In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are government agents dressed in black suits, who question, interrogate, harass, threaten, allegedly memory-wipe or sometimes even assassinate unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have seen. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as various branches of government allegedly tasked with protecting secrets or performing other strange activities.
An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UAPs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
UFO conspiracy theories are a subset of conspiracy theories which argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects are controlled by a non-human intelligence or built using alien technology. Such conspiracy theories usually argue that Earth governments are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrial visitors despite public disclaimers, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction.
The Roswell incident is a collection of events and myths surrounding the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon near Roswell, New Mexico. Operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon was intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines but was retracted within a day. Obscuring the true purpose and source of the crashed balloon, the Army subsequently stated that it was a conventional weather balloon.
The Kecksburg UFO incident occurred on December 9, 1965, at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, United States, when a fireball was reported by citizens of six U.S. states and Canada over Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Astronomers said it was likely to have been a meteor bolide burning up in the atmosphere and descending at a steep angle. NASA released a statement in 2005 reporting that experts had examined fragments from the area and determined they were from a Soviet satellite, but that records of their findings were lost in 1987. NASA responded to court orders and Freedom of Information Act requests to search for the records. The incident gained wide notoriety in popular culture and ufology, with speculation ranging from extraterrestrial craft to debris from the Soviet space probe Kosmos 96, and is often called "Pennsylvania's Roswell".
Dulce Base is the subject of a conspiracy theory claiming that a jointly-operated human and alien underground facility exists under Archuleta Mesa on the Colorado–New Mexico border near the town of Dulce, New Mexico, in the United States. Claims of alien activity there first arose from Albuquerque businessman Paul Bennewitz.
The mystery airship or phantom airship was a phenomenon that thousands of people across the United States claimed to have observed from late 1896 through mid 1897. Typical airship reports involved nighttime sightings of unidentified flying lights, but more detailed accounts reported craft comparable to an airship or dirigible. Mystery airship reports are seen as a cultural predecessor to modern claims of extraterrestrial-piloted UFO's or flying saucers.
The Rendlesham Forest incident was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, in December 1980, which became linked with UFO landings. The events occurred just outside RAF Woodbridge, which was used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF). USAF personnel, including deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, claimed to see things they described as a UFO.
The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) is a US-based non-profit organization composed of civilian volunteers who study reported UFO sightings. It is one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind, claiming more than 4,000 members worldwide with chapters and representatives in more than 43 countries and all 50 United States. The organization has been criticized for its focus on pseudoscience, and critics say its investigators fail to use the scientific method.
Sightings is an American paranormal and news television show that first aired in the 1990s. The show began on October 17, 1991, as a special titled The UFO Report: Sightings. It was followed by the follow-up reports, Ghost Report and the Psychic Experience. The creator and supervising producer of the initial episode, produced by Paramount for Fox TV, was Linda Moulton Howe. One of her episodes was A Strange Harvest, about the worldwide animal-mutilation mystery linked to extraterrestrial beings.
Nick Pope is a media commentator and former civil servant. Whilst an employee at the British Government's Ministry of Defence (MoD), Pope was responsible, among other duties, for investigating UFO phenomena to determine if they had any defence significance.
Robert Sheaffer is an American freelance writer and UFO skeptic. He is a paranormal investigator of unidentified flying objects, having researched many sightings and written critiques of the hypothesis that UFOs are alien spacecraft. In addition to UFOs, his writings cover topics such as Christianity, academic feminism, the scientific theory of evolution, and creationism. He is the author of six books.
Joseph A. Citro is a Vermont author and folklorist who has extensively researched and documented the folklore, hauntings, ghost stories, paranormal activity and occult happenings of New England.
In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, further asserting the post-war survival of these craft in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States, along with their creators.
There are a number of planetary objects proposed in religion, astrology, ufology and pseudoscience whose existence is not supported by scientific evidence.
"E.B.E." is the seventeenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on February 18, 1994. It was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, and directed by William Graham. The episode introduced the recurring characters of The Lone Gunmen, played by Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund and Tom Braidwood; and saw Jerry Hardin reprise his role as Deep Throat. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "E.B.E." earned a Nielsen household rating of 6.2, being watched by 5.8 million households in its initial broadcast; and received positive reviews from critics.
Mac Tonnies was an American author and blogger whose work focused on futurology, transhumanism and paranormal topics.
Jan Udo Holey, and often known by his pen name Jan van Helsing, is a controversial German author who embraces conspiracy theories involving subjects such as world domination plots by freemasons, Hitler's continuing survival in Antarctica following World War II, the structure of the earth as hollow, and others. His theories draw from sources such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
"The Castle" is the ninth and penultimate episode of the second season of the FX anthology series Fargo, and the nineteenth episode of the series overall. It was written by series showrunner Noah Hawley alongside Steve Blackman and directed by Adam Arkin.
The Twin Falls saucer hoax was a hoaxed flying disc discovered in Twin Falls, Idaho, United States, on July 11, 1947. Amid a nationwide wave of alleged "flying disc" sightings, residents of Twin Falls reported recovering a 30 in (76 cm) "disc". FBI and Army officials took possession of the disc and quickly proclaimed the object to be a hoax. Press reported that local teenagers admitted to perpetrating the hoax.
