Back when I was writing The Aliens Are Here, I meant to devote a blog post to the myth of the Men in Black, the shadowy government agents who cover up all trace of UFO activity. A myth that not only gave us the Men in Black franchise but X-Files.
After Kenneth Arnold reported the original flying saucers in 1947 (what he actually said was that they skipped across the air like saucers skipping when thrown over water), the government eventually began an investigation, Project Blue Book. In 1969, the project (known by several other names) shut down concluding that all but 701 sightings had been explained, and even those sightings weren’t evidence of advanced technology or alien visitation.
You won’t be surprised to learn that for some people that was a blatant cover-up — the government knew and it was lying! It’s an assumption that is now standard in TV and movies dealing with UFOS, in large part because X-Files was rife with that conspiracy thinking and X-Files was a phenomenal hit. I discuss this in comparing the 1970s series Project UFO with the 21st century’s Project Blue Book.
The trouble is, lots of witnesses are still out there, seeing UFOs with their own eyes. Someone has to ensure they don’t talk. Enter the men in black.
Harold Dahl, in 1947, was the first person to supposedly encounter the MiB. After he reported sighting a UFO, a man in a dark suit with an expert’s knowledge of the topic showed up and warned Dahl to keep his mouth shut. Dahl later admitted he’d been telling a tall tale and never met such a man. To UFO believers, that later retraction is the lie, part of the cover-up.
A few years later, UFOlogist Albert Bender spoke of encountering three dark-clad men in Homburgs (hats), looking almost like clergymen. They warned him against continuing his UFO research; he backed off but later wrote a book about UFOs and the sinister trio. Gray Barker then incorporated the story into his book about the men in black — he coined the term — They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers.
Barker was an entertainer and hoaxer and didn’t try to hide it. The story, nevertheless, was good enough that it took root in pop culture and UFO belief. Some of the books on the paranormal I devoured as a tween discussed the mysterious government figures who’d show up when something weird occurred, though I don’t think they used the “men in black” term.
There were a number of government cover-ups in 1950s science fiction films. In The Monolith Monsters, for instance, the local sheriff orders the town newspaper publisher not to go public with news that meteorite rocks are growing, spreading and may crush the town soon. The publisher grumbles but complies because this is clearly for the public’s good, to avoid panic (as a reporter, I think he cooperates longer than reasonable, though). As Peter Biskind says in Seeing is Believing, such films assume you can trust people in authority to make those calls.
I can only think of two films that went with X-Files levels of paranoia back in that era. The infamously awful Plan Nine From Outer Space (1959) has one seen in which an artilleryman firing at a UFO learns from his CO that when the aliens destroyed an American town (“It was a small town, I admit, but nevertheless it was a town of people!”) the government blamed it on natural disaster (“You hear an account of a fire, an earthquake, a natural disaster, and you wonder.”). The artilleryman nods sagely and says that obviously they didn’t see a saucer either — just target practice shooting at clouds. Small wonder the aliens try raising the dead to get public attention.
Then there’s Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), a shaggy dog story about teenagers and fast-buck operators encountering little green men. It’s not good but it does have an interesting B-plot in which a USAF team covers up all evidence of the invaders and their ship. When the leader comments that they’re the only ones who know the whole story, his sidekick wonders if they do — who’s to say other teams aren’t covering up things their crew never learns about?
Post-X-Files, that’s pretty much a given.
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The big distractions came Tuesday. Snowdrop had peed on the couch the night TYG kept him indoors and she could still smell it. We had someone come in to clean the couch off, after which we and the dogs had to stay off it for several hours while it dried.
would have expired. That turned into a much larger expedition as I also wound up getting Trixie’s prescription food from the vet, plus food shopping done, plus picking up a prescription. TYG is away this weekend at an alumni event out of town — she left mid-morning — so I’ll be sticking home with the dogs and not going out. That saves me having to crate Plushie — he gets up to mischief otherwise – or the slight possibility something happens to me while driving and then there’s no-one here for the dogs until Monday.
Questionable Minds is available in ebook on 
The Savage Year came out at 
Questionable Minds is available in ebook on 
turn a profit and I get royalties, but more royalties is always desirable. The 
Then for the underrated 1985 Return to Oz.
Warren Beatty’s 1974 masterpiece of paranoia, The Parallax View
And the 1961 time travel fantasy 
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Why yes, I do feel as happy as I look there. Here’s a look at the entire cover:
which has scientist Richard Carlson filling the role of the eccentric and outsider who doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the community (the same can be said of the shapeshifting aliens). In Invasion of the Body Snatchers the community is tight knit; the alien intrusion corrupts and destroys it.
effect of alien rape and impregnation on the small community, and the 1960 
The plot centers on a series of mysterious deaths in a lab working on space research, including plans for an orbiting solar mirror that could destroy any target on Earth, so clearly our satellite has to get up before any foreign power tries it (the kind of thinking 
If you read this blog regularly you know I’m a big fan of the Brian K. Vaughn/Cliff Chiang 
and know the material enough that I could do it even without notes. Beyond that I got to hang out with my fellow Mensans, eat some good food — the vegan meal Saturday night was so good, apparently even the meat-eaters in the Atlanta group wanted that restaurant to cater — and participated in a quiz or two. Didn’t win but one question asked for a Batman villain with a time-themed name. I gave them four (Clock, Clock King, Time Commander, Calendar Man).
