Prime Time Replay:
Loren Coleman
on the "real" Men In
Black
MsgId: *high_strangeness(3)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:03:40 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Welcome to High Strangeness on Prime Time Live! My name is Patrick Huyghe and I will be the moderator this evening. Our guest is noted fortean author Loren Coleman. The subject? The "Real" Men In Black.For those of you who don't already know who Loren Coleman, here is a bit of background. Since 1960, Coleman has trekked throughout almost every state and province in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the West Indies, investigating fortean and cryptozoological events. He is the author and coauthor of several popular books including "The Unidentified" (with Jerome Clark -Warner, 1975), "Creatures of the Outer Edge" (with Jerome Clark - Warner, 1978), the bestseller "Mysterious America" (Faber & Faber, 1983), "Curious Encounters" (Faber & Faber, 1985), as well as "Tom Slick and the Search for the Yeti" (Faber & Faber, 1989).
During his investigations Coleman has also encountered the mysterious Men In Black (MIB), which is the reason we are bringing him in to talk to us just as the film Men In Black is making its own debut nationwide. The story of the MIB dates back to the early 1950s, when a UFO investigator named Albert Bender encountered three men in dark suits, wearing hats and sunglasses. When they approached him they told him to stop talking about flying saucers. In the 1963 book "Flying Saucers and the Three Men Bender", Albert said that these MIB, who had identified themselves as American goverment agents, had severely harassed him and told him to keep his mouth shut. The MIB have been a part of UFO lore ever since.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(6)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:05:23 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Hello everyone. It's good to be with you from Portland, Maine.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(7)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:05:29 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Now to the first question: Can we get at the truth of the MIB? What can Hollywood add to the legend? How true it the film to the legend of the MIB?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(8)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:06:48 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Actually, that's 3 questions!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(9)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:07:57 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Well, Hollywood's version is the comic-book version of the urban legend reflection of what appears to be a very real experience for many folks. Can we get at the experience? Certainly, but Hollywood is only giving us a humorous insight into a wider phenomenon.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(10)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:09:16 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What effect do you think the movie will have on the reality, if any, of the MIB?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(11)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:11:08 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
I figure many more factual articles will now appear on the true subject of MIBs, so in some ways the film will interest new readers, researchers and fans in the reality and long history of MIB activities.And it will make a lot of money...so books on MIBs will come out of the woodwork!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(12)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:12:29 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Do you think we'll hear about more "real" MIB encounters as a result of the film?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(14)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:14:10 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Yes, more people, who get in touch with the reality behind the silliliness of the film...will come forth with their stories.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(15)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:14:57 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
You say you have had your own encounter with the MIB. When did this happen? Where? Tell us in detail about this episode.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(17)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:16:57 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
I think one of the weirdest meetings I had with what I thought could have been a MIB was when a Lt. Applegate visited me in Decatur, Illinois, in the early 1970s. I was looking into the mysterious Mad Gasser of Mattoon and related latter day entities. I would eventually, along with Jerry Clark, write about the Mattoon Gasser [Fate (February 1972) and in my "Mysterious America" (Faber, 1983)].At the time, as I often do, I was writing to many newspapers in the country, trying to track down what they had published on what I thought was a very human criminal, the Enema Bandit, who was terrorizing people here and there around the nation. The pattern of similar activities that were directed to mainly women victims interested me in terms of the configuration of the Mad Gasser attacks. I did not think the Enema Bandit was really Fortean, but I wanted to make certain that any bizarre human examples that seemed to follow the random model of the Gasser be compared. Anyway, in the midst of my research, late one night, I got a knock at my home and a darkly suited, very thin man who said he was with the Decatur Police Department stepped into my life.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(20)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:19:53 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Then what happened?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(22)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:21:54 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
He said he was checking to see if I was the Enema Bandit, and why I was digging into this story. He said I should stop researching this series of cases. Needless to say, not wanting to have police depts watch my clipping activities, I backed off. It was a very spooky encounter.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(24)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:23:18 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
But this was in no way UFO related, was it?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(25)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:27:20 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
No. Nor was the Dover Demon (April 1977) MIBs that were bothering the witnesses that Walt Webb (of UFO fame) and I were interviewing.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(26)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:29:03 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Did you think at the time to call the Decateur Police Dept. to see if your visitor was who he said he was?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(29)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:31:10 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Yes, I did...the next day...but they were not too helpful to a 20 year old FATE magazine writer interested in the Enema Bandit and the Mattoon Gasser. They said they didn't know him.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(30)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:31:16 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
So the MIB phenomenon does not confine itself to UFO cases. Did it start with UFO cases?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(31)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:32:38 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
No...in the 15th century it's linked to fairylore...18th century, to occult & religious sightings...it is a very trendy phenomenon.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(32)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:34:16 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
So how would you describe the MIB phenomenon in general terms since its not wed solely to UFOs?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(33)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:37:40 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
The Wales religious revival that was connected a UFO wave happening to Mary Jones in 1905, involves her seeing a classic Man In Black. Of course he wasn't wearing sunglasses or driving a big black Cadillac or a Jaguar, but everything else about him...a mysterious stranger in dark clothing, who vanishes soon after appearing...is very familiar to the students of the MIB.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(35)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:42:51 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
It appears to be a reflective phenomena, screened via temporal sunglasses.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(36)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:43:46 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
What do you mean "reflective"? Who do you think your Man in Black was?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(37)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:48:29 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Reflective - as in a mirror on the psychological makeup of the witness...or of the times...or of the cultural framework.And I am uncertain as to "what" my MIB was. I doubt it was a government agent; maybe a "prankster" in the old-fashion way that John Keel talks about the ultraterrestrials and elementals among us being.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(38)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:49:51 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Could the MIB be the guardians of forbidden knowledge, in a sense?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(39)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:50:52 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
John Keel gets a lot of grief, and I have my issues with all of his MIB thoughts (or anyone's, including mine) being taken too seriously...but I like his thoughts on this all being part of a cosmic joke! And if told not to go to something (by the MIBs or anyone), humans really go towards it more...hardly good guardians.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(40)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:51:29 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Didn't your friend , the biologist and anomalist Ivan T. Sanderson also report visits by the MIB?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(44)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:54:22 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Yes, I believe ITS had lots of strange visitors (some MIBs) that he told few people about, but did sometimes venture to write one or two down.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(45)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:55:32 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Didn't Sanderson speculate at one point that the reason the MIB wore turtlenecks was that they were hiding the fact that they were sea-dwelling creatures?
MsgId: *high_strangeness(46)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:56:33 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
ITS's one UFO book is called "Uninvited Visitors"...and that's what he thought the MIBs probably were too. Sanderson's book talks about them having underwater bases and such. He definitely felt the answers were in the oceans. Also, one of Ivan's favorite stories was about the MIB that tried to drink the jello it was offered.
MsgId: *high_strangeness(49)
Date: Tue Jul 1 22:59:40 EDT 1997
From: Moderator At: 168.100.204.161
Whether it's the oceans, or the cosmos, the answers, we know, are OUT THERE! Thank you very much Loren Coleman for being with us tonight. For High Strangeness, this is Patrick Huyghe. Goodnight all!
MsgId: *high_strangeness(50)
Date: Tue Jul 1 23:00:25 EDT 1997
From: Loren_Coleman At: 204.210.64.21
Great time. Thank you Patrick and OMNI.
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