The Man Who First Saw "The Men in Black" Dies

The man who brought the ufo silencers, the men in dark clothing, into modern consciousness, Albert K. Bender, 94, died on March 29, 2016, in California.

"Men in Black" (MIBs) are what appear to be male humans dressed in black suits who claim to be government or paramilitary (or even alien) agents and who harass or threaten UFO witnesses to keep them quiet about what they have seen.

From portrayals in The X-Files, appearances in movies, references in popular culture and points of debate in UFO conspiracy theories, the MIBs have become part of our 21st Century culture.

In April 1952, Albert K. Bender, a factory worker from Bridgeport, Connecticut, announced the formation of International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB), whose purpose was to "gather flying saucer information" and to "get all Flying Saucer minded people acquainted with each other...."
At the time he established the IFSB, Bender was a 31-year-old bachelor who lived with his stepfather. He was obsessed not only with UFOs but with occultism, horror movies, and science fiction. Bender transformed his part of the house into what he called a "chamber of horrors." Jerome Clark, The Emergence of a Phenomenon: UFOs from the Beginning through 1959 ~ The UFO Encyclopedia - Volume 2 (Chicago: Omnigraphics, 1992: 73) 

Ufology historian Jerry Clark told of how Bender took "out-of-body trips into deep space," but also worked hard on the IFSB's publication, Space Review. Bender built up the 1952-1953 membership to 1500 people from around the world. "One of the most active was a West Virginia man named Gray Barker."

In early September 1953, Bender, who is acknowledged as one of the first pioneers of UFO research, was visited at his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, by three men dressed in black who warned him in threatening terms to cease his investigations or else. 

The "silencers," as he called them, scared Bender to the point where he did not publish a report he said was going to answer all the mysteries of the UFO question. Instead, Bender left a warning: "We advise those engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious." Bender's organization - the IFSB - closed down.

After pressing Bender for more details about the "whys" behind the shutdown, Barker wrote his first book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, which was published by University Books in 1956. The book was the first to describe the Men in Black (MIBs). Barker recounted Bender's own alleged encounters with the MIBs, who were said to travel in groups of three, wear black suits, and drive large black automobiles. In 1962, Barker and Bender collaborated on a second book on the topic, called Flying Saucers and the Three Men. Published under Barker's own imprint, Saucerian Books, this book proposed that the MIBs were, themselves, extraterrestrials.

These "ufo silencer" experiences of this one individual, Albert K. Bender, promoted in later years by Gray Barker (May 2, 1925–December 6, 1984), created an enduring legacy beginning over 60 years ago - the MIBs. 

Besides Bender and Barker, Men in Black researchers and writers have included the late John A. Keel, Jerome Clark, the late Jim Keith, and Nick Redfern.  Nick Redfern, who passed on the news of Bender's passing to me, has written many books on MIBs, including his 2006 book, On the Trail of the Saucer Spies: UFOs and Government Surveillance (which contains information on Bender).

Now Albert K. Bender has passed away.  

Bender was born on June 16, 1921, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II.  In Bridgeport, Connecticut, he was a supervisor at the Acme shear factory. 

After Bender's 1962 book was published, and before Bender moved to Los Angeles, in 1965, while in Bridgeport, Bender started the Max Steiner Music Society, which was later renamed the Max Steiner Memorial Society, dedicated to the famed music composer of theater and film hits.

Steiner (May 10, 1888 – December 28, 1971) composed over 300 film scores, and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935), Now, Voyager (1942), and Since You Went Away (1944). Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), Casablanca (1942), The Searchers (1956), A Summer Place (1959), and Gone with the Wind (1939), the film score for which Steiner is best known.

Thanks to Albert Bender's Max Steiner Memorial Society, collections of Steiner's music have been preserved, discussed, and disseminated. Bender's Society was responsible for obtaining a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star for Max Steiner, as well as Steiner's name being written in the Golden Book of the State of Israel. Bender's Steiner collection was donated to the Brigham Young University manuscript collection.

This little known part of Albert K. Bender's life, beginning in 1965, is noted in Max Steiner: Composing, Casablanca, and the Golden Age of Film Music by Peter Wegele (2014):

Albert K. Bender and Max Steiner.

Albert K. Bender at the announcement of the Max Steiner commemorative stamp, 1999.

At the time of his death, Bender was residing in Los Angeles, and his funeral was held in Manhattan Beach, California, on April 9, 2016. His known sibling survivors are Fred Bender, Shirley Audugar, and Joseph Kevlin.

Albert K. Bender and his wife.

The only known recording of Albert K. Bender can be found here. He also wrote a volume of recollections, Five Slices of Life: A Collection of Short Stories.

(Confirmation: Besides the Wikipedia page that was apparently written by a source close to Bender, the death is verified by the page on his funeral arrangements.)

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See also: 

Synchromystic Men In Black

Nick Redfern has posted his comments on the
death of Albert K. Bender at Mysterious Universe. 

First MIBs Novel?

Was one of the earliest "men in black" fictional tales, about three MIBs, published five years before the turn of the 20th century? Perhaps so. This is a significant book written about three men in a secret organization in pursuit of a man "with spectacles" who possesses a vanished Roman coin denoting important mystic symbolism.

The Three Impostors "is the story of three men too absorbed by their own literary interests to realize the truth, or otherwise, of the events unfolding around them. These are Dyson, in thrall to his own imagination, Phillipps, an adherent to science, and Russell, who simply considers himself a realist," writes critic Mark Anderson.

Dyson, the man without a first name, lives in a "couple of rooms in a moderately quiet street in Bloomsbury," nevertheless, and is interested in what happened in the streets "beyond Whitechapel" (known infamously for the Jack the Ripper killings). Charles Phillipps lives "in a quiet square not far from Holborn," in the "calm retirement of Red Lion Square," and makes appointments with Dyson at "the shop in Queen Street." Edgar Russell "occupies a small back room on the second floor of a house in Abington Grove, Notting Hill."

In one tale told by Phillipps, the description imparted to him seems familiar to all who have read about the Men in Black:

I noticed that this man was leading my brother rather than walking arm-in-arm with him; he was a tall man, dressed in quite ordinary fashion. He wore a high bowler hat, and, in spite of the warmth of the day, a plain black overcoat, tightly buttoned, and I noticed his trousers, of a quiet black and grey stripe. The face was commonplace too, and indeed I cannot recall any special features, or any trick of expression; for though I looked at him as he came near, curiously enough his face made no impression on me -- it was as though I had seen a well-made mask. They passed in front of me, and to my unutterable astonishment, I heard my brother's voice speaking to me, though his lips did not move, nor his eyes look into mine. It was a voice I cannot describe, though I knew it, but the words came to my ears as if mingled with plashing water and the sound of a shallow brook flowing amidst stones. I heard, then, the words, "I cannot stay,"....

The Three Impostors is an episodic novel by British horror fiction writer Arthur Machen, first published in 1895 in The Bodley Head's Keynote Series. Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-eighth volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1972.

In Things Near and Far, Machen wrote:

It was in the early spring of 1894 that I set about the writing of the said Three Impostors, a book which testifies to the vast respect I entertained for the fantastic, New Arabian Nights manner of R. L. Stevenson, to those curious researches in the byways of London which I have described already, and also, I hope, to a certain originality of experiment in the tale of terror.

Partly in response to criticism of the Stevensonian style of the book, Machen altered his approach in writing his next book, The Hill of Dreams. Following the death of his first wife in 1899, Machen developed a greater interest in the occult, joining the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He noted that a number of events in his life seemed to mirror events in The Three Impostors, most notably a conflict in the order between William Butler Yeats (a "young man with spectacles") and Aleister Crowley, which reached its height around this time. These experiences are reflected on in Alan Moore's Snakes and Ladders.

The novel incorporates several inset weird tales and culminates in a final denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three imposters of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London—retailing the aforementioned weird tales in the process—as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: "the young man with spectacles".

Two of the novel's inset tales, "The Novel of the Black Seal" and "The Novel of the White Powder," have been cited as major influences on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. In his survey Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft suggested that these stories "perhaps represent the highwater mark of Machen's skill as a terror-weaver." They have been frequently anthologized.

"The Novel of the Black Seal" has been cited as a model for some of Lovecraft's best-known stories: "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Whisperer in Darkness". "The Novel of the White Powder," which Lovecraft said "approaches the absolute culmination of loathsome fright," is pointed to as an inspiration for Lovecraft's stories of bodily disintegration, such as "Cool Air" and "The Color Out of Space".

The story "Rx... Death!" in Tales from the Crypt #20 is an adaptation of "The Novel of the White Powder," with the change made that the poisonous "medicine" contains digestive enzymes, rather than a witch's brew.

Mark Anderson looks for clues to Machen's message in the novel he released in the wake of The Three Imposters:

The novel The Hill of Dreams (1897) may be the longest suicide note in history, in its part-autobiographical depiction of a failing writer whose talent and unique personal vision is overlooked to the point where madness fatally perverts whatever it was he’d earlier harboured. Here, the author seems to be predicting his own fate; what may – and may yet – happen to him if he listens to all those who think he should give up his art and get a ‘proper job.’

Arthur Machen (March 3, 1863 – December 15, 1947) was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan (1890; 1894) has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror (Stephen King has called it "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language"). He is also well known for his leading role in creating the legend of the Angels of Mons.

Machen was born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon, Monmouthshire, though he usually referred to the county by its Welsh name Gwent. The house of his birth, opposite the Olde Bull Inn in The Square at Caerleon, is adjacent to the Priory Hotel and is today marked with a commemorative blue plaque. The beautiful landscape of Monmouthshire, with its associations of Celtic, Roman, and medieval history, made a powerful impression on him, and his love of it is at the heart of many of his works.

In 1887, the year his father died, Machen married Amy Hogg, an unconventional music teacher with a passion for the theatre, who had literary friends in London's bohemian circles. Hogg had introduced Machen to the writer and occultist A. E. Waite, who was to become one of Machen's closest friends. Machen also made the acquaintance of other literary figures, such as M. P. Shiel and Edgar Jepson.

In 1899, Machen's wife Amy died of cancer after a long period of illness. This had a devastating effect on Machen. He only gradually recovered from his loss over the next year, partially through his close friendship with A. E. Waite (famed for his Tarot card deck today). It was through Waite's influence that Machen joined at this time the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Arthur Machen's influence may have waned today, but his influence remains in modern horror writers, and myths and motifs he created, from partially the Men in Black to the Angel of Mons.

The way we view Pan today may have as much to do with Machen as it does with the Greeks. "The Great God Pan" is a novella written by Arthur Machen.

In Supernatural Horror in Literature (1926; revised 1933), H. P. Lovecraft praised the story, saying: "No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds"; he added that "the sensitive reader" reaches the end with "an appreciative shudder." Lovecraft also noted, however, that "melodrama is undeniably present, and coincidence is stretched to a length which appears absurd upon analysis." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) notes "The story begins with an sf rationale (brain surgery) which remains one of the most dramatically horrible and misogynistic in fiction."

The story's depiction of a monstrous half-human hybrid inspired the main plotline of Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, which refers by name to Machen’s story. According to Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price, "'The Dunwich Horror' is in every sense an homage to Machen and even a pastiche. There is little in Lovecraft's wonderful story that does not come directly out of Machen's fiction." It also inspired Peter Straub's Ghost Story.

The book was translated into French by Paul-Jean Toulet (Le grand dieu Pan, Paris, 1901). It was a major influence on his first novel, Monsieur du Paur, homme public.

Stephen King wrote in the endnotes for his story collection Just After Sunset (2008) that his newly published novella N. was "strongly influenced" by Machen's piece, which he noted, "surmounts its rather clumsy prose and works its way relentlessly into the reader's terror-zone. How many sleepless nights has it caused? God knows, but a few of them were mine. I think 'Pan' is as close as the horror genre comes to a great white whale." In another interview he stated: "Not Lovecraft; it’s a riff on Arthur Machen’s “The Great God Pan,” which is one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language. Mine isn’t anywhere near that good, but I loved the chance to put neurotic behavior—obsessive/compulsive disorder—together with the idea of a monster-filled macroverse."

MIBs: Silencers vs Killers

by Loren Coleman ©2012

In recent postings here entitled "Synchromystic Men In Black" and "Vallée on MIB Imagery," I have examined the nature of the figurative appearance and illustrations used to display the Men in Black (MIBs). In general, they have been sinister, not comedic as shown in the currently screening film, Men in Black 3.

But there is another level of the metaphor that has evolved in the imagery, which we need to pay attention to before we leave this topic.

I want to share a short comparative display of book covers and graphic novels showing the Men in Black to display one simple point. The book covers have developed gradually from the notion of silencers to nearly merge with what we find on the more recent graphic novels. Today, we discover much more aggressive MIBs.

First, some book cover examples, followed by the more violent comic book covers. Obviously, this has much to do with the medium of the presentations, but there appears to be something else going on too.

In the contemporary graphic novels (comics), as you can see below, the Men in Black are represented as agents with guns, in violent circumstances. The transformation of the MIBs is nearly complete, from the quiet, foreboding presence to a more active element of these interactions.

It should also be added that Nick Redfern does "note in [his] The Real Men in Black and On the Trail of the Saucer Spies books - there are at least two category of MIB: government and 'something else.'"


What will the future bring in terms of the actual incidents being experienced and reported?

Vallée on MIB Imagery

by Loren Coleman ©2012

Jacques F. Vallée, Ph. D. is a great person to have at your side when exploring the hidden realm. 

Vallée, as you may agree, is a cornerstone figure in intellectual ufology, who has added his genius to the study of "flying saucers" and the reported "occupants." He gathers information from diverse fields, including fairylore, cryptid sightings, Fortean phenomena, religious visions, and astrophysics. His third book, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969) elegantly melts many of these threads of thought into a sensible and stimulating thesis on what UFOs might be.

For more background on Jacques' ufological work, see here.

Jacques wrote me the other day, after I posted my essay on this blog about the synchromystic visualizations of Men in Black in television treatments and cinema creations.

On May 25, 2012, Jacques emailed the following:

My contribution to that imagery was in 1979 with this book [Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (Ronin, June 1979)] cover [shown at top].
At the time, I instructed the artist to show a human walking deliberately away from a hovering saucer rather than running away or cowering in front of it.
Most readers at the time didn't like the image, too disturbing and not in line with expectations about flying saucers: the occupants shouldn't be human.
I think what was disturbing in the 'Messengers' image was the implication that some humans knew what the saucers were, and [the 'others'] were walking quietly into our world.
Warm regards,
Jacques

The French scientist Claude LaCombe in the Steven Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind  was based on my friend Jacques Vallée.

Jacque Vallée (right) and J. Allen Hynek (left)

Claude LaCombe (François Truffaut)

My Boing Boing buddy David Pescovitz mentioned the following magnifique deleted scene from the film that says some things about twilight language:

David Laughlin (Bob Balaban). Name game note: Laughlin, Nevada, in the extreme southern tip of the state, has become a modern focal meeting point for ufology conferences, anomalistic gatherings, and Area 51 researchers.


See here for more from David Pescovitz on what special phrase shows up in CEIII that is, indeed, so very Vallée.


Thanks also to Patrick Huyghe of Anomalist Books for bringing the deleted scene to my attention in 2009.