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A pioneer ufologist, Albert K. Bender of Bridgeport, Connecticut, gave the MIB mystery new impetus when he suddenly closed down his International Flying Saucer Bureau in 1953, vaguely hinting that three men in black suits had terrorized him into abandoning his research* Other UFO researchers studied his guarded remarks and concluded that he had been pressured out of business by sinister agents of the government. Three years later Gray Barker, a UFO investigator in West Virginia, published They Knew Too Much about Flying Saucers, a book which dealt with numerous MIB stories from as far away as Mew Zealand. The Bender case was the cornerstone of Barker's theory that the MIB either represented some governmental authority employing ‘questionable methods' to 'silence' UFO researchers, or that a more "fantastic sponsorship is responsible far their deeds'. Many of these dark-skinned. Oriental-featured gentle- men visited UFO witnesses wearing Air Force uniforms. This fact and tHe vast quantity of reported visits quickly led the UFO buffs to believe that their enemy was indeed the U.S. Air Force. Soon the UFO believers and their organizations were devoting most of their time, energy, and money to investigating the Air Force and, as the paranoia mounted, to investigating each other. The popular books of Donald E. Keyhoe, a retired Marine Corps pilot, were largely con- cerned with the alleged Air Force and governmental conspiracy to hide the truth about flying saucers from the public. Other UFO writers of the late 1950s followed Keyhoe's example, and alto ue this monu- Ten years after he suddenly withdrew from UFO research, Albeit K. Bender released his full story. Flying Saucers and the Three Men, which was privately published by Gray Barker. It proved to be far more unbelievable than any of the speculations. He claimed that he had been visited by dark-skinned gentlemen with glowing eyes, who materialized and demateriaUzed in his apartment. On one occasion, he said, he had been transported to a secret UFO base in Antarctica, where he had been told the secret. The UFOs were here to collect a rare and valuable element from the Earth's oceans. The project would be completed in the early 1960s, he was told, and then the flying saucers would leave our planet, and he would be tree to write about his experiences. Bender's revelations made no sense to the UFO coterie, since few; of them were acquainted with demonology and the fairy myths of the Middle Ages. They did not realize that his purported experiences followed classic patterns. In addition to Ms interest in flying saucers. Bender had also been involved in a study of black magic, and black magic, as we shall soon see. has always been a major method for conjuring up elementals. He had been plagued by odours of sulphur and strange poltergeistic manifestations during the period of the visitations. He also suffered certain medical effects, such as chronic headaches and lapses of memory, which are common symptoms of the contactee syndrome. The UFO buffs quickly branded Bender a nut who was trying get rich from flying saucers (actually, his book sold only a few thousand copies to the UFO hardcore and made him the subject of considerable criticism and ridicule). Countless MIB-type stories have now been collected and published by UFO investigators all over the world. Even the stuffy anti-UFO report of Colorado University, a study which had been commissioned by the Air Force in 1967, discussed a few cases. Case Number 52 of the report occupies eighteen pages and discusses in detail the strange experiences of a Santa Ana, mental conspiracy became one of the main 'facts* of nfology.