Lore - Legends 21: The Men in Black

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Some legends evolve over time, sometimes taking centuries to fully mature. But one urban myth, at least, seems to have arrived nearly complete. And it’s been terrifying from the beginning. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Aaron Mahnke and Harry Marks, and research by Jamie Vargas. Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Sponsors: Stamps: Never go to the Post Office again. Get a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale at Stamps.com/LORE. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. ©2024 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books. So if you're ready, let's begin. Go outside on a clear night and look up. There among the blackened skies are dying balls of gas that have been there since the beginning of time. They're just stars, of course, but to us they are magical, a billion points of light that fill up the night sky.

But it gets even better. Floating in between them are planets, moons, and other celestial bodies scattered across endless galaxies. Because outer space is a vast expanse and has no boundaries, it's possible that somewhere beyond the reach of our rovers and telescopes, there exists life. It could be a small animal of some kind, or perhaps a microscopic bacterium, or even a species of plant that lives off something other than sunlight, or maybe it's something else like a creature capable of thinking, learning, and evolving.

And if such a being exists, it's entirely possible that they might have even paid us a visit, which of course is where one particular branch of folklore enters the picture, that these otherworldly visitors have been kept from us by mysterious gatekeepers. We've all seen the movies. We remember the song. But what's the truth at the center of this legend, that there are clandestine people out there with one job and one job only, to hunt down the little green men who visit our planet. These individuals aren't just science fiction characters, they're part of our overall folklore.

They lurk in the background, orchestrating and scheming, so we remain happily unaware of what's really going on. But while they might hide in the shadows, we are the ones But while they might hide in the shadows, we are the ones who are truly kept in the dark. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends. They're a lot older than you think. We actually have to go back hundreds of years to find the first recorded UFO sighting. There's one legend from ancient Egypt that claims that the sun god Ra lived on Earth and ruled over its people until they rebelled, ambushing him as he sailed up the Nile. Ra's son Horus then took the form of a bright flying disk and launched an attack on the

rebels until Ra stepped in. He refused to allow all the humans to be killed before retreating from Earth entirely, choosing instead to sail the celestial Nile. There was also a report from China around the year 235 AD when the Emperor's army saw a red object with pointed rays flying overhead, passing over them three separate times. Its presence was recorded in a compilation alongside meteors and shooting stars, although it's unlikely that a meteor would fly in such a formation that many times.

But one of the most peculiar reports of a UFO being seen took place in October of 1492, and that date might actually hint at who the witness was. That's right, Christopher Columbus. He'd set sail from Spain on a voyage financed by Ferdinand and Isabella, Spanish monarchs looking to expand their empire, and Columbus was going to be their meal ticket, laying claim to any lands in his path. Now, one thing that a lot of folks don't know about Columbus is that he was a meticulous Columbus was going to be their meal ticket, laying claim to any lands in his path. One thing that a lot of folks don't know about Columbus is that he was a meticulous note-taker

and kept a comprehensive journal during his trip, although the original journal was eventually lost. Thankfully, a Spanish historian made a copy, giving future scholars and historians a glimpse of what the explorer encountered in his travels. On October 12, 1492, Columbus and his crew made landfall on one of the Bohemian islands referred to by the locals as Guanahina. Columbus unsurprisingly renamed it to the more Spanish-friendly San Salvador. But there are a lot of islands out there. Add exactly which island it was remains a mystery to this day.

Anyway, the night before landfall, around 10pm, one of the sailors spotted something in the darkness. An admiral aboard one of the ships noticed something strange as well. It was a light, described in the log records as appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down. Now some have suggested that it might have been a luminous squid, and naturalist Lionel Rutledge Crochet believed that it was bioluminescent worms known to live in the shallow coastal waters there.

Apparently they live on the ocean floor, but surface to mate just before each quarter moon. But the most exotic theory, of course, was that Columbus's men saw a UFO. In fact, UFO scholars argue that because the incident defies explanation, it must be extraterrestrial in origin. Almost 150 years later, another unidentified object appeared over the skies of Salem, Massachusetts, long before the word which was on anyone's tongue. It was recorded by an Englishman named John Winthrop, who had come to North America with the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Winthrop was well respected, even being elected governor of the new colony, and he was quoted as saying, We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us. What he didn't realize though was that the eyes of the people wouldn't be cast on his city, but toward the sky. In March of 1638, Winthrop noted how three men in a boat on the nearby muddy river spotted a light in front of them. According to his records, when it stood still, it flamed up and was about three yards square.

When it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a swine. It ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours. And these men were so drawn to the light that they followed it until it vanished. When it was finally gone, all three of them found themselves right where they had started, with no memory of rowing against the tide or dropping anchor. And it's a story that should sound really familiar to any of us today. An encounter with a mysterious light, lost time, and a lack of awareness of where they were or how they got there.

Strip away the 17th century names and places and we could be talking about an episode of the X-Files. Which has left a lot of people wondering. Does this entry in Winthrop's journal contain something darker than just a bunch of guys in a boat following a light? What if it's actually one of the first times in recorded history that someone documented an alien abduction? There was no question about it. June 24, 1947 was an eventful day for Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho. He split his time working as both a fire control equipment salesman and an experienced pilot.

In fact, he had at least 4,000 hours of flight time under his belt. So he didn't think much of it when he took off in his single-engine airplane from Shehalis, Washington to an air show in Oregon. He had clear skies above and a light wind blowing. According to the story, just before 3 p.m., he was 20 miles west of Mount Rainier when he saw a bright flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Curious, he started looking around for the source, and that's when another flash beams straight into his eyes.

According to him, the light had come from nine objects flying in a diagonal formation a short distance away. Eight of them looked like flattened disks, but the ninth looked like a crescent with a point in the middle, like something that Batman might throw at the Riddler's henchmen. And in Kenneth Arnold's own words, they were, flying like a saucer would. His testimony was the first time that anyone had used the term flying saucer, a phrase that would become standard for UFO sightings going forward. Oh, and their speed?

Arnold measured it at a rate of somewhere between 1,200 and 1,700 miles per hour. He ended up refueling in Pendleton, Oregon, where he gave his statement to reporters. Pretty soon, news of his encounter was spreading all over the world. In less than a week, other witnesses started coming forward with their own stories, too. In fact, out of the 20 or so sightings on June 24 alone, all but two of them had come from the Pacific Northwest. One newspaper even reported flying saucers had been seen as far away as Texas and Canada. But little did Kenneth Arnold know, an even darker encounter had taken place earlier that

same week. That witness was Harold Dahl. He too was a resident of Washington State, where he did conservation work in Puget Sound out near Moray Island. And it was while he was out there on his boat, along with his son, his dog, and two other men, that something strange happened. At two o'clock that afternoon, just off the island's eastern coast, Harold looked up to see six objects floating in the sky above his boat. They were around 2,000 feet off the ground, shaped like doughnuts, and made of some kind of reflective metal. According to Harold, each one measured around 100 feet in diameter and featured dozens of

small round windows with a larger observation window along the bottom. Harold couldn't understand how they stayed in the air, and to be honest, I would probably be scratching my head as well. No visible engines or propellers, and no noise that hinted at a hidden motor. And as he watched them, one of the objects dropped down and hovered over the water near his boat. So, Harold took out his camera and snapped a series of photographs. Suddenly a loud thud rang out, just as the ship expelled several tons of a mysterious

metallic substance into the water. And whatever it was, when it hit the ocean, it hissed and steamed. In the process, Harold's boat was damaged and his son's arm was burned. Even worse, his dog was killed by some of the falling fragments. And then the craft slowly rose up and drifted out over the Pacific. Later on, he told his boss, Fred Crisman, what had happened, and gave him the camera as evidence.

But Harold didn't know the truth about his employer. You see, Crisman was actually an intelligence agent, formerly part of the Office of Strategic Services or OSS. So when Crisman had the images developed, his keen eye spotted two things. First, the objects in the sky were right there, clearly visible. But so was something else. Spots on the film that he recognized as signs of radiation exposure. Intrigued, Crispin traveled to Murray Island to investigate for himself, and that's when

he noticed one of the airships overhead, watching him. So, that's the story so far. Simple enough, right? But the rest of the story is a lot more chaotic. It began with a strange man in a black suit who interviewed Harold and then threatened to harm him if he ever shared the story with anyone else. Harold, though, apparently ignored him and sent some samples of the metal from the spacecraft to a paranormal publisher

in Chicago who noticed the location and connected it to that first story I told you about Kenneth Arnold. So the publisher put the two witnesses in touch, and Arnold, it turns out, had some friends in the Air Force. Now, when those friends, Air Force officers no less, flew out to interview Harold in person, they found the story credible, so they took some samples of the strange metal to study further. After that, these officers boarded a plane to head home, only to die when that plane mysteriously exploded mid-flight. Oh, and the pilots?

They somehow parachuted to safety. Ever since, the rumors and unanswered questions have left a lot of people suspecting some sort of conspiracy. Although truth be told, people are very good at creating elaborate, imaginary explanations for situations they don't understand. But fiction or not, those theories went on to inspire the folklore that you and I take for granted today. A mysterious earth-shattering secret, a government-driven cover-up, and field

agents who use threats and lies to keep the rest of the world from catching on. Regardless of the truth, one thing is crystal clear. The age of the UFO had arrived, and so had the legend of the men in black. No history of the men in black would be complete without him. Born in Pennsylvania in 1921, Albert Bender served in the army during World War II. Later in life, he relocated with his mother and stepfather to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he moved into their attic. He turned it into a space that was truly his own, where he could collect and display the

things that represented who he was. But who was Albert Bender? Well for one, he was an enthusiast of the supernatural, something that most of us would probably say about ourselves, right? But he also filled his room with 20 chiming clocks, along with a grim collection of monstrosities, things like shrunken heads, fake skulls, and bizarre artwork. But after reports of UFO sighting started to come out in the 1940s, Bender saw an opportunity to do more than admire the otherworldly.

He put himself directly in the center of it all. In 1952, he formed a new organization called the IFSB, or International Flying Saucer Bureau. He and his global team of 600 investigators started looking into the UFO reports being published in the papers. The group was spread out across the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, and even produced a quarterly magazine called Space Review, which was distributed to every member of the organization. According to the stories, Bender started experiencing some odd symptoms shortly after forming the

IFSB. His physical and mental health began to deteriorate, prompted in part by frequent anonymous phone calls to his home. On the night of July 30th of 1952, he picked up one of those calls and held the receiver to his ear. Whoever the caller was, they were completely silent, but still, Bender knew someone was listening. Then, as he held the phone to his ear, he began to feel a pain bloom deep inside his

head. With the pain came the sensation of spinning, as if the room itself were rotating quickly around him. Assuming he just needed a bit of rest, he hung up the phone and climbed into bed, where he quickly fell asleep. He awoke the next day feeling much better and returned to life as normal. A few days after the strange phone call, he even walked to the local movie theater to catch a sci-fi film. I don't know what the name of the movie was, but this being the early 1950s, I'm guessing the special effects were absurd and delightful in equal measures.

Walking home after the movie, though, his mood changed. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following him, hunting him almost. So Albert sped up, hoping to get home as quickly as he could where he might finally be safe. But when he arrived and mounted the stairs to his attic apartment, he stopped before going inside. There, emanating from below his door, was an eerie glow. Cautiously, he stepped inside. The first thing that struck him was the pungent scent of sulfur. In fact,

it was so strong that it burned his nostrils. But that wasn't the strangest thing he experienced, because right there, hovering in the center of his room, was a strange, shimmering object. Frightened by what he saw, Albert reached over and flipped the light switch, and instantly the mysterious object disappeared. But as he looked around the room for it, he noticed something else. His IFSB files were not where he had left them. It wouldn't be the last encounter like that, either. During another visit to the movie theater, Albert claimed that he was stalked by a man with dark clothes and glowing eyes, and experienced more of that same dizziness.

To outside observers like us, it's easy to think that Albert Bender was losing his mind, and as time went on, his actions and beliefs would only reinforce that idea. Take for example, World Contact Day, a project that he and others in his IFSB group worked toward. Basically, it involved memorizing a welcome letter of sorts that he and the others would recite over and over mentally on the appointed day, March 15th of 1953. They believed it would act like a sort of psychic broadcast that would let extraterrestrial visitors know that they were watching for them and that they wanted to make contact. What happened next, though, was described in a book by one of the other members of his

group, Gray Barker, called They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. It seems that months after their mental broadcast, Albert heard a knock on his door, and when he opened it, he found three men standing outside, each dressed in crisp black suits. These men pushed their way inside, and then, according to Barker, something strange happened. They floated about a foot off the floor, he wrote. They looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Hamburg style. The faces were not clearly discernible, for the hats partially hid and shaded them.

The eyes of all three figures suddenly lit up like flashlight bulbs. Now, who they were is up for debate. Albert Bender was convinced that they were aliens, maybe drawn to him because of his World Contact Day message. Gray Barker, though, had a more domestic view of the encounter. He believed that they were government agents, sent to put a stop to Albert's work. But regardless, Baker's book gave the world the prototype for what we know today as the Men in Black, elusive, intimidating figures that can

vanish at will, who travel in groups of three, wearing black suits, white shirts, sunglasses, and hats, a sinister version of the Blues Brothers in a way. And who they are is something that folks will probably never stop debating. Human or alien, friend or foe, these figures have become central players in UFO mythology over the past 70 years, and the fiction that surrounds them like a cloak only continues to grow. The truth, though, is probably a lot more simple. They're just a rumor that became a legend, eventually transforming into a key part of pop culture. And they are an incredible example of the true power of folklore. They might not have existed prior to the 1940s, but their story feels like it's as old as

time. Conspiracies, aliens, intergalactic intrigue. It's easy to see why people have spent decades obsessing over stories and reports that seem out of this world. Honestly, who can blame them? And I totally get that futuristic tales of hovering spacecraft and strange beings in modern black suits don't really have the same feel as the folklore we typically cover here.

But beneath their unique veneers, the core of these stories is all the same. People went looking for answers to questions that eluded them, and when they couldn't find the truth, they invented something that at least gave them hope. And as far as the men in black are concerned, pop culture has fallen in love. Back in 1976, the rock band Blue Oyster Cult mentioned them in their song, Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. And again, in 1983's Take Me Away, the British rock group The Stranglers also name-dropped them in their 1979 song called Men in Black, all one word.

Outside of the Billboard charts, they started appearing in films, like 1979's The Alien Encounters, and several years later, another movie called The Brother from Another Planet featured an alien fugitive who was pursued by two men in black suits. And, of course, we can't forget the X-Files, with agents Mulder and Scully investigating a deep government cover-up that often involved mysterious people who fit that men-in-black archetype so well. But everything changed in 1997, when director Barry Sonnenfeld adapted a cult comic book published in 1990 into a feature film.

In it, a pair of government agents, known only by their codenames J&K, kept the public in the dark about everything paranormal including extraterrestrials, zombies, demons, and werewolves. But the film took a different approach. It removed the strange creatures and focused only on the aliens, who lived mostly quiet, secret lives on Earth. And the subject matter got a much needed injection of comedy. It took those mysterious agents out of the shadows and into the mainstream.

The film, Men in Black, spawned a franchise that now includes four movies, a theme park ride, an animated series, a new comic book, and even that hit Will Smith song which I'm sure you're humming right now. And in a way, they've become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. These stories about mysterious agents lurking in the shadows all around us have become so popular that those stories themselves are, in a way, lurking all around us. Most of the time, legends do nothing more than offer a bit of entertainment. Other times, they answer our questions and feed our fears. But sometimes it seems they go one step further.

They leap off the pages of history and come to life. I hope you've enjoyed our tour today through some of the foundational stories at the heart of the Men in Black legend. Clearly, there's something powerful about these characters. And whether you believe that they're facts or fiction, it's hard to deny how attractive their mythology has become. But we're not done yet with the world of alien encounters because I have one more other worldly tale to tell.

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See MintMobile for details. It was going to be a great trip. Back in August of 1976, twin brothers Jack and Jim planned a two-week camping excursion in Maine, along with their friends Chuck and Charlie. The four young men started by hiking up Mount Katahdin before chartering a plane to Shimpond, where they set out by canoe on the Alagash Wilderness Waterway. After a long couple of days of climbing and paddling, they set up camp in an area called Mudbrook. It was a clear night, with a sky full of stars, which is why they didn't think twice when

they spotted a bright light across the water. They figured it was just another celestial body on beautiful display. But Jim later said that this star displayed a strange quality of light. He grabbed his binoculars and aimed them at it, which turned out to be only a few miles away. According to Jim, it hovered about 200 feet above the treeline. Clearly, this was no star. And then, without warning, the light blinked and vanished.

The four friends went back to their conversation and didn't think about the odd light again for the rest of the night. 48 hours later, they had moved camp to a new spot, and this time in an area known as Smith Brook. They built a bonfire to mark their camp and then pulled their canoe out into the water to do some night fishing. But it wasn't long before Chuck had the feeling that he was being watched. When he turned around, he spotted a glowing sphere of light nearby, several hundred feet

in the air. It made no sound, but colorful lights pulsed from it. And pretty soon, the others were watching it as well. Charlie picked up his flashlight and pointed it at the object, blinking out the signal for SOS. The sphere immediately reacted, moving quickly toward them and then hovering 50 feet above their heads. A moment later, a cone-shaped beam of light appeared that seemed to scan the water like

a spotlight. Not wanting to be seen, the four friends grabbed their paddles and quickly headed back to shore. By the time they made it back to camp, the sphere was gone. Upon reaching the bonfire, though, they realized something strange. They had only been gone for about 20 minutes, and yet their massive bonfire had been reduced to red coals as though it had been burning for hours. The rest of their trip was uneventful, with no further sightings of the mysterious ball of light.

And that was it. Life moved on, and things went back to normal. That is, until one night in 1988, 12 years later, when Jim and Jack both had a nightmare, and then another, and another. And in each of these dreams, all four of those hiking buddies were together and sitting naked on a bench feeling afraid. And while it was strange to share a nightmare with someone else, they didn't know what it meant.

So they sought help of a UFO researcher named Ray Fowler, who agreed to look into their dreams as well as the events that had happened 12 years before. All four men were interviewed by Fowler one-on-one and even participated in regressive hypnosis where they walked through their memories of that night in the canoe. After the sessions were over, one key detail jumped out. It seems that there was a period of missing time somewhere between spotting the light and their return to shore. And in that gap, each man now remembered being taken,

up and into the hovering craft. And you can probably fill in the details of their story from here, right? Inside a clinical-looking exam room, they were stripped naked and samples were taken from them through various methods. Some strange, others normal. Ray Fowler would spend the next two years investigating their experience. And when it was over, the men started to speak more openly about it. They even appeared on television and were featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. But after the TV shows and book deals and even convention appearances, Chuck eventually recanted his testimony, although he did still claim that he saw the spaceship.

The others held firm, though, fully committed to their story of abduction. Was it a hoax like some people have claimed over the years, or were they simply influenced by pop culture and entertainment? It's hard to say for sure, but if you ask the men themselves, there is only one explanation. And it's the one that keeps people up at night, looking toward the stars. This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with Writing by Aaron Mankey and Harry Marx,

and research by Jamie Vargas. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution. There's a paid version of lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Plus, subscribers get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's the book series available in bookstores and online and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Information about all of that and more is available over at LorePodcast.com. And you can also follow this show on threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.

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