The Real Men in Black

by Nick Redfern

  Greenfield’s final words on this matter are memorable. Indeed, they’re downright petrifying: “In some cases, it’s like we’re a source of food; they may be taking fear and, in simplistic terms, eating it.”

  Colin Bennett has also noted that the Men in Black seem to have very different lives from ours: “It appears fairly obvious to me that MIB are liminal manifestations as much as is Bigfoot. Like the UFO itself, the MIB and Bigfoot look like short media clips more than anything else. We can easily assume that any alien form may well have evolved into pure media, leaving behind mechanical traces perhaps millions of years ago. With such large animal cryptids as reported, there is no food swathe, no signs of nesting or breeding, no droppings, [no] signs of tribal fights, and—most important of all—no skeletal remains upon death, fatal injury, or illness.”

  “The Man in Black,” Bennett continues, “differs of course from, say, Bigfoot, in that the Man in Black takes a humanoid form [and] has a limited language, and an equally limited presence. But similar to Bigfoot, our Man in Black has no social background. Every single one of these animal and humanoid cryptids appears to be a limited simulation possessing a very short half-life, rather like a collection of discarded film-edits. We have, therefore, a detectable program at work here whose limitations are functions of its own psychosocial and dialectical resolution. The edits are the key to the program.”

  Bennett turns his attention to his own Man in Black encounter in London in the early 1980s: “The quick exits and entrances of the MIB are a good defense, of course. In my case our visitor made sure that I didn’t have time to form certain kinds of question whose answers might reveal the absence of true, live, human bio-complexity. I think he was reading me as my questions were forming in my head, and he got out quick.” He also notes, “We have to conclude therefore that our over-specialized, over-serious, predictable, and extremely limited Man in Black is capable only of producing very simple simulacra for a very short time.”

  As we draw to a close on this particular issue, it’s worth noting that in a letter to John Keel, Gray Barker wrote, “There is a method which I have used which has kept me relatively unbothered by the MIB syndrome.... If the reader is ever confronted by one of these strange people...don’t respond in fear. Most important, make some sort of joke! If you throw off their programming, they will be ‘short-circuited,’ so to speak, and will probably run screaming into the night or fade out like a motion picture would do” (Moseley 1967).

  Colin Bennett says of Barker’s words, “It sounds here as if Barker himself had had an MIB contact and had created a means of exorcising such things.” It also sounds very much like Barker was keenly aware of the reasons why the Men in Black were so reliant on fear and why it was so important for the witness not to provide them with the nourishment they have coldly craved for so long. Perhaps Barker took with him to the grave deep suspicions about the origins of the MIB that, nearly 30 years after his early passing, we’ll never know.

  16

  Tricksters

  Connected to the Tulpa is the ancient phenomenon of the Trickster. Chris O’Brien, one of the most learned scholars on this often-misunderstood subject, says, “It’s tough to define what the Trickster phenomenon is, but it’s the oldest archetypal symbol within the collective human unconscious. That’s why we have clowns; they do absurd things, and they’re a holdover from the original primordial Tricksters. And you absolutely have that element of absurdity in the Men in Black thing.”

  O’Brien concludes that the main role of the Trickster is to supply anti-structure and novelty within the culture or subculture, and to topple the status quo. In doing so it allows culture to move forward and creates room for growth, instead of being rigidly stuck in one particular control system.

  “And that,” says O’Brien, “can be in the form of anthropomorphizing animals. Or supplying technology is one of the primary things that comes through all the Trickster stories around the world. Like the introduction of agriculture and fishing nets, different aspects of technological development in many stories are supplied by Trickster elements. So, it’s not just one thing. It’s collectively inherited unconscious ideas, patterns of thought, images, or ideas universally present in individual psyche. That is my own definition. The main view is that the Trickster is static, it does not evolve, it is unconscious, and it is not self-aware. But I have attempted to refute that. I think it is evolving, it is not static and it is becoming self-aware, but it remains amoral.”

  Turning his attention specifically to the Men in Black, O’Brien observes that there are some major correlations with the Trickster phenomenon: “We’re dealing with individuals that seem to be sinister, but they’re not. It’s more of a suggestion about something that’s sinister, and then the MIB visit seems to lend something sinister to the UFO encounter. The Men in Black have become almost an archetypal symbol. We’re talking about something deeply rooted in our consciousness, starting with Barker and on to Keel. And I think these stories have gotten out to enough of a degree to actually create an archetypal figure in our collective consciousness. I think, with the MIB thing, it’s an under-investigated and under-appreciated element of the Trickster phenomenon.”

  Regan Lee has her own thoughts on the Trickster aspect of the Men in Black phenomenon: “One thing that strikes me about the Men in Black is that we have two concurrent ideas about who they are. There are the government agents, and then you have this other Men in Black phenomenon that goes way, way back—even centuries. So, I’m fascinated by these two different types, or timelines, of Men in Black. And although Men in Black are usually associated with UFOs, there are other stories that have little or nothing to do with UFOs—paranormal ones, where the MIB appear. Are they real entities? Could they be inter-dimensional?”

  Lee is inclined to think they may be something similar to what we would call Djinn. The Djinn (from which the word genie is derived) have their origins in Arabian folklore and the teachings of Islam, and are shape-shifting Tricksters that can be benign, hostile, or entirely neutral in nature. They can also be deceptively manipulative just for the thrill of it. “They appear to mess with us,” Lee says, “to interfere with us. Is this their idea of having fun? Maybe it’s more insidious, or a little bit of all of that. It goes beyond the government spooks; although there’s no doubt there are government spooks running around who may be pretending to be the real Men in Black. But the real Men in Black, they like to mess with us—like Tricksters. That’s their idea of a good time: mess with the humans.”

  Another legendary Trickster is the fairy of ancient Celtic lore. In contrast to the modern-day friendly, welcoming imagery many people associate with fairies—as beautiful, winged entities of small stature—in centuries long gone, these beings were perceived as having the potential to be downright deadly, cause mayhem and disaster in the home, steal newborn babies and replace them with crudely formed wooden effigies (modern-day alien abductions and extraterrestrial/human hybrids, perhaps?), and hold deep, long-lasting grudges. You may ask, So what does this particular brand of Trickster have to do with the Men in Black? Read on....

  “This is one of those stories that are purely anecdotal,” says Regan Lee of a very curious early 1970s MIB event she has investigated. “It happened years ago; there’s no evidence and certainly no proof. Dates and times are non-exact; witnesses, except for the one who shared the following with me, are not to be found. But there’s one thing within this story that is very peculiar, as we’ll see.” The location was the Owens Valley in Eastern California, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, on what was described by the witness as a “hippie commune.” The area was remote, and as Lee notes, “No one wore a suit, if they even owned a suit. This detail is important” (Lee 2010).

  The UFO sighting that invited the Men in Black to come calling was a typical one: Lee’s friend, along with two other witnesses, was driving on a nearby highway at night, when they were all witness to a very large UFO in the night sky. It had “large white l
ights that went all around,” as Lee’s friend worded it. They watched the device in the sky above them for a few moments, until it zoomed off (Lee 2010). “My friend doesn’t remember if they told anyone of the sighting,” Lee adds, ‘but [she] doesn’t think they did. None of the witnesses thought to call any agency to report it; for one thing, they really had no idea who to call, and for another, this was in the early 1970s, and self-described hippies calling in a UFO sighting to an official agency just didn’t occur to them” (Lee 2010).

  Nevertheless, this lack of reportage didn’t faze the Men in Black: They were soon on the scene. Only a couple of days after the encounter, two men appeared at the commune. At the time, Lee’s friend was alone with her children; everyone else was gone, off to work or running errands. Lee says that his friend “described the men as wearing business suits, which struck her as extremely odd. No one in that area wore suits; the thought of men driving around in a remote area, in suits, was just plain weird. They showed her [some] ID, she’s pretty sure, but doesn’t remember what agency they said they were from. But she was a young woman, living a counter-culture lifestyle out in the middle of nowhere, and two official men in suits arrive at her door. Easy to see how she could be a little flustered and intimidated. She took their word that they were who they said they were” (Lee 2010).

  The MIB quickly got to the point and began asking probing questions about her UFO encounter, which in itself was very curious, as she had chosen not to mention the incident to anyone. Then the questions became bizarre. The Men in Black wanted to know if she, or anyone else on the commune, had noticed anything different, or unusual, about the way “the milk from the animals” tasted.

  “When I heard that, I knew I had something important, “Lee says. “I had never heard of that question being asked before in the context of UFO encounters, and my first thought was a connection between this sighting and cattle mutilations. I asked my friend if she was aware of any cattle mutilations in the area at the time; I’m not sure she understood what I was talking about exactly. But she agreed that was a very weird question to be asked” (Lee 2010).

  When Lee shared this story with me in November 2010, I quickly realized that the line of questioning developed by the Men in Black might have had far less to do with cattle mutilations and far more to do with matters of a specifically Trickster nature. I told Lee in an e-mail, “Do a Google search on ‘fairy + sour milk’ and you’ll see how the two go together. This could, perhaps, place these MIB in a definitively paranormal or Trickster realm. Within English folklore there is the legend of the Boggart—a malevolent entity that had a particular, unfathomable penchant for souring milk. Scotland has the equally milk-hating Bogle. And within Latvian culture we hear of the Lauma, a beautiful woman who steals babies and maliciously taints milk.”

  Take note of the following from John Keel: “The fairy lore of the Celtic countries is also filled with tales of Men in Black. In fact, part of the fairy belief includes fairies who are the size of normal men and who walk almost unnoticed among humans except for their black clothing. Like their smaller counterparts, they were said to be great mischief-makers” (Beckley 1990).

  Lee adds, after reviewing the relevant data from fairy legend: “If we consider aliens and the UFO phenomena to be within this fairy realm of Trickster magick and the paranormal, along with the mythic veneration of the cow as a sacred being/deity, and government MIB as shadowy figures representing another realm, we see that [we are] definitely on to something. There are abundant clues in this context of the UFO phenomena, or at least some aspects of it, as transcending just nuts-and-bolts, aliens-from-another-planet explanation, and placing it in the paranormal realm” (Lee 2010).

  Are the MIB Trickster-style entities that, for their own obscure reasons chose to upgrade an ancient motif straight out of the fairy world for a modern audience? Or are they government agents concerned about dastardly aliens poisoning the nation’s supply of milk? Both scenarios sound bizarre in the extreme. Or perhaps absurd would be a more appropriate word.

  Many years ago, Timothy Green Beckley was told by Gray Barker of an MIB encounter that occurred in Arko, Utah. The witness was a schoolboy, one Robert McCallister, who on the day at issue was roaming around his local woods when he stumbled upon a relatively small, circular-shaped device, hovering approximately 6 feet off the ground in an isolated clearing. Suddenly three tall, unusual-looking men appeared—as did a silver-haired character, sitting atop a floating chair, no less—who invited McCallister for a tour of the compact flying saucer.

  Intriguingly, just like one of Mary Hyre’s several Men in Black that appeared at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the 1960s, the presumed alien seemed fascinated by a ball-point pen sticking out of McCallister’s pocket, which the boy subsequently offered to the enigmatic figure as a gift. Seemingly very pleased—far too pleased, it might be argued—the man, in turn, gave McCallister a present of a small, black, plastic-like tube. Then McCallister was motioned to leave the craft and keep his distance—which he did—as it soon took to the skies and vanished. It was only later that McCallister realized the priceless artifact had mysteriously vanished from his pocket. Author Jacques Vallee explains the relevance in the fairy realm of this type of encounter: “...centuries-old folklore is replete with tales of people who claimed to have visited the realm of the fairies and who tried to bring back with them a souvenir, only to be thwarted, in one form or another, from doing so at the last minute” (Vallee 1970). Such experiences, in times past, often occurred in isolated clearings deep in the woods—just like that of McCallister.

  But why was McCallister in the woods in the first place? He was laying traps to catch coyote. It so transpires that within Native American cultures the coyote is one of the most celebrated of all the many and varied Tricksters. A shape-shifter, a jester, a messenger, and more, the coyote is often a thief too. A ball-point pen may not seem like much, but—just like Mary Hyre’s Man in Black—McCallister’s mysterious man seemed mighty happy indeed to get his hands on that little innocuous item. And, in the process, he ensured that, ultimately, his gift to McCallister vanished.

  Also relevant to the Trickster angle of the MIB phenomenon is the experience of Peter Rojcewicz, who, in 1980, was confronted by a Man in Black in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, when he just happened to be researching for his PhD thesis in folklore. Out of the blue, and just as the library seemed curiously and ominously absent of anyone else, appeared a tall, thin man, demonstrating somewhat of a European accent, dressed in the now-familiar color. A conversation began that, given Rojcewicz’s folkloric connections, hit upon UFOs. The man inquired of Rojcewicz if he thought UFOs were a reality, to which Rojcewicz offered that he was far more interested in such things from a folkloric perspective. This did not go over well at all. The Man in Black became irate, and stressed how significant the whole UFO phenomenon was. After Rojcewicz tried to calm the Man in Black, he simply placed a hand on Rojcewicz’s shoulder, and suggested in curious words that Rojcewicz should go well in his purpose. That Rojcewicz—after meeting the strange Man in Black—ultimately went on to become a department chair and professor of humanities at the Juilliard School, and a dean at the School of Holistic Studies at the John F. Kennedy University, is, perhaps, evidence of the way in which, as Chris O’Brien words it, the Trickster “allows culture to move forward, and create room for growth.”

  There’s still further evidence of Trickster-style shenanigans when it comes to the MIB. When I was close to concluding my interview with Jim Moseley about his views on Albert Bender’s claims of being visited by the Men in Black in the early 1950s, Moseley practically shouted down the telephone to me: “This is funny... there’s something wrong with the phone here! The longer I talk the more static I get!” Perhaps the souls of Barker and Keel decided to turn the tables, and duly partook in a few tricks from the other side on Moseley. Or maybe the Men in Black—so keen on playing disruptive games with our telephones—were engaging in a few Tric
kster-like shenanigans of their own. Given that Moseley is skeptical of much of the MIB lore, possibly, in their own unique way, the Tricksters were trying to tell him that he should not be quite so skeptical after all.

  Colin Bennett has one last thing to say of his 1982 encounter with a Man in Black in a London apartment: “Here I have a confession to make. At this time, I had a play of mine being performed at the London Institute of Contemporary Arts. The title of my play was ‘All Along the Watchtowers’ and it was about UFOs and Men in Black.” That Bennett should have personally encountered a Man in Black at the same time that his stage production was in full swing is surely indicative of a Trickster’s manipulation.

  Raven Meindel’s 2008 experience with the Men in Black also displays evidence of a Trickster’s presence. Recall her words on what she was doing when her two MIB happened on the scene: “I was outside playing with a Frisbee with a neighborhood kid. The Frisbee was called an Alien Flyer, which had an alien face on it, which I thought was a very odd synchronicity.”

  Whatever the case, the joke is always on us. The key is to try and understand what the joker, or the Trickster, in its own oblique way, is telling us.

  17

  Civilian Investigators

  Certainly not all Men in Black can be considered Tulpas or Tricksters. Evidence suggests that the overall phenomenon may have multiple, wildly varying origins. Let us now turn our attentions to one of the most obvious angles; namely, that certain cases are borne out of nothing stranger than misidentification. Although I do not personally believe that this can satisfactorily explain all the MIB cases presently on record—or even a large number of them—it may very well offer answers to a few incidents that have gained a degree of legendary status. Speaking of this aspect of the MIB puzzle, Jim Moseley says, “One thing you need to know about is NICAP.”