Subj: RE: I'M CONFUSED

I remember the name 'Gray Barker' from MANY years ago,but from
then, he and Alex Bender (I think) were visited by 'TheMen in B
after THAT, refused to discuss UFO's,and many OTHER things AT A

Howdy Bud,
I'm not real sure what happened to Barker,he may well be
dead,but as of 1979,Bill Moore had stated in The Phila.Experiment
that reprint facsimiles of the original Varo edition of The Case
For The UFO could be obtained through Gray Barker at Saucerian
Press,P.O.Box 2228,Clarksburg,West Virgina 26302. I tried writting
to Barker at the time,but all my letters came back "return to
sender". By the way,wanna buy some slightly used maps of the
Phila.Navy Yard circa 1943? How bout some microfilm reprints of
every Philly Daily from the 1940's?...Ah,,never mind.
Anyway,I do have some info on Bender.The following is from the
file MIBS_HST.ZIP,I have included only the text pertaining to Bender,but
there is much more on the history of MIB's and it's worth reading.

The origin of the Men in Black legend can be pin-pointed fairly
exactly. Back in 1953 a man by the name of Albert K. Bender was
runnong an organization called the International Flying Suacer
Bureau (IFSB) and editing a little publication called "Space
Review" that was dedicated to news of flying saucers.

The IFSB had a small membership despite its rather grandoise title,
and "Space Review" reached at best, no more than a few hundred
readers. But they were all deeply devoted to the idea that flying
saucers were craft from outer soace. In common with other ture
believers, these saucer buffs were convinced that they were in
possession of a great truth, while most of the rest of the world
remained in darkness and ignorance. They felt very important , and
thus it was with a sense of surprise, even shock, that they opened
up the October 1953 issue of "Space Review" and found two
unexpected announcments:
"LATE BULLETIN. A source which the IFSB considers very reliable
has informed us that the investigation of the flying soucer mystery
and the solution is approaching its final stages."
"This same source to whom we had referred data, which had come
into our possession, suggested that it was not the proper method
and time to publish the data in 'Space Review'."

The second and more shocking item read:

"STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: THe mystery of the flying saucers is
no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any
information about this is being withheld by order from a higher
source. We would like to print the full story in "Space REview",
but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that
we have been advised in the negative."
The statement ended with the ominous sentence, "We advice those
engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious." Bender then
suspended the publication of "Space Review", and disolved the
IFSB.
The tone of the announcemnets would have been familiar to anyone
who had much experience with occult organizations. Occultists often
claim they are in the possession of some great secret which, for
equally secret reasons, they cannot reveal. Even the appeal,
"please be very cautious" was not unique. It made those engaged in
"saucer work" feel more important . After all, who is going to
bother to persecute you if you are just wasting your time?

SHortly after Bender closed down his magazine and organization he
gave an interview to a local paper which he asserted the he had
been visited by "three men wearing dark suits" who had order him
"emphatically" to stop publishing material about flying saucers.
Bender said that he had been "scared to death" and that he
"acutally couldn't eat for a couple of days." Some of Bender's
former associates tried to press for a more satisfactory
explanation, but to all questions he replied either cryptically or
not at all.
This state of affairs created soncsiderable confusions amoung the
flying saucer buffs. What were they to think about sucah a strange
story> Some were openly skeptical of Bender's tale. They said that
his publication and organization were losing money and the tale of
the three visitors who "ordered" him to stop publishing was just a
face-saving gesture. Yet, as the years went by the "three Men in
Black" began to sound more rspectable and they took on a life of
their own. Some' were Bender's friends first thought that the Men
in Black were from Air Force or the CIA, and indeed Bender's
original statments do seem to sound like government agents. But
after a while the Men in Black begun to assume a more
extraterrestrial, even supernatural air.

Finally in 1963, a full decade after he first told of his
mysterious visitors, Alber Bender elaborated further in a book
called "Flying Sauvers adn the Three Men in Black." It was a
strange, confused and virutally unreadable book that revealed very
little in the way of hard facts, but did significantly enhance the
reutation of the Men in Black as extraterrestrials. The book also
introduced into the lore "three beautful women, dressed in tight
white unigorms." Like thei r mail couterparts in black, the women
in white had "glowing eys."

Also see: "Flying Saucers on The Attack" Harold T. Wilkins Ace
Books (C) 195? A good account of the Albert K. Bender incident
including views towards the MIBs durring the era it all started.


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