WEBVTT - From the Vault: M.I.B. or N.I.B.? 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.920 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.720 Let's venture into the old vault. That's right. This episode 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:19.880 originally published three nineteen titled m I B or n 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.320 ib so uh Men in Black or Nativity in Black, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.360 basically getting into the the idea of, you know, if 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.279 one encounters some sort of out of the ordinary experience, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.959 like what kind of what kind of script, what kind 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.400 of text, what kind of cultural understanding are you're going 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.120 to apply to it? Like is it one of of 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.279 demon possession or is it one of aliens? And how 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.720 are these different concepts connected? Right? If you have a 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.400 paranormal experience, what type of template can you can you 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.760 lay over top it? Yeah, So it's a fun little discussion. 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.680 So if you're in the mood for men in Black 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.000 and perhaps the devil uh, then this is the episode 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:05.200 for you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:13.760 how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:15.880 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.280 I'm Joe McCormick. You know, we've covered a lot of 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.959 UFO beliefs on the show over the years to talk 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:27.920 about alien abduction experiences, strange lights in the sky, ancient aliens, speculation, 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:31.560 and we've covered it all with our usual level of 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.240 skeptical enthusiasm. I would say, not coming at it in 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:37.960 order to prove all the stories true and believe, but 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:43.000 also appreciating that fantastical beliefs and experiences and even delusions 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:47.640 are interesting phenomena that are worth studying and paying attention to. Yeah, 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.880 why are people reporting these stories? What? What is actually 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.280 occurring that might be interpreted as such? And and then 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.080 why do we tell the stories that we tell? Like, 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.680 all these questions are sort of bound up in the 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.800 same riddle. But to read fresh, this is the basic 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.880 truth of the matter. Humans have always seen things they 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.440 couldn't explain, and some of these things were actual phenomena, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.600 such as shooting stars or unusual weather effects. Other times 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.320 these were hallucinations, which can occur can occur for a 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.320 variety of reasons, only some of which entail the ingestion 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.920 of psychedelics or symptoms of mental illness, And in either case, 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:28.160 things seen became become things remembered, and memory is a 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.240 tricky thing all in its own, highly susceptible, to error, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:36.800 to manipulation and change due to personal desires, interpretations, cultural priming, 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.119 and a host of other factors. Yeah, that's exactly right. 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.639 And one of the things that I often think about 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:48.960 doesn't get enough attention when when people discuss fantastical experiences 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.919 like say, you know, UFO abduction experiences and sightings and 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.280 things like that, is is all of these in between 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.840 categories that cre eight memory experiences for people or create, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.040 you know, at least in some way or another, lead 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.760 a person to relate and experience that are not exactly 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.120 one of three clear options. The three clear options usually 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.840 presented are somebody actually physically had this UFO abduction experience, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.320 they really were taken up, or they're lying and they're 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.360 just making up a story they know to be false. 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.480 Or they hallucinated it like they had a vision where 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.160 they imagine that they've really believed all this stuff was 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.360 happening to them at the time and that you know, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.840 and then they remember that hallucination as if it was 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.840 a real physical event. I think those are actually not 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.480 the only three options. They usually treated as like the 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.760 main three things that could have happened. I think what 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:51.360 gets underappreciated or these sort of like weird middle categories 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:56.240 where you know where like imagination and fancy and retelling 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.600 and embellishment and all these different kinds of things sort 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.240 of in act in a stew within the mind. And 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.160 there's so many ways this can happen. One piece of 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.600 research that I always just think it's such an interesting 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:14.080 little example of demonstrating how contagious imagery and ideation can 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.440 be between one brain subsystem and another is a two 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.080 thousand six study called do you Remember proposing marriage to 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.800 the Pepsi machine? False recollection? False Recollections from a campus walk, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.719 And this was in the Psychonomic Bulletin and Review two 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:33.120 thousand and six by by Semen, Philbin, and Harrison. And 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:36.240 basically the gist here is that students were asked to perform, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.760 and too so somewhere asked to perform, and somewhere asked 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:44.359 to merely imagine themselves performing or imagine seeing somebody perform 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:49.120 activities both normal like checking a pepsi machine for change 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:52.400 or lying down on a couch to relax, and also 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.919 actions that were bizarre, like proposing marriage to a pepsi 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.440 machine or lying down on a couch to have a 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.960 chat with Sigmund Freud, and it turned out in this 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.320 study at least that even just imagining performing these activities 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.520 caused many subjects to later recall having actually performed them. 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.919 Of course, this doesn't always happen, like sometimes you remember 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.960 the difference, but sometimes you don't remember the difference. Sometimes 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.080 the contents of our mind's eye are contagious in a 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.840 way that can spread into memory. Things that we think 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.720 about happening can in some cases become things that we 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.919 believe happened. And this is possible in people who have 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.239 not been diagnosed with any conditions that cause psychosis or hallucinations. 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.000 It's just one of the many interesting ways that you 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:40.479 can see uh memories being meddled with in in this 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.839 kind of contagious way within the brain. And of course 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.760 we do outright invent things, sometimes inful things. We have 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.120 had terrifying visions, and certainly there are hoaxes in the world. 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.200 But still even with hoaxes, there's there's still this element 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.920 of the human imagination that ultimately helped the dream of 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.320 every god, demon, fairy and an extraterrestrial that we've ever considered. 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.680 And once these things are created, they're essentially available as 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:13.159 food for our meaning hungry minds. And so the version 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:15.320 of all of this that emerged in the post War 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.200 War two period and continues on to this day, though 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.960 with decreased energy, is that of the alien UFO, the 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:28.680 unidentified flying object, the the the alien visitation. And Uh, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.640 today we're zeroing in on one particular aspect of Ufo 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:37.520 folk belief, one with some insightful connections potentially to older 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:41.040 religious ideas. We're gonna be talking about m I B. 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.479 Men in Black? Should I sing the song from the 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.000 movie now? I don't think we should do that. I 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.760 don't want to get night cheese done. He's right, Uh, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.480 so clear where the Men in Black franchise, I don't 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.400 even aggressively pursues. I p that is a big chise. 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.000 And we're still going strong. There's the first one came 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.560 out seven, but yeah, there's there's a new one coming 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.560 out like in the next year. I don't think I 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.440 ever saw past the first one. I think I too 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.600 have only seen the first one. Uh that they maybe 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.520 the other ones may be great, I don't know, but 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.640 we're not really talking about those movies today. However, those 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.640 movies are based on it believe they were based on 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.720 a comic book. But but the whole franchise is based 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.080 on this concept of men in Black. Uh, the end 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:36.000 result doesn't really do the original idea justice in my opinion. Um, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:38.080 even though many of us me included, well, you know, 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.840 we learned about men in Black for the first time 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:46.080 through watching this nine seven sci fi action comedy. You know, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.560 I can't be positive, but I know I watched a 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.240 lot of terrible like BS fringe documentaries when I was 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:54.320 a kid, you know, all the stuff about how I 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:55.880 think I've said this on the show before. When I 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.800 was in like second or third grade, I was big 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.840 into like lock S, Monster UFOs. I was convinced all 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.160 that was real, and I think I I had watched 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.520 like I don't know what it was and whatever masqueraded 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.240 as like educational programming on television that was just like 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.600 propaganda for conspiracy theories and beliefs about the paranormal. Oh, 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:21.040 I too was very confused by episodes of specifically in 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:25.480 Search Off hosted by Leonard Nimoi and Unsolved Mysteries hosted 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.120 by Robert Stack. However, I don't I don't remember. There 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.280 may have been episodes of Unsolved Mysteries that involvement in Black, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.880 But if there were, I don't remember seeing well, I 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.360 I'm pretty sure I saw something at some point that 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.480 made me aware of the concept. But even if I 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.800 wasn't aware, then yeah, definitely the movie came along. I 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:44.560 think maybe I don't know if it was before or 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.199 after the Men in Black movie. There was the episode 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.079 of The X Files Jose Chunks from Outer Space, which 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:53.959 is one of the best episodes of all time. It 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.880 still holds up today. It's so good, it's so funny, 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.240 and it has classic Men in Black cameos in It 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.040 isn't the idea here that the Men in Black take 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.440 on the guys of famous individuals, of celebrities so that 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.439 you can't report it to the police without sounding ridiculous, 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.839 Which is funny because in in the episode you can 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.280 tell they kind of did their research. This sort of 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.479 mirrors real things that people reported about Men in Black experiences. 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.640 Sometimes people said that the experience would be, you know, 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:26.240 ridiculous or absurd, as in the implication is, oh, it's 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.160 because they wanted to keep everything hush hush, and so 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.680 they knew if they acted absurd, I wouldn't be able 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.920 to tell people without them laughing at me. Now, some 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:37.920 of you out there, you might have heard about Men 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.320 in Black through at least a couple of different films 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.440 that came out. One came out in nine same year 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.360 as Men in Black, titled The Shadow Men, and I 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:50.240 have not seen this yet, but I saw the trailer. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:55.320 It looks fabulous in a n way, featuring Eric Roberts, 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.920 Dean Stockwell, and Andrew Pine, and uh, it's four of us. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.760 Seems to be more of a traditional Men in Black 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:07.720 movie with with these like weird, tall suited individuals with 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.960 dark glasses that are messing with their protagonists trying to 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:15.520 keep them from sharing some sort of information with the 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.960 world about UFOs, and then upon closer inspection they don't 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.360 seem to be quite human. And then there's a there's 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.920 a much earlier actually men in Black plot line in 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.640 a movie from nineteen eight titled titled Hangar eighteen. But 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.720 certainly by the time that The Men in Black came out, 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:33.679 by the time you know the X Files, that had 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.920 ample opportunity, uh to uh to educate everyone about the idea. 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.400 We saw all sorts of other echoes in various bits 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.040 of media. For instance, the thin men in the x 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.880 Calm Games are classic men in black characters like uh, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:55.640 thin thin guys in suits with weird um facial features 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.120 that are not quite human. Uh. They're a doctor who 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.280 I believe has a species called the Silence that show up. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.720 They are very men in black esque, and even a 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.240 couple of ultimately you know, rather different bits of cinema. 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.960 But the the agents from the Matrix are essentially men 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.120 in black. The Strangers of Dark City are in many 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.760 ways men in black. That's interesting. I hadn't thought about 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:20.920 that with the with the strangers, I definitely see it 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.800 with the agents. Um. Well, before we get into the particulars, 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.880 let's just try to sketch out the broad kind of 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.840 version of the men in black folklore. What what would 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.040 you say is the broadest possible interpretation of it. It's 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:39.800 that most commonly somebody becomes in some way involved with 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.920 UFO lore. They either have a UFO experience, they see 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:48.480 a UFO, or they have an abduction experience, or they 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:53.360 begin researching UFO phenomena. That's right, and then suddenly men 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:58.000 wearing black show up, weird possibly government law enforcement types 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:00.840 who are who suddenly show up in want to suppress 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.960 you want to silence you, either after you have shared 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.560 your claim of of UFO sightings or what have you, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.960 or in many cases before you share it. Yeah, so 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.800 they tend to often be fond of like blacks, large 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:18.360 black sedans, cadillacs. They come and they approach you, the 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.120 person who is interested in UFOs for some reason or 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:24.040 doing UFO research or how do UFO experience. They tell 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.560 you either you didn't see what you think you saw, 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.640 or they tell you to stop researching, or they tell 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.440 you to stop spreading the word about UFOs, or occasionally, 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.000 in some reports it's exactly the opposite. Sometimes people in 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.599 black suits, men in black suits or black hats or 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.720 whatever show up to say, actually keep going and keep digging. 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:43.920 There's more to see, there's more to learn. Yeah. They 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:45.679 take on more of like a like a deep throat 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.920 persona and stories and throw in their lots of variegated weirdness, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.840 you know, just sort of like strange flourishes on the story. Right, 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.120 So let's put all this in context. I start talking 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.160 about the time frame here because I think the more 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.320 we talk about it, the more obvious it becomes. Like 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.320 where these elements, like even the deep throat element, the 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:11.200 element of like like government corruption, UH, spies and espionage 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.520 and what have you where it all comes from. So 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.240 reading around about this, it seems like the sort of 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.319 the patient zero for all of this was a man 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.920 by the name of Harold Doll when all of this 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.800 took place. So claims were made by Fred Krisman and 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:31.040 Harold All about threats by men in Black following sightings 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.280 of UFOs and the skies over Mari Island in the 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:40.040 Puget Sound. And this was related in Gray Barker's book 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.760 that they knew too much about flying saucers, which this 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.760 book helped popularize stories of men in Black. Um, you know, 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.120 a lot of this is like you know, this is 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.199 the people who are into UFOs, like this is these 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.000 are the texts they were reading and sharing and and 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:59.520 then um basing some of their experiences on. So another 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.359 brief thing about timeline is while various forms of paranormal 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.559 abduction experiences seemed to go way back in time, the 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.559 UFO thing really seemed to pick up around and after 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.080 World War Two. And you can offer all kinds of 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.600 reasons for this. I mean, some would have to do with, 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:20.080 like say, alleged sightings of UFO by Allied you know, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.080 pilots and Air Air Force personnel during the war. Um. 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:26.160 But other things might be might have to do with 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.760 certain trends in science fiction movies and things like that. 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:31.720 Now in another case, and this one was related by 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:35.240 Peter M. Roycewitz who wrote a really important paper that 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:36.640 we're going to come back to because I don't want 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.720 to spoil what we're talking about bye bye by saying 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:41.920 the title just yet. We will come back to it. 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.680 I mentioned in nineteen two in Connecticut, you had this 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.880 guy by the name of Albert K. Binder. So Binder 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.160 lived with his stepfather in the top floor of a 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.840 house described by a local newspaper as a quote chamber 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:59.200 of horrors. But I mean this seems like yeah, but 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.800 basically they just had bunch of Halloween decorations up in 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.040 his room. That sounds fun. Yeah, I mean that's like 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.280 my room growing up. So you know, nobody ever said 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.720 it was a chamber of hars anyway. Uh Vender was 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:12.680 a big sci fi fan, and he wrote a letter 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.360 to a friend state quote stating that he had learned 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:19.600 the origin and ultimate goal of extraterrestrial visitation on the 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.360 Earth unquote, but then he claims that what happened is 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.840 suddenly Men in Black came up and they confronted him 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.640 telepathically with the intercept about the intercepted letter, and then 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.880 forced him to shut down his various UFO interest projects, 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:35.360 I mean at least for a while, because he later 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:36.960 writes a book about all of it and claims that 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.800 the Men in Black were from another planet, among a 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.200 whole host of other wild claims. Was this the one 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:46.280 about going to Antarctica? I believe? And yeah, yeah, so 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.200 it's it's wild in a way that like, like you 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:51.560 kind of want to tell him, like stop, you stop there, 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.880 because you had like a compelling story, just the right 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:57.120 number of fantastic elements, but then you just you kept 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.880 going with it. Uh So. Royce at See points out 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.240 that the Men in Black stories they really flourished for 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.600 a very brief time in between nineteen sixty six and 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.760 nineteen sixty seven, with multiple UFO researchers claiming that they 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:16.840 had m IB encounters. They either encountered them alone or impairs, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.560 though mostly in threes, and they claim that these individuals, 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:22.440 you know, they showed up and they know way too 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.040 much about them. They know about you know, what their 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.440 UFO experience might have been, what the details are, and 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.640 and no, you know, and they know about it before 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.800 you you even had a chance to go and tell 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.600 other people about it. And a lot of these tales 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.640 seemed to be inspired or colored by Cold War espionage fiction. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.240 Uh you know, they often claimed the men in black 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.520 often claim to be military intelligence offers officers, or so 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.680 the stories go, well, yeah, with the you know, sixty 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:51.960 six sixty seven, it's hard not to miss the timing 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.480 with like the James Bond franchise there and all that 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.240 kind of stuff. Yeah, and just the idea of like 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:02.600 shadowy government figures, you know, at large. So interestingly enough, 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.720 during the height of all of this, according to m 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:08.240 royce Witz, a confidential correspondence from the Pentagon went out 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.679 to intelligence the command centers, telling them to notify the 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.320 Office of Special Investigations if anyone pretending to be a 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:20.960 military officer attempted to strong arm UFO witnesses, which which 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:22.960 is interesting because I guess it's the The idea here 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.600 is that if enough people were claiming it, they probably said, look, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:31.000 be alert, just in case there's anybody going around pretending 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.840 to be law enforcement or a federal law enforcement uh, 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.440 and messing with UFO people. I think the most common 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.439 allegation was that that they were somehow associated with the 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.560 Air Force, right, because they're the Air Force, they should know, right. Yeah, Well, 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.439 I think back then the Air Force might have had 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.239 a stranger, more futuristic connotation than it does today. Now 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.399 the Air Force just seems like a more mundane branch 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.280 of the armed services. That's a good point. I hadn't 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:56.679 thought about that now. There's also there's a lot of 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.959 stuff in them in Men in Black Lore that doesn't 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.640 necessarily or in many cases thankfully does not survive into 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.280 our science fiction. For instance, Roy Switz points out that 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.879 there's this whole anti Semitic strain of Men in Black 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.399 lore from that time period that entailed to just a 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.240 bunch of anti Semitic nonsense, which isn't surprised, and given 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.399 the long history of blood libel and conspiracy theories about 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.360 the Jewish people, and and how easily modern conspiracy theories 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.520 fall back into this same down the same well as 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.280 as well. Um, and if you if you want to 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.200 see this for yourself, just spend fifteen minutes on the internet, 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.200 Like you just go go to YouTube and start looking 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.479 around conspiracy theories and see how long it takes you 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.080 to hit something just overtly anti semitic. Unfortunately, the conspiracy 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.560 theory spaces uh often just run through with this stuff, right, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.960 and then it goes beyond um anti semitism. There's also 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.840 a trend to describe men and black agents as Asian 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:58.000 or ethnically ambiguous in some way, shape or form generally 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.560 embodies a kind of like like white American chauvinism. Uh 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.320 and and just general idea. I mean it almost just 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.800 suggests that what could you do to make somebody weirder 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.360 while you just generally make them not a white American? Right? 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.639 So royce Witz shares a two account by one Michael Elliott, 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.399 and I'm just going to read a passage from it here. Quote. 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.560 He had a dark complexion, but not Oriental or Indian, 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:27.080 but dark. He had black hair with something of the 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:31.359 greasy looks, something looking somewhat punk by today's standards. He 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.560 was very thin, with a chiseled nose and chin, and 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.600 had and it had sunken eyes. The man wore a 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.120 black suit that needed ironing and possibly cleaning. He had 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.480 on a white shirt and a black Texan like string tie. 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.479 Later when he rose to leave, I remember noting that 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.840 the suit was much too large for him, despite his 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.480 being over six ft as I estimated it. So there's 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.600 a lot to unpack their like just so much of 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.560 the like the racial other so many like just just 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.720 racist ideas about like uncleanliness and and so forth. But 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.280 also though something the strange and kind of different there 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.080 is that I feel like later on the men in 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.160 black phenomena came to be much more associated with like 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.000 the black suits, meaning a kind of government associated authority 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.520 and power. I think about like the cigarette smoking man 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.560 in Um in the X Files, and as opposed to 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:27.800 the kind of like weird Rumple, like the suit needed 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.199 cleaning and it was too big for him, that that 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.000 doesn't seem like it really fits with the what would 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.680 end up as the later standard idea of men in black. Yeah, 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.080 because certainly by the time you get to you know, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.120 the more X Files version of it, and these these 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.880 variations that you see in the Matrix, for instance, it's 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.000 very much an idea of men in black as a 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.199 like the symbols and or at least foot soldiers of 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:57.240 top down government conspiracy anonymous, faceless authorities that they sort 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:02.320 of like represent anonymized power. And yet in these earlier 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.480 stories there were also some other additional weird factors. We 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.239 already mentioned that the Air Force Association. But then there 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.320 are these additional dimensions to the lore in which say, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.360 for instance, they have exaggerated characteristics that are almost comical, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.680 and they walk with a crazy gait, almost drunken lye uh. 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.359 There's one account that Royce Woods shared whether it's you know, 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.359 just talking about them just walking like in a weird way, 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.359 with like as if their hips were swivel joints gliding 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.040 and rocking effect. I mean, one gets the image of 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:39.159 the Ministry of Funny walks in your head when you 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:43.520 when you read these, uh these stories. But he stresses that, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.280 you know, one has to to again consider this from 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.040 the vantage point of both tradition and experience. So tradition 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.840 bears keep the lore of something like Men in Black 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:56.880 alive through everything from weird fiction and movies to oral 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:02.560 accounts and uh, you know like ufology publications, um, and 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.119 even though they haven't necessarily experienced and them experienced it themselves. 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:09.000 And then you have passive tradition bearers who know about 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.760 it but don't actually pass it along. And then there 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:14.480 are those who claim to have definite experiences with men 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:16.680 in black and they tell their stories, which of course 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.439 may may vary wildly. So it's it's I think it's 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:21.919 a great way to look at something like this and 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:26.600 the interplay between these different categories interpretation of paranormal experience 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:32.240 via established lore and then accounts giving selective credence to 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:35.680 that lore and inspiring new details as well, but again 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.040 very selectively. So you know, it's like someone's saying, oh, 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:40.800 you know, I read this story there are men in 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.760 black going around and they're they're suppressing the truth about 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:46.879 aliens visiting our world. And then someone's like, yeah, I 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.080 had this this really weird thing that happened the other 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:52.359 day where these people in black suits showed up and 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.479 you're like, yeah, yeah, this is line up. And then 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.879 they took me to add Arctica and then they and 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:00.520