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.
The term is generic, as it is used for any unusual, threatening or strangely behaved individual whose appearance on the scene can be linked in some fashion with a UFO sighting. [1] Several alleged encounters with the men in black have been reported by UFO researchers and enthusiasts. The "MIB" supposedly appeared throughout different moments in history.
Stories about men in black inspired the science fiction comedy franchise Men in Black, and an album by the Stranglers.
Folklorist James R. Lewis compares accounts of men in black with tales of people encountering Lucifer, and speculates that they can be considered a kind of "psychological trauma". [2]
Men in black feature prominently in ufology, UFO folklore, and fan fiction. In the 1950s and 1960s, ufologists adopted a conspiratorial mindset and began fearing they would be subject to organized intimidation in retaliation for discovering "the truth of the UFOs." [3]
In 1947, Harold Dahl claimed a man in a dark suit warned him not to discuss his alleged UFO sighting on Maury Island. In the mid-1950s, ufologist Albert K. Bender claimed he was visited by men in dark suits who threatened and warned him not to continue investigating UFOs. He maintained that the men were secret government agents tasked with suppressing evidence of UFOs. Ufologist John Keel claimed to have had encounters with MIB and referred to them as "demonic supernaturals" with "dark skin and/or 'exotic' facial features." According to ufologist Jerome Clark, reports of men in black represent "experiences" that "don't seem to have occurred in the world of consensus reality." [4]
Historian Aaron Gulyas wrote, "During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, UFO conspiracy theorists would incorporate the MIB into their increasingly complex and paranoid visions." [3]
Keel has argued that some MIB encounters could be explained as entirely mundane events perpetuated through folklore. In his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies , he describes a late-night outing in 1967, where he was taken for an MIB while searching for a phone to call a tow truck. [5]
In his article "Gray Barker: My Friend, the Myth-Maker," John C. Sherwood claims that, in the late 1960s, at age 18, he cooperated when Gray Barker urged him to develop a hoax—which Barker subsequently published—about what Barker called "blackmen", three mysterious UFO inhabitants who silenced Sherwood's pseudonymous identity, "Dr. Richard H. Pratt." [6]
The 1976 Blue Öyster Cult song "E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)" contains the line: "Three men in black said, 'Don't report this.'" Their 1983 song "Take Me Away", about the singer's desire to leave Earth with "good guy" aliens, has the line: "The men in black, their lips are sealed." [7]
In 1979, British punk rock and new wave rock band The Stranglers recorded a song entitled "Meninblack" for their album The Raven , released that year. In 1981, their concept album The Gospel According to the Meninblack featured alien visitations to Earth. [8]
James T. Flocker's 1979 film The Alien Encounters included Men in Black who harass a UFO investigator portrayed by Augie Tribach. [9]
The 1984 film The Brother from Another Planet features two Men in Black who try to capture the alien hero. One is played by the film's director, John Sayles. [10]
The 1995 album Masquerade (Running Wild album), by the band Running Wild (band) has song called Men in Black. The song tells about a UFO sighting and the arrival of the Men In Black and the covering up of the sighting.
The 1997 science-fiction film Men In Black , starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, was loosely based on The Men in Black comic book series created by Lowell Cunningham and Sandy Carruthers. [11] Cunningham got the idea for the comic when he and a friend saw a black van on the street and his friend joked about government "men in black". [12]
The video game franchise Half-Life features a character known as the G-Man, widely regarded as being inspired by urban legends associated with the men in black.
The Mothman Prophecies is a 1975 book by John Keel.
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.
John Alva Keel, born Alva John Kiehle, was an American journalist and influential ufologist who is known best as author of The Mothman Prophecies.
The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon near Roswell, New Mexico was actually caused by an extraterrestrial spacecraft. 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.
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.
Eduard Albert Meier, commonly nicknamed "Billy", is the founder of a UFO religion called the "Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien" and alleged contactee whose UFO photographs are claimed to show alien spacecraft. Meier claims to be in regular contact with extraterrestrial beings he calls the Plejaren. He also presented other material during the 1970s such as metal samples, sound recordings and film footage. Meier claims to be the seventh reincarnation after six prophets common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Enoch, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Immanuel (Jesus), and Muhammad.
Men in black, in American popular culture and in UFO conspiracy theories, are men dressed in black suits who claim to be government agents who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen.
The Gospel According to the Meninblack is the fifth album by English rock band the Stranglers, an esoteric concept album released 9 February 1981 on the Liberty label. The album deals with conspiratorial ideas surrounding alien visitations to Earth, the sinister governmental men in black, and the involvement of these elements in well-known biblical narratives. This was not the first time the Stranglers had used this concept; "Meninblack" on the earlier The Raven album and subsequent 1980 single-release "Who Wants the World?" had also explored it.
Paul Frederic Bennewitz, Jr. was an American businessman and UFO investigator. According to multiple sources, Bennewitz was the target of a government disinformation campaign that ultimately led to his psychiatric hospitalization.
The Mothman Prophecies is a 2002 American supernatural horror-mystery film directed by Mark Pellington, and starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney. Based on the 1975 book of the same name by parapsychologist and Fortean author John Keel, the screenplay was written by Richard Hatem.
The Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter was a claimed close encounter with extraterrestrial beings that occurred near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, United States during the night and early morning of August 21-22, 1955. UFOlogists regard it as one of the most significant and well-documented cases in the history of UFO incidents, while skeptics say the reports were due to "the effects of excitement" and misidentification of natural phenomena such as meteors and owls. The United States Air Force classified the alleged incident as a hoax in the Project Blue Book files.
Nicholas Redfern is a British best-selling author, journalist, cryptozoologist and ufologist.
The Val Johnson Incident refers to an alleged UFO encounter by Marshall County, Minnesota Deputy Sheriff Val Johnson in 1979.
James Willett Moseley was an American observer, author, and commentator on the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Over his nearly sixty-year career, he exposed UFO hoaxes and engineered hoaxes of his own. He was best known as the publisher of the UFO newsletters Saucer News and its successor Saucer Smear, which became the longest continuously published UFO journal in the world.
Gray Barker was an American writer best known for his books about UFOs and other paranormal phenomena. His 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers introduced the notion of the Men in Black to ufology. Recent evidence indicates that he was skeptical of most UFO claims, and mainly wrote about the paranormal for financial gain. He sometimes participated in hoaxes to deceive more serious UFO investigators.
Mothman, in West Virginian folklore, is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register, dated November 16, 1966, titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States. The source of the legend is believed to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons.
Mac Tonnies was an American author and blogger whose work focused on futurology, transhumanism and paranormal topics.
Albert K. Bender, author of the 1962 nonfiction book Flying Saucers and the Three Men, was a ufologist. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He was obsessed with the UFO phenomenon and became a UFO researcher, founding the International Flying Saucer Bureau. In 1965, he founded the Max Steiner Music Society, dedicated to the eponymous composer.
They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers is a 1956 book by paranormal author Gray Barker. It was the first book to allege that "Men in Black" were covering up the existence of flying saucers.