Alternate Perceptions Magazine, August 2026
The Men in Black Reconsidered
By: Dennis Stamey
Permit me to talk about one of my favorite subjects, the notorious men in back. So many reams of paper and countless online articles and podcasts have been devoted to these characters. After seventy years, they have become an integral part of folklore. Some of these accounts are likely fake but others are well-documented by reliable sources. UFO buffs have endlessly debated whether they are aliens or secret government agents. They exhibit attributes of both. Albert K. Bender, the first person to officially encounter the MIB back in 1953, which he described in his 1962 book Flying Saucers and the Three Men, claims they were ETs able to materialize inside his bedroom or communicate with him telepathically. I should note that a man in black reportedly confronted Harold Dahl after he and some friends witnessed UFOs hovering the Puget Sound in June 1947 and warned him not to talk about what he had seen.
But there is a terrestrial side to their nature. Consider this story,
Timothy Phillips, former chief of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a bureau within the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense that investigates UFOs, made important revelations about the infamous Tic Tac UFO Incident, which occurred in 2004 during USS Nimitz attack group operations off the coast of California. On this occasion, the UFOs were described as having the same shape as those hard mint candies.
According to Mr. Phillips, scientists affiliated with The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research and development agency of the U.S.Department of Defense, landed aboard the USS Princeton. The scientists, dressed in black, collected data and materials obtained by a secret surveillance system that was in operation during the naval exercises.
This system, known as WASP (Wide-Area Surveillance Program), was being tested as part of the combat group's operational readiness. It was during this period that unidentified flying objects were detected. Strange coincidence, right? The former chief assumed that the collected data was taken for analysis in military laboratories at the Dahlgren facility in the state of Virginia. The presence of these objects prompted the disruption of military exercises as they were being tracked by USS Princeton's advanced AN/SPY-1B radars.
A direct involvement from secret agencies, data collection by advanced technologies, and a coordinated effort to keep the information confidential? Sounds like the MIB have become very sophisticated in their methods.
Timothy Phillips confirmed three points to his account: the incident involving the recovery by black-suited DARPA agents was true, the WASP system recorded crucial information, and that DARPA acted quickly to isolate and study the data, indicating that something extremely unusual had been detected.
On the afternoon of August 7, 1994, pellets of goo rained down on the community of Oakville, Washington, during a severe storm covering yards and roofs. One of the hardest hit areas was a 29-acre farm owned by Dotty Hearn and her daughter Sonja or Sunny Barclift. Then about a week later, the clear gelatinous goo came down again.
On August 19, 1994, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported: “There have been no other confirmed reports of mysterious blobs, officials with several agencies said. But a National
Weather Service employee in the area received a call from an unidentified man in early August describing hot, metallic particles from the sky that burned holes in his children's trampoline.” Sunny Barclift took samples of the gunk to a hospital where Dr. David Little looked at them under a microscope and concluded that they contained some human white cells. His finding suggested that the material was concentrated fluid waste from an airplane toilet. Still, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said this was unlikely since toilet fluids are typically dyed blue, giving it the nickname “blue ice”.
In the meantime, several Oakville residents became ill with flu-like symptoms after touching the substance, including Sunny’s mother. Some were sick enough to be hospitalized. Dotty Hearn was in the hospital for four days. There were even reports of at least a dozen animals dying following the first rain blob rain.
Sunny also sent samples to the Washington State Public Health Department (WSPHD) and the Department of Ecology. The Department of Ecology discovered that the goo was from a living organism and not white blood cells since it didn't have a nucleus. This gave rise to a second theory that the stuff was pulverized jellyfish. Bombs had been dropped in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington by the 354th Fighter Squadron at the time. But jellyfish are made up of eukaryotic cells like other animals, which contain nuclei along with other membrane-bound organelles.
The most extensive tests were done by microbiologist Mike McDowell with the WSPHD who Oakville Blobs said they found “a number of cells of various sizes.” “It was very uniform,” Mike said. “There was no structure that we could see visibly or with a microscope. I set it up on various microbiological media and attempted to isolate bacteria.”
What he isolated was Pseudomonas fluorescens and Enterobacter cloacae, both normal residents in the digestive tracts of humans and other mammals. They can also be found environmentally when waste has been deposited and can travel in water and aerosols. According to Mike’s sons (he passed away in 2000), the microbiologist believed that the goo might be some kind of carrier system, but also said he didn’t have any hard evidence to support the claim. This suggests that the gunk might have bioweapons; however, this would have violated the 1969 ban on biological weapon testing. Moreover, bioweapons are invisible.
Unfortunately, Mike McDowell was never able to get to the bottom of the mystery because his samples were taken before he could finish his work. His supervisor told him that men in "black suits" came to the lab and confiscated them. Mike’s sons say that he was so distressed over the loss of these specimens that he never really got over it.
Sunny alleged that months before the fallout of the blobs black helicopters had been flying over the town at least once or twice a week. Her mother even videotaped one of them passing overhead (which I’ve watched, and it reminds me of a UH-60 Black Hawk).
In 1997, three men walked into the soda shop where the woman was working, ordered milkshakes, and asked the woman if this was the town where the goo fell. They also inquired about black helicopters.
One patron, who said the mystery men made "the hairs on the back of her neck stand up," had enough presence of mind to write down the license plate of their car. She traced the plate to military intelligence at Fort Hood, Texas. There is a military intelligence unit at Fort Hood, the 504th Military Intelligence Brigade, but its role is combat intelligence. Besides, why would the 504th send three of its agents halfway across the country to ask a couple of inane questions and then leave? Moreover, how would they know Sunny Barclift was even employed in that business?
Now consider their supernatural qualities. I found this item on Quora from ten years ago, contributed by a man named Anmol Patel. Like anything posted online I can’t vouch for its authenticity. Anyway, Anmol relates that when he was 14 and living in India, he and his cousin were returning from a birthday party one evening and “saw a black dog of an unknown breed…playing under the street light.” But as they watched they noticed that the dog’s shadow was that of “a large man.” The dog kept “running and jumping around in circles the shadow of a large man kept following.” The black canine soon spotted the pair and growled exposing a missing front tooth and one that “was sharp.” The boys quickly scurried away.
Later the next morning “we were passing that same lane and two guys dressed in black were examining the scene like some police investigation.” Anmol said that “they were rather tall like 6" 3 according to my guess but it is very uncommon stature in India…one guy was bald and so pale like he never came out in sunlight he wore dark glasses and had American accent the other guy was clearly Indian from features and voice they asked us questions like if we live around and if we saw something unusual we just said no and they just showed us the picture of that dog if we saw him recently roaming this area we narrated to them the last night's incident and they showed us the picture of a man who had an overgrown beard and athletic physique {sorry for the terrible syntax}.The boys told the men that they didn't recognize him. The “white guy” offered them chocolates, but they refused and decided to leave. As they were going, they noticed a black limousine nearby that didn’t have a license plate.
Dr. Johannes Fieb in his book UFO Abductions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland offers this bizarre tale (for the record, Dr.Fieb is a leading expert in UFO abductions). Sometime in 1984, a woman named Franziska Metz was living in an apartment in a suburb on the outskirts of Wurzburg, Germany. As she lay in bed sleeping, she was abruptly roused from her slumber and had a strong sensation of fear. She lay in bed looking at the window when she felt a gust of wind. At that moment, Franziska heard footsteps approaching. “Someone” had entered the locked bedroom. As she peered into the dark, there stood a “man" which, despite her fear, almost “made her laugh.” According to Franziska he looked like the stereotypical “Humphrey Bogart” wearing a heavy coat, and hat “just like in Casablanca”. But the ‘funniest’ thing to her was the fact that he was wearing a dark pair of wraparound sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night. From the light of the streetlamps outside, she could tell that the man was very pale. The Bogart lookalike sat down on her bed and lifted the blanket. Franziska became paralyzed with terror and felt an icy sensation. She turned her head to look at the window again since she didn’t want to look at the man anymore. All she could remember after that was being alone in the bedroom. She got up and checked the door and found it was locked.
Albert Rosales, an expert on UFO humanoid sightings, came across this incident that happened in Paris in May of 1978. A woman identified as Mary was driving to work when. as she was crossing the Pont de Bercy bridge, suddenly felt as if time was slowing down. All the cars and the passersby’s seemed to be stuck in a “slow motion film.” That’s when Mary saw a tall man dressed in a black suit and a bowler hat. His face had a gray silvery complexion and seemed radiant in the morning sun. The dark-suited man looked at Mary with a mocking expression, gave her a smile, and continued walking. As he passed by her, the surroundings returned to normal. According to Mary, later that night she had a strange dream in which she was surrounded by men wearing masks.
In my recent book The Eighth Cathedral: Jack the Ripper and the Kali Archetype I wrote: “If there is this evil swirling around us, what if it possesses a mind of its own? Since it originated from our collective intelligence, it must have developed a personality, one capable of influencing people so they carry out acts on its behalf, perhaps even seeping into the craniums of those fascinated with nature’s dark alternative.”
I went on to identify this evil as the Kali archetype, the antithesis of the creative force in the universe, the fallen angel of Genesis, the supreme spirit of malice known as Angra Mainyu in Zoroastrianism, or Mara the nefarious beings of Buddhism (although Mara is often depicted as the leader of the pack just as Lucifer commands a legion of demons). These are metaphors for death and the destruction of the status quo. If there is to be growth, there has to be eradication of the senescent order. It shouldn’t be surprising that Mara is associated with death and rebirth.
This Kali archetype, as I keep stressing, worms its way into world governments, be it France of the 1870s, Germany of the 1930s, or those in the 21st century including our own It’s a parasite that tears into the brain and vital organs of the human race so that its agenda can be carried out, an agenda that at first glance doesn't quite make sense. But if you can peer through the smoke and mirrors, the plan basically calls for murder, chaos, and ultimately totalitarian control.
This archetype also wants to impede our understanding of the cosmos. Mara impeded enlightenment. On the eve of the Buddha's awakening under the Bodhi tree, Mara sent his army of monsters (representing fear and anger) and his daughters (representing sensual craving and delight) to distract the future Buddha.
Many of the ancient priesthoods (priesthoods and sacrifices being components of this archetype; when there’s a surge of interest in the supernatural, occult societies spring up followed by serial killings) intentionally kept knowledge to themselves. By monopolizing literacy, astronomy, medicine, and religious law, priests consolidated immense political and social power. They served as the gatekeepers of information, ensuring that the masses depended entirely on them for survival and spiritual guidance. The priesthoods and their sacrificial rites, as I said, usually recur in the modern era when there is a heightened interest in the supernatural, a condition that allows the Kali archetype to break through.
If a person sees something inexplicable, something outside everyday reality, these dark-coated G-men, sometimes sent by legitimate government agencies, will appear to scare them into silence, confiscate evidence, or simply ask weird questions, their garb alone being intimidating. What these MIB are doing is reenacting this ancient custom of keeping knowledge within priesthood. Somehow, I perceive many of them to be real people. Others as we’ve seen have a supernatural quality, materializing and dematerializing like ghosts. Many of the beings in this category are not silencers in the traditional sense, probably manifestations from the higher reaches of the Kali archetype.
What are these black cloaked men supposed to represent? I believe they symbolize the dark forces of nature, storms, wind, and rain, an archetype within an archetype. I’m also convinced they’ve always been with us in one form of another, embodiments of evil.
Peter M. Rojcewicz, an assistant professor of humanities at the Juilliard School in New York City (see his article "The Men in Black" Experience and Tradition: Analogues with the Traditional Devil Hypothesis published in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 396 (Apr. - Jun. 1987), pp. 148-160) says that in 11th and 12th-century medieval manuscripts the Devil was depicted as black and human in shape.
Margaret Murray's 1921 anthropological work The Witch-Cult in Western Europe recounts testimonies from accused witches from the 17th and 18th centuries, most of whom attest that the Devil appeared to them in human guise and usually donned black clothes. According to the testimony of Devonshire witch Susanna Edwards from 1682: "She did meet with a gentleman in a field called the Parsonage Close in the town of Biddeford. And said that his apparel was all of black."
The witches of Somerset in their 1664 trial swore that the Devil appeared to them as a human donned in black clothes. Elizabeth Style declared that he was "a handsome man." Style, Anne Bishop, Alice Duke, and Mary Penny averred that Satan appeared to them as "a Man in black Clothes." Christian Green said he was "in the shape of a Man in blackish Clothes". And Mary and Catherine Green declared the Devil was "a little Man in black Clothes". The Lancashire witch Margaret Johnson tried in 1633, professed that her lord and master appeared to her as "a spirit or divell in the similitude and proportion of a man, apparelled in a suite of black, tyed about with silke pointes". In Northumberland in 1673, Ann Armstrong told the court that "she see the said Ann Forster [with twelve others and] a long black man rideing on a bay galloway, as she thought, which they call'd there protector." Those accused in the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials also claimed that the Devil was a "black man." In 1702, the Northamptonshire witches, Mary Phillips, and Elinor Shaw, said that the Devil came to them as "a tall black Man'". The term "black man" in these incidents refers to clothing and not to race.
A 1682 German text records that in 1559 in Brandenburg farmers observed about fifteen figures dressed in black in their oat fields. They had scythes and were swishing at the stalks of grain, but nothing was being cut down. Soon they vanished. Days later a plague came through the city. In 1571 in the city of Kremnica, a town in modern-day Slovakia, residents beheld horsemen dressed in black on a hilltop on Ascension Day. The mysterious horsemen eventually galloped off and the next day a contagion broke out. Similar yarns about back-garbed figures seen during the Black Death were chronicled throughout Europe.
Thus, they can serve as harbingers of death or as guardians of arcane knowledge, instruments for the antithesis of the creative force in nature be it God or Brahma. I suspect that the Kali archetype, which literally controls our lives, is over a thousand years old, if not more. The New Testament talks about Satan controlling the earth, Satan likely being a metaphor for this insidious force. John 12:31 states: "Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” I John 5:19: “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” And Luke 4: 5-6: “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.’”
But here’s a more chilling and perhaps more relevant verse from I Peter 5:8 “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
And devour it does.
