Weird 'subsets' of the Men In Black

Noted author and UFOlogist John Keel, best known for his Mothman investigation, has by far some of the most fascinating reports I've ever read. British cryptozoologist and UFOlogist Nick Redfern is apparently following in Keel's footsteps when it comes to investigating high strangeness.
The men in black subject is an absolute mind blower. It just goes on, getting weirder as you go!
Keel investigated the men-in-black phenomena in depth. He actually cataloged 'subsets' of the MIB. There were phantom photographers and reporters, phantom census takers, and repairmen and utility workers.

In the early 1970s, there were 'phantom meter-readers' appearing in U. S. midwestern suburbs. Keel attempted to at least get an idea who might be behind this weird 'program'. Why did they visit certain homes? What where they looking for? Keel never found a clue, but said it could have been a government op. CIA? But why?

Excerpt from one of Keel's lectures (late 1980s)

Another strange occurrence which could be classified as MIB is that of the "Phantom Meter Readers" which is when a man dressed in coveralls would knock on the door of a house in the suburbs and say he'd come to read the electric or gas meter. He'd go down into the basement and not come out. Eventually, after hours had passed the owners of the house would go check on him. Sometimes the man would be gone all together never to be seen again even when there was no way out of the basement. Other times the man would be just starting up the stairs as they opened the door.


Here's a short documentary of these phantoms that Keel describes.
(Forward to 5:55)

I've never seen any, although my circle of friends includes some weirdos so maybe Men in Black don't seem all that odd to me. Also, since I've never had a very definitive UFO sighting, it's unlikely that I would be visited.

Anyway, more gist for the mill of "people and objects that don't quite exist completely in our reality."

great investigator!
will be missed

a reply to: ColeYounger

Yes! Love the MIB stories, just super creepy. I enjoyed your write-up and look forward to watching the video.

Thanks for posting!

originally posted by: Blue Shift
I've never seen any, although my circle of friends includes some weirdos so maybe Men in Black don't seem all that odd to me. Also, since I've never had a very definitive UFO sighting, it's unlikely that I would be visited.

Anyway, more gist for the mill of "people and objects that don't quite exist completely in our reality."

Shhhhh!!

It is what drives one of the largest industries on the planet. Entertainment. If people didn't believe in crazy crap much much money would be lost! You don't want to crash the economy do you?

Hell, there is many subsets to this industry too There are ghosts, bigfoot, mothman, ancient aliens as well as recent aliens. There was even a drop off on interest in recent aliens and viola! 3 new videos released by the Pentagon which no longer call them UFOs but now UAPs. This isn't even scratching the surface of other subsets like the Kardashians, Honey Boo Boo, and Donald Trump! Too many to name!

So you better hush or you will start to erode the foundation in which it is all built upon and cause the demise of us all!

Believe in whatever crazy crap you choose or you will not have to pick your poison after all. It will be chosen for you...

You know in thinking about this subject, I think it has been awhile, maybe a long while, since we have heard of people having seen things they can't explain to be followed up with infamous visits by the Men in Black. I can't think of any recent sightings, can anyone else?

a reply to: data5091

That's a good point.

I thought the MIB were secret government agents. I never thought they could be ETs themselves

originally posted by: Kalixi
a reply to: data5091

That's a good point.

I thought the MIB were secret government agents. I never thought they could be ETs themselves

It would seem to be the case in some instances that the MIB thing could be non-human in nature, but in many of the reported cases in would seem that the US Navy are being misidentified as MIB. Most likely due to their winter uniforms.

This being said, there are a few cases that also shows a group of MIB that clearly weren't humanistic in behavior or appearance.

I looked into a few of these MIB cases while doing my research on the Shadow People Phenomenon.

a reply to: Guyfriday

This being said, there are a few cases that also shows a group of MIB that clearly weren't humanistic in behavior or appearance.

Keel said a few people told him they thought the MIB were from "another country", because they looked and acted so weird. One woman said that she offered the 2 MIB cake and coffee, and they "didn't know what it was". One of them held the cake up to his mouth, and appeared to try to somehow 'drink it' or assimilate it. He didn't open his mouth at all and attempt to eat it. How weird is that????

As I said, the more you look into the MIB subject, the weirder it gets.

Forward to about 22:10

a reply to: ColeYounger

i remenber an report from 1994 i think of a couple of two *ahem* weird """midgets""" entering an pizza fast food place and the bizzare thing beside their weird large eyes, was the fact they dint know what an pizza was! they keep asking the cashier about their order, giving the excuse of being from another country wich dint have pizzas.
no i aint joking, i think it appeared first in an mufon newsletter or something

a reply to: ColeYounger

Men in Black, another joke product to satisfy the gullibles' need to be fooled.

Men in Black (1934 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Men in Black is the third short film released by Columbia Pictures in 1934 starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard). The comedians released 190 short films for the studio between 1934 and 1959.

From Wikipedia
Ufologists[edit]
Men in black figure prominently in ufology and UFO folklore. In the 1950s and 1960s, UFOlogists adopted a conspiratorial mindset and began to fear they would be subject to organized intimidation in retaliation for discovering "the truth of the UFOs".[3]

In 1947, Harold Dahl claimed to have been warned not to talk about his alleged UFO sighting on Maury Island by a man in a dark suit. In the mid-1950s, the ufologist Albert K. Bender claimed he was visited by men in dark suits who threatened and warned him not to continue investigating UFOs. Another central figure in a UFO legend, Albert Bender supposedly was silenced by menacing men in black in 1953 because he had discovered the answer to the UFO mystery. Bender maintained that the men in black were secret government agents tasked with suppressing evidence of UFOs. The ufologist John Keel claimed to have had encounters with men in black and referred to them as "demonic supernaturals" with "dark skin and/or “exotic” facial features". According to the 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 Men in Black into their increasingly complex and paranoid visions".[3]

In his article, "Gray Barker: My Friend, the Myth-Maker," John C. Sherwood claims that, in the late 1960s, at the age of 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".[5]

a reply to: Lathroper

Men in Black, another joke product to satisfy the gullibles' need to be fooled.

Seriously?

There are so many cases of people from all walks of life who have encountered the MIB that the subject isn't even debatable. Are you actually citing a Three Stooges short film as a means of debunking the subject???????

You state emphatically the value of critical thinking, reason and truth-seeking, yet you site wikipedia as a source of your research. It's common knowledge that wikipedia is rife with error. You go on to cite John Sherwood, who is an avowed skeptic. That's fine, skepticism is crucial.

But here's the big problem: Because Sherwood discovered there were some hoaxers out there, he decided the
Men In Black, The Mothman, and UFOlogy in general was largely nonsensical hoaxes.
He has said, as your link to his website proves, that the Men In Black phenomena is 100% hoax. It's lies and fabrication.


It's similar to the cattle mutilation phenomena. There are skeptics who will deny it's anything other than easily explained events like predator attacks.

originally posted by: ColeYounger
a reply to: Lathroper

Men in Black, another joke product to satisfy the gullibles' need to be fooled.

Seriously?

There are so many cases of people from all walks of life who have encountered the MIB that the subject isn't even debatable. Are you actually citing a Three Stooges short film as a means of debunking the subject???????

You state emphatically the value of critical thinking, reason and truth-seeking, yet you site wikipedia as a source of your research. It's common knowledge that wikipedia is rife with error. You go on to cite John Sherwood, who is an avowed skeptic. That's fine, skepticism is crucial.

But here's the big problem: Because Sherwood discovered there were some hoaxers out there, he decided the
Men In Black, The Mothman, and UFOlogy in general was largely nonsensical hoaxes.
He has said, as your link to his website proves, that the Men In Black phenomena is 100% hoax. It's lies and fabrication.


It's similar to the cattle mutilation phenomena. There are skeptics who will deny it's anything other than easily explained events like predator attacks.

I presented reliable history. Most of UFOdom, aside from legitimate sightings, consists of innumerable creations, hoaxes if you will. There are no real Men In Black or any color. Life goes on, people see UFOs by the thousands, and nobody has ever been visited by any representative of the government. I've had 5 or 6 undeniable sightings which can be found all over the Internet and my sightings have never triggered any interest except by those who read them. Men In Black are not nor have never been real outside of the creators' minds.

When something is repeated ad infinitum it becomes part of life. As an example, the most popular image of "aliens". The original reports did not describe the face you now see. What inspired reports of that image was Whitley Strieber's book "Communion" (a Catholic ritual) with it's cover of an alien. The book became a best seller with its iconic image which became the de facto image for abduction reports as supported by the following:

Barney Hill had a recollection of observing the humanoid forms wearing glossy black uniforms and black caps.

No other aliens were described as such.

In the 1893 article "Man of the Year Million", the well-known author H.G. Wells had envisioned the possibility of humanity transformed into a race of grey-skinned beings; who were perhaps 1 meter tall, with big heads and large, oval-shaped pitch black eyes.

Bingo!

According to Antonio Villas Boas, he first attempted to leave the scene on his tractor, but when its lights and engine died after traveling only a short distance, he decided to continue on foot.[5] However, he was seized by a 1.5 m (five-foot) tall humanoid, who was wearing grey coveralls and a helmet. Its eyes were small and blue,

No other aliens were described as such.

The films, centered on a secret group of dark-suited agents responsible for keeping alien life from the eyes of the public, are based on Lowell Cunningham’s comic book series of the same name. That comic book series was in turn inspired by actual reports of clandestine, black-clad figures, reports that date back several decades and are an integral part of UFO folklore.

First, a little background. In the summer of 1947, the sighting of “nine shiny discs” by a private pilot named Kenneth Arnold inspired similar accounts around the globe, as eminent ufologist Jerome Clark explains in his detailed book, The UFO Encyclopedia. (The Arnold sighting led to the coining of a new term: “flying saucers.”) That same summer, Harold Dahl claimed to have been visited by a man in a dark suit who promised to harm him if he disclosed his sighting of unidentified flying objects around Tacoma, Wash., the previous day. Dubbed the “Maury Island Mystery,” the incident was later investigated by the Air Force, and is widely regarded as a hoax.

The most famous such account came from Albert K. Bender, who, in 1952, created the International Flying Saucer Bureau. Soon afterward, he said, he was visited by three men in dark suits who threatened him with imprisonment if he continued his inquiries into UFOs. Bender’s account was featured in They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, a book by IFSB associate Gray Barker, who also mentioned it frequently in his magazine, The Saucerian.

Bender believed that the men who threatened him were part of the U.S. government, but explanations for the men in black vary. And a distinction is made, in UFO literature, between “men in black” and “Men in Black” (note the capital letters). The former are believed to be human agents who cover up government secrets and are said to appear relatively normal. The latter (often abbreviated as MIBs) were described by the late ufologist John A. Keel—author of book-turned-film The Mothman Prophecies—as “demonic supernaturals” who behave in distinctly nonhuman ways. (Keel’s accounts of MIBs, which date to the mid-1960s, have xenophobic overtones: He describes them as having dark skin and/or “exotic” facial features. The first Men in Black movie cleverly inverted this aspect of MIB folklore, depicting aliens as immigrants.)

MIB? BS!

a reply to: Lathroper
not accepting 'aliens' due to wide differences in physical appearance,and by default debunking mib's, youre ignoring the much talked about paraphysical aspect of MIB's,which from as much as i've read about them, is a key part of most encounters.

a reply to: Lathroper


MIB? BS?

You must of missed my post above. Here it is again:

It would seem to be the case in some instances that the MIB thing could be non-human in nature, but in many of the reported cases in would seem that the US Navy are being misidentified as MIB. Most likely due to their winter uniforms.

This being said, there are a few cases that also shows a group of MIB that clearly weren't humanistic in behavior or appearance.

I looked into a few of these MIB cases while doing my research on the Shadow People Phenomenon.

So yes, if you were to take the time and actually go through the case files on the MIB phenomena, you would see that the US Navy can be attributed to many of the sightings. There are some HOAX's out there too that need to be uncovered and exposed, but then you're left with the rest of the cases. It's these "rest of the cases" that people have yet to get an explanation on, and that is why the whole MIB thing is still a thing.

originally posted by: ColeYounger
Noted author and UFOlogist John Keel, best known for his Mothman investigation, has by far some of the most fascinating reports I've ever read. British cryptozoologist and UFOlogist Nick Redfern is apparently following in Keel's footsteps when it comes to investigating high strangeness.
The men in black subject is an absolute mind blower. It just goes on, getting weirder as you go!
Keel investigated the men-in-black phenomena in depth. He actually cataloged 'subsets' of the MIB. There were phantom photographers and reporters, phantom census takers, and repairmen and utility workers.

In the early 1970s, there were 'phantom meter-readers' appearing in U. S. midwestern suburbs. Keel attempted to at least get an idea who might be behind this weird 'program'. Why did they visit certain homes? What where they looking for? Keel never found a clue, but said it could have been a government op. CIA? But why?

Excerpt from one of Keel's lectures (late 1980s)

Another strange occurrence which could be classified as MIB is that of the "Phantom Meter Readers" which is when a man dressed in coveralls would knock on the door of a house in the suburbs and say he'd come to read the electric or gas meter. He'd go down into the basement and not come out. Eventually, after hours had passed the owners of the house would go check on him. Sometimes the man would be gone all together never to be seen again even when there was no way out of the basement. Other times the man would be just starting up the stairs as they opened the door.


Here's a short documentary of these phantoms that Keel describes.
(Forward to 5:55)

Sometimes I wonder, if the men in black are only there to assist those that are freaked out and don't understand.

I have never seen them, and I believe myself to be a voluntary contactee and participant in what I believe is a worthy cause.

My brother saw the men in black, but he always was untrustworthy, or perhaps not open to listening or understanding, I don't know what.

originally posted by: Rikku
a reply to: Lathroper
not accepting 'aliens' due to wide differences in physical appearance,and by default debunking mib's, youre ignoring the much talked about paraphysical aspect of MIB's,which from as much as i've read about them, is a key part of most encounters.

Please support your opinion with some hard facts, irrefutable evidence, on the public record. Paraphysical has no substance. The wide differences in physical appearance is because people make it up on the spot. It's called an "customizable alien app"! What you've read is fiction.

originally posted by: Guyfriday
a reply to: Lathroper


MIB? BS?

You must of missed my post above. Here it is again:

It would seem to be the case in some instances that the MIB thing could be non-human in nature, but in many of the reported cases in would seem that the US Navy are being misidentified as MIB. Most likely due to their winter uniforms.

This being said, there are a few cases that also shows a group of MIB that clearly weren't humanistic in behavior or appearance.

I looked into a few of these MIB cases while doing my research on the Shadow People Phenomenon.

So yes, if you were to take the time and actually go through the case files on the MIB phenomena, you would see that the US Navy can be attributed to many of the sightings. There are some HOAX's out there too that need to be uncovered and exposed, but then you're left with the rest of the cases. It's these "rest of the cases" that people have yet to get an explanation on, and that is why the whole MIB thing is still a thing.

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I've been studying UFOlogy since 1958 and everything outside of sightings is not accepted by me as grounded in fact.

originally posted by: Lathroper

originally posted by: Rikku
a reply to: Lathroper
not accepting 'aliens' due to wide differences in physical appearance,and by default debunking mib's, youre ignoring the much talked about paraphysical aspect of MIB's,which from as much as i've read about them, is a key part of most encounters.

Please support your opinion with some hard facts, irrefutable evidence, on the public record. Paraphysical has no substance. The wide differences in physical appearance is because people make it up on the spot. It's called a "customizable alien app"! What you've read is fiction.

t's called an "customizable alien app"! What you've read is fiction.

i learn something new everyday. thanks dude.