MIBs and More
Right now: I’m in the middle of reading Jason Offutt’s Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us (Anomalist Books); and a review will appear right here next week.
But, reading the book, I’m struck by some aspects of the Shadow People accounts that eerily parallel some of the stranger Men in Black reports.
While many people are content to relegate the MIBs to the world of clandestine intelligence-gathering ops, other cases are far stranger in nature - and do indeed spill-over into the realm of the Shadow People - such as the following:
“The door banged really slowly, and when I opened it there was this horrible little man about five feet tall. He was dressed in a black suit and tie, and had a funny little black hat on. His face was really strange: like someone with anorexia. His cheeks were all gaunt; his eyes were dark and his skin was almost white,” a British housewife named Sarah told me in 1994 while discussing her own, personal encounter with a Man in Black.
She continued: “All he said was: ‘We would ask you cease your studies.’ I said: ‘What?’ Then he repeated it. I had to ask what he meant. He said: ‘The sky lights; always the sky lights.’ Then it dawned on me. I’d seen a UFO late at night on the Cannock Chase about a week before when me and my husband had been driving home and we both had a really weird dream after – about some little men standing around our car on the edge of the wood.
“He gave me a really long stare, like he was going to attack me. But he just walked away. I started to feel dizzy and slammed the door. I just crawled to the bed and fell asleep for about three hours. But when I woke up there was this horrible smell, like burning rubber all through the house.”
Long-term students of MIB lore will, of course, recognize the deep similarities between this case and that of Albert Bender - at least, as he described it in his Flying Saucers and the Three Men.
MIBs? Shadow People? Or are they facets of the same phenomenon…?
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May 15 2009 
May 15th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I remember Keel documenting a lot of
cases like this in the ‘Bedroom Invaders’ chapter of STRANGE CREATURES FROM TIME AND SPACE.
Something is happening, but like
Mr. Jones, I doubt we’ll ever know what it is…Thnaks again for the tip on the book though, Nick-I may despair of an answer, but I’ll never tire of hearing the stories.
May 15th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Nick, it’s probably an old tradition with a new, sleeker undefined face.
From Witchcraft and Sorcery of the American Native Peoples, edited by Deward E. Walker:
“Well, first I should say that the old Indian doctors could see sickness like a shadow, as it passed from one person to another. Now there was an old fellow lived back of Zoar. He said one day he saw a shadow coming a northwesterly direction, a shape. It went into all the houses, just slapped the people as it went past…Sure enough, the next day all those people were sick with deep colds, this phlegm, h’naek, was bad.
“Now my girlfriend had a fever. It was high. I was going to call the doctor the next day, but I decided to take some peyote. I did, and I gave her some. She quieted down, breathed easier. All of sudden she screamed and jumped at me, and said, “Look! Look out the window!” I did, while holding her, and there was this thing. It looked like those advertisements for Jack Frost or the West Wind. I saw it there. If he touched her she’d have pneumonia. But I felt sure. I was full of the Holy Spirit. I knew he couldn’t touch me, and I told him to go, and he did. The next day she was well and healthy. This thing looked like the disease shape. It has no definite form and is all shadowy.”
This account was drawn from interviews with Peyote Cult members of the Menomini Indian Tribe.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Maybe it’s some kind of ‘balance check’ or ‘buffer system’ of the Fortean phenomena. Because despite the fact we don’t know the origin of the MIB, we can study something of their objectives by analizing their MO.
If they were really serious about silencing witnesses, they should just kill them. Instead they give them the heeve jeebes with their awkward staged presence —the theatricality of the encounter is paramount— which refrains the witness from discussing his experience; but this is only temporary, since eventually we all learn from them, don’t we? And those “we” are the people who are fascinated by these kind of weird shit, in other words: the underdogs, who might have a cultural impact in the very long run.
So the MIBS are another control system that ensures the public gets acquainted with the phenomenon, but in a very subliminal and slow way.
May 17th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Anyone else notice that this post for The Redfern Files is #666?
May 18th, 2009 at 2:13 am
Really?? Where do you find that on the page?
May 18th, 2009 at 4:21 am
Craig:
Yeah, they are very much like those bedroom invader type cases.
Joseph:
You’re absolutely right when you say: “…it’s probably an old tradition with a new, sleeker undefined face.’
Whatever the MIB are, they have been around a lot longer than since the modern era of Ufology kicked off. You can find them here, there and just about everywhere in Forteana if you look closely.
RPJ:
Yep, the MIB are indeed pure theater.
Greg:
666 - uh-oh, my satanic cover is blown!