FT251

...Continued

Last issue, I described a typical British case involving the mysterious ‘Men in Black’ (MIB) – the shady figures who visit witnesses after a UFO encounter with the apparent purpose of preventing them from talking in public about their sighting.

No reasonable estimates can be made about the total number of MIB cases in the UK, especially given the possible obscuration of the evidence. If taken as a raw percentage of documented UFO cases in the British Isles, less than one per cent shows MIB features. However, in a couple of surveys following up on old sightings from official records, nearer five per cent of traced witnesses mentioned MIB elements that had not previously been reported. So the actual UK total could be as low as a couple of dozen or as high as several hundred cases.

In the second part of this report, I want to look at the results of my new analysis of 20 UK cases. Most are firsthand investigations.

This study is intriguing, because it has what strikes me as a strong degree of coherence, and I hope it will stimulate debate about the meaning of this under-discussed area of UFO research in future issues of FT.

WHO REPORTS MIB EVENTS?
Seventy per cent of the reports involved just a single witness to both the UFO and/or the MIB visit that followed. The largest number was when three people witnessed an event.

Almost exactly as many men as women reported MIBs, which is interesting as close encounter sightings (which generally precede them) tend towards a higher percentage of female witnesses overall. There was no significant pattern in the ages of those reporting such events, who ranged from teenagers to people in their 50s and represented everyone from schoolgirls to housewives and businessmen. The only hint of a pattern was that police officers formed 18 per cent of the total adults with stated professions in the sample.

A reasonable conclusion is that there is little correlation between the type of person who describes a UFO sighting and the likelihood of reporting an MIB aftermath

WHICH LOCATIONS ATTRACT MIB EVENTS?
There seem to be more events in rural areas than in urban ones, but that distribution is typical of UFO sightings anyway. City dwellers simply pay less attention to the sky as a rule. The only possibly significant pattern that I noticed was that about 40 per cent of the cases were within 10 miles (16km) of either a military radar facility, communications centre or training location, or an airfield/plant known to be involved in aero engineering. This might be coincidence, or might support a hypothesis that witnesses had made an accidental observation of military activity or covert aero technology.

WHAT ARE MIB VISITS LIKE?
Numerous interesting clues were to emerge from this part of the analysis. In fact, the description offered by independent witnesses scattered over Britain was extraordinarily consistent. Again and again, the same details appear in a way that would probably be enough to convince a jury.

Typically, a sighting is reported to the police soon after occurrence (this happens in 80 per cent of the study cases; yet it only happens in about eight per cent of total UFO sightings). Within a period ranging from a few days to a month, a series of phone calls then occurs (65 per cent of cases), where a person introduces himself as “someone who investigates these things” but hardly ever states where he is from. If asked whether he is with a UFO group he often (40 per cent) makes comments, such as calling such groups ‘meddlers’ and advising against contact with them.

If the request for a visit is declined, the caller may argue that in that case the witness will be forced to co-operate. On subsequent arrival (75 per cent) some form of identific­ation is shown to indicate an association with the government. In an amazing 90 per cent of reports there are two MIB visitors; all MIBs are male, commonly in their 40s. They wear smart business suits (85 per cent) and arrive in a dark car “like those used by ambassa­dors” (tinted windows being mentioned several times). Half of these were identified as Jaguars.

In nearly all cases, one of the men does the talking, the other mainly observing. Names are rarely given, but unusual appell­ations are common. In one case, the MIB referred to himself as “Commander” and in another the MIBs used numbers as if they were names. They get the witness to describe over and over what they saw and home in on details, such as the atmospheric conditions, behaviour of local wildlife, or physical after-effects that a witness had barely considered important.

In 40 per cent of cases, the MIBs offer mundane explanations for the event – such as a Russian satellite or weather balloon, and may try several explanations. Witnesses usually see this as a test of their resolve. The final option in several cases was “you have seen a secret government vehicle” and then (in 65 per cent of cases) advice is proffered: “It is in your best interests not to talk about this”, or “nobody will believe you”.

In 20 per cent of cases, follow-up phone calls occur in subsequent weeks – in one instance three of them, until a witness finally admitted a subsequent medical condition that had now cleared up but that had developed after the sighting.

WHAT TYPE OF UFO SIGHTINGS RESULT IN MIB VISITS?
Again, there are some fascinating patterns. In only 10 per cent of sightings does the case involve a light in the sky, and commonly some kind of structured object is reported seen at close quarters.

More importantly, there are frequent references (70 per cent of cases have at least one of the following) to an oppressive feeling in the air, tingling sensations on the skin, hair standing on end, eyes watering and other physiological reactions consistent with immers­ion in some kind of electromagnetic field.

Even more intriguing is that 50 per cent of the witnesses describe physical after-effects ranging from mild nausea and headaches to skin rashes, burns and even fillings in teeth crumbling to powder. Indeed, these elements often seen to be anticipated by the MIBs, who press for witnesses to describe these reactions and ask “Are you sure?” if they decline to admit to medical problems, such as marks on exposed body parts.

Overall, there is a clear suggestion that the MIBs believe that witnesses might have been exposed to some kind of radiation. They also seem remarkably prescient about aspects of UFO research well outside the mainstream of the time – for instance, probing about feelings of autohypnosis, post-encounter dreams and the psychic experience tendencies of a witness.

CONCLUSIONS
I find the evidence persuasive of a real phenomenon in which human beings with apparent high levels of understanding and knowledge about specific UFO events choose to visit certain witnesses who fall into a well-defined category.

The visit may have overtones of menace, and often reinforces in the witness a sense of the outlandishness of what occurred when they saw a UFO, placing them in a state where they are less likely to want to tell all. The visit often has tinges of absurdity that generate an air of crankiness about the event, and so, by inference, the UFO sighting that preceded it. Witnesses who ignore the advice of the MIB and tell the truth may inadvertently undermine their own credibility.

To me, an MIB visit seems part fact-finding mission to test the threat potential of a witness, part forensic analysis of small aspects of an incident (such as the physio­logical aftermath) and part highly subtle character assassination via a cloak of otherwise needless obfuscation.

So just who would fit this scenario in the role of an MIB?

I see little sense in the argument that the visitors are part of the UFO mystery itself (aliens in disguise, for example). They appear to be human beings with a definite agenda. Could they be Nick Pope’s Walter Mitty-like UFO enthusiasts engaged in a real-world fantasy game? In some cases, this seems assured (such as the saga of APEN from 1974).

However, for me the most probable origin of many MIB stories is one in which members of an intelligence agency focus on cases that they believe are important – perhaps because they had identified the cause as our own technology, such as radar experiments or novel propulsion system tests using remotely piloted drones with the potential to cause accidental illness or injury.

We do have one case from the MOD files that shows the possibilities. In March 1966, a Cheshire police officer observed a green fireball and his sighting was taken remarkably seriously by the Air Ministry. Two defence intelligence agents were sent to conduct an investigation, including a forensic search for physical evidence. This case was simple and real and shows that visits really did occur.

If we allow for natural imagination, witness confabulation over time and a mystification of the evidence arising from the lack of confirmation of its perhaps rather ordinary origin, then we can see how an MIB mythology might emerge from a mundane yet real secret investigation into our own covert technology. After all, such technology can all too readily be misperceived as a UFO.