to take advantage of just about any opening we give them. And, so, we need to be very cautious. I tend to think that may be what happened to Albert Bender, but he might not have been so cautious.
In Boeche’s view, Bender, already scared out of his wits by an intimidating visit from real FBI agents, was then further tormented by paranormal entities that invaded his subconscious, coldly hauled the FBI-style Man in Black imagery from the depths of his mind, and adopted nearly identical guises to achieve their aims of assaulting, deceiving, and manipulating poor Bender.
Moving on from the Bender experience, Boeche notes that Reginald Scot—in The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584—described the Devil as being repugnant in appearance, ugly, and with black skin. Similarly, Charles Wall, in his 1902 book, Devils, cited an 11th-century Greek manuscript in which the Devil appears human-like, and black. Traditionally, the Devil must also possess some perceivable defect when appearing in human form, very much like the Men in Black who walk awkwardly or display some other obvious physical defect.
In addition, Boeche identifies connections between the Men in Black and the Eastern mystical tradition’s enigmatic Brothers of the Shadow, whom Michael Talbot calls “cunning and evil; intent upon keeping the student of the occult from finding out the proverbial answer. The Brothers of the Shadow, like the MIB, are known for threatening students whenever they get too close” (Boeche lecture 1994).
Also on the historical angle, Boeche demonstrates that the Men in Black, in the early 1900s, were seemingly skulking around the bleak, dark hills and valleys of Wales, Great Britain, at the very same time that a variety of unidentified aerial phenomena was also putting in an unwelcome appearance. Specifically, Boeche drew my attention to a 1905 article that appeared within the pages of the Barmouth Advertiser newspaper and that reads, “In the neighborhood dwells an exceptionally intelligent young woman of the peasant stock, whose bedroom has been visited three nights in succession by a man dressed in black. This figure has delivered a message to the girl which she is too frightened to relate” (Barmouth Advertiser 1905). That this particular encounter occurred when the good folk of Wales were also experiencing sightings of mysterious, unidentified aerial lights provides much food for thought. Furthermore, Boeche points out, “It is interesting to note that this event comes in the midst of the great Welsh Christian revival of 1904–05” (Boeche 1994).
By far one of the most important (and certainly most disturbing) cases that Boeche believes offers direct support for the notion that the Men in Black have demonic origins began in the late 1960s. It is a nightmarish tale of malevolence, hostility, and unrelenting negativity—those central themes on which the Men in Black seem to thrive. It was after the man in question—whom Boeche describes as “a researcher whose name would be recognized by everyone involved in UFO research”—had been deeply immersed in the investigation of a number of UFO encounters that included low-level sightings of UFOs and one case involving UFO occupants that he started to receive a series of alarming and harassing telephone calls.
“Many times there would be nothing on the line,” Boeche explains. “Often a strange, metallic whistling sound, mixed with what he could only describe as ‘electronic noise’ would be present. Sometimes a garbled voice speaking in an unintelligible language would be heard. Sometimes threats against himself or his family would be made by a voice which sounded vaguely ‘unhuman.’ Changing his telephone number didn’t seem to help. The telephone company could find no tap on his line, and was never able to locate the perpetrator of the calls.”
Then there came the mail tampering, very similar to that described earlier by both Greg Bishop and Chris O’Brien: Letters were delivered opened and torn, some mail went astray or completely vanished, and important case evidence disappeared en route to its destination. Most unsettling of all, Boeche reveals that the man “received numerous threats through the mail and many documents which consisted of odd hieroglyphic-like symbols with no explanation.” Things were then taken to a different level when the phenomenon began to maliciously target the man’s home. Boeche says, “On three different occasions, the office located in his home was ransacked, files rifled, and in two instances, research material of significance to current cases disappeared. This was made even more mysterious by virtue of the fact that his home was protected by an elaborate electronic security system connected directly to the police department. The alarm system was never triggered.”
Of course, all of this could quite conceivably be the handiwork of government spooks, spies, lock-pickers, and espionage agents. What happened next, however, is very difficult—if not impossible—to reconcile with such a down-to-earth theory: There was a sudden and terrifying outbreak of poltergeist-like activity in the man’s home. Household objects flew across rooms; doors were thrown open and slammed shut under their own volition; foul, sulfur-like smells plagued the family; enigmatic shapes and shadowy, unspeakable things skirted around corners and, in a few instances, raced through well-lit rooms toward some hapless person who would scream at the top of his lungs, bracing himself for some sort of violent, physical onslaught that never came—not for a while, anyway. Given that poltergeist manifestations have been associated with the actions of predatory, manipulative demons, this suggest whatever was afoot had nothing to do with the actions of government personnel.
On six different occasions, Boeche reveals, the researcher’s wife, in the presence of at least two other people (on one occasion, in the presence of six others), was attacked by an invisible entity. The woman was slapped, clawed, bitten, punched, and thrown across the room by something that was invisible yet possessed of enough substance to raise welts on her face, gouge her arms, and leave animal-like teeth marks on her breasts, back, and legs. Four of these attacks were followed almost immediately by telephone calls warning the researcher to, in the words of the caller, leave the flying saucers alone.
Then, some might say inevitably, an unwelcome visitor in black of the type we have come to know well came slithering out of the darkness. The researcher, on three different occasions, was approached by a prototypical Man in Black, described as about 6 feet 6 inches tall and cadaverous in appearance, who made threats against the researcher. He experienced one visit at his home, one at work, and one at a restaurant while waiting for his wife to return from the restroom. The man, who described his state at the time that this occurred as one of abject terror, truly believed he was losing his mind, and was afraid that his wife might even
be killed. As a result, he put his UFO research firmly behind him for an extended period of time.
Out of his in-depth research, coupled with his Christian background, Boeche has come to a conclusion: “It becomes apparent that all aspects of the UFO phenomenon have manifested throughout human history, albeit in somewhat different and varying guises. The same can be said of, if you will, the very ‘dark side’ of ufology: the menacing activities of the MIB. The UFO phenomena are definitely culturally reflective” (Boeche 1994). If one starts with ancient accounts of humanity’s interaction with deities, dragons, and demons, Boeche notes, one will find almost exact parallels between those historically recorded manifestations and what is occurring today. There is no substantial difference in the phenomenon; only in the cultural references we use to define it. In other words, one man’s alien is another man’s ghostly black dog; one man’s werewolf is another man’s Djinn; and one man’s... well, you get the picture.
Boeche cites the words of the late author/researcher Ivan Sanderson, whose influence on paranormal research still resonates nearly 40 years after his untimely passing. Sanderson asked: Are the Men in Black extraterrestrials, the descendants of extraterrestrials, or even the agents of extraterrestrials? Or, he wondered, do we need to allow for a totally new category of intelligent beings that are interacting with us? Boeche answers that “we must acknowledge a different category of being. We must awaken to the realization that we are caught in a web of deception, and that the web is closing in on us. We are being watched, probed, and manipulated by forces from outside our known physical universe. We are not alone, and we may not like it much when we find out what sort of company we have” (Boeche 1994).
