WEBVTT - M.I.B. or N.I.B. ? 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.239 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.040 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.319 You know, we've covered a lot of UFO beliefs on 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.400 the show over the years, talk about alien abduction experiences, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:29.040 strange lights in the sky, ancient aliens, speculation, and we've 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:33.199 covered it all with our usual level of skeptical enthusiasm. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.960 I would say, not coming at it in order to 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.200 prove all the stories true and believe, but also appreciating 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:44.320 that fantastical beliefs and experiences and even delusions are interesting 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.840 phenomena that are worth studying and paying attention to. Yeah, 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.080 why are people reporting these stories? What what is actually 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.440 occurring that might be interpreted as such? And and then 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.279 why do we tell the stories that we tell? Like, 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.880 all these questions are sort of bound up in the 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.320 same riddle. But to refresh, this is the basic truth 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.000 of the matter. Humans have always seen things they couldn't explain, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.200 and some of these things were actual phenomena, such as 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:13.240 shooting stars or unusual weather effects. Other times these were 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.200 hallucinations which can occur can occur for a variety of reasons, only, 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:21.759 some of which entail the ingestion of psychedelics or symptoms 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.639 of mental illness, and in either case, things seen became 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.360 become things remembered. And memory is a tricky thing all 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.480 in its own, highly susceptible to error, to manipulation, and 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.440 change due to personal desires, interpretations, cultural priming, and a 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.040 host of other factors. Yeah, that's exactly right. And one 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.720 of the things that I often think about doesn't get 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:49.840 enough attention when when people discuss fantastical experiences like say, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.520 you know, UFO abduction experiences and sightings and things like that, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.520 is is all of these in between categories that create 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.400 memory experiences for people or create you know, at least 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.280 in some way or another, lead a person to relate 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.600 and experience that are not exactly one of three clear options. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.680 The three clear options usually presented are somebody actually physically 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.320 had this UFO abduction experience, they really were taken up, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.560 or they're lying and they're just making up a story 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:29.200 they know to be false. Or they hallucinated it like 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.200 they had a vision where they imagine that they really 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.280 believed all this stuff was happening to them at the time, 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.359 and that you know, and then they remember that hallucination 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.079 as if it was a real physical event. I think 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:43.720 those are actually not the only three options. They usually 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.400 treated as like the main three things that could have happened. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.720 I think what gets underappreciated or these sort of like 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.840 weird middle categories where you know, where like imagination and 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.960 fancy and retelling and embellishment and all these different kinds 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.560 of things sort of interact in a stew within the mind. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.280 And there's so many ways this can happen. One piece 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:08.280 of research that I always just think it's such an 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:14.000 interesting little example of demonstrating how contagious imagery and ideation 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.400 can be between one brain subsystem and another is a 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.200 two thousand six study called do you Remember Proposing Marriage 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.320 to the Pepsi Machine? False recollection? False recollections from a 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.880 campus walk And this was in the Psychonomic Bulletin and 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.560 Review two thousand and six by by Semen, Philbin, and Harrison. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.720 And basically the gist here is that students were asked 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.040 to perform, and too so somewhere asked to perform, and 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.280 some were asked to merely imagine themselves performing or imagine 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.880 seeing somebody perform activities, both normal like checking a pepsi 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.480 machine for change or lying down on a couch to relax, 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.560 and also actions that were bizarre, like proposing marriage to 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.440 a pepsi machine or lying down on a couch to 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.960 have a chat with Sigmund Freud. And it turned out 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.400 in this study at least that even just imagining performing 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:09.720 these activities caused many subjects to later recall having actually 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.760 performed them. Of course, this doesn't always happen, like sometimes 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.080 you remember the difference, but sometimes you don't remember the difference. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.159 Sometimes the contents of our minds I are contagious in 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.800 a way that can spread into memory. Things that we 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.760 think about happening, can in some cases become things that 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.960 we believe happened. And this is possible in people who 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.440 have not been diagnosed with any conditions that cause psychosis 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.880 or hallucinations. It's just one of the many interesting ways 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.200 that you can see uh memories being meddled with in 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.600 in this kind of contagious way within the brain. And 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.760 of course we do outright invent things, sometimes in full things. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.800 We have terrifying visions, and certainly there are hoaxes in 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:54.919 the world. But still even with hoaxes. There's there's still 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.760 this element of the human imagination that ultimately helped the 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.400 dream of every god, demon, fairy and an extraterrestrial that 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:05.440 we've ever considered. And once these things are created, they're 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:10.080 essentially available as food, uh for our meaning hungry minds. 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.799 And so the version of all of this that emerged 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.240 in the post War War two period and continues on 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.159 to this day, though with decreased energy, is that of 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:26.039 the alien UFO, the unidentified flying object, the the the 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:30.360 alien visitation. And uh. Today we're zeroing in on one 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:35.280 particular aspect of UFO folk belief, one with some insightful 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:39.880 connections potentially to older religious ideas. We're gonna be talking 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.880 about m I B. Men in Black. Should I sing 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.800 the song from the movie. No, I don't think we 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.480 should do that. I don't want to get night Cheese done. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:55.200 Here's right. Uh. So, to be clear, where the Men 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.720 in Black franchise, I don't even aggressively pursues. I p 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.640 that is a big franchise that we're still going strong. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.000 There's the first one came out, but yeah, there's there's 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.080 a new one coming out like in the next year. 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.240 I don't think I ever saw past the first one. 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:13.719 I think I too, have only seen the first one. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:15.839 Uh they maybe the other ones may be great. I 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.479 don't know, but we're not really talking about those movies today. However, 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.760 those movies are based on I believe they were based 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.560 on a comic book. But but the whole franchise is 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.080 based on this concept of Men in Black. Uh, the 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.600 end result doesn't really do the original idea justice in 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.080 my opinion. Um, even though many of us me included, well, 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:40.400 you know, we learned about Men in Black for the 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.719 first time through watching this n sci fi action comedy. 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.159 You know, I can't be positive, but I know I 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.160 watched a lot of terrible like BS fringe documentaries when 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:53.880 I was a kid, you know, all the stuff about 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:55.800 how I think I've said this on the show before. 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.320 When I was in like second or third grade, I 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:02.840 was big into like cockness, monster UFOs. I was convinced 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:04.960 all that was real, and I think I I had 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.920 watched like, I don't know what it was, it whatever 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.320 masqueraded as like educational programming on television that was just 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:16.800 like propaganda for conspiracy theories and beliefs about the paranormal. Oh, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.240 I too was very confused by episodes of specifically in 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.680 Search Off hosted by Leonard Nimoi and Unsolved Mysteries hosted 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.320 by Robert Stack. However, I don't I don't remember. There 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.480 may have been episodes of Unsolved Mysteries that Involvement in Black, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.080 but if there were, I don't remember seeing. Well, I 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.560 I'm pretty sure I saw something at some point that 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.680 made me aware of the concept. But even if I 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.000 wasn't aware, then yeah, definitely the movie came along. I 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:44.760 think maybe I don't know if it was before or 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:48.360 after the Men in Black movie. There was the episode 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.240 of The X Files Jose Chunks from Outer Space, which 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.160 is one of the best episodes of all time. It 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.080 still holds up today. It's so good, it's so funny, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.440 and it has classic Men in Black cameos in It 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.200 isn't the idea here that the Men in Black take 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.600 on the guys of famous individuals, of celebrities so that 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.600 you can't report it to the police without sounding ridiculous, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.040 which is funny because in in the episode you can 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.480 tell they kind of did their research. This sort of 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.680 mirrors real things that people reported about Men in Black experiences. 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.800 Sometimes people said that the experience would be, you know, 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.440 ridiculous or absurd, as in the implication is, oh, it's 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.360 because they wanted to keep everything hush hush, and so 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:31.880 they knew if they acted absurd, I wouldn't be able 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.120 to tell people without them laughing at me. Now, some 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.120 of you out there, you might have heard about Men 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.520 in Black through at least a couple of different films 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.640 that came out. One came out in nine same year 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.560 as Men in Black, titled The Shadow Men, and I 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:50.440 have not seen this yet, but I saw the trailer. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:55.520 It looks fabulous in a n way, featuring Eric Roberts, 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:59.880 Dean Stockwell, and Andrew Pine, and uh, it's more of 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:01.600 it seems to be more of a traditional Men in 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:07.800 Black movie with with these like weird, tall suited individuals 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.040 with dark glasses that are messing with their protagonists trying 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.560 to keep them from sharing some sort of information with 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.840 the world about UFOs, and then upon closer inspection they 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.280 don't seem to be quite human. And then there's a 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.000 there's a much earlier actually Men in Black plot line 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.400 in a movie from nineteen eight titled titled Hanger eighteen, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.240 but certainly by the time that the Men in Black 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.560 came out by the time, you know, the X Files, 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:38.240 that had ample opportunity uh to uh to educate everyone 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.760 about the idea. We saw all sorts of other echoes 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.520 in various bits of media. For instance, the Thin Men 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.760 and the X Calm Games are classic men in black 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:53.840 characters like uh, thin thin guys in suits with weird 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.120 um facial features that are not quite human. Uh. They're 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:01.360 a doctor who I believe has a species called the 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.720 Silence that show up. They're very men in black esque, 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.560 and even a couple of ultimately you know, rather different 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.320 bits of cinema, But the the Agents from the Matrix 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.520 are essentially men in black. The Strangers of Dark City 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.280 are in many ways men in black. That's interesting. I 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.360 hadn't thought about that with the with the Strangers, I 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.560 definitely see it with the agents. Um. Well, before we 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.520 get into the particulars, let's just try to sketch out 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.119 the broad kind of version of the men in Black folklore. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.959 What what would you say is that the broadest possible 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:38.280 interpretation of it. It's that most commonly somebody becomes in 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:42.360 some way involved with UFO lore. They either have a 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.200 UFO experience, they see a UFO, or they have an 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:51.640 abduction experience, or they begin researching UFO phenomena, that's right, 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.520 And then suddenly men wearing black show up, weird possibly 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:00.200 government law enforcement types who are who suddenly show and 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.360 want to suppress you, want to silence you, either after 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:07.240 you have shared your claim of of UFO sightings or 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.000 what have you, or in many cases before you share it. Yeah, 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.640 so they tend to often be fond of like blacks, 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:18.240 large black sedans, cadillacs. They come and they approach you, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.120 the person who is interested in UFOs for some reason 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.040 or doing UFO research or how do UFO experience. They 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.720 tell you either you didn't see what you think you saw, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.840 or they tell you to stop researching, or they tell 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:32.640 you to stop spreading the word about UFOs, or occasionally, 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.200 in some reports it's exactly the opposite. Sometimes people in 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.800 black suits, men in black suits or black hats or 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.880 whatever show up to say, actually, keep going and keep digging, 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.120 there's more to see, there's more to learn. Yeah, they 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:45.880 take out more of like a like a deep throat 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:52.120 persona and stories and throwing their lots of variegated weirdness, 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.040 you know, just sort of like strange flourishes on the story. Right, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.320 So let's put all this in context. I start talking 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.160 about the time for aim here because I think the 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.400 more we talk about it, the more obvious it becomes. 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.320 Like where these elements, like even the deep throat element 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.480 and the element of like like government corruption, uh, spies 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.040 and espionage and what have you, where it all comes from. 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.320 So reading around about this, it seems like the sort 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.320 of the patient zero for all of this was a 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.960 man by the name of Harold Doll. This when all 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.439 of this took place. So claims were made by Fred 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.920 Krismin and Harold Doll about threats by men in Black 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:35.040 following sightings of UFOs and the skies over Mari Island 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:37.840 in the Puget Sound. Uh. And this was related in 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:42.080 Gray Barker's six book that they knew too much about 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:46.559 flying saucers, which this book helped popularize stories of men 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:48.760 in Black. Um, you know a lot of this is like, 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.280 you know, this is the people who are into UFOs, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.559 like this is these are the texts they were reading 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.959 and sharing and and then um basing some of their 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:01.520 experiences on. So another brief thing about timeline is while 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.600 various forms of paranormal abduction experiences seemed to go way 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.679 back in time. The UFO thing really seemed to pick 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.240 up around and after World War Two. And you can 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.760 offer all kinds of reasons for this. I mean, some 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.000 would have to do with, like say, alleged sightings of 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.079 UFO by Allied you know, pilots and Air Air Force 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.439 personnel during the war. Um. But other things might be 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:28.000 might have to do with certain trends in science fiction 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.120 movies and things like that. Now another case, and this 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.400 one was related by Peter M. Roycewitz, who wrote a 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.200 really important paper that we're going to come back to 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.160 because I don't want to spoil what we're talking about 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.559 bye bye by saying the title just yet, we will 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.000 come back to it. I mentioned in nineteen fifty two 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:45.640 in Connecticut, you had this guy by the name of 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.440 Albert K. Binder. So Binder lived with his stepfather in 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.040 the top floor of a house described by a local 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.160 newspaper as a quote chamber of horrors. But I mean 0:13:56.240 --> 0:14:00.480 this seems like but basically they had a bunch of 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.640 Halloween decorations up in his room. That sounds fun, Yeah, 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.240 I mean that's like my room growing up. So you know, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.640 nobody ever said it was a chamber of hars anyway, 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.240 uh Binder was a big sci fi fan, and he 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.800 wrote a letter to a friend state quote stating that 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.559 he had learned the origin and ultimate goal of extraterrestrial 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.960 visitation on the Earth unquote. But then he claims that 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.080 what happened is suddenly Men in Black came up and 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.560 they confronted him telepathically with the intercept about the intercepted letter, 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.960 and then forced him to shut down his various UFO 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.880 interest projects. I mean at least for a while, because 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.720 he later writes a book about all of it and 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.800 claims that the Men in Black were from another planet, 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.040 among a whole host of other wild claims. Was this 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.280 the one about going to Antarctica? I believe? And yeah, yeah, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.040 so it's it's wild in a way that like, like 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:50.960 you you kind of want to tell him, like stop, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.400 you stopped there because you had like a compelling story, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.520 just the right number of fantastic elements. But then you 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.120 just you kept going with it. Uh So, Roy so 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.840 at See points out that the Men in Black stories 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.280 they really flourished for a very brief time in between 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.520 nineteen sixty six and nineteen sixty seven, with multiple UFO 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.800 researchers claiming that they had m IB encounters they either 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:19.200 encountered them alone or impairs, though mostly in threes. And 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.800 they claim that these individuals, you know, they showed up 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.280 and they know way too much about them. They know about, 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.760 you know, what their UFO experience might have been, what 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.120 the details are, and and no, you know, and they 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:33.080 know about it before you you even had a chance 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.920 to go and tell other people about it. And a 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.600 lot of these tales seem to be inspired or colored 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.400 by Cold War espionage fiction. Uh, you know, they often 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.840 claimed the men in black often claim to be military 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.080 intelligence offers, officers or so the stories go, well, yeah, 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.120 with the you know, sixty six sixty seven, it's hard 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.280 not to miss the timing with like the James Bond 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.520 franchise there and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.720 just the idea of like shadowy government figures, you know, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.760 at large. So interestingly enough, during the height of all 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:07.320 of this, according to m royce Witz, a confidential correspondence 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.840 from the Pentagon went out to intelligence command centers telling 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:14.680 them to notify the Office of Special Investigations if anyone 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.520 pretending to be a military officer attempted to strong arm 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.200 UFO witnesses, which which is interesting because I guess it's 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.640 the The idea here is that if enough people were 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:28.680 claiming it, they probably said, look, be alert, just in 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.680 case there's anybody going around pretending to be uh law 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.680 enforcement or a federal law enforcement and messing with UFO people. 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:39.240 I think the most common allegation was that that they 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.480 were somehow associated with the Air Force, right, because they're 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.880 the Air Force, they should know, right. Yeah, well, I 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.240 think back then the Air Force might have had a stranger, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.720 more futuristic connotation than it does today. Now the Air 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:52.760 Force just seems like a more mundane branch of the 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:54.920 armed services. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.160 that now. There's also there's a lot of stuff in 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.280 them in Men in Black Lore that doesn't necessarily, in 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.840 many cases thankfully does not survive into our science fiction. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.240 For instance, Roy Switz points out that there's this whole 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:10.719 anti Semitic strain of Men in Black lore from that 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.120 time period that entailed to just a bunch of anti 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.600 Semitic nonsense, which isn't surprised, and given the long history 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:21.679 of blood libel and conspiracy theories about the Jewish people, 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.640 and and how easily modern conspiracy theories fall back into 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.280 this same down the same well as as well. Um 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.240 And if you if you want to see this for yourself, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.000 just spend fifteen minutes on the internet, Like you, just 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.639 go go to YouTube and start looking around conspiracy theories 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.479 and see how long it takes you to hit something 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:44.600 just overtly anti Semitic. Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory spaces uh 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.040 often just run through with this stuff, right, and then 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.639 it goes beyond um anti semitism. There's also a trend 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.200 to describe men and black agents as Asian or ethnically 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.159 ambiguous in some way, shape or form generally embodies a 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:04.000 kind of like white American chauvinism. Uh and and just 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.560 general idea. I mean it almost just suggests that what 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.600 could you do to make somebody weirder while you just 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:15.080 generally make them not a white American? Right? So royce 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:19.320 Witz shares the two account by one Michael Elliott, and 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.600 I'm just going to read a passage from it here. Quote. 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.760 He had a dark complexion, but not Oriental or Indian, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.280 but dark. He had black hair with something of the 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.560 greasy looks something looking somewhat punk by today's standards. He 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.760 was very thin, with a chiseled nose and chin and 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.680 had shrunk and it had sunken eyes. The man wore 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.040 a black suit that needed ironing and possibly cleaning. He 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.800 had on a white shirt and a black Texan like 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.080 string tie. Later, when he rose to leave, I remember 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.400 noting that the suit was much too large for him, 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:52.600 despite his being over six ft as I estimated it. 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.399 So there's a lot to unpack their like just so 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.679 much of the like the racial other so many like 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.760 just racist ideas about like uncleanliness and and so forth. 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.159 But also though something that's strange and kind of different 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.160 there is that I feel like later on the men 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.160 in black phenomena came to be much more associated with 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.640 like the black suits, meaning a kind of government associated 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.480 authority and power. I think about like the cigarette smoking 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.200 man in um in the X Files and stuff, as 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.240 opposed to the kind of like weird rumple, like the 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.000 suit needed cleaning and it was too big for him. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.639 That that doesn't seem like it really fits with the 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.399 what would end up as the later standard idea of 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.040 men in black. Yeah, because certainly by the time you 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.960 get to you know, the more X files version of it, 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.880 and these these variations that you see in the matrix. 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.800 For instance, it's very much an idea of men in 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:52.119 black as a symbols and or at least foot soldiers 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:57.080 of top down government conspiracy, anonymous faceless authorities that they 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.960 sort of like represent anonymized power. And yet in these 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.280 earlier stories there were also some other additional weird factors. 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.120 We already mentioned that the Air Force Association. But then 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:14.520 there are these additional dimensions to the lore in which say, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.560 for instance, they have exaggerated characteristics that are almost comical, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.880 like they walk with a crazy gait, almost drunken lye uh. 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.560 There's one account that Royce Wits shared whether it's you know, 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.560 just talking about them just walking like in a weird way, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.560 with like as if their hips were swivel joints, gliding 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.239 and rocking effect. I mean, one gets the image of 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.359 the Ministry of Funny walks in your head when you 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.720 when you read these, uh, these stories. But he stresses that, 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.480 you know, one has to to again consider this from 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.240 the vantage point of both tradition and experience. So tradition 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.040 bears keep the lore of something like men in black 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.080 alive through everything from weird fiction and movies to oral 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:02.320 accounts and uh, you know, like UF all of publications, um, 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.600 and even though they haven't necessarily experienced and the experienced 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.600 it themselves. And then you have passive tradition bearers who 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.639 know about it but don't actually pass it along. And 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.400 then there are those who claim to have definite experiences 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.400 with men in black and they tell their stories, which 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:20.359 of course may may vary wildly. So it's it's I 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:21.760 think it's a great way to look at something like 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.480 this and the interplay between these different categories interpretation of 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:31.760 paranormal experience via established lore and then accounts giving selective 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.280 credence to that lore and inspiring new details as well, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:39.200 but again very selectively. So you know, it's like someone's saying, oh, 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:40.920 you know, I read this story there are men in 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.960 black going around and they're they're suppressing the truth about 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:47.119 aliens visiting our world. And then someone's like, yeah, I 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:49.280 had this this really weird thing that happened the other 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.560 day where these people in black suits showed up and 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:54.639 you're like, yeah, yeah, this is lining up. And then 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.080 they took me to ant Arctica and then they and 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.080 then we were in ant and Arctica, I'm Jesus and 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.160 you know, like and then they'll say, well, okay, Well, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.520 still the basic principle lines up, and that supports my 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.200 my story right there, Like you can discard the stuff 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.320 about Antarctica but still say, well, like, well, meeting men 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:17.720 in black suits is not implausible exactly. Alright, Well, I 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:19.280 think on that note, we're going to take a break, 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:21.959 and when we come back, we're gonna get into the 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.000 more of the meat of the episode. We're going to 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.159 get into the reason that we chose the title for 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.400 today's episode. Uh m, I b or n ib men 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:36.560 in black or Nativity and black than all right, we're 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.359 back now, Robert. It seems correct me if I'm wrong, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:41.320 that you were inspired to to want to talk about 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:45.320 this topic today because of this paper. It's an older paper. 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:46.960 It seems to be sort of a classic in the 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:50.679