Men in Black | Exo News

Paranormal West Virginia: The Flatwoods Monster

November 12, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Shayla Klein and Shyla Parsons October 29, 2020 (wboy.com)

• Gray Barker is a well-known UFO conspiracy theorist from Braxton County, West Virginia. He got his start as a writer by telling the story of the ‘Flatwoods Monster’ of 1952, which led to his own series of paranormal publications.

• David Houchin maintains the ‘Gray Barker UFO Collection’ at the Clarksburg Library in Clarksburg, West Virginia. In 1952, when Barker was dabbling in film distribution and booking in Clarksburg, he heard or read about the Flatwoods incident. Barker went to Braxton County to interview the people involved with the Flatwoods Monster incident. The Flatwoods encounter was prominently featured in his publication, The Saucerian, and in his book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Barker was the first to introduce the idea of the government’s “Men in Black”, and “used the Flatwoods incident as his springboard to becoming a more or less respected UFO researcher out on the fringe,” says Houchin.

• When the Flatwoods Monster story emerged in the early 1950’s, it was just after the Roswell UFO crash. The public was eager for tales of space aliens, and the Flatwoods story quickly gained traction. It put Braxton County, West Virginia on the map. Some believed that the whole thing was a made up hoax, or mass hysteria. Houchin says that he actually met the family who were at the center of the incident. They were very adamant about what they saw.

• The story begins on September 12, 1952 in Flatwoods, West Virginia. A local resident, Mrs. May, her sons, their friends, and their dog were outside when they saw a bright light in the sky circle around the hill and crash. They thought it might have been a meteor, and so they all walked up the hill to the crash site. When they got up there, there was a glowing red orb in the ground. The air was filled with acrid-smelling oil and smoke. The dog was terrified.

• As they got closer to the glowing orb, they noticed a figure standing over to the side of them. It was humanoid in shape, nearly 12 feet tall with a head shaped like the ace of spades and wearing a metal suit. Mrs. May and the children ran home, and reported it to the authorities. The US government sent some ‘Men in Black’ to their house to investigate the sighting. They took the each of Mrs. May’s family members’ witness reports – and all were consistent. Mrs. May had gotten some of the acrid oil residue from the ship on her dress that night. They took the dress and never returned it

• Today, the Flatwoods Monster is considered the second most popular monster in West Virginia next to the Mothman. The town of Flatwoods has embraced the folktale, creating a Flatwoods Monster Festival, putting up monster shaped chairs across the city, and installing a Flatwoods Monster Museum in 2018. “We’ve been really surprised as to how many people want to come and visit anything dedicated to the Flatwoods Monster. We have folks coming from all over,” said Andrew Smith, founder of the Flatwoods Monster Museum.

• A video game that features places and things in West Virginia called “Fallout 76”, has renewed interest in the Flatwoods Monster. People visit the museum as part of a “Fallout Tour,” where they visit places featured in the game.

**the Mays with an illustration of the monster**

FLATWOODS, W.Va. – On September 12 in 1952, a family in Flatwoods said they were visited by an alien spacecraft.

That mysterious night became national–and eventually international–news that put Braxton County, West Virginia on the map.

Jason Burns, a storyteller who specializes in paranormal stories in West Virginia, told the story of what happened that night.

“Mrs. May, her sons, their friends, and a dog were outside playing when they saw this bright light in the sky. They saw it circle around the hill and crash, and they thought it might have been a meteor or something like that, and so they all walked up the hill to where the crash site was, and when they got up there, there was this glowing red orb in the ground. The air was filled with smoke. It was very acrid smelling apparently. Oily kind of air and the dog got close to it and just ran away. The dog was terrified and not wanting anything to do with whatever the ship was or whatever this object was. And as they got closer to it, they noticed that there was a figure over to the side of them,” said Burns.

According to legend, the monster was nearly 12 feet tall with a head shaped like the ace of spades. It was glowing reddish

and green, but some believe that the color of the grass and the ship was reflecting off a metal suit that the alien was wearing.

“When they saw the monster or alien, Mrs. May and the children all ran off to their home, and they reported it to the authorities. Apparently, the US government sent some men—‘men in black’ to their house who investigated the sighting, took down their witness reports–which apparently all of them were the same. Mrs. May got some of the oil on her dress that night from the ship, and they took the dress. They said that they would return it, and they never did,” said Burns.

Conspiracy theories on what the monster was began to pop up as the story gained traction. Some theories suggest that it was just a kid pulling a prank or an owl.

“They tied it in with other stories around the country about the same time,” explained Burns, “This was the age of the space race, so there was a lot of interest in interstellar crafts. This was the time of Roswell. This was the time of Sputnik and things like that that were getting ready to take off, so it was very forefront in people’s minds. So people were thinking maybe it was just mass hysteria,

maybe it was fake, maybe it was just made up, but I actually have met the Mays at one point years ago. A long time ago, in Flatwoods at one event, and they are very adamant, they saw what they saw. And I believe they believe—you know, I believe them. What they say they saw. Now what it was, I don’t know.”

Gray Barker, a well-known UFO conspiracy theorist from West Virginia, had a part in boosted the national popularity of the monster story by telling the story in several of his publications.

“Barker was from rural Braxton county. He was born on a farm at Riffle, and he was one of the only two kids in his family to get a high school diploma and only one to go on to college. I think he had ambitions to be a writer, but that doesn’t work out for everyone, and in the end he became a writer courtesy of the space brothers and the men in black,” explained David Houchin, the Special Collections Librarian at the Clarksburg Library who maintains the Gray Barker UFO Collection. “In 1952, he was living in Clarksburg, and working in businesses that had to do with film distribution, film booking—that kind of thing, and he heard about the Flatwoods incident. I imagine that he read about it in the newspaper. It was treated pretty confidently as a serious mystery for a short time, and he was familiar with Braxton county and he was fond of the preternatural. The spooky.”

Gray Barker went to Braxton County to interview people who knew about the Flatwoods Monster incident, and the following year, he began his own publication called The Saucerian. The first issue was devoted to the Flatwoods Monster. In 1956, he wrote up the story again in his book “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,” which arguably introduced the idea of the “men in black” to alien conspiracy stories and became popular amongst UFO conspiracy theorists across the nation.

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Triangle UFO Images Captured in Orlando Sparks USAF Secret Space Program Debate

March 2, 2019
ExoNews Editor

by Nirmal Narayanan Febraury 22, 2019 (ibtimes.co.in)

• Acclaimed ufologist, secret space program scholar, and Exopolitics.org founder, Dr Michael Salla, posted images of a triangular-shaped craft with well-defined edges and lights, hovering in the skies of Orlando, Florida. The images were given to Dr Salla by his exclusive insider known as “JP” who took the photos in the early morning of February 18th.

• Dr Salla’s report also reveals that two ‘men in black’ approached JP soon after the incident. These men threatened JP with a gun, demanding that he not disclose the sighting. The next thing JP remembered was waking up from bed the next morning. When JP checked his smartphone, the videos he took were deleted but the images were still intact.

• Viewers of the video on the ‘Michael Salla’ YouTube channel, and the UFOmania channel are convinced that this is confirmation of the existence of a secret US Air Force space program (from nearby McDill AFB), and evidence that Donald Trump’s Space Force is already operational and patrolling the skies.
• Other viewers believe that this actually a TR-3B craft, an anti-gravity space vessel alleged developed by the USAF during the Gulf War using reverse technology from advanced alien visitors.

• [Editor’s Note] See Michael Salla’s article at Exopolitics.org, and at ExoNews.org. See also a 1:12 minute video clip of the flying triangle photos below.

Popular conspiracy theory UFOmania has recently shared the image of an apparently triangular shaped unidentified flying object (UFO) hovering in the skies of Orlando, Florida. The YouTube channel revealed that these images were originally shared on the conspiracy theory website exopolitics.org, and the images were taken by a man, confidentially known as JP.
As per the website report, the incident happened on February 18 at around 1.20 am. The image of the UFO spotted in the video has three well-defined edges, and lights were seen glowing in these areas.

The report also revealed that two men, most possibly men in black approached JP soon after the incident. Soon, these men pointed a gun on JP and threatened him to cover up the sighting. The next thing JP remembered was waking up from bed on next day morning. When JP checked the smartphone, the videos he took were deleted, but the images seem intact.

The video uploaded by UFOmania soon went viral, and viewers of UFOmania seem convinced about the secret USAF space program theory put forward by conspiracy theorists. Many viewers argued that Donald Trump’s space force is already operational, and the force is now conducting regular patrolling in the skies.

1:12 minute clip of photographs of triangle craft over Orlando

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Professor to Offer Course on UFOs at Duke University

December 4, 2018
ExoNews Editor

November 27, 2018 (digitaljournal.com)

• David J. Halperin, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will teach a course early next year on “UFOs – Encounter, Mystery, Myth.” The course will be offered through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke University.

• As a professor of Judaic studies at UNC, Halperin’s specialty has been religious traditions of heavenly ascensions and otherworldly journeys. He has authored five books on Jewish mysticism and two on UFOs, both fiction and non-fiction. He claims that “UFOs are a myth,” emerging from the depths of our unconscious and bearing vital messages. “And myths are real,” says Halperin.

• The OLLI course will study the UFO landing at Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia, in April 1966, the myth of the “Men in Black”, the experience of alien abduction, and the enigma of what happened near Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947. The concluding session will analyze the new respectability that UFOs have attained since the 2016 election, and what it means.

• [Editor’s Note] The good news is that this could be a crack in the academic world’s refusal to treat UFOs and the extraterrestrial presence seriously, particularly at the university level. The bad news is that a religious devotee is teaching it from a theological point of view. Will this professor’s students walk away from the course believing that UFO’s are some sort of figment of the imagination in order to validate a narrow religious perspective? Or will it cast aside preconceived religious paradigms and view the extraterrestrial influence on earth as a reality with serious consequences to our civilization if we don’t wake up, accept the truth, and utilize our mass consciousness to protect our sovereignty as a species before it’s too late?

DURHAM, N.C. — David J. Halperin, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will teach a course early next year on “UFOs – Encounter, Mystery, Myth.” The course will be offered through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke University and will run from January 7 to March 25, 2019. All interested persons are welcome.

“UFOs are a myth,” says Halperin, “and myths are real.” Like collective dreams, they emerge from the depths of our unconscious, bearing vital messages for us. The question to ask of them is not “Where do UFOs come from?” or “How do they fly?” but “What do they mean?”—for us as individuals, as a culture, as a species.

Halperin was a teenage “UFOlogist” back in the 1960s. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1977, and from 1976 until his retirement in 2000 he taught Judaic studies in UNC’s Department of Religious Studies. His area of special interest has been religious traditions of heavenly ascensions and otherworldly journeys. He’s the author of five books on Jewish mysticism and messianism and a novel, Journal of a UFO Investigator, published in 2011 by Viking Press and translated into Spanish, Italian, and German. His non-fiction book Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO will be published in 2020 by Stanford University Press.

The OLLI course will begin with a case study: the supposed UFO landing at Westall High School in Melbourne, Australia, in April 1966. It will explore the myth of the “Men in Black,” the experience of alien abduction, and the enigma of what happened near Roswell, New Mexico, in the summer of 1947. The concluding session will pause to notice the remarkable new respectability UFOs have attained since the 2016 election, and ask once more: what does it mean?

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Audio Reveals Creepy Details of UFO Mystery

August 19, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Ally Foster August 7, 2018 (foxnews.com)

• The largest mass UFO sighting in Australia occurred on April 6, 1966 when 350 school children and faculty of Westall High School in Melbourne watched a UFO hover over nearby field for twenty minutes. While today the event is commemorated by a memorial park at the site, it was initially covered up by the school authority. An audio recording of an interview with an eye witness to the event, Westall science teacher Andrew Greenwood, by American UFO researcher Dr. James E. McDonald, has recently surfaced. (see below for 9:21 minute audio interview)

• On that fateful day, Greenwood was in his classroom when a child ran in and said, “there’s a flying saucer outside!” When he went outside to take a look, he saw a group of children in the corner of the school grounds watching a silver, saucer-shaped UFO about the size of a car with a metal rod sticking up, hovering close to a powerline. As more people began to gather to watch, five planes came and surrounded the object in the air. The UFO would dart from side to side to avoid the planes. This went on for twenty minutes before 350 witnesses. The headmaster was so “scared” and “disturbed” by the incident, however, that he refused to come outside until the object was gone.

• Suddenly the UFO shot away and vanished within seconds. The school’s headmaster then came out and ordered everyone to go back to class. “He gave the school a lecture and told the children they would be severely punished if they talked about this matter, and told the staff they could lose their jobs if they mentioned it at all,” said McDonald. The headmaster refused to talk with the Royal Australian Air Force. Then the infamous Men in Black showed up and warned everyone not to speak of the incident.

• After the Men in Black’s visit, nearly everyone shut up and refused to talk about it, even after they’d previously described the entire event in great detail. Over the years, there have been differing reports about the details of what happened at Westall High School, such as people claiming there were not just one but three saucer-like objects in the sky that day. Some believe it was an alien encounter while others suspect the government had something to do with it.

In 1966, over 300 children and staff from a Melbourne school reportedly witnessed multiple UFOs silently flying through the sky before landing in a nearby field.

It is the largest mass UFO sighting in Australia, yet hardly anything was reported on it at the time.
Over the years, there have been differing reports about the details of what happened on April 6 at Westall High School, such as people claiming there were three saucerlike objects, while some thought there was just one.

In the 52 years since, there has been wide speculation about what people saw, with some believing it was an alien encounter and others pointing the finger at the government testing new technology.

Throughout all the years of speculation, however, one particularly interesting piece of audio has been greatly overlooked.

An American physicist known for his research into UFOs, Dr. James E. McDonald, conducted an interview with a science teacher from the Westall school, Andrew Greenwood, who witnessed the event.

He then recorded himself describing their meeting and the creepy details Mr. Greenwood gave about his experience. “Greenwood told me the UFO was first brought to his attention by a hysterical child who ran into his classroom and told him there’s a flying saucer outside,” Dr. McDonald said.

“He thought this child had become deranged or something so he didn’t take any notice, but when the child insisted that this object was in the sky he decided to go out and have a look for himself.”

When he went outside, he noticed a group of children looking toward the northeast area of the school grounds and as he approached them he claims he saw a UFO hovering close to the powerline.
Mr. Greenwood described it as a round, silver object about the size of a car with a metal rod sticking up in the air.

According to Dr. McDonald, the teacher then told him five planes came and surrounded the object as more people began gathering to watch the scene before them.

9:21 minute video/audio on Westall UFO Encounter

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Men in Black: Not Human

August 8, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Nick Redfern July 23, 2018 (mysteriousuniverse.org)

• Hollywood has successfully imprinted on society the idea that so-called “Men in Black” are agents of clandestine government or military programs, and therefore they must be human. In Nick Redfern’s research, most of the people who have been terrorized by MIB say that they are not human.

• In the early 1950’s, when Albert Bender began the whole MIB phenomenon with his book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men, he was confronted not by agents of the FBI, CIA, etc., but by grim-faced, shadow-like characters with shining eyes and who left behind them an odor of brimstone when they quite literally vanished.

• When John Keel was investigating sightings of the “Mothman” in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, he was flooded with accounts of encounters with both ‘Men and Women in Black’. They were often described as looking not quite human. Their skin resembled plastic. They wore wraparound sunglasses that only partially masked their oversized eyes. They were clearly unaware of our customs and manners. Some of them didn’t even know how to eat food or drink water.

• Some people who have encountered MIB have suddenly become ill. The MIB are able to place people under some form of mind-control, something which compels the targeted person to open the door and let them in, regardless of the time of day or night.

• It has also been reported that people have encountered MIB when they are on the hallucinogens mescaline and DMT. 1960’s voice-over actor Peter Beckman said that while on mescaline, MIB came into his living room. “They were dressed in square, Eisenhower-era cop-clothing, or FBI clothing – which in 1969, 1970 was not that unusual. They came in and sat on the couch. They were pale and sickly; their clothes hung real loose and they looked as though they might expire at any moment. They appeared to have either trouble breathing, or trouble being. I don’t believe they said a thing,” claimed Beckman. In another incident, people on DMT described how uninvited MIB seemed surprised that they could see them.

• MIB seemingly have the ability to invade peoples’ dreams and turn them into nightmares. There are even a few stories of MIB shapeshifting into the form of a large, black dog with glowing, red eyes.

Just a couple of nights ago – while I was promoting my latest book, The Black Diary – I was asked by a caller to the radio show why I “insist” on stating that the Men in Black are supernatural in nature, rather than “accepting” that they are the secret agents of a clandestine agency within government. The answer to that question is very simple: it’s the witness testimony which makes me come to the supernatural conclusion. I have always said that the most important people in the collective field of Forteana are not the writers, the researchers, the radio-hosts, or the TV producers. It’s the witnesses who are the most important. Time and time again I am approached by people who have been terrorized by the MIB. On only a small number of occasions do the witnesses describe the MIB as looking human. For the most part, they look anything but human.

I know all too well why so many people assume that the MIB are agents of governments, of military agencies, and / or of clandestine projects buried deep within the world of officialdom. It largely comes from the Men in Black movies, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Yes, the trilogy makes for fun viewing. But, by presenting the MIB as the agents of a classified organization, the makers of the movies instilled in the minds of many the image of the Men in Black being “secret agents.” But, the Hollywood portrayal is actually very different to what the witnesses tell us – and that’s a very important issue to be aware of.

It’s worth noting that the man who largely began the whole MIB phenomenon in the early 1950s – Albert Bender, of Bridgeport, Connecticut – was confronted not by agents of the FBI, CIA, etc., but by grim-faced, shadow-like characters with shining eyes and who left behind them an odor of brimstone when they quite literally vanished. Bender’s strange story – which comes across like something akin to H.P. Lovecraft meets The X-Files – is told in Gray Barker’s 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers and in Bender’s own book, Flying Saucers and the Three Men.

When, from 1966 to 1967, John Keel immersed himself in the wave of sightings of what became known as “Mothman” in the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, he was flooded with accounts of local encounters with both MIB and Women in Black. They were often described as looking not quite human. Their skin resembled plastic. They wore wraparound sunglasses that often only partially masked their huge, oversized eyes. They were clearly unaware of our customs and manners. Some of them didn’t even know how to eat food or drink water – as bizarre as it certainly sounds.

Things get even more disturbing: people who have encountered the MIB have fallen sick – and quickly, too. A kind of paranormal infection, we might say. The MIB are able to place people under some form of mind-control, something which compels the targeted person to open the door and let them in, regardless of the time of day or night. Witnesses to UFO activity who have been visited by the MIB talk of poltergeist activity occurring in the home – and in the immediate aftermaths of the MIBs’ vanishing acts.

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The UFO Sightings That Launched ‘Men in Black’ Mythology

August 4, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Justin Sablich July 20, 2018 (history.com)

• On June 27, 1947, Harold Dahl was boating on the Puget Sound near the eastern shore of Washington’s Maury Island when he saw six donut-shaped objects hovering about a half a mile above his boat. Suddenly, one of them fell nearly 1,500 feet raining metallic debris, some of which hit Dahl’s son, Charles, on his arm, as well as the family dog who didn’t survive. Dahl was able to take some pictures of the UFO with his camera which he later showed to his supervisor, Fred Crisman. A skeptical Crisman went back to the scene to look for himself and saw a strange aircraft with his own eyes.

• The following morning, Dahl was visited by a man in a black suit. At a local diner the man was able to recount in extraordinary detail what Dahl had just experienced. “What I have said is proof to you that I know a great deal more about this experience of yours than you will want to believe,” the man said, according to author Gray Barker’s 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Dahl was told not to speak of the incident, or else bad things would happen.

• Dahl and Crisman called Kenneth Arnold, a pilot who had his own UFO encounter on June 24, 1947 near Mt. Rainier, Washington, three days after the Maury Island incident. This touched off the ‘flying saucer’ sensation.

• The mention of the man in the black suit would evolve into a key obsession for UFO enthusiasts and spread into American popular culture, thanks to a comic-book series and a blockbuster movie trilogy on the ‘Men in Black’. MIBs typically show up to muzzle witnesses of paranormal phenomena. They almost always wear black suits and hats with dark sunglasses, drive black cars and arrive in groups of two or three. Sometimes the MIB will have supernatural features like glowing eyes and strange complexions.

• Dahl and Crisman reached out to a Chicago magazine in an attempt to sell their story. The magazine editor contacted Arnold, hoping he could help verify their account. Arnold summoned two Army A-2 Intelligence officers to aid in the investigation of Dahl and Crisman’s claim. Afterward, the intelligence officers left aboard a B-25 plane. The plane caught fire and crashed, killing both officers.

• In 1956, author Grey Barker wrote a book on the Maury Island incident and mentioned that, just as a man in a black suit met with Harold Dahl after the incident, three men in black suits also met with another UFO enthusiast named Albert K. Bender in 1953. This sparked the ‘Men In Black’ lore. Barker described Bender’s visitors as, “Three men in black suits with threatening expressions on their faces. Three men who walk in on you and make certain demands. Three men who know that you know what the saucers really are!”

• In 1962, Bender wrote his own book and described the MIB as follows: “They floated about a foot off the floor… They looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Homburg style. The faces were not clearly discernible, for the hats partly hid and shaded them… The eyes of all three figures suddenly lit up like flashlight bulbs… They seemed to burn into my very soul as the pains above my eyes became almost unbearable.” But Barker’s motives were questioned. UFO researcher Robert Sheaffer corresponded with Barker and found that Barker “did not take the MIB… very seriously.”

• Nevertheless, countless MIB encounters have been reported over the past 60 years, not to mention books and motion pictures on the topic.

It’s possible that the story of the Men in Black, the mysterious figures that would become the subject of fascination in UFO conspiracy circles and eventually break into mainstream popular culture, can be traced back to one day: June 27, 1947. It’s quite possible that it all started with a man, a boy and a dog on a boat.

As the story goes, Harold Dahl was on a conservation mission on the Puget Sound near the eastern shore of Washington’s Maury Island, gathering logs, when he saw six donut-shaped obstacles hovering about a half a mile above his boat. Before long, one of them fell nearly 1,500 feet, followed by raining, metallic debris, some of which hit Dahl’s son, Charles, on his arm, as well as the family dog, who didn’t survive the ordeal. Dahl was able to take some pictures of the aircraft with his camera, which he later showed to his supervisor, Fred Crisman. A skeptical Crisman went back to the scene to look for himself and saw a strange aircraft with his own eyes.

The following morning, Dahl was visited by a man in a black suit. They end up at a local diner, where the man was able to recount in extraordinary detail what Dahl had just experienced. “What I have said is proof to you that I know a great deal more about this experience of yours than you will want to believe,” the man said, according to author Gray Barker’s 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.

Dahl was told not to speak of the incident. If he did, bad things would happen.

The supposed events of Maury Island have continued to fuel conspiracy theories to this day, even though a U.S. government investigation deemed it a hoax after Dahl and Crimson later admitted as much. In particular, the mention of the man in the black suit would evolve into a key obsession for UFO enthusiasts and spread into American popular culture, thanks to a comic-book series and a blockbuster movie trilogy.

In all of their different incarnations, the Men in Black (MIB) usually have one main purpose: to muzzle witnesses of strange, paranormal phenomena. They almost always wear black suits and hats with dark sunglasses, drive black cars and arrive in groups of two or three. Some describe them as one would an FBI agent, while others recall the MIB as having strange appearances, sometimes with supernatural features like glowing eyes and strange complexions.

So how did we get from Harold Dahl to Will Smith?

“The transformation of the story from a first press report to a folkloric tale to a comic book and now to a film illustrates how the myth is transformed,” wrote Phil Patton in The New York Times around the time the first Men in Black movie was released in 1997. “That process is not unlike the children’s game of ‘telephone’ or what the literary critic Harold Bloom calls ‘innovation by misinterpretation.’ ”

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Bizarre Cases of the Men in Black Caught on Film

January 5, 2018
ExoNews Editor

by Brent Swancer December 24, 2017 (mysteriousuniverse.org)

• This article presents three instances where Men In Black have been photographed or video recorded. Men In Black are the creepy human-like people, typically men dressed in black suits or trench coats and sunglasses, who threaten and stalk people with information about UFOs. There seem to be both ordinary looking government-originated MIB and the weirder alien MIB.

• In 1968 in Jersey City, NJ, UFO researcher Jack Robinson and his wife, Mary, would often come home to find that the UFO files in their apartment had been ransacked. Mary began to notice a peculiar unemotional and zombie-like stranger, dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses, lurking and staring up at their window. Their friend, Tim Beckley, managed to get a photo (seen below). This is one of the first and clearest photos of an alleged Men in Black.

• In April 2012 at a Canadian hotel, a bellboy told his manager that two strange-looking men in black suits and hats had come the day before looking for the hotel manager who had taken the day off. They freaked everybody out, talking about governments and conspiracies. They had identical faces and no facial hair – no eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing. They looked like they wore wigs attached to their hats. Their large blue eyes never blinked. The hotel manager went to the security camera footage and, sure enough, found the MIBs’ images. (see video image below)

• A New Orleans man claimed that he’d encountered grey aliens as a kid, and ever since he’d been stalked by Men In Black. In April 2014, as he and a friend were waiting for a streetcar on a hot day, he again saw two MIBs dressed in their black suits, hats and sunglasses, loitering around the station staring at him like “twin lizards in suits”. They had oblong faces and a thin line for a mouth. They would lean in to communicate with one another, but never actually talk. Their whole vibe was cold and creepy. When the streetcar finally arrived they got into a black car parked next to the station and drove away. The man got a video of the MIBs. (see video image below) But when he sent the video file to a couple of friends, both of the friends’ phones inexplicably deleted the file.

For just about as long as the UFO phenomena has been around there has been the complimentary anomaly known as the notorious Men in Black. These phantom figures have long been reported to threaten and stalk certain eyewitnesses or those with insider knowledge of UFOs, usually warning them away from sharing what they have seen or know and always freaking them out. Reported from around the world, the Men in Black are typically almost universally described as being individuals, usually male, dressed in black suits or trench coats, often with sunglasses on even at night, mostly at least a bit odd-looking, and always displaying extremely bizarre behavior and mannerisms, and this is a phenomenon which my fellow Mysterious Contributor Nick Redfern has covered in far more detail than I intend to go into here. However, what has always intrigued me are the times when these frightening and creepy specters have actually been allegedly photographed or even filmed, and there are actually a few cases where this has allegedly happened. This is what I plan to delve into here, so let’s take a look.

Perhaps the earliest and best known purported image of a Man in Black comes from 1968, in Jersey City, in the United States, where a UFO researcher named Jack Robinson lived with his wife, Mary. The couple began to notice something strange going on when they would come home to find that their house seemed to have been searched or rummaged through, ransacked even, especially their files of the UFO phenomena, although there was never any sign of forced entry or burglary. Shortly after this, Mary claimed that she began to notice a peculiar stranger dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses lurking and loitering about the area of their apartment, who could sometimes be seen staring up at their window. This was all spooky to be sure, and the creeped out couple told a friend of theirs, Tim Green Beckley, about what was happening. My esteemed colleague Nick Redfern, an expert on the MIB phenomenon and author of numerous books on the matter including The Real Men in Black, talked about this stranger and what happened next in an interview with New Dawn Magazine, saying: “Mary said he had an unsettling look on his face, kind of unemotional and zombie-like. Mary happened to mention this to Tim and Jim, and because the guy appeared three days in a row, they decided to drive over early one morning and see if they could see the Man in Black for themselves. Sure enough, he was there, staring ahead, with the black sunglasses, long black coat, and enigmatic stare.”

Beckley allegedly came by one day when the enigmatic man was prowling about and managed to capture a photograph of him before he sauntered off and was gone. Although it is inconclusive to say the least, the resulting photograph is believed to be one of the first and clearest photos of one of the alleged Men in Black. What does this picture show? Is this really one of the Men in Black or just a guy in black clothes hanging out on the street? It is hard to say, and the authenticity of the photograph has been much discussed in UFO circles.

Perhaps even more impressive than this is a purported piece of video footage that is said to show two of the Men in Black, which surfaced in April of 2012 from the Aerial Phenomena Investigations Team. The incident allegedly began at a hotel in Canada, when the hotel manager was approached by one of his bellboys, who seemed to be rather unsettled about something and wanted to talk in private. He then claimed that two mysterious men dressed in black suits and trench coats had approached him, and he told the manager: “Something really weird happened here yesterday, and you weren’t here. There were a couple of guys looking for you. Well, this is really hard for me to say, but there were a couple of really strange looking men that were here, and they kind of freaked everybody out, and they were asking questions about you. And I said, ‘I’m sorry, he’s actually not working today’.”

The bizarre strangers were described as being very tall, and of exactly the same height, with very pale skin and generally looking “odd.” It was also noted that they appeared to have the same face, as if they were twins. The bellman claimed that the two strangers had not seemed to really believe that the manager wasn’t in at the time, and proceeded to look around the premises and question other employees, with one other hotel staff member who was approached saying of them: “They asked some questions about you, and they said strange things that I didn’t understand, and they were talking about governments and conspiracies, and none of it made any sense to me, but they were very, very scary. They had no facial hair, none. They had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing. Their hair looked like they had a wig on, like it was attached to their hat, like it wasn’t even real. And the scariest thing, their eyes were so big, and so blue, that they almost hypnotized me a little bit. These men, they didn’t blink. Not once did I see them blink.”

The hotel manager was a bit disturbed to hear all of this, but was still skeptical about the whole thing. He claims that he then went through the security footage to check it out and found exactly what had been described, with two strange men dressed in black entering the hotel through the front doors. Is footage this the real deal? If it is not a hoax, then who were these mysterious gentlemen and what did they want? Were these really the legendary Men in Black? We will probably never know.

Even more recent is a case of supposed photographic evidence of the Men in Black that came out in 2014, according to a UFOGrid report. In the report, two witnesses came forward to tell their tale of being harassed by the Men in Black in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the witnesses was identified by the alias Jack Smith, now in his 50s, who claims that he had been relentlessly stalked by a pair of the mysterious entities wearing identical black suits his whole life, which he surmised was due to encounters he had had with the “grey” aliens back in his youth. He says that ever since, he had been menaced by the Men in Black for decades, saying: “They have let me know that I could be found where ever I was. What was said to me was threatening and they have caused me to live in fear a lot of the time. I know the truth. My good, close friends know the truth, as well.”

On April 13, 2014, he claims that he and a friend were followed by the mysterious strangers, and that this time he managed to capture them on video staring directly at them. The day had started with Jack and his friend, Jane, going out for some sightseeing and lunch, and they found themselves waiting for a streetcar at the French Quarter’s Bienville Street station near Jackson Square. It was here where they would notice two weird looking men dressed in stuffy black suits despite the hot weather at the time, standing there milling about at the station, and Jane would say of them and their behavior: “I knew something was wrong immediately. They looked like identical twins. They were slim, and much taller than the average person. They were dressed in identical black suits, white shirts, skinny black ties, fedoras, and black sun glasses. They just looked so odd. They were pale, they were stiff, and they moved eerily in unison. They had oblong faces with a thin line for a mouth. Their whole vibe was cold and creepy. (They were) calm, but like how a reptile can appear calm. Twin lizards in suits. They leaned in simultaneously to communicate with each other. Their mouths opened slightly, but they were not talking. They were communicating something to each other, but not talking!”

The two strange men apparently waited there and repeatedly stared at Jack and Jane the entire time, but when the streetcar finally arrived after a 20-minute wait, the two men reportedly turned away and walked over to a shiny black car with a foreign license plate. The two then simply got into the vehicle and drove away. Jack had captured some of the encounter on his cell phone, and he would later relate to Jane what he thought they were, and although she was taken aback she had indeed seen it all herself so there was no denying that these were not ordinary people. Eerily, Jack later sent her the video footage he had taken, but Jane’s phone inexplicably deleted it, as well as all of the data on her SD card, which the cell phone company was unable to explain. The mysterious video also supposedly deleted itself off of another friend’s phone when Jack attempted to send it. Jack would finally send it to UFOGrid, telling them: “The thought of giving (the video) to anybody scares the hell out of me because when I tried to share it before bad things happened. The thought of what could possibly happen to me if I did release this…I honestly do fear for my life. This experience is awful. I can’t even begin to explain to you how awful it is. The very thought of stirring things up scares the heck out of me. I hope it can help someone that is struggling in silence because of MIB harassment. Whatever or whoever uses these [MIBs] to keep us in fear to control us, is despicable.”

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Russian PM not joking – extraterrestrials live among us according to MIB documentary

January 2, 2013
Michael Salla

Prime Minister Medvedev reveals extraterrestrials secrets in Russian MIB documentary

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevâ€™s off-air comments that Russian Presidents are given a secret file about extraterrestrials living among us created much media interest. Most news reports claimed that Medvedev was simply joking. His apparent reference to the Men In Black movie as a source of information on a super secret agency that monitors extraterrestrials on Earth was commonly cited as key evidence that he was in fact joking. Â The reasoning is that no political leader would refer reporters to a comedy to clarify national policy. It has now emerged that Medvedev was not referring to the Men in Black comedy after all, but to a recent Russian television documentary titled â€œMen in Blackâ€ that reveals many details about an extensive cover up of extraterrestrial life visiting Earth.

After completing an on-air interview with five television reporters on December 7, 2012, Prime Minister Medvedev continued to respond to reporters and made some off-air comments without realizing that the microphone was still on. He was then asked by one reporter if â€œthe president is handed secret files on aliens when he receives the briefcase needed to activate Russia’s nuclear arsenal,â€ Medvedev responded:

Along with the briefcase with nuclear codes, the president of the country is given a special â€˜top secretâ€™ folder. This folder in its entirety contains information about aliens who visited our planetâ€¦ Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our countryâ€¦ More detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called Men In Blackâ€¦ I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic.

After giving his detailed comments to the reporter on extraterrestrials, Medvedev was translated as follows in a Reuterâ€™s report: â€œMore detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called â€˜Men In Blackâ€™â€.Â The Reuters translation was used by a number of media sources in concluding that Medvedev was joking, and his comments needed to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, one reporter said:

â€¦ before Russian alien conspiracy theorists can say â€œtold you so,â€ the Russian PM quickly indicated that his comment was a joke. â€œMore detailed information on this topic you can get from a well-known movie called â€˜Men In Black,â€™â€ he said.

Another reporter subtitled his article: â€œRussian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev makes a crack about aliens, and conspiracists promptly lose their minds.â€

However, a more accurate translation of what Medvedev actually said about the Men in Black phenomenon was: â€œYou can receive more detailed information having watched the documentary film of the same name.â€Â So Medvedev was referring to a Russian â€œdocumentary filmâ€ titled Men in Black, not the Hollywood blockbuster by the same name. Since the Russian documentary was recent and not well known outside of Russia, most Western media accepted the Reuterâ€™s translation. The documentary was translated into English and released on Youtube on December 18, 2012.

Itâ€™s true that while Medvedev was giving his detailed response to a female reporterâ€™s question on extraterrestrial life, the reporter was broadly smiling, and other reporters could be heard laughing in the background. Yet Medvedev appeared very serious throughout his elaborate response, and did not appear to be joking. So was Medvedev referring to the Men in Black Hollywood comedy to, at best, reveal valid information to the reporter using dry humor? Or was Medvedev instead giving a candid admission about Russian Presidents being given a secret briefing paper on a secret agency created to monitor extraterrestrials living among us, and referring to a recent Russian documentary for the reporter to follow up?

In the Russian Men In Black (MIB) documentary, a number of prominent UFO cases in Russia and the USA are discussed. The Roswell UFO crash is covered, along with a number of extraterrestrial abduction cases, and UFOs disabling nuclear weapons facilities. The documentary examines testimony that extraterrestrial bases have been established on Earth, and that some are in restricted US military areas with the full knowledge of the Pentagon. The documentary even goes on to seriously discuss President Eisenhowerâ€™s alleged meeting with extraterrestrials, where agreements were reached with some of the visitors giving them permission to take some of the Earthâ€™s resources in exchange for advanced technology. If Medvedev wanted the female Russian reporter to explore some of the information he was revealing, then it makes sense that he was in fact referring to the Russian MIB documentary.

This leads to an incredible conclusion. If Medvedev was in fact referring to the Russian MIB documentary, then he was implicitly endorsing information that extraterrestrials have established bases on remote US military facilities with Pentagon approval. Even more startling is that Medvedev was endorsing the claim that President Eisenhower had in fact met with extraterrestrials, and reached agreements for advanced technologies to be traded for planetary resources. Initial media reports of Prime Minister Medvedevâ€™s off-air comments were simply unaware of a Russian documentary titled Men In Black, and wrongly concluded that he was referring to the MIB comedy. As the translated text of his comments now makes clear, Medvedev was referring to a Russian documentary exposing the Men in Black phenomenon, and was candidly advising the Russian reporter to investigate some of the claims found in it to learn about a worldwide cover up of extraterrestrials among us.

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Men in Black III â€“ Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight

May 28, 2012
Michael Salla

By Michael E. Salla, Ph.D.

Men in Black III Poster In Men In Black (MIB) III, an idea is presented in an outrageously comedic way. Extraterrestrial visitors live on our world and are monitored by a secretive governmental agency that hides the truth from the American public. The movie is based on stories circulating since the early 1950â€™s of mysterious MIB traveling around in dark suits in vintage cars, persuading people to be silent about their experiences concerning UFOs and alien life. MIB III is a highly entertaining comedy, and well worth the admission price. Yet upon leaving the movie theater, one naturally wonders if any of it could possibly be true? Does MIB III use comedy to hide the truth in plain sight?

The most effective way to hide something from others is to put it in front of them in such an outrageous way that they will ignore it. If you are an unfaithful husband wanting to hide the truth of your infidelity, you can hire your paramour as a personal secretary and travel with her to out-of-town business meetings required by your job. If you are a government and want to hide secrets from your citizenry that have, or are about to be exposed, you hire somebody to come forward and publicly reveal the â€˜secretâ€™ in such an sensationalist way that people will dismiss it as a lie. When the sensationalist account is revealed to be untrue the original secret is subsequently dismissed and discredited. Those genuinely exposing the secret in the first place, are now considered to be con artists and liars, and their supporters dismissed as foolish true believers. In the world of military intelligence, hiding the truth in plain sight is a time honored strategy used in psychological warfare operations.

It is a fact that psychological warfare has been used on the American public to hide the truth about possible extraterrestrial life visiting our world since the early 1950s. Most importantly, Hollywood and the movie industry have been a key part of this psychological warfare program. In January 1953, the CIA convened a panel to review evidence of flying saucers that the public increasingly believed were extraterrestrial in nature â€“ the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). Named after its chairman, Dr Howard Robertson, the Robertson Panel reviewed cases of flying saucers over a four-day period for a total of 12 hours and found none of them to be credible. Conclusions by the Panel were released in a document called the Durant Report. It recommended ridiculing the â€˜flying saucer phenomenonâ€™ and the possibility of extraterrestrial life, for national security reasons.

The Robertson panel recommended an â€˜educational programâ€™ to remove the threat posed by enemy nations exploiting the publicâ€™s belief in flying saucers. This â€œeducational programâ€ is where the movie industry is explicitly mentioned :

The Panelâ€™s concept of a broad educational program integrating efforts of all concerned agencies was that it should have two major aims: training and â€œdebunking.â€ â€¦The “debunking” aim would result in reduction in public interest in “flying saucers” which today evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles [emphasis added].â€¦ Such a program should tend to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda.

The Report issued by the Robertson Panel endorsed a government policy of using the movie industry to â€œeducateâ€ the public that there is no truth behind the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Yet, there have been a number of credible whistleblowers and witnesses that have come forward to reveal that extraterrestrial life is not only visiting us, but living among us!

Command Sergeant Major Robert Dean worked at NATOâ€™s Supreme Headquarters from 1963-1967, and during this time was stationed in the Operations Center with a Cosmic Top Secret clearance. He claims to have viewed a secret NATO study that was commissioned to analyze the threat posed by UFOs to NATO operations in Eastern Europe. The classified report was titled: â€œAn Assessment: An Evaluation of a Possible Military threat to Allied Forces in Europe.â€ It focused on the dangers of UFOs being mistakenly identified as an incoming ballistic missile attack from the Soviet Union. Dean claimed that the NATO study identified four different extraterrestrial civilizations visiting the Earth. He said that what really worried the NATO top brass was that some of the visitors looked so much like us that they were virtually indistinguishable. Dean says that NATO generals were paranoid over the possibility that some of the extraterrestrial visitors could be walking in the corridors of NATO or the Pentagon, or even the White House itself. In an interview Dean explained:

There was a human group that looked so much like us that that really drove the admirals and the generals crazy because they determined that these people, and they had seen them repeatedly, they had had contact with themâ€¦. These people looked so much like us they could sit next to you on a plane or in a restaurant and you’d never know the difference. And being military and being primarily paranoid, that bothered the generals and the admirals a little bit. That the fact that these intelligent entities could be involved with us, walking up and down the corridors of SHAPE, walking down the corridors of the Pentagon. My God, it even dawned on a couple of them that these guys could even be in the White House! Of course, as I said, being paranoid in those years it really shook things up a little bit.

Deanâ€™s testimony reveals official knowledge that extraterrestrials are living among the human population. His testimony demonstrates that official military and government agencies have been developing strategies for responding to extraterrestrial life among us. We get a better idea of the official strategy used to respond to extraterrestrials among from another whistleblower â€“ Ingo Swann.

Swann was the first psychic employed in the CIA’s remote viewing program that began in 1975: Project Star Gate. Swannâ€™s success rate was so impressive that by 1975 he was recruited by a covert government operative, â€œMr Axelrod,â€ to spy on extraterrestrials. Swann remote viewed extraterrestrials on the moon who had bases on the dark side. In later interviews and in his book, Penetration, Swann claimed that he viewed various structures on the surface and observed extraterrestrials near them who were able to breath unaided, thereby suggesting an atmosphere on the moon. Swannâ€™s remote viewing was confirmed by Axelrod who sent Swan a book by George Leonard describing similar structures he viewed on the moon using photographic analysis of NASA images. The success of Swann and Project Star Gate in delivering accurate remote viewing data to intelligence agencies quickly led to military agencies asking Swann to develop the necessary protocol for training military remote viewers. Swannâ€™s involvement with the covert activities of â€œMr Axelrodâ€ provides valuable evidence on extraterrestrials living among us.

In one incident, Swan describes how he was taken by Axelrod to a remote location, thought to be Alaska, where they traveled to a lake to view UFO activity. The goal was for Swann to psychically gain information on what the extraterrestrials were doing at what appeared to be a secret UFO base. Swann described in detail an incident involving a UFO coming out of a lake, drawing in some of the lakeâ€™s water, and expanding in size from a tiny spot into a large triangular vehicle. He passed on the psychic information to Axelrod before they quickly left the area in order to escape detection by the UFO. What is most remarkable in Swannâ€™s testimony about his covert work for Axelrod is a supermarket incident where he encountered a strikingly attractive female who he psychically intuited was extraterrestrial.

Swann claims that he was shopping in a Los Angeles supermarket when he noticed a very attractive, scantily clad female. He claims that his body physically began buzzing as he viewed her out of the corner of his eyes and intuitively received information that she was an extraterrestrial. At first dismissing the idea, he got independent confirmation of her extraterrestrial identity by observing her being followed by two of Mr Axelrodâ€™s operatives, also in the supermarket. Frightened by the presence of Axelrodâ€™s operatives Swann quickly exited the venue due to his fear of what might happen. Final confirmation that the female was extraterrestrial followed not long afterward when Axelrod phoned Swann to discuss whether the female had telepathically communicated with him. Axelrod had been told by his two operatives that Swann had been in the presence of the extraterrestrial and had possibly communicated with her. Axelrod was very worried about this possibility and Swann assured him that no telepathic communication had occurred. Investigative reporter Garry Bekkum describes what happened :

The renewed phone contact by Axelrod was far from ordinary. First Swann received a mysterious phone call from a female operative, directing him to a different phone. The call ended in dead silence, suggesting that the phone line had been cut and spliced into. Once he reached the designated phone, Swann engaged in a scrambled conversation with Axelrod, asking about the strange sexy woman in the supermarket. Axelrod warned, “I feel obliged to tell you that she is really dangerous.” Apparently Swann believed that Axelrod’s warning had confirmed his worst fear. Not only were extraterrestrials on the moon, but they had operatives here on Earth, among the ordinary people. If Axelrod was to be believed, they were to be avoided at all possible cost.

Axelrodâ€™s efforts to monitor the extraterrestrial female, his concern about Swann being in telepathic communication with her, and his warning that she was dangerous suggested that Axelrodâ€™s efforts were part of an official policy to prevent any ordinary civilians from fraternizing with extraterrestrials. The two operatives that followed the extraterrestrial bore a striking resemblance to one another and wore black suits. They appeared to be genuine MIBs.

Deanâ€™s and Swanâ€™s striking testimonies reveal that the core idea behind the Men in Black movie series is based not in fiction, but in fact. Extraterrestrials do live among us, and blend into human society as depicted in the three MIB movies. Also, there does exist a shadowy government agency â€“ embedded within the CIA and sister intelligence organizations from around the world – that is responsible for monitoring extraterrestrial life on our world. This shadowy government agency does employ individuals similar to those depicted in MIB to maintain public secrecy.

It is a fact that psychological warfare has been used to keep the truth behind the UFO/flying saucer phenomenon and the extraterrestrial hypothesis from the public. The movie industry has been a part of this secret effort. Scriptwriters and movie producers have been covertly recruited to assist the officially sanctioned government policy of educating the public that there is no truth to the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Yet whistleblowers and witnesses have come forward to reveal the reality of extraterrestrials among us. Men in Black III is a clever comedy that hides the truth in plain sight. Next time you go to a movie theater to watch a science fiction movie, donâ€™t take it for granted that the person sitting next to you is from this world.

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