The Real Men In Black [Paperback]

I'm kind of ambivalent about this book. First of all, Redfern does a great job introducing the topic. He tells the history of the MIB mythos, introduces the key players and personalities (Bender, Barker, and Keel), the most famous (and not-so-famous) case studies, and interviews some great researchers on their thoughts on what is behind the MIB phenomenon. He even includes what could be the only photographs snapped of these strange, darkly clad dudes. So if you want to immerse yourself into the history and research of the MIB, the book is pretty good.

My qualms about the book are twofold. First of all, I don't care for Redfern's style. It's half pulp-paranormal-mystery-expose, with just a hint of tabloid fluff. In other words, he's not a very "serious" writer, but that's just my taste. My real problems with the book come in part 2: "The Theories". I don't think Redfern shows very much imagination here. For example, his explanation for Bender's experiences is pretty lacklustre, and ignores possibly overlapping reasons (kind of like those who dismiss all abductions as "just" sleep paralysis, neglecting to propose that sleep paralysis may be an integral part of the abduction phenomenon, or somehow induced). My margin notes often read "not mutually exclusive!", especially next to the quotes from Greg Bishop, who I also think tends to use the "juvenile dictionary" a bit too much when doing his theorizing. The chapter on "Tulpas" was the worst for this type of wiseacring.

That said, there are some interesting ideas in Part 2, but none of them quite hit home. I think John Keel, about whom Redfern quotes some unsubstantiated criticism, got closer to truth about these phenomena than the majority of others in the field over the last 60 years. His book, The Eighth Tower, is a classic, and only surpassed I think, by Laura Knight-Jadczyk's High Strangeness: Hyperdimensions & The Process Of Alien Abduction. She deals with pretty much all the features Redfern brings up, but ties them all together in a picture that actually makes sense. In other words, not the hodgepodge of pet theories Redfern collects.

All that said, it was a fun book, informative, and only at times overbearingly annoying. So if you can handle that, do check it out. Just round out your reading.

Men in black, mysterious figures in black suits that pop up at UFO sighting scenes like mushrooms after a spring rain, have become so solidly entrenched in pop culture that very popular - and imaginative - movies have been made about them. Nick Redfern's new book tracks their history from the days when MIB were esoteric lore known only to UFO geeks, to today's guys with cool shades who show up on your local theater screen. The real Men in Black are far more sinister than I had guessed.

The book was especially persuasive to me personally since it includes the experiences of colleagues I've come to know and trust over the years including Brad Steiger, Marie D. Jones and Raven Meindel. The terror they and many others experienced was subtle - compared to sightings of, say, Bigfoot or werewolves -- yet very traumatic.

Sporting black suits and hats some have compared to those of the Blues Brothers, Men in Black started showing their pale and unexpressive faces in the middle of the 20th Century, around the same time flying saucers entered the public consciousness. Witnesses and researchers of the UFO phenomenon found themselves threatened and harassed - often in unexplainable ways - by the lurking strangers who usually drove shiny black cars. Scarily, MIB continue these terror tactics to present day, sometimes updating their transportation to black helicopters or other vehicles.

In my book, Strange Wisconsin, I reported an incident told me by a farmer in western Wisconsin who was deer hunting with his children when the three saw a UFO rise from a nearby tree top and then shoot off over a field. They were so terrified they decided to forget hunting and just leave, but as they exited the woods they saw a convoy of shiny black pickup trucks heading single file across the field in the same direction the UFO had gone. Just the sight of so many new trucks in the sleepy area was strange enough, but where did they suddenly come from and why would they all take off across someone's field in mid-November? What was their connection to the silver, discoid craft and how did they know it was there?

Readers will discover similar weird anomalies in every tale in Redfern's book. And after grounding readers in many frightening examples of the MIB mystery, Redfern spends the second half of the book wrestling with possible explanations for the creepy figures. Redfern notes that strange people clad in black have appeared to those dabbling in occult studies and practices throughout history. If this is true, perhaps the MIB are not connected to aliens from space at all. Redfern explores such disparate possible origins for them as elaborate thought- forms created by human imagination, time cops from far in the future and perfectly human secret agents.

Author and MIB researcher Colin Bennett is quoted extensively in the book, and he comes to the conclusion that the MIB entities appear to "eat" human energy generated by the fear they provoke. This was interesting to me because I have often said much the same thing about the unknown, upright canines I have studied and written about for the past 19 years.

Are strange creatures, MIB, UFOs and other scary phenomena part of some massive, unknown entity that exists just one step above us on the psychic food chain? Perhaps unreality bites.

Whatever MIB may be, Redfern and the many experts he consults agree they are not desirable company. There is one simple weapon that seems to work against them but I won't give that away here. I'll just say that to be forewarned is to be fore-armed, and that you will want to read this book to know what to do before the MIB come calling on you.

Linda S. Godfrey, author of Monsters of Wisconsin: Mysterious Creatures in the Badger State

The Men in Black have always been a subject I've tended to shy away from. Not due to fear like some would expect. It's just been one of those areas of the UFO/paranormal phenomenon that didn't warrant further study. Well past beliefs be damned, after reading this book, I've learned there's plenty to be explored. I've always known that some MIB reports were probably government/military personnel following up on UFO sightings. They would typically get a bad reputation given some of their interactions, such as the witness silencing that occurred during the Roswell crash era. However, it's the non-government interactions that are truly interesting. Time travelers? Demonic entities? ETs? Something else? These are all the questions and theories this book explores that truly leaves you wanting to learn more. The book is very well written, fast paced and definitely prompted me to explore the subject matter further.

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