Synchromystic Men In Black

by Loren Coleman ©2012

The posters are a pun. The message they portray is a serious one. But the reality is one of a comedy. If we are to believe the new movie, Men In Black 3 (2012), the darkly-clad government or whatever agents are rather cheerful and go about their jobs with good humor and paronomasia aplenty.


Three Is More Than A Trinity


In this 2012 incarnation of MIB3, there are clearly three men in black, following the motif of the sightings. Of course, within this trio, two of the individuals are the same person, merely in different times. Very synchromystic, actually.

But for anyone who truly understands the darker history of "Men in Black" (MIBs), before their modern deep involvement in Ufology, they were anything but funny.


Three has always been the key. What took them so long?

One of the earliest stories ~ whether it was true or not ~ was of the three silencers who visited Albert Bender. Here is a summary of that case from the Pelicanist:

1953, 16 September: Albert Bender, founder of the International Flying Saucer Bureau, told Gray Barker in a letter, “do not accept any more memberships until after the October issue of Space Review is in your hands.” About the same time Bender told August Roberts that “three men had visited him, and in effect shut him up completely as far as saucer investigation is concerned!” On 4 October Roberts and Dominick C. Lucchesi interviewed Barker, who said that the three men wore “Dark clothes and black hats”, but his usual response to questions was: “I can’t answer that,” e.g. “Q. Do the saucers come from Venus as stated in Adamski’s book? A. I can’t answer that. Q. Do they come from Mars? A. I can’t answer that.” The final (15 October) issue of Space Review contained the statement: “The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by orders from a higher source.” Barker, They Knew Too Much, pp.109-110, 114, 138. In 1962 Bender would relate that three men with glowing eyes had materialised in his bedroom: “All of them were dressed in black clothes. They looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Homburg style.” Later he was teleported to a secret Antarctic saucer base. They told him that they were from another star system, they had merely assumed human bodies, being hideous monsters in reality, and were here to extract a chemical from our seawater. Once they had finished this mission Bender would be free to tell his story, as he duly did. Bender, Flying Saucers, pp.74.

One of the most frequent “MIB origins” sentences you will find online is this one: “In 1967, [John A.] Keel coined the term ‘Men In Black’ in an article for the men's adventure magazine Saga, entitled ‘UFO Agents of Terror’.” 

But the facts are a bit more complex. West Virginia UFO researcher Gary Barker’s book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (which was published by University Books in 1956) introduced the notion of the Men in Black to UFO folklore. The follow-up book Flying Saucers and the Three Men (NY: Paperback Library, 1968) by Albert K. Bender, was published by Gray Barker (with Barker’s input and words) through his own Saucerian Books at Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1962. (The title is infrequently incorrectly given as “Flying Saucers and the Three Men in Black.”)


As Jerome Clark personally told me, regarding the question of "origins": "It is my view that 'men in black' were what Gray Barker wrote about, and that's what he called them. Keel coined the acronym 'MIB' -- different from Barker's enforcers in being otherworldly in appearance and behavior."

For our examination here, it is not important if the Bender story actually happened. In this example, what is more significant is its place in the folkloric men in black accounts, sightings, encounters, and then the chronicles and writings that followed in the wake of this telling of the tale, which evolved into the MIBs.

The world's most thorough ufological historian, Jerome Clark, author of The UFO Book (1997) and his forthcoming Unexplained! (3rd Ed., 2012), has studied the phenomenon of men in black/MIBs for over 40 years. He had this to say about the topic:

First-generation American ufologists' experiences of men in black - as opposed to the MIB who came along later - were the extremely dubious cases of Maury Island and Al Bender, along with the even more questionable Edgar Jarrold "mystery" and Stuart/Wilkinson affair (in both senses of the word "affair"). In retrospect, the bulk of what Gray Barker wrote in the one men-in-black book of the 1950s (They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, 1956) has been discredited. Beyond that, contactee writers such as Adamski and Williamson were using men in black to weave conspiracy theories, based in anti-Semitic literature, about the so-called Silence Group. No wonder sensible ufologists were sensibly suspicious of men-in-black notions.

From Clark's grounded awareness of the MIB "problem," through John A. Keel's demonic view of them, we end up today finding ourselves confronted with a popular culture version of the Men in Black as captured for us by such authors as the late Jim Keith (Casebook on the Men In Black), Jenny Randles (The Truth Behind Men in Black) and Nick Redfern (The Real Men In Black).

The "real Men in Black" or MIBs are not friendly. Not funny. Not full of puns. 

MIBs on Television

One of the earliest televised nonfiction notions of the Men in Black was seen on April 18, 1997, on NBC's Unsolved Mysteries. (It is to be recalled that the first Men in Black movie appeared in 1997, and the sequel Men in Black II, in 2002.)

Staying with television, how did the MIBs become manifest on the highly symbolic program, The X-Files?

Men in Black appeared in The X-Files as the serious "Cigarette Smoking Man" (played by William B. Davis, from September 10, 1993 to May 19, 2002) and as the more comedic MIBs (played by ex-wrestler and former governor Jesse Ventura and, yes, Jeopardy's Alex Trebek) in the dreamlike episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," (1995-96 season).

Also on The X-Files were the Men in Black operatives for an agency known as Majestic 12. One character was named “Morris Fletcher,” played by Michael McKean (who was just critically injured when hit by a car at West 86th Street and Broadway on the upper West Side, New York City, on May 22, 2012). 

“Morris Fletcher” (above) was in charge of keeping Area 51 information secret from the American people, and was credited with coining the term “Bermuda Triangle.” 

The X-Files’ Fletcher also claimed that in 1979, he found a young dinner theater actor named John Gillnitz in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He set him up as the President of Iraq under the name Saddam Hussein in order to distract the American public.

MIBs in Movies

How then has the more sinister form of Men in Black been translated, in this era of synchromystic visualizations, to the canvas of fictional narratives at the movies?

Martin Balsam

An early effort showing the MIBs motif is the Italian movie (set in England) Eyes Behind The Stars (1978). It involves a UFO abduction, a model with photos, and a reporter. What transpires almost immediately is the "Silencers" -- an international secret police force of Men In Black -- try to steal the negatives from the reporter. American actor Martin Balsam plays Inspector Jim Grant of Scotland Yard, sporting, what has been called, "a rather jarring, broad Yorkshire accent." Sergio Rossi, an actor with the same moniker as the fashion designer, plays the leader of the Silencers, and Victor Valente plays antique dealer turned ufo expert with the curious name Coleman Perry. The film's wider impact was small, if none at all.

In the following year, the B-movie The Alien Encounters (1979) appeared with little plot and slower action. Astronomer Alan Reed (played by Augie Tribach) is the focus of the ufo incident. Two Men in Black were included; one was played by the actor Gene Davis (above) and the other by Mark Purdy (also above), who went on to be a well-known sports columnist for the Mercury News in San Jose. Allegedly, the actors were not even required to dress in black for their roles.

Another of the earliest representations of the Men in Black in film is in the underrated, highly political film, The Brother from Another Planet (1984), written, directed and edited by John Sayles. Sayles (on the left) actually plays one of the two on-screen MIBs.  Joe Morton plays the three-toed extraterrestrial who has escaped to Earth and who hides from the MIBs in New York City. It is aliens chasing aliens, and employs a more twisted plot than most other MIBs film detailed here.

MIBs have usually been shown as sinister and foreboding. Here is a quick survey of imagery from a few other fictional motion pictures demonstrating the darker side of MIBs in cinema.

In the movie The Silencers (1996), the Men In Black are depicted as cryptic characters dressed in black, wearing reflective sunglasses, and having pale skin and hypnotic black eyes. They secretly threaten the lives of those who have witnessed UFOs, and then target US Senator Rawlings (played by Madison Mason) who dies despite the best efforts by Secret Service agent Rafferty (played by Jack Scalia) to prevent the assassination.

Soon after the release of The Silencers, The Shadow Men (1997) appeared. It is about three MIBs (played by Andrew Prine, Chris McCarty, and Tom Poster) who visit the happily married couple Bob and Dez Wilson and their 12-year-old son Andy (played by Eric Roberts, Sherilyn Fenn, and Brendon Ryan Barrett) who have had an alien encounter. The Wilsons, after suffering maddening nightmares and more MIB terrors, find refuge at the home of sf-writer Stan Mills (played by Dean Stockwell).

The Strangers in the strange film, Dark City (1998), are the embodiment of the darkest of the dark Men in Black. The appearance of these men dressed in black look hauntingly like John A. Keel's other worldly descriptions of his MIBs.

The next year, the first The Matrix (1999) film appeared. What is often forgotten is that Neo (Keanu Reeves) was first confronted and arrested by three sinister Agents, led by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) and his two sidekicks, Agent Jones (Robert Taylor) and Agent Brown (Paul Goddard).

The Matrix franchise released (first in 1999 and then again in 2003) an army of Men in Black agents who dominated the screen seemingly temporarily. However, the imagery went on to influence human consciousness for years, including at your local high school and college, from Columbine to VA Tech.

The strong twilight language of The Matrix also projects three humans in black as the force to overthrow the Agents.  Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), known as "Neo," Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) make up the triad. Of course, Trinity's name is significant, as, no doubt, are all names in this movie.

What's next? Being in control? Losing control? Being guided? Regaining control?

The Adjustment Bureau (2011), based on Philip K. Dick's 1954 story, "The Adjustment Team," presented a movie with legions of MIBs attempting to have things run the way they want them run. ("Richardson," played by John Slattery, is visible, second from the left in the lower photo of the two directly above.)

MIBs in Mad Men?

The reach of the Men in Black in our popular culture is great. The conditioning is widespread. Several television series have embedded Men in Black characters. They include agents from the following super-secret organizations: NID (in Stargate), Section 31 (in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise), Silence (in Doctor Who), and The Observer (in Fringe). The Gentlemen in black terrorize in Bluffy the Vampire Killer. In the comics and movies, there is S.H.I.E.L.D. 

There are even hints of MIBs imagery and singlemindedness in Mad Men, of course.

A MIB face in the crowd in The Adjustment Bureau turns up as Mad Men's "Roger Sterling" (played by John Slattery, on the right). Subtle scenes are designed with a sense of iconic Men in Black styling.

MIB3 will open to huge audiences, probably because people want a break from the sinister. But remember, deep down, the Men in Black - in the real world, whatever that is - are hardly ever comedians.

First posted on May 23, 2012; updated and revised on May 25, 2012.

"Synchronicity is an ever present reality for those who have eyes to see." 

~ Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 - June 6, 1961)