The Real Men in Black Read online

  The contents of the letter were decidedly odd and unsettling: Three short men of Asian appearance seemed to be shadowing Steiger’s friend just about everywhere he went, around Britain’s ancient capital city. “And the strangest thing,” says Steiger of one experience his friend had with the three MIB, “was that he was standing at a train station, waiting to take the train to someplace, and they approached him and asked him, ‘How do you get to such and such?’ And he said, ‘You’re standing right under the sign. That’s where this train goes to.’ They bowed and thanked him.”

  This was far from the end of the story, however: When Steiger’s friend got back to his hotel, he happened to look out of the window, down to the street below. To his concern he could see that there were the three men yet again, standing under a lamppost and looking directly up at the very room in which he was staying. Finally, there was a confrontation, about which the man duly wrote to Steiger. The mysterious group had approached Steiger’s friend while he was on the street and said, “You are a friend of Brad Steiger, aren’t you?” To which he replied, “Yes.” They then made a somewhat disturbing statement: “Tell him we will visit him at Christmastime.” However, there was no end-of-the-year silencing for Steiger.

  Given the nature of this experience, we should not doubt Steiger’s opinion when he says, “Those responsible for these types of encounters are not the Air Force; this is not military or paramilitary.”

  5

  Mothman Arrives in Point Pleasant (1967)

  Surely very few people reading this book have not at least heard of the legend of Mothman—a creature that haunted the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and its surrounding areas, between November 1966 and December 1967. The diabolical exploits of the beast were chronicled in the 2002 hit Hollywood movie starring Richard Gere, The Mothman Prophecies, named after the book of the same title written by John Keel.

  A devil-like, winged monster sporting a pair of glowing, red eyes, Mothman came hurtling into Point Pleasant out of nowhere. And, some say, its presence culminated in tragedy, doom, and death. The manifestation of Mothman also coincided with the spine-tingling appearance of more than a few of the dreaded MIB in and around Point Pleasant, too. But who, or what, was Mothman? How did the legend begin? And what was the deal with the Men in Black poking their noses into the mystery?

  Mothman, the monster of Point Pleasant.

  To answer those important questions, we have to go back to a dark night in November 1966, when five grave-diggers working in a cemetery in the nearby town of Clendenin were shocked to see what they described as a brown-colored, human-like, winged beast rise ominously out of the thick, surrounding trees and soar away into the distance.

  Three days later, the unearthly beast surfaced once again. It was, perhaps not coincidentally, around midnight when Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette—two young, married couples from Point Pleasant—were passing the time by cruising around town in the Scarberrys’ car. After a while, the foursome decided to head out to the dark West Virginia Ordnance Works, which was basically an abandoned explosives factory that had been used to make TNT during the Second World War, and which was situated a few miles north of Point Pleasant, in the McClintic Wildlife Station.

  As they drove around the old factory, the four were puzzled to see in the shadows what looked like two red lights pointing in their direction. These were no normal lights, however. All were shocked and horrified to discover that, in reality, the lights were the glowing red eyes of a huge animal that, as Roger Scarberry later recalled, was perhaps 6 1/2 or 7 feet tall. And there were, those gigantic wings, too. Not surprisingly, the couples fled the area at high speed.

  Unfortunately for the Scarberrys and the Mallettes, however, the monstrous thing was far from done and seemingly decided to pursue them: As they sped off for the safety of Point Pleasant, it took to the skies and shadowed their vehicle’s every movement until it reached the city limits. The four raced to the sheriff’s office and told their astounding story to Deputy Millard Halstead, who later informed the media that he had known all four people for years, confirmed that none of them had criminal records, and stressed that his reason for taking their story so seriously was due to the sheer hysteria that had overwhelmed the two couples. And even though a search of the area by Halstead did not result in an answer to the mystery, Mothman was very soon to return.

  Only one day after the Scarberry-Mallette encounter, Mothman decided to make an appearance for Marcella Bennett of Point Pleasant, who, around 9 p.m. on November 16th, was visiting a friend that lived close to the old TNT area. As Bennett parked and exited her vehicle, a large gray figure with red eyes seemed to rise from the very ground behind her. Such was the horror that the incident provoked in Bennett that she actually dropped her young daughter, whom she was then cradling in her arms. Scooping up the fortunately unhurt child, she raced into the home of her friend, slamming the door behind her.

  And the sightings just kept on coming.

  Early on the morning of November 25th, yet another remarkable encounter with the mysterious beast took place. A man named Thomas Ury was driving along Route 62 just north of Point Pleasant’s TNT area when he could not fail to see a tall, gray, man-like figure standing in a field by the roadside. Suddenly, Ury later recalled, the beast opened up a large pair of wings on its back, and rose vertically into the air in a fashion that reminded Ury of a helicopter. The fear-stricken Ury added that the monster flew toward his vehicle, shadowing it with ease, even though Ury had his accelerator pedal pushed to the floor.

  Throughout the next few days more and more sightings surfaced, including that of Ruth Foster of nearby Charleston, who saw the winged thing late at night in her yard, and who described it as being tall with a pair of red eyes that seemed to pop out of its face. Needless to say, the local media had an absolute field day with the mounting story of Mothman. Tales of what were referred to as “the Bird-Monster” hit the headlines, while both skeptics and local police ensured that their views and opinions on the matter were widely known. The police offered a stern warning to any and all would-be Mothman-hunters: Keep away from the abandoned powerhouse in the TNT area after dark. Meanwhile, Dr. Robert L. Smith, associate professor of Wildlife Biology in the West Virginia University’s Division of Forestry, expressed his firm opinion that Mothman was nothing stranger than a large Sandhill Crane. This hardly satisfied the vast majority of the witnesses, however.

  In the weeks and months that followed, further encounters with the bizarre beast were reported; however, they were all overshadowed by a tragic event that occurred on December 15, 1967. It was on that day that Point Pleasant’s Silver Bridge—so named after its aluminum paint—that spanned the Ohio River and connected Point Pleasant to Gallipolis, Ohio, suddenly collapsed into the river, tragically claiming 46 lives. Interestingly, after the disaster at the Silver Bridge, encounters with Mothman largely came to a halt. And although a down-to-earth explanation for the bridge collapse was circulated—namely, that a fatal flaw in a single eye-bar in a suspension chain was the chief culprit—many see the cause of the disaster as being directly linked with the brooding presence of Mothman.

  It was during this period—between when Mothman first appeared to the death and disaster on the wintery Ohio River—that the Men in Black dutifully delivered their calling cards inscribed with the words paranoia and fear. Many of those MIB cases were either chronicled by or directly involved a woman named Mary Hyre, a journalist based in Point Pleasant.

  In early January 1967, Hyre, who, at the time, was working as the Point Pleasant correspondent for the Athens, West Virginia–based Messenger newspaper, received her own typically absurd and unsettling visit from a Man in Black. This new stranger in town wore his black hair in a bowl style, was less than 5 feet in height, possessed a pair of weirdly hypnotic eyes, and had curiously thick soles on his shoes. (Notably, the late Jim Keith, who wrote his own book on the Men in Black, titled Casebook of the Men in Black, pointed out
that “Thick shoe soles are a recurring detail in many MIB encounters” [Keith 1997].)

  Crazier still, the odd little man seemed strangely entranced by Hyre’s ballpoint pen. When Hyre told him he was welcome to keep it, his only response was a bone-chilling, cackle-like laugh, and he charged out of the door at high speed, vanishing into the cold, dark night as mysteriously as he had first arrived.

  As she continued to delve into the puzzle of the Men in Black, UFOs, the affair of Mothman, and all its attendant oddities, Hyre began to be courted by the MIB even more, across a period of months. The strangest encounter occurred in late 1967, when a pair of Asian-appearing MIB, looking like identical twins and dressed in black overcoats, turned up at the offices of the newspaper and began making confounding conversation of the flying saucer variety.

  One of the Men in Black noted, blankly, that there had recently been a lot of UFO activity in the area, a statement with which Hyre concurred. Then a barrage of questions began: Had anyone asked Hyre not to publish the details of such activity? Hyre assured the pair that, no, there had been no hush-up attempts by anyone. Then, the MIB wanted to know, what would Hyre’s response be if someone did warn her not to print such tales? Her forthright reply was concise and clear: “I’d tell them to go to Hell” (Keel 1976). Perhaps this dark duo interpreted Hyre’s words quite literally. After glancing back at the mounting workload on her desk for a moment, Hyre looked up again and both MIB were gone.

  Clearly, there was some connection between the Men in Black and Mothman. In a later chapter, we’ll meet a paranormal expert named Joshua P. Warren, who believes he may have an explanation for that mystifying connection. And a truly swirling brew of high strangeness it is, too. Until then, though, we go back to the case files.

  6

  Photographic Evidence (Late 1960s)

  One of the most confounding and disturbing aspects of the Men in Black is their puzzling ability to evade capture and identification, and avoid leaving behind any physical proof of their presence. Even the U.S. Air Force, in 1967, secretly acknowledged that the MIB were seemingly always one step ahead of those who were intent on pursuing them. Evidence of this can be found in a March 1, 1967 USAF document notably titled “Impersonations of Air Force Officers” that is now in the public domain: “Information, not verifiable, has reached HQ USAF that persons claiming to represent the Air Force and other Defense establishments have contacted citizens who have sighted unidentified flying objects. In one reported case an individual in civilian clothes, who represented himself as a member of NORAD [the North American Aerospace Defense Command], demanded and received photos belonging to a private citizen. All military and civilian personnel, and particularly Information Officers and UFO investigating Officers who hear of such reports, should immediately notify their local OSI offices.”

  Clearly, even as far back as the 1960s, someone, somewhere deep within the secret world of officialdom, dearly wished to get their hands on the Men in Black and determine who they really were, from where they came, and what it was that they wanted from us. And although the document cited here was circulated extensively throughout the Air Force, it proved to be fruitless in terms of securing any meaningful results: The MIB continued to skillfully avoid even the most trained personnel of the military and the intelligence community. There are, however, a couple of (literally, just two) exceptions to this peculiar situation that stand out, and they are worthy of scrutiny. Interestingly they both date from the late 1960s, and both involve a Man in Black captured not in person, but on film.

  In 1968, Timothy Green Beckley captured a Man in Black on film.

  “I had my own experience with a Man in Black, when me and Jim Moseley photographed a strange individual one day back in 1968,” says longtime UFO researcher and author Timothy Green Beckley, whose dogged pursuit of the MIB has persisted for decades. “There was a fellow by the name of John J. Robertson—Jack Robertson to his friends—who was the secretary for the National UFO Conference, the organization that Jim had started. Jack lived over in Jersey City. He was known as the point-man as far as UFOs went on the other side of the Hudson, and had a massive UFO library. Jack was married to Mary. She was the psychic in the family, whereas Jack was more of a nuts-and-bolts UFO guy.”

  Mary was a regular user of Ouija boards, and claimed to have seen fairies in a large tree outside one of the apartment windows, and had even heard disembodied footsteps in the family home. And life was destined to get even stranger, if such a thing were possible. A fiend in black was ready to surface from the shadows, after carefully biding his time, waiting in the wings, and planning a brief reign of torment and fear. As Beckley told me, a concerned Mary informed Jack that for four days she had seen a dark-suited character in a black hat and sunglasses hunkered down in the doorway of a building next to their apartment.

  Beckley states, “Mary told me and Jim he seemed to be oddly dressed, and kind of like a zombie—just standing there, very rigid. She had never engaged him in dialog but he seemed to be surveying those going in and out of the building.”

  Jack Robertson later carefully placed his thoughts and recollections on record with respect to the mysterious man. Based on his wife’s description, Robertson described the Man in Black as dark and swarthy, and always possessed of a piercing, nerve-jangling expression. Robertson was a worried man. Then, as if right on cue, Beckley explains, certain other things started happening in and around the Robertson household: Strange clicking noises could be heard on the Robertsons’ telephone. And, echoing the experience of Albert Bender a decade and a half earlier when his flying saucer records were thoroughly rifled, Beckley says that Robertson’s precious UFO files had also been secretly scanned by someone unknown: “Jack could just tell they had been disturbed, because he had a place for everything.”

  Mary was becoming more and more upset by the whole situation, recalls Beckley: “She would call me up, and call Jim up, about this individual in the doorway early in the morning. Both me and Jim don’t get up for nobody before noon, but Mary called so many times that Jim phoned me one day and said, ‘You know, Tim, why don’t we try to get up early and drive over to Jersey City, without letting Mary know that we’re coming?’”

  And that is precisely what the pair did. Moseley and Beckley met up, and hit the road to Jersey City with one intention: to confront the mysterious Man in Black that was torturing the mind of Mary Robertson. Beckley picks up the story again: “This was a narrow street Jack and Mary lived on, and we were following the traffic, and people were double-parked in some places. So, we’re driving down the street and, sure enough, next to Mary’s building, there’s this guy standing, recessed into the building, like not on the sidewalk—a bit back in. He’s kind of staring ahead. And he looks just like a Man in Black.”

  The Man in Black seen by Mary Robertson in 1968.

  There was not a moment to lose, and it was quite literally a case of now or never. With Moseley driving and carefully keeping his eyes on the road, Beckley grabbed the camera, quickly leaned out of the window and snapped a shot of the dark-suited stranger. As there was no place to park, unfortunately, and with the morning traffic at its height, the dynamic duo was forced to hastily pull around the corner, park the car, and then race back to the scene of all the action. Just like so many other Men in Black, unfortunately, this one had already hot-footed it away from the scene. Either that or he dematerialized into the ether.

  Beckley makes several important observations on the affair: “The strange thing is that after the man vanished that morning, Mary said he never appeared again. I feel, today, that me and Jim were stalking Mary’s Man in Black. And I think that if that’s what you do—if you start to get on their case—they vanish quickly.”

  For the record, it must be noted that Jim Moseley takes a very different stance from that of Beckley with respect to the nature of the Man in Black who appears in the photograph: “I was hoping you were going to ask me about that. I mean, truth is usually less exciting than fiction
,” were Moseley’s opening words when I brought up the matter in conversation. Moseley’s conclusion on the affair is far more down to earth than Beckley’s:

  Jack was out at work, and Mary was home all day with nothing to do. And, it seems to me she started noticing somebody dressed in black, hanging around the apartment, out on the street. She became very paranoid about this; very paranoid. So, we drove over there, and Beckley took the photograph out of the window as we drove past the apartment. So, the picture is real, and there is a guy standing in the doorway. And, Tim is right: we went around the block, and when we came back the man had gone. The only thing that kind of made sense to me was that he was a look-out for a bookie joint, or for some illegal operation. But the point is, to me anyway—not to Tim, I know—it had absolutely nothing to do with the Robertsons or with flying saucers. He might have seen Tim taking his picture out of the car, and if he was doing something illegal that’s why he left.

  Regardless of whether or not Beckley and Moseley captured a genuine Man in Black on that long-gone early morning in Jersey City, even Moseley admits that within Men in Black research circles, the story and its solitary photograph have now “become a legend.”

  There is one more matter of relevance with respect to the saga of the Robertsons and the Men in Black: One weekend afternoon in June 1968, Jack and Mary Robertson, Jim Moseley, Gray Barker, Timothy Green Beckley, Allen Greenfield, and a variety of other ufological characters who diligently pursued the Men in Black were all seated in Cleveland, Ohio’s Wild Boar Inn, enjoying drinks and lunch. What should have been a relaxing time for one and all soon changed drastically when Mary suddenly caught sight of a very pale, silver-haired man dressed in black who, with another blank-faced Man in Black, appeared to be intensely watching the group while seated at a table near the door. Mary was sure they were under secret surveillance by a pair of MIB. At that moment, the two Men in Black appeared to clearly realize they had been rumbled, headed quickly for the door, and disappeared into the early afternoon and oblivion.