It was in September 1953, that three agents of a silence group made their first in-person visit. Albert K. Bender, who had organized an international flying-saucer bureau, was their target.
According to ufologist Gray Barker, Bender had received certain data which he felt provided the missing pieces for a theory concerning the origin of flying saucers. Bender wrote down his thesis and sent it off to a friend he felt he could trust. When the three men appeared at Benders door, one of them held that letter in his hand.
The three men told Bender that among the many saucer researchers he had been the one to stumble upon the correct answer to the flying saucer enigma. Then they filled him in on the details. Bender became ill. He was unable to eat for three days.
UFO investigators Dominick Lucchesi and August C. Roberts called on Bender and encouraged him to break his silence concerning the mysterious men in black. "They were pretty rough with me," Bender told them, "Two men did all the talking and the other kept watching me all the time they were here. He didn't take his eyes off me."
Bender went on to say that when people found out the truth about flying saucers there would be dramatic changes in all things. Science, especially would suffer a major blow. Political structures would topple. Mass confusion would reign. Roberts
and Lucchesi kept chipping away at Benders wall of silence, but to most of their queries they received only a noncommittal "I cannot answer that".
In 1962, Bender declared that he would at last tell his story to the world in "Flying Saucers and the Three Men". This perplexing volume served only to confuse serious researchers, as it told of Benders astral projection to a secret underground saucer base in Antarctica that was manned by male, female and bisexual creatures. The question which remained to plague UFO investigators were many. Were Benders experiences really of a psychic nature? Was his book deliberately contrived to hide the true nature of his silencing? Had the whole experience been clothed in an extended metaphor that might yield certain clues to the perspective researcher?
On June 24, 1967, Dominick Lucchesi told the authors that Bender seemed to be a changed man after the three man in black had
visited him. "It was as if he had been lobotomized," Lucchesi said. "He was scared and later he suffered from tremendous headaches which he said were controlled 'them!' Whenever he would think about breaking his silence, one of his terrific headaches would just about knock him out."
"The three men shut him up and he stayed shut-up," August Roberts added. "Today Bender manages a motel in California. We still correspond, but he still refuses to discuss flying saucers."
"In my opinion," Lucchesi said, "the men in black are representatives of an organization on this planet, but they are not from any known bureau in our government. I believe both these men and the UFO'S come from some civilization which has flourished in a remote area of the Earth, such as the Amazon, the North Gobi Desert, or the Himalaya Mountains. It is possible that these are underground civilizations."
Within a few months after Bender had been silenced, John H. Stuart, a New Zealander, picked up a piece of metal that had fallen from a UFO during a close sighting in February, 1955. The next night he received a visit from a men dressed in black who announced that he had more right than Stuart did to the piece of grey-white metal. The man in black told Stuart a lot about flying- saucers, "...too much, maybe,
for my own personal safety," Stuart wrote Gray Barker.
"It is easy to understand why they told me what they did, it was meant to scare the hell out of me, - it did! I had plenty of fright in the last world war and I am the first to admit I was very scared after this 'gentleman' had left."
Some researchers feel that certain of their fellows may have ignored the threats of the silencers and paid the ultimate price for their bravery. Astrophysicist Morris K. Jessup, who had been vitally interested in UFO research, received an unusual series of letters concerning UFO'S, secret Navy experiments, disappearing ships, and invisible men, from a mysterious
correspondent who signed himself as Carlos Allende. The letters, postmarked from Texas and Pennsylvania, seemed important enough to the Office of Naval Research to form a special study group assigned to ferret out the mystery. Although official investigation seemed to bog down, Jessup pursued his independent research into the flying-saucer puzzle. The astrophysicist subsequently was found dead in his automobile outside a park in Florida, an alleged suicide.
In the late 1940s, Ray Palmer founded FATE magazine with Curt Fuller gave the UFO enigma its first big publicity push. The Air Force dubbed Palmer the "Father of Flying Saucers" and accused the editor-publisher of having fabricated the whole business to boost sales of his magazine. "I only wish I was that smart." said Palmer in 1967.
Today Ray Palmer edits Flying Saucers, Search and Space World from a small but impressive publishing company in Amherst, Wisconsin. Palmer is one researcher who has been involved in the UFO mystery from the beginning. In June 1947, Palmer sent businessman- pilot Kenneth Arnold, who "discovered" flying saucers, to Tacoma, Washington. There, Arnold became embroiled in the famous Mairy Island incident which, according to Palmer "ended in terror and disaster and the deaths of two fine Fourth Air Force secret-service officers"
The Maury Island affair was quickly written off as a hoax by Air Force investigators, but a cautious examination of Arnolds testimony indicates that there is a mystery inherent in the incident which cannot yet be solved. For one thing, the cast of characters for the strange drama includes at least two nearly omniscient men in black who antedate Benders visitors by six years.
Palmers name is also linked to Richard Shaver's bizarre "memories" of Lemuria, a cave world, Dero, rays, contrived train wrecks, mental control and ancient space ships.
If you ask Ray Palmers opinion about MIB (men in black), he will tell you that he considers the whole business a myth, a fiction. "I have been visited by every governmental intelligence agency in existence," Palmer said, "and have all presented proper credentials. I have never been visited by any MIBs or by anyone who threatened me. And if anyone should be a target for these visits, it should be me!"
"But what about the dero?" he was reminded. "In an issue of Search wrote that the dero (evil cave-culture aliens) once nearly got your life, that you live of perpetual and terrible pain, that never subsides for a second. You also wrote: 'I KNOW the dero are real, and I KNOW what they can do!'"
Palmer did not avoid the question, but he phrased his answer cautiously. "First of all, let me say that there is certainly something to the flying saucer mystery. But where do UFO'S come from? That's like asking where do we go when we die? There is no one answer and there is no easy answer and maybe several people have different answers and maybe they're all right! I think there are strong link-ups with psychism in the UFO mystery. I feel there is a great deal of psychic deception going on. But WHO is practising such deception - that is the problem!"
"My experience with the dero took place when I was still editing FATE in Evanston, Illinios. One night we had a very hard rainstorm and the drain in the basement plugged up. I was wading around in the water, trying to unstop the drain, when I suddenly felt myself being lifted high into the air. Helpless, I hung suspended for just a moment, then I was slammed down to the basement floor with great force. I was paralysed as a result of this attack and I most certainly do bear the effects of this paralysis to this day. I am not certain WHAT attacked me, but I am certain it was no accident."
In an "Open Letter to all UFO Researchers," which was published in an issue of SAUCER SCOOP, John Keel set forth his opinion that the MIBs are the intelligence arm of a large and possibly hostile group. After discussing various type of contact, Keel went on to say that he considered the MIBs to be professional terrorists ..." and among their many duties is the harassment of the UFO researchers who become too involved in cases which might reveal too much of the truth."
Keel's pursuit of the silencers has led him to uncover some extreme cases of personal abuse in whi
ch certain contactee's or investigators have been kidnapped by three MIBs in a black car. The researcher notes that "it is nearly always THREE men" who subject the victim to some sort of brain - washing technique that leaves him in a state of nausea, mental confusion, or even amnesia lasting for several days. "All such victims have a black eye when released," Keel writes, "which suggests that physical contact of a violent nature is a necessary part of the brainwashing treatment."
Keels "Open Letter" in SAUCER SCOOP concludes with words of admonition and warning: "We are now on a vicious merry-go- round and we are caught in the middle of this bizarre conflict. Contacts are being made... then suppressed... on a dizzying scale. Information is being gained... then lost... at an ever increasing pace. One of the ironies of all this is that no policeman in his right mind associates black cars, kidnappers, amnesia victims and black eyes with the UFO phenomena. Many of these cases never got beyond local police departments. Neither the FBI nor any other central government agency is engaged in collecting information on these aspects. Even local newspapers seldom take notice of these cases... since the victims are often children and teenagers... most newspapers make an effort to protect young people by suppressing "crime news" involving them.
"Because the official law-enforcement agencies are unwilling, or unable, to cope with this ever-growing situation, it becomes the responsibility of the private civilian investigator to collect and collate the full details on these incidents. The hazards of such investigations are obvious, but the job must be done. And it must be done fast, with courage and intelligence."
"All of this has been brought upon us because we have wasted years chasing lights in the sky and fussing with the Air Force. We have allowed a serious volatile situation to develop under our noses while we played with aimless speculations about the origin and nature of those rather insignificant vehicles overhead. We must switch our attention from the vehicles to the occupants. The menace is not in our skies. It is on the ground and is at this moment spreading like a disease across the country and the world."
In his address to the 1967 Congress of Scientific UFOlogists, Keel told of his personal mission to track down the silencers. He said that dark- completed mystery men had some times silenced saucer sightings BEFORE the witnesses had time to report the sighting. On occasion, Keel said, he has arrived on the scene within moments after the mysterious silencers had departed.
According to Keel, the MIBs visited and silenced eight whole communities in Washington in May 1967. Several homes in Long Island were unwilling hosts to the silencers in June. Keel also noted a large number of dog kidnappings occurring at the time the MIBs were calling upon saucer sighters.
"The UFO'S don't want us to know where they are from," Keel stated. "They have been lying to contactee's since 1897!" (Keel explained this reference by stating that the first man in black may have appeared in Texas in 1897 when, according to newspaper accounts, some "pottery" had fallen from a mysterious airship. The next day, a dark-suited man of "Oriental complexion" arrived in town and bought up the strange fragments.)
How does the United States Government feel about the silencers? "We have checked a number of these cases." Colonel P. Freeman, Pentagon spokesman for Project Blue Book was quoted as saying, "and these men are not connected with the Air Force in any way."
Nor will any other United States security group claim them. It has never been within the line of duty of any government agency to threaten a private citizen or to enter his home without permission or a search warrant. No government agent is empowered to demand surrender of private property by any law-abiding citizen.
Colonel Freeman went on to say that by posing as Air Force officers and government agents, the silencers are committing a federal offence.
"We would like to catch one," he told John Keel. "Unfortunately, the trail is always too cold by the time we hear about these cases. But we are still trying." Pursuit by government agencies has done little to slow down the activities of the silencers. In 1967, four bogus Air Force officers assembled policemen and civilians who had witnessed heavy UFO activity in Wanaque, New Jersey and told them that they "hadn't seen a thing." Sternly, the citizens of Wanaque were admonished not to discuss the sightings over the Wanaque Reservoir with anyone.
Californian Rex Heflin managed to take some highly interesting photos of a UFO while performing his duties with the highway department. A few days later Heflin was visited by a man bearing credentials of the North American Air Defence. The phony NORAD investigator demanded and received, Heflins original series of pictures.
In April, 1966, two Norwalk, Connecticut, schoolboys were pursued by a lowflying UFO. The next day a man appeared at the boys' school and introduced himself to the principal as a representative of a "government agency so secret that he couldn't give the name". The mysterious agent questioned the boys for nearly three hours.
Broadcaster Frank Edwards, now best known for his best selling FLYING SAUCERS - SERIOUS BUSINESS, made much of the official "plot" that had been set to silence him.
Before he became interested in UFO'S Edward had been conducting a highly successful radio show sponsored by the American Federation of Labour. He was warned to abandon the subject. Edwards persisted and was given his walking papers. In spite of the thousands of letters which protested the firing of Edwards and the silencing of his UFO reports, his ex- sponsors stood firm.
When reporters asked George Meany, President of the AFL, why Edwards had been dropped, Meany answered: "Because he talked too much about flying saucers!" Edwards said that he later learned that his constant mention of UFO'S had been irritating to the Defence Department and that that department had brought pressure to bear on the AFL.
Edwards was only temporarily silenced. He soon had in syndication a radio show that dealt almost exclusively with flying saucers and other phenomena. News of the sudden death of Frank Edwards stunned delegates assembled for the 1967 Congress of Scientific UFOlogists in New York Cities Hotel Commodore on June 24th. The date was a significant one. Twenty years before, Kenneth Arnold had made the UFO sighting near Mt. Rainier, Washington that gave the term "flying saucers" to our language. The thoughts of several flying saucer researchers turned at once to "the silencers."
"Edwards was warned to lay off UFO investigation" one delegate suggested. "He had been visited by the same three MIBs that shut up Albert K. Bender." "Nonsense!" said another. "Frank has been ill for six months. Besides that, he was overweight and working too hard. It was only natural that the heart of a man in his fifties would begin to feel the pace that Edwards was setting."
"Not true!" argued yet another ufologist. "Frank has never been ill. Check the obituary. It reads death was 'apparently' due to a heart attack. How many other researchers have died of an "apparent" something or other?"
Jack Robinson, assistant editor of SAUCER NEWS, said: "On two occasions an electronic-type voice, definitely not human, has told me to stop all saucer research. It sounded like the strange kind of "voice" that might be produced by a Voder machine. Each time the phone calls have come, the message has been the same: "Stop all saucer research."
Timothy Green Beckley, director of "Searchlight", a UFO news service, told us: "I have never received other than kook calls myself, but I am currently investigating two cases that involve dark- complexioned men who have silenced flying saucer sighters in Oregon and Texas."
Howard Menger, who claims to have been inside a flying saucer and to have talked with the aliens inside, said, "When I was living in High Bridge, New Jersey, in 1957, the men in dark business suits came to call on me. They flashed authentic looking credentials and claimed to be from a government bureau."
"They looked like like ordinary people. One wore glasses. They warned me to quit talking to me about flying saucers and to drop my research. We had quite an argument, and they claimed to have considerable power. Whether this was power of influence or of strange powers beyond those of ordinary people, I don't know. Eventually they left."
Menger went on. "These same MIBs have visited other researchers. They sometimes claim to be Air Force representatives or agents from various other governmental bureaus. They are definitely not affiliated with the Air Force or the government and these imposters have created a situation for which the Air Force is blamed.
"Both the Air Force and the CIA are taking a beating from public opinion on things done by these imposters. "These imposters visit people who have contacted or seen flying saucers. They come into a sighters or a contactee's home and take any films that might of been made of flying saucers. They state that the film will be developed by the government labs. When the imposters leave and the citizen never receives his film back, he blames the Air Force or the CIA!"
There will be many researchers, however, who will not be so quick to absolve the Air Force or government security agencies from all duplicity in the silencings of key UFO witnesses. In the October, 1966, issue of "Flying Saucers", Ray Palmer ran the story "Navy Claps Saucer Sighters in Psychiatric Ward!" This article detailed the plight of seaman Gary Steven Trent and Charles Lester Niblick, Jr., who were "reassigned" to Ward T-11 of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital after spotting UFO'S in the spring of 1966.
Recently, a number a researchers have been plagued by an unpleasant manifestation associated with the silencers that has come to be known familiarity as "the smellies"
Here is a typical case that occurred to a prominent ufologist in October, 1967. The entire family was seated in- front of the television set when their dog began to raise a rumpus, punctuated by "ungodly howls". The animal crawled on its belly, snarling, terribly frightened, yet instinctively compelled to protect the household. The dog jumped up, charged, was forced backward. The family was amazed. There was absolutely no visible thing that their dog could be attacking. Then came the "smelly" - a terrible stench that permeated the entire house in a sustained, nauseating "gas attack" lasting for about one minute. The odor was so powerful, that the family had all they could do to refrain from bolting outside and leaving their home to their unseen and savory invader.
Curse Of The Men In Black: Return Of The UFO Terrorists Page 5