THE PARACAST NEWSLETTER
April 24, 2016
www.theparacast.com
Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop Discuss the Men In Black on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, and we've launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris observe the passing of Albert K. Bender, once a UFO researcher who was instrumental in establishing the legend of the Men In Black in the early 1950s, a topic that has infused our popular culture and resulted in three blockbuster sci-fi films starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The guest panel includes Nick Redfern, a prolific author of books on UFOs and the paranormal, some of which have focused on the MIB, and cutting-edge commentator Greg Bishop, of “Radio Misterioso,” Greg’s book of essays on all things paranormal, “It Defies Language,” includes a foreword from Nick and illustrations from blogger Red Pill Junkie.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
Nick Redfern’s Blog: http://nickredfernfortean.blogspot.com
Radio Misterioso: http://radiomisterioso.com
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on April 24: [PG-13]: Is the passing of Prince only the beginning of the wave of deaths involving a number of rock stars in the very near future? After Chris mentions a few candidates, the discussion moves to speculation, as expressed by the late Trevor James Constable, that at least some UFOs are biological entities. Gene and Chris also wonder why some people give up on UFO research after a period of intense activity, become silent or move on to other pursuits. Chris mentions when he left the UFO field for five years because he was frustrated over all the back-biting and arguing. Gene talks about his own prolonged departures over the years. Returning to rock stars, Chris recalls the occasion when he met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York City in the 1970s, and the time he helped deliver pizza to Paul McCartney.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
The MIB, UFO Secrecy and Disclosure
By Gene Steinberg
When I first got interested in the flying saucer mystery at a fairly young age, it was the result of reading a book from Major Donald E. Keyhoe, a retired Marine pilot, who had made a career as a writer of fact and fiction. It was Keyhoe’s contention that the flying disks were visitors from other planets, and that the U.S. government had been keeping it all a secret.
The government secrecy meme has overwhelmed the field ever since. The authorities must know the truth about our alien visitors. How could it be otherwise? We just have to persuade them, or force them, to tell us the truth.
Too add to the belief in UFO secrecy, there is the possibility that government agents have been running around the country trying to intimidate eyewitnesses to stop talking about what they saw. Through the years, there have been reports of people — usually men — wearing black suits and driving black luxury vehicles, who are engaging in such unsavory behavior.
While reports of so-called Men In Black appeared some years before Albert K. Bender was supposedly visited by three of them, the former UFO researcher is credited, or blamed, with originating the legend.
But the real guilty party was UFO author Gray Barker, whose top-selling 1956 book, “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,” told the story of Bender, who established a UFO organization only to give it up a short time later. Bender told Barker that he had been visited by three men wearing black suits who confirmed his theories about UFOs, and told him he couldn’t talk about it anymore.
Barker kept asking for more details until Bender finally decided it was time to tell his story. Rather than confronting government agents, he claimed that his visitors came from another planet, which he referred to as “Kazik,” as described in a 1962 book, “Flying Saucers and the Three Men.”
The book got a decent circulation among Barker’s fans, but didn’t change the perception that the MIB were secret agents. That legend influenced fiction over the years. It’s credited with inspiring the short-lived sci-fi series of the 1960s, “The Invaders,” and, beginning in 1990, a four-issue graphic comic book series from Lowell Cunningham. That comic book, in turn, was the basis for three blockbuster films, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, which depicted the MIB as members of an agency that monitors the presence of aliens on Earth.
But are the MIB aliens, psychic or ghostly creatures, pretenders who want you to believe they are from the government, or actual agents of some secret agency?
While it’s thought that the MIB phenomenon was long ago and far away, author Nick Redfern, who has written several books and a number of blog posts on the topic, says he still receives several reports about possible MIB visits each week.
So what is going on? Does any of it have something to do with efforts to hide the truth about UFOs? Or does it have nothing at all to do with the inner workings of any government agency?
If anything, you’d think that sending operatives around the country trying to coerce people to be quiet about their UFO encounters could have the opposite effect. But I suppose it’s possible that people who ignore such warnings are, themselves, not taken seriously. After all, aren’t the MIB just fictional characters?
Maybe these people are simply paying too much attention to those MIB movies, or perhaps the got hooked on “The Matrix” trilogy or the presence of the “Observers” on a TV show, “Fringe.”
If the MIB are, themselves, manifestations of the UFO phenomenon, then it makes the subject all the more confusing. Some of these MIB are said to barely look human, and that takes us back to Bender’s original experiences once he decided to tell all.
Now I’ve long been troubled by the Bender case. On the one hand, I sometimes thought that he, an avid sci-fi and horror film fan, perhaps made up the story to respond to the people who kept badgering him for the truth over nearly a decade. His book was well written and all, but that was no doubt due to heavy-handed editing on the part of Barker. Indeed, is it possible that Barker himself had a little too much influence in how the book turned out?
To be sure, Bender had a brief stay in the sun promoting his book, but soon returned to private life. Indeed, when I heard that he had died in Los Angeles on March 29 of this year, shy of his 95th birthday, I was surprised. I actually thought he had died years ago, even though he outlived the man who made him famous, Gray Barker, by over three decades.
At its core, however, Bender may have had a genuine experience that frightened him. Due to his obsession with sci-fi and magic, it’s possible that he became overwhelmed by forces he did not understand. Whether these alleged encounters had a lasting impact isn’t certain.
Bender was certainly a troubled person, said to suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The condition, which impacts a member of my family, results in someone engaging in such troubling routines as constantly washing their hands, cleaning their homes over and over again, or being especially deliberate about the placement of the things around them. You can see a very exaggerated version of this condition in the TV comedy drama of several years ago, “Monk,” about an obsessive-compulsive detective.
I met Bender briefly when he gave a lecture on his book in the early 1960s, at a meeting sponsored by Jim Moseley, the late gadfly of the UFO field. At the time, Jim was married to a young woman, Sandra, who fancied herself an amateur psychologist. Upon meeting Bender, she quietly suggested to us that he had deep psychological problems. I don’t recall any overt examples of obsessive behavior at the time, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
I suppose it’s possible Bender’s condition resulted from his traumatic experience. There’s nothing to indicate he made it all up, but it’s not something he could ever prove. In any case, he soon vanished into relative obscurity, except for a few diehards who continue to explore the MIB legend.
None of it, however, leads us any closer to a solution to the UFO mystery. Could the government be latching on to the MIB legend for own purposes? Perhaps, but it’s always possible that any visit by someone wearing a suit, who inquires about a UFO sighting, would be interpreted as evidence of the presence of the MIB.
Unfortunately, the search for the truth about UFOs remains a frustrating and very convoluted affair. Perhaps the MIB is just a side issue having little or nothing to do with the phenomenon. Maybe it is just another pop culture myth, one highly influenced by sci-fi movies and TV shows.
Or maybe, just maybe, it is part and parcel of a greater mystery that we still do not understand.
Copyright 1999-2016 The Paracast LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
April 24, 2016
www.theparacast.com
Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop Discuss the Men In Black on The Paracast
The Paracast is heard Sundays from 3:00 AM until 6:00 AM Central Time on the GCN Radio Network and affiliates around the USA, the Boost Radio Network, the IRN Internet Radio Network, and online across the globe via download and on-demand streaming.
SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY A PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to After The Paracast, plus a higher-quality version of The Paracast free of network ads, and chat rooms when you sign up for The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes, and we've launched The Paracast+ Video Channel. Check out our new “Lifetime” membership! For more information about our premium package, please visit: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio.
This Week's Episode: Gene and Chris observe the passing of Albert K. Bender, once a UFO researcher who was instrumental in establishing the legend of the Men In Black in the early 1950s, a topic that has infused our popular culture and resulted in three blockbuster sci-fi films starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The guest panel includes Nick Redfern, a prolific author of books on UFOs and the paranormal, some of which have focused on the MIB, and cutting-edge commentator Greg Bishop, of “Radio Misterioso,” Greg’s book of essays on all things paranormal, “It Defies Language,” includes a foreword from Nick and illustrations from blogger Red Pill Junkie.
Chris O’Brien’s Site: Our Strange Planet
Nick Redfern’s Blog: http://nickredfernfortean.blogspot.com
Radio Misterioso: http://radiomisterioso.com
After The Paracast -- Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers on April 24: [PG-13]: Is the passing of Prince only the beginning of the wave of deaths involving a number of rock stars in the very near future? After Chris mentions a few candidates, the discussion moves to speculation, as expressed by the late Trevor James Constable, that at least some UFOs are biological entities. Gene and Chris also wonder why some people give up on UFO research after a period of intense activity, become silent or move on to other pursuits. Chris mentions when he left the UFO field for five years because he was frustrated over all the back-biting and arguing. Gene talks about his own prolonged departures over the years. Returning to rock stars, Chris recalls the occasion when he met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York City in the 1970s, and the time he helped deliver pizza to Paul McCartney.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums.
The MIB, UFO Secrecy and Disclosure
By Gene Steinberg
When I first got interested in the flying saucer mystery at a fairly young age, it was the result of reading a book from Major Donald E. Keyhoe, a retired Marine pilot, who had made a career as a writer of fact and fiction. It was Keyhoe’s contention that the flying disks were visitors from other planets, and that the U.S. government had been keeping it all a secret.
The government secrecy meme has overwhelmed the field ever since. The authorities must know the truth about our alien visitors. How could it be otherwise? We just have to persuade them, or force them, to tell us the truth.
Too add to the belief in UFO secrecy, there is the possibility that government agents have been running around the country trying to intimidate eyewitnesses to stop talking about what they saw. Through the years, there have been reports of people — usually men — wearing black suits and driving black luxury vehicles, who are engaging in such unsavory behavior.
While reports of so-called Men In Black appeared some years before Albert K. Bender was supposedly visited by three of them, the former UFO researcher is credited, or blamed, with originating the legend.
But the real guilty party was UFO author Gray Barker, whose top-selling 1956 book, “They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,” told the story of Bender, who established a UFO organization only to give it up a short time later. Bender told Barker that he had been visited by three men wearing black suits who confirmed his theories about UFOs, and told him he couldn’t talk about it anymore.
Barker kept asking for more details until Bender finally decided it was time to tell his story. Rather than confronting government agents, he claimed that his visitors came from another planet, which he referred to as “Kazik,” as described in a 1962 book, “Flying Saucers and the Three Men.”
The book got a decent circulation among Barker’s fans, but didn’t change the perception that the MIB were secret agents. That legend influenced fiction over the years. It’s credited with inspiring the short-lived sci-fi series of the 1960s, “The Invaders,” and, beginning in 1990, a four-issue graphic comic book series from Lowell Cunningham. That comic book, in turn, was the basis for three blockbuster films, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, which depicted the MIB as members of an agency that monitors the presence of aliens on Earth.
But are the MIB aliens, psychic or ghostly creatures, pretenders who want you to believe they are from the government, or actual agents of some secret agency?
While it’s thought that the MIB phenomenon was long ago and far away, author Nick Redfern, who has written several books and a number of blog posts on the topic, says he still receives several reports about possible MIB visits each week.
So what is going on? Does any of it have something to do with efforts to hide the truth about UFOs? Or does it have nothing at all to do with the inner workings of any government agency?
If anything, you’d think that sending operatives around the country trying to coerce people to be quiet about their UFO encounters could have the opposite effect. But I suppose it’s possible that people who ignore such warnings are, themselves, not taken seriously. After all, aren’t the MIB just fictional characters?
Maybe these people are simply paying too much attention to those MIB movies, or perhaps the got hooked on “The Matrix” trilogy or the presence of the “Observers” on a TV show, “Fringe.”
If the MIB are, themselves, manifestations of the UFO phenomenon, then it makes the subject all the more confusing. Some of these MIB are said to barely look human, and that takes us back to Bender’s original experiences once he decided to tell all.
Now I’ve long been troubled by the Bender case. On the one hand, I sometimes thought that he, an avid sci-fi and horror film fan, perhaps made up the story to respond to the people who kept badgering him for the truth over nearly a decade. His book was well written and all, but that was no doubt due to heavy-handed editing on the part of Barker. Indeed, is it possible that Barker himself had a little too much influence in how the book turned out?
To be sure, Bender had a brief stay in the sun promoting his book, but soon returned to private life. Indeed, when I heard that he had died in Los Angeles on March 29 of this year, shy of his 95th birthday, I was surprised. I actually thought he had died years ago, even though he outlived the man who made him famous, Gray Barker, by over three decades.
At its core, however, Bender may have had a genuine experience that frightened him. Due to his obsession with sci-fi and magic, it’s possible that he became overwhelmed by forces he did not understand. Whether these alleged encounters had a lasting impact isn’t certain.
Bender was certainly a troubled person, said to suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The condition, which impacts a member of my family, results in someone engaging in such troubling routines as constantly washing their hands, cleaning their homes over and over again, or being especially deliberate about the placement of the things around them. You can see a very exaggerated version of this condition in the TV comedy drama of several years ago, “Monk,” about an obsessive-compulsive detective.
I met Bender briefly when he gave a lecture on his book in the early 1960s, at a meeting sponsored by Jim Moseley, the late gadfly of the UFO field. At the time, Jim was married to a young woman, Sandra, who fancied herself an amateur psychologist. Upon meeting Bender, she quietly suggested to us that he had deep psychological problems. I don’t recall any overt examples of obsessive behavior at the time, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
I suppose it’s possible Bender’s condition resulted from his traumatic experience. There’s nothing to indicate he made it all up, but it’s not something he could ever prove. In any case, he soon vanished into relative obscurity, except for a few diehards who continue to explore the MIB legend.
None of it, however, leads us any closer to a solution to the UFO mystery. Could the government be latching on to the MIB legend for own purposes? Perhaps, but it’s always possible that any visit by someone wearing a suit, who inquires about a UFO sighting, would be interpreted as evidence of the presence of the MIB.
Unfortunately, the search for the truth about UFOs remains a frustrating and very convoluted affair. Perhaps the MIB is just a side issue having little or nothing to do with the phenomenon. Maybe it is just another pop culture myth, one highly influenced by sci-fi movies and TV shows.
Or maybe, just maybe, it is part and parcel of a greater mystery that we still do not understand.
Copyright 1999-2016 The Paracast LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!