Men in Black

"I went into the fantastic and came up with the answer," declared Albert Bender, director of the International Flying Saucer Bureau, an amateur UFO organisation based in Connecticut, USA. "I know what the saucers are." Unfortunately, the rest of the world is still none the wiser - for Bender was prevented from passing on his discovery to the world by three sinister visitors: three men dressed in black, known as "the silencers".

It had been Bender's intention to publish his momentous findings in his own journal, Space Review. But before committing himself finally, he felt he ought to try his ideas out on a colleague. He mailed his report - and a few days later, the men came.

Bender was lying down in his bedroom, having been overtaken by a spell of dizziness, when he noticed "three shadowy figures in the room. The figures became clearer. All of them were dressed in black clothes. They looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Homburg style. The faces were not clearly discernible, for the hats partly hid and shaded them. Feelings of fear left me... The eyes of all three figures suddenly lit up like flashlight bulbs and all these were focused upon me. They seemed to burn into my very soul as the pains above my eyes became almost unbearable. It was then I sensed that they were conveying a message to me by telepathy."

His visitors confirmed that Bender was right in his speculations as to the true nature of UFO's - one of them was carrying Bender's report - and provided additional information. This so terrified him that he was only too willing to go along with their demand that he close down his organisation and cease publication of his journal. He was instructed not to tell the truth to anyone "on his honour as an American citizen".

Did Bender expect anyone to believe his story? His friends and colleagues were baffled by it - one of them, Gray Barker, published a sensational book, "They knew too much about flying saucers" and Bender himself supplied an even stranger account in his Flying saucers and the three men some years later, in response to persistent demands for an explanation from former colleagues. He told an extraordinary story involving extraterrestrial spaceships with bases in Antarctica that reads like the most far-fetched contactee dreamstuff; it has been suggested that the implausibility of Bender's story is designed to throw serious UFO investigators off the track.

Believable or not, Bender's original account of the visit of the three strangers is of crucial interest to UFO investigators. For the story has been paralleled by many similar reports frequently from people unlikely to have so much as heard of Bender and his experiences. UFO percipients and investigators are equally liable to be visited by men in black (MIB's); and although the majority of reports are from the United States, similar claims have come from Sweden and Italy, Britain and Mexico. And like the UFO phenomenon, MIB's span three decades, and may well have had precursors in earlier centuries.

Like Bender's story, most of the later reports not only contain implausible details, but are also inherently illogical; in virtually every case, there seems on the face of it more reason to disbelieve than to believe. But this does not eliminate the mystery - it simply requires us to study it in a different light. For, whether or not these things actually happened, the fact remains that they were reported; and why should so many people, independently and often reluctantly, report these strange and sinister visitations? And why is it that these accounts are so similar, echoing and in turn helping to confirm a persistent pattern that, if nothing else, is one of the most powerful folk myths of our time?

The archetypal MIB report runs something like this: shortly after a UFO sighting, the subject - he may be a witness, he may be an investigator on the case - receives a visit. Often it occurs so soon after the incident itself that no official report or media publication has taken place: in short, the visitors should not, by any normal channels, have gained access to the information they clearly possess - names, addresses, details of the incident and about the people involved.

The victim is nearly always alone at the time of the visit, usually in his own home. His visitors, usually three in number, arrive in a large black car. In America it is most often a prestigious Cadillac, but seldom a recent model. At the same time, though old in date, it is likely to be new and immaculate in appearance and condition, inside and out, even having that unmistakable "new car" smell. If the subject notes the registration number and checks it, it is invariably found to be a non-existent number.

The visitors themselves are almost always men: only very rarely is one a woman and never more than one. In appearance they conform pretty closely to the stereotyped image of a CIA or secret service man. They wear dark suits, dark hats, dark ties, dark shoes and socks, but white shirts: witnesses very often remark on their clean, immaculate turn-out - all the clothes looking as though just purchased.

The visitors' faces are frequently described as vaguely foreign, most often "oriental": slant eyes have been specified in many accounts. If not dark skinned, the men are likely to be very heavily tanned. Sometimes there are bizarre touches; in the case of Dr Hopkins, which we shall look at more closely later, the man in black appeared to be wearing bright lipstick! The MIB's are generally unsmiling and expressionless, their movements stiff and awkward. Their general demeanour is formal, cold, sinister, even menacing: there is no warmth or friendliness shown, even if there is no outright hostility either.

Witnesses often hint that they felt their visitors were not human at all. Some MIB's proffer evidence of identity; indeed, they sometimes appear in US Air Force or other uniforms. They may produce identity cards, but since most people would not know a genuine CIA or other "secret" service identity card if they saw one, this proves nothing. If they give their names and the witness subsequently checks them, they are invariably found to be false.

The interview is sometimes an interrogation, sometimes simply a warning. Either way, the visitors, even though they are asking questions, are clearly very well-informed, with access to restricted information. They speak with perfect, sometimes too perfect, intonation and phrasing and their language is apt to be reminiscent of the conventional villains of crime films - "Again, Mr Stiff, I fear you are not being honest!", "Mr Veich, it would be unwise of you to mail that report" immediately suggesting the unctuous threatener beloved of Hollywood writers.

The visit almost invariably concludes with a warning not to tell anybody about the incident, if the subject is a UFO percipient, or to abandon the investigation, if he is an investigator. Violence is often threatened. And the MIB's depart as suddenly as they came.

Most well-informed UFO enthusiasts, if asked to describe a typical MIB visit, would give some such account as the foregoing. However, a comparative examination indicates that such "perfect" MIB visits seldom occur in practice. Study of 32 of the more detailed and reliable cases reveals that many details diverge from the archetypal story: there were no visitors at all in four cases, only telephone calls and of the remainder, only five involved three men, two involved four, five involved two, while in the rest there was only a single visitor.

Although the appearance and behaviour of the visitors does seem generally to conform to the prototype, it ranges from the entirely natural to the totally bizarre. The car, despite the fact that in America it is by far the commonest means of transportation, is in fact mentioned in only one third of the reports; as for the picturesque details - the Cadillac, the antiquated model, the immaculate condition - these are in practice very much the exception. Of 22 American reports, only nine mention a car; of these only three were Cadillac's, only two were specified as black and only two as out-of-date models.

On the other hand, these archetypal details tend to be more conspicuous in less reliable cases, particularly those in which investigators rather than UFO percipients, are involved. This will be relevant when we come to consider possible explanations for the MIB phenomenon.

However, although the "ideal" MIB case is far from being universal in practice, it has value as a kind of composite picture, embodying all the various features that have been reported - Perhaps the case that comes closest to the archetype is that of Robert Richardson, of Toledo, Ohio, who in July 1967 informed the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation (APRO) that he had collided with a UFO while driving at night. Coming round a bend, he had been confronted with a strange object blocking the road: unable to halt in time, he had hit it, though not very hard. Immediately on impact, the UFO vanished. Police who accompanied Richardson to the scene could find only his own skid marks, but on a later visit, he found a small lump of metal which he thought might have come from the UFO.

Three days later, at 11 p.m., two men in their twenties appeared at Richardson's home and questioned him for about 10 minutes. They did not identify themselves and Richardson - to his own later surprise did not ask who they were. They were not unfriendly, gave no warnings, just asked questions. He noted that they left in a black 1953 Cadillac - that is, a 14-year-old model (then): the number, when checked, was found not yet to have been issued, proving that, whoever his visitors were, they were undoubtedly impostors of some sort.

A week later, Richardson received a second visit, from two different men, who arrived in a current model Dodge. They wore black suits and were dark complexioned: although one spoke perfect English, the second had an accent and Richardson felt there was something vaguely foreign about them. At first they seemed to be trying to persuade him that he had not in fact hit anything at all, but then they asked for the piece of metal. When he told them it had been passed to APRO for analysis, they threatened, "If you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, then you'd better get the metal back."

The existence of the metal was known only to Richardson and his wife and to two senior members of APRO; seemingly the only way the strangers could have learned of its existence would be by tapping either his or APRO'S telephone. There was no clear connection between the two pairs of visitors: but what both had in common was access to information that was not freely and publicly available. And it may be that this is the key to the MIB mystery.

In September 1976 Dr Herbert Hopkins, a 58-year-old doctor and hypnotist, was acting as consultant on an alleged UFO teleportation case in Maine, USA. One evening, when his wife and children had gone out leaving him alone, the telephone rang and a man identifying himself as vice-president of the New Jersey UFO Research Organisation asked if he might visit Dr Hopkins to discuss the case. Dr Hopkins agreed - at the time it seemed the natural thing to do. He went to the back door to switch on the light so that his visitor could find his way from the parking lot and saw the man already climbing the porch steps. "I saw no car and even if he did have a car, he could not have possibly got to my house that quickly from any phone," he later commented in astonishment.

But at the time Dr Hopkins felt no particular surprise as he admitted his visitor. The man was dressed in a black suit, with black hat, tie and shoes and a white shirt: "I thought, he looks like an undertaker." His clothes were immaculate: suit unwrinkled, trousers sharply creased. When he took off his hat he revealed himself as completely hairless, not only bald but without eyebrows or eyelashes. His skin was dead white, his lips bright red: in the course of their conversation he brushed his lips with his grey suede gloves and the doctor was astonished to see that his lips were smeared and the gloves stained with lipstick!

It was only afterwards, however, that Dr Hopkins reflected on the strangeness of his visitor's appearance and behaviour. At the time he sat discussing the case in a normal manner. When he had given his account, his visitor stated that his host had two coins in his pocket, which was indeed the case. He asked the doctor to put one of the coins in his hand: he did so. The stranger asked Dr Hopkins to watch the coin, not himself: as he watched, the coin seemed to go out of focus and then gradually vanished. "Neither you nor anyone else on this planet will ever see that coin again," the visitor told him.

After talking a little while longer on UFO topics, Dr Hopkins noticed that the visitor's speech was slowing down. The man rose unsteadily to his feet and said, very slowly, "My energy is running low - must go now goodbye." He walked falteringly to the door and descended the outside steps uncertainly, one at a time. Dr Hopkins saw a bright light shining in the driveway, bluish-white and distinctly brighter than a normal car lamp; at the time, however, he assumed it must be the stranger's car although he neither saw nor heard it. Later, When Dr Hopkins's family had returned, they examined the driveway and found marks that could not have been made by a car because they were in the centre of the driveway, where the wheels could not have been. By next day, although the driveway had not been used in the meantime, the marks had vanished.

Dr Hopkins was very much shaken by his visit, particularly when he reflected on the extraordinary character of the stranger's conduct. Not surprisingly, he was so scared that he willingly complied with his visitor's instruction to erase the tapes of the hypnotic sessions he was conducting with regard to his current case and to have nothing further to do with the case. Curious incidents continued to occur both in Dr Hopkins's household and in that of his eldest son. He presumed that there was some link with the extraordinary visit, but he never heard from his visitor again. As for the New Jersey UFO Research Organisation, no such institution exists.

Dr Hopkins's account is probably the most detailed we have of an MIB visit, and confronts us with the problem at its most bizarre. First we must ask ourselves if a trained and respected doctor would invent so strange a tale, and if so, with what conceivable motive? Alternatively, could the entire episode have been a delusion, despite the tracks seen by other members of his family? Could the truth lie somewhere between reality and imagination: that is to say, could there have been a real visitor, albeit an impostor making a false identity claim, visiting the doctor for some unknown reason of his own, and somehow acting as a trigger for the doctor to invent a whole set of weird features that to a third party might have had some quite natural explanation?

What seems the least likely explanation is that the whole incident took place in the doctor's imagination. When his wife and children came home, they found him severely shaken, with the house lights blazing, seated at a table on which lay a gun. They confirmed the marks on the driveway and a series of disturbances on the telephone that seemed to commence immediately after the visit. So it would seem that some real event occurred, although its nature remains mystifyingly uncertain.

The concrete nature of the phenomenon was accepted by the United States Air Force, who were concerned that persons passing themselves off as USAF personnel should be visiting UFO witnesses. In February 1967 Colonel George P. Freeman, Pentagon spokesman for the USAF's Project Blue Book, told UFO investigator John Keel in the course of an interview:

"Mysterious men dressed in Air Force uniforms or bearing impressive credentials from government agencies have been 'silencing' UFO witnesses. We have checked a number of these cases and these men are not connected with the Air Force in any way. We haven't been able to find out anything about these men. By posing as Air Force officers and government agents they are committing a federal offence. We would sure like to catch one. Unfortunately the trail is always too cold by the time we hear about these cases. But we're still trying."

A question remains: were the impostors referred to by Colonel Freeman and Dr Hopkins's strange visitor similar in kind? UFO sightings, like sensational crimes, attract a number of mentally unstable persons, who are quite capable of posing as authorised officials in order to gain access to the witnesses; it is likely that some supposed MIB's are simply pseudo-investigators of this sort.

One curious recurrent feature of MIB reports is the ineptitude of the visitors. Time and again they are described as incompetent: if they are impersonating human beings, they don't do it very well; they arouse their victim's suspicions by improbable behaviour, by the way they look or talk, by their ignorance as much as by their knowledge. Of course it could be that the only ones who are spotted as impostors are those who are not good at their job: and so there may be many more MIB cases that we never learn about simply because the visitors successfully convince their victims that there is nothing suspicious about the visit, or that they will do best to keep quiet about it.

A feature of a great many MIB visits is the instruction to the witness not to say anything about the visit and to cease all activity concerning the case: clearly, we know of these cases only because such instructions have been disobeyed. Curiously, however, no terrible retribution follows, although violence is frequently threatened if the witness does not comply with instructions. Canadian UFO witness Carmen Cuneo, in 1976, was told by a mysterious visitor to stop repeating his story and going further into his case, or he would be visited by three men in black. "I said, What's that supposed to mean?". "Well," he said, "I could make it hot for you... It might cost you certain injury."

A year earlier, Mexican witness Carlos de Los Santos was stopped on his way to a television interview by not one but two large black limousines and one of the occupants dressed in a black suit and "Scandinavian" in appearance - told him, "Look, boy, if you value your life and your family's too, don't talk any more about this sighting of yours."

However, there is no reliable instance of such threats ever having been carried out, though a good many witnesses have defied their warnings. Indeed, sinister though the MIB's may be, they are notable for the lack of violence associated with them: the worst that can be said of them is that they harass the witnesses with their untimely visits and telephone calls, or simply disturb them with their very presence.

While for the victim it is just as well that the threats of violence are not followed through, this is for the investigator one more disconcerting aspect of the phenomenon. For violence, if it resulted in physical action, would at least help to establish the reality of the phenomenon. For it remains a fact that most of the evidence is purely hearsay in character and not often of the highest quality: cases as well - attested as those of Mr Richardson and Dr Hopkins are unfortunately in the minority. There is a dismaying lack of precision about too many of the reports. Popular American writer Brad Steiger alleges that "hundreds of ufologists, contactee's and chance percipients of UFO's claimed to have been visited by ominous strangers - usually three, usually dressed in black"; but he cites only a few anecdotal instances.

Similarly, John Keel, an expert on unexplained phenomena, claims "on a number of occasions I actually saw the phantom Cadillac's as advertised, complete with sinister-looking Oriental like passengers in black suits", but for a trained reporter he shows a curious reluctance to pursue these sightings or to give us chapter and verse in such an important matter. Such loose assertions are valueless as evidence: all they do is contribute to the myth.

And so we come back once again to the MIB myth and the possibility that there is nothing more to the phenomenon than the myth itself. Can we not write off the whole business as delusion, the creation of imaginative folk whose personal this particular shape because it reflects one or other of the prevalent cultural preoccupation's of our time? At one extreme we find contactee Woodrow Derenberger insisting that the "two men dressed entirely in black" who tried to silence him were emissaries of the Mafia: at the other, theorist David Tansley suggests that they are psychic entities, representatives of the dark forces, seeking to prevent the spread of true knowledge.

More matter-of-factly Dominick Lucchesi, one of Albert Bender's friends, held that they emanated from some unknown civilisation, possibly underground, in a remote area of Earth - the Amazon, the Gobi Desert or the Himalayas. But there is one feature that is common to virtually all MIB reports, that any theory must account for and that perhaps contains the key to the problem. This is the possession, by the MIB's, of information that they should not have been able to come by - information that was restricted, not released to the press, known perhaps to a few investigators and officials but not to the public and sometimes not even to them. The one person who does possess that knowledge is the person visited. In other words, the MIB's and their victim share knowledge that perhaps nobody else possesses.

Add to this the fact that in almost every case the MIB's appear to the witness when he or she is alone - in Dr Hopkins's case, for example, the visitor took care to call when the wife and children were away from home and established this fact by telephone beforehand. The implication has to be that some kind of paranormal link connects the MIB's and the persons they visit.

To this must be added other features of the phenomenon that are not easily reconciled with everyday reality. These notorious black cars, for instance: where are they, when they are not visiting witnesses? Where are they garaged, serviced? Do they never get involved in breakdowns or accidents? Can it be that they materialise from some other plane of existence when they are needed?

These are only a few of the questions raised by the MIB phenomenon. What complicates the matter is that MIB cases lie along a continuous spectrum ranging from the easily believable to the totally incredible. At one extreme are visits during which nothing really bizarre occurs, the only anomalous feature being, perhaps, that the visitor makes a false identity claim, or has unaccountable access to private information. But at the other extreme are cases in which the only explanation would seem to be that the witness has succumbed to paranoia.

In "The truth about the men in black", UFO investigator Ramona Clark tells of an unnamed investigator who was confronted by three MIB's on 3rd July 1969. "On the window of the car in which they were riding was the symbol connected with them and their visitations. This symbol had a profound psychological impact upon this man. I have never encountered such absolute fear in a human being."

That first meeting was followed by continual harassment. There were mysterious telephone calls; the man's house was searched. He began to hear voices and see strange shapes. "Black Cadillac's roamed the street in front of his home and followed him everywhere he went. Once he and his family were almost forced into an accident by an oncoming Cadillac. Nightmares concerning MIB's plagued his sleep. It became impossible for him to rest, his work suffered and he was scared of losing his job."

Was it all in his mind? One is tempted to think so. But a friend confirmed that, while they talked, there was a strange-looking man walking back and forth in front of the house. The man was tall, seemed about 55 years old - and was dressed entirely in black.

UFO percipients and investigators are by no means the only people to receive visits from men in black. Researchers Kevin and Sue McClure, investigating the North Wales religious revival of 1905, found accounts that bear at least a "prima facie" similarity to the current MIB phenomenon:

"In the neighbourhood dwells an exceptionally intelligent young woman of the peasant class, whose bedroom has been visited three nights in succession at midnight by a man dressed in black. This figure has delivered a message to the girl which, however, she is forbidden to relate."

The young woman in question, farmer's wife-turned-preacher Mary Jones - one of the leading figures of the revival - was well known for the mysterious lights that appeared as she pursued her mission. On one occasion when she encountered her sinister visitor at night, Mary was "rescued" by one of her lights, which darted a white ray at the apparition. The MIB promptly vanished.

It all sounds like the wildest fantasy except that there is substantial evidence for some of the phenomena reported, many of which were seen by several independent witnesses, some of them avowedly sceptical. Does this mean that the MIB's really existed, really appeared in the bedroom of that "intelligent young woman of the peasant class"? What we are learning about the current wave of MIB's may help us to understand similar cases reported in earlier periods.

"Men in black turn up, in one and periodically they emerge from legend into everyday life. On 2nd June 1603, a young country lad confessed before a court in south-west France to several acts of were-wolfery, culminating in kidnapping and eating a child. He stated that he was acting under the orders of the "Lord of the Forest", to whom he was bond-slave. The Lord of the Forest he described as a tall dark man, dressed all in black, and riding a black horse.

Montague Summers, who reports the case in his book "The werewolf" (1933) has no hesitation in identifying this and all other MIB's with the Devil of Christian teaching and this continues to be a widespread interpretation: even today there are theorists who claim that UFO's are diabolical in origin and the MIB's consequently must be Satan's agents.

In the parts of the world where the prevailing religious doctrine presuppose two warring factions of good and evil, good is equated with light and evil with darkness, the agents of good tend to be blond and dressed in white, while the agents of evil have dark hair and are dressed in black. Other connotations follow naturally. Under cover of darkness, all kinds of tricks can be carried out and crimes committed. Darkness is also associated with winter and so with death: in almost all parts of the world, death rites and customs are associated with the colour black.

So, whatever his specific role, the MIB is a distinctly sinister figure. He is a trickster, not working openly; he stands for lies rather than truth, death rather than life. Because of the obviously symbolic elements involved, many theorists speculate that MIB's are not flesh-and-blood creatures at all, but mental constructs projected from the imagination of the percipient and taking on a form that blends traditional legend with contemporary imagery but it can't be quite that simple: too many accounts show evidence of relating to physical creatures moving in the real, physical world.

To those who report MIB encounters, there are several possible origins. At his most concrete the MIB is supposed to be the representative of an official department; sometimes as straightforward and aboveboard as the Air Force, sometimes a more covert organisation such as the CIA or FBI. The average American, in particular, seems far from convinced that investigative bodies such as the CIA are necessarily working in the public interest and the same attitude of mind as has evolved the conspiracy theories about UFO's, that a gigantic cover-up is being mounted by the government, suggests that the MIB's are part of this operation, their sole object being to conceal the facts by silencing witnesses and purloining photographs and other evidence.

The fact that the identities of a great many MIB's have been checked and they have invariably been found not to be the persons they purport to be, lends strength to this suspicion, which can amount to virtual paranoia. Thus in 1970 an American theorist, Tony Kimery, wrote in all seriousness: "The mysterious MIB and the entire collection of their thugs, henchmen and highly trained intelligence officers, are a big part of the complex UFO phenomena which is in turn part of another big and complex phenomena (sic).

It is known that projects by them are now under way for the complete control of... political, financial, religious and scientific institutions. They - the MIB - have a very long background and history that stretches back for centuries, indicating a massive build- up of concentration to where it is today.

MIB's are often reported as dark skinned, as having either defective command of English, or conversely an over-precise, over meticulous way of speaking that suggests that they are not speaking a tongue natural to them. Mary Hyre, a West Virginia journalist, noted that a strange visitor picked up a ball-point pen from her desk and examined it with amazement, as if he had never seen anything like it before. And UFO percipient Mrs Ralph Butler, who received a visit from a man who claimed to be an Air Force major, was astonished to find that he was so unfamiliar with American food that he had to be shown how to eat it.

The implication is that they are foreigners, an attitude encouraged by American xenophobia. Curiously, though, no witness appears to have suggested that the MIB's are of Russian origin: where specific details are mentioned, it is always implied that they are vaguely "oriental". Slanting eyes are frequently reported; the deadpan faces suggest the inscrutable Asiatic; sometimes heads are totally bald. (By linking "the yellow peril" with the "man in black", of course, it is possible to frighten oneself with two bogeymen for the price of one!)

Although witnesses rarely state openly that they believe their visitors to come from beyond Earth, this is often clearly implied. Bender's three men were clearly of alien origin. Other MIB's have displayed behaviour traits that seem to suggest that they are able to function only for a limited time-span: after a while they insist that they have to leave, or take pills, or ask for water and sometimes show signs of losing strength.

A further possibility remains: that the MIB's are neither flesh-and-blood (even extra-terrestrial flesh-and-blood) on the one hand, nor pure hallucination/illusion on the other, but something in between. The entities encountered in a recent French case seem to have existed, if existed is the word, on some alternative plane of being.

The alleged abduction, in December 1979, of Franck Fontaine for seven days on board a UFO was one of the rare French cases to have attracted world-wide attention. The abduction itself was of course the central event of the case, but it was only the start of a series of incidents: one of these, involving MIB's, concerned another member of the trio, Jean Pierre Prevost, who told this story:

"The night of Friday the seventh to Saturday the eighth of December 1979, Franck, Salomon and I had sat up talking for a long time and went to bed sometime around 5 to 5.30 in the morning. At 7 there was a ring at the door: Salomon and Franck didn't hear it, so I went to open the door. I found myself in the presence of three fellows. One was of average height, very well dressed in dark green, almost black, black tie, white shirt and waistcoat to match his suit; he had a fringe of beard, black like his hair and a moustache. His general appearance was pretty good. The others were bigger than him, taller and more heavily built." "What follows, I haven't told the police - I reported the visit itself to them - because we've already had enough of being taken for crackpots! But these two types, with the bearded man, didn't really exist, that I'm certain of! In the first place, they had no sight. That's hard to explain: they fixed me with their eyes, but those eyes were nothing but a white mass, all over. They were terrifying!"

"The bearded fellow asked me, 'are you one of the three?', by which obviously he meant, was I one of the three people concerned in the Cergy-Pontoise case? I said yes and he went on, 'Good, in that case, you can pass the word to your companions: you've already said too much. An accident will happen to you. And if you say any more, it will be more serious than that...'"

"And with that they vanished; but how, that's something I can't begin to explain. They didn't take the lift, I'd have heard it if they did; and even more so if they'd used the stairs, the door makes a deafening row! I went to the window that overlooks the parking lot. I can tell you definitely that all night, at least until 5 a.m. or later, we'd noticed a Ford Capri in metallic green standing beneath our window, a Ford that we didn't recognise. Well, when I looked down, there was this Ford, just starting up. How had they managed to get to it without using the stairs or the lift? Complete mystery."

"I woke up Franck and Salomon and we went to the police, without giving them the unbelievable details about the two toughs. The police said, 'So long as they didn't actually attack or wound you, there's nothing we can do, so get back home'. And that was that."

Jean-Pierre told investigators that he had seen the three men on several subsequent occasions. Generally, it was simply a matter of seeing them across the street or at a market, but on one occasion he received another warning while he was in a tobacco store buying cigarettes, telling him to keep quiet about their experiences and making threats. Subsequently, under hypnosis, Jean-Pierre indicated that the entities were not extra-terrestrials but intra-terrestrials, forces of evil from inside the Earth. He also added - intriguingly - that the bearded man had been real but that his two henchmen had been unreal.

Cases such as this are made baffling by their inconsequentiality. But one thing seems certain: just as the MIB visits seem to originate from some psychic or mental link between the MIB's and the witness, so the consequences of the visit depend less on the MIB's than on the attitude adopted by the witness. If he takes the MIB's at their face value, if he believes their threats, he is liable to find himself heading for a breakdown: paranoia may develop and he may believe himself followed everywhere, harassed by paranormal happenings such as strange telephone calls and poltergeist phenomena. It is even possible that these second-stage phenomena are genuine as far as the victim himself is concerned: they are manifestations of his fears - but none the less real for that - and will not disappear until he capitulates and gives up his UFO studies, if he is an investigator, or keeps quiet about his experiences if he is a witness.

If, on the other hand, he braves the matter out - if he refuses to abandon his investigation, continues to tell the world of his experiences - it seems the MIB's are powerless against him. Carlos de Los Santos, stopped on his way to a television interview by a gang of tough, threatening characters, was momentarily scared; he turned his car round, went home and cancelled the interview. But a friend reassured him and persuaded him not to let himself be intimidated: a fortnight later he gave the interview - and there wasn't a squeak from the MIB's!

The MIB phenomenon is clearly worth studying carefully. Whatever the nature of the MIB's - whether they are wholly illusory, or whether there is a measure of reality in them - they exert a great deal of power over the minds of their victims. The better we understand them, the more we may learn about how such power may be deployed. And, if for no other reason, the MIB phenomenon is important because it gives the sociologist a chance to study a legend in the making. The sinister MIB masquerade provides us with contemporary phenomena that rank with the witch, the vampire and the werewolf of times past.