Flying Saucer to the Center of Your Mind: Selected Writings of John A. Keel (24 page)

Another type of MIB now common throughout the U.S. is represented by men who travel in pairs. The same description is always given. One man is tall, blond (usually has a crewcut), fair-complected, and seems to be Scandinavian. His companion is shorter, with angular features and a dark olive complexion. The blond usually does most of the talking, while the other remains in the background. There seems to be several identical pairs of these individuals operating simultaneously in several states.

Men with Oriental features, dark complexions, slight stature, and a heavy, indefinable accent are also frequently reported. These men sometimes pose as salesmen or polltakers. The witnesses usually regard them as a “little strange,” but think nothing further about them. Always ask witnesses if they have recently received any “unusual visitors or salesmen,” but do not offer any descriptions. See if the witnesses can offer correlative descriptions to the above.

Naturally, every stranger is not an MIB. Never alarm witnesses by displaying an unusual interest in such visitors. Never discuss “silencings” or “Men in Black” with witnesses.

Dark-complected, dark-haired females of about 18 years of age have occasionally been described. It is not unusual for some MIB types to pose as photographers and offer to take free photos of the witness’ entire family.

Vehicles used by the MIB range from traditional black Cadillacs and Lincolns to assembly-line Fords and Volkswagens. White station wagons have now been mentioned in a number of widespread incidents.

If men military uniforms approach your witnesses, contact your local Air Force or military base and determine the validity of their identification. In several cases, the Air Force impersonators have adopted the names of existing officers, but have changed the rank. Thus, when you try to check out a “Col. Robert Withers” you may find that Lt. Robert Withers is actually stationed nearby, but knows nothing of the incident.

Do not attempt to apprehend Men in Black yourself. Do not attack them physically. Approach them with great caution. They frequently employ hypnotic techniques. Collect adequate testimonial evidence before reporting them to the local police or FBI. You must prove that these individuals are breaking the law before the authorities can take any action.

CHAPTER 12

THE CONTACTEE KEY –
UFO REPORT,
AUG. 1977

When Dr. J. Allen Hynek, America’s self-appointed UFO authority, visited the Nixon White House in 1973, he was shunted off to Presidential Adviser Walt Rostow. After explaining that he planned to open a UFO research center in Illinois, Hynek threw out this feeler: “I don’t want to duplicate official efforts with a private organization. I don’t want to take on another burden if it isn’t really necessary.”

Mr. Rostow stared at him blandly and replied: “You do not need to know.”

In other words, Rostow was telling the famous scientist that government UFO research was none of his business!

Foreign leaders concerned with the UFO question have approached the U.S. government directly for concrete information and also received the runaround. Sir Eric Gairy, Prime Minister of the tiny Caribbean state of Grenada, complained publicly about this in a speech before the United Nations on Oct. 7, 1976. “One wonders why the existence of UFOs continues to remain a secret to those in whose archives repose useful information and other data,” Gairy stated. “While we appreciate that some countries consider this to be in the interest of military expedience, I now urge that a different view be taken, because it is my firm conviction that the world is ready, willing, and ripe enough to accept these phenomena in relation to man and his existence on Earth, and in relation to Earth and life in outer space.”

Apparently not even Gairy, ruler of a land on the fringe of the mysterious Bermuda Triangle, has a “need to know.”

Since the late 1940s, there has been an abundance of rumors and poorly documented allegations that the U.S. government is engaged in a widespread, but completely covert, investigation of the UFO enigma. Civilian researchers have bemoaned the fact that nobody will tell them what is going on. When they try to find out for themselves, they are often subjected to incredible harassment. Their phones are tapped, their mail is tampered with. Insidious, carefully organized campaigns are launched to destroy their credibility. In several incidents, important witnesses, even entire families, have inexplicably disappeared after their sightings were made public. Hard-boiled newsmen and professional investigative reporters have spent 30 years trying to squeeze substantive information from the Washington bureaucracy, without success.

Strangely, during these three decades there has not been a single important leak of any kind. If a government UFO research project exists, not a single participant has given a speech or written a book. Yet we all know that it is practically impossible for the government to keep a secret for very long. Several former CIA agents have written books and traveled the lecture circuits, telling all. Innumerable military boondoggles have been exposed by the press, despite strenuous coverup attempts. President Nixon was unable to conceal the facts about Watergate even though most of his staff was working around the clock to do so. How, then, could any government agency manage to keep the wraps on the UFO mystery for 30 years?

There are two possible answers:

No coverup exists. The government is not actively involved in UFO research and has no interest in the subject.

The civilian UFO investigators have been masterfully misled. They have been looking for the wrong clues, examining the wrong evidence, asking the wrong questions, applying the wrong sciences.

There are two ways for a government to deal with a problem of this type. When UFOs first appeared, it was assumed they were technological hardware from an unknown source. So, logically, the problem belonged in the hands of military intelligence. In 1947-48, the Air Technical Intelligence Command (ATIC) assumed responsibility for the study and attempted to determine the exact nature and source of the objects. Standard intelligence techniques were utilized in an attempt to uncover the source or bases of the objects, and to interpret the technology used. It was a sound approach but, apparently, ATIC discovered something unexpected. And as every ufologist knows, the Air Force dropped out of UFO research in 1949, and the project was passed on to the then-infant CIA. After 1949, the Air Force maintained a flimsy public relations effort, while another branch of government turned its full attention to UFO contactees. This suggests that the military specialists actually reached a dead end. They must have concluded that most UFOs were: 1) not real in an ordinary sense, 2) did not have manufactured hardware, and 3) were not coming from tangible bases either on this planet or from some other point in the universe. If this conclusion is valid, then the subject does not belong to military intelligence, but can only be investigated by another kind of specialist.

There are thousands of specialists in government and civilian practice who, in fact, are
sworn to secrecy
the day they receive their college diplomas. Retaining confidences is a vital part of their profession. They are, of course, medical doctors and psychiatrists.

Beginning as early as 1950, there were important leaks in this curtain of secrecy. Individuals who claimed direct encounters with the UFO occupants reported that shortly after their experiences became known, they were visited and examined by doctors professing to work for the government. Some were flown to government hospitals at taxpayers’ expense. A few were even railroaded into mental institutions, where they could be examined extensively.

At the same time, civilian UFO organizations were maneuvered into adopting a firm anti-contactee stance. Maj. Donald Keyhoe, an influential figure in ufology in the 1950s, led the anti-contactee movement. His Washington-based National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP)) campaigned vigorously against all the contactees who surfaced at that time. Other organizations followed suit, believing the contactees were all hoaxers and were exposing the ufological movement to ridicule. Had these groups applied some fundamental logic to the situation, they might have realized their approach was wrong. If UFOs are intangible, paraphysical objects, then the most sensible avenue of investigation is a careful study of the contactees. By publicly disassociating themselves from the contactees, the early ufologists left this fruitful aspect entirely in the hands of the government. The federal agencies were able to study these people freely, with little or no conflict with civilian groups.

NICAP always proudly listed Adm. R.H. Hillenkoetter as one of its key board members and advisors. Adm. Hillenkoetter had also served as head of the CIA in the early 1950s.

A few cases of medical investigation became celebrated in UFO literature. In 1957, both Reinhold Schmidt and Olden Moore experienced strange after-effects with their contacts. Schmidt, of Nebraska, was placed briefly in a mental hospital, while Moore (who came from Ohio) was flown to Washington by unidentified agents. Both men underwent extensive mental and psychological testing. These tests were sophisticated and far beyond anything even present-day ufologists employ. These tests were not designed to confirm the reliability of the witnesses. Rather they were geared to
find out how much the contactee actually knew or suspected.

By the 1950s, the art of psychological warfare and brainwashing was quite advanced. The use of drugs, hypnosis, and techniques for altering brain patterns were already a part of our psychological warfare arsenal.

Government specialists could induce amnesia, introduce imaginary experiences into the subject’s brain, and even alter his entire identity and personality. An eyewitness who “knew too much” (because he or she accidentally had seen something they shouldn’t have) could be made to forget the experience totally, or could be manipulated into erratic behavior that would forever discredit their UFO story.

At least one contactee, Howard Menger of New Jersey, finally confessed publicly that his experiences with the UFO entities had somehow been engineered by the CIA. Others recalled being hauled aboard unmarked vehicles (not flying saucers but ordinary cars, trucks, and vans) where they were hypnotized by flashing lights and injected with hypodermic needles.

These strange episodes have not been limited to the United States. Contactees in England, Italy, and throughout South America have reported enjoying free trips to the U.S. Recently, a Venezuelan contactee told me how, in 1974, he had been approached by two men claiming to represent the U.S. Embassy. They flew him to Washington, D.C., where he submitted to a variety of tests for several days. Obviously such investigations cost a great deal of money. Some branch of government must have an overwhelming interest in UFO contactees – and has had this interest since the early 1950s.

The official investigators assume many guises. Woodrow Derenberger of West Virginia was flown to the NASA installation at Cape Kennedy, FL, where he was studied for five days in a basement somewhere on the rocket installation. Others have supposedly been examined by officials from the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Navy, and even the U.S. Marines.

In 1966, Mort Young, a reporter for the New York
Journal-American,
investigated a case in which two young seamen reported seeing a UFO while on duty. They were immediately hustled into a mental hospital. Young found, somewhat to his own astonishment, that this was standard naval procedure at that time. In fact, numerous Air Force personnel, including high-ranking officers, had received the same kind of treatment after reporting a UFO. That is, they were subjected to thorough medical and psychological testing, not to find out if they were nuts, but to find out every detail of their experience – to find out how much they really knew.

My own field investigations began in earnest in 1966. Because of my varied background as an investigative reporter, I quickly discovered the hidden complexities of the UFO situation. I found “silent” contactees in every state of the country and uncovered many unpublicized “abduction” cases. I admit I had been influenced by the early UFO literature and was prejudiced against all contactees at first. But my personal investigations and experiences quickly changed my attitude – so much that I willingly faced the wrath of the ufological establishment by writing my first two articles in 1966 about these seemingly unsavory aspects. My first article in
SAGA
(Feb. 1967) dealt exclusively with UFO abductions. Paradoxically, the ufological establishment tried to ignore abduction cases until the UFO outbreak of 1973 –
six years later.

As I explored these cases, I was disturbed to find many Men in Black incidents, another aspect long held in disrepute by ET believers. While some of these MIB appeared to be apparitions or entities directly related to the UFO phenomenon itself, others seemed to be real government agents.
The latter were concerned solely with the UFO “contact” cases.
I naturally reasoned that the contact episodes must be of particular importance, since the government was so interested in them.

Originally I assumed that if there was anything to the UFO mystery – if the objects were real and interplanetary – systematic field research should quickly prove this fact. To my chagrin, I found that psychic manifestations overlapped into the UFO cases. I made myself quite unpopular by questioning the reality of the objects. It occurred to me that the real answers, if there were any, could only be found in a careful study of the contactee cases. Obviously, someone within the government had arrived at the same conclusion as far back as 1950. If the contactees were all hoaxers and lunatics, I doubt if the government would have continued their expensive contactee studies for such a long period.

As a newsman, I had many excellent sources within the federal government. One old friend held an important position in the office of the Secretary of the Air Force in the 1960s, and he did his best to penetrate the alleged Air Force secrecy surrounding the subject. Although he came up with small bits of interesting gossip and information, he drew a blank with the more important questions.