Skull Men in Black Two-Tone Coffee Mug

Men in Black (MIB), in popular culture, is a term used in UFO conspiracy theories to describe men dressed in black suits claiming to be government agents who attempt to harass or threaten UFO witnesses into silence. It is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organisations, as well as to various branches of government allegedly designed to protect secrets or perform other strange activities. According to UFO historian Jerome Clark, "All MIB are not necessarily garbed in dark suits. The term is a generic one, used to refer to any unusual, threatening or strangely behaved individual whose appearance on the scene can be linked in some fashion with a UFO sighting. The phenomenon was initially and most frequently reported in the 1950s and 1960s; it is contemporaneous with many other conspiracy theories. According to Clark,[2] the archetypal men in black encounter was alleged to have occurred in 1953, when publisher Albert K. Bender asserted that he'd uncovered the secret behind flying saucers, but had been threatened by three men who wore black suits and hats. Initially, Bender clearly implied the men were U.S. Government agents, but his later accounts blended supernatural features with UFO lore. In fact, Bender himself was initially sceptical of the Men in Black phenomenon and first encountered them "in the flesh" after publishing an account of the Maury Island Incident, which occurred in 1947 when Harold Dahl reported pieces of a UFO fell on the boat he was on in the Puget Sound, killing his dog. The next day Dahl was warned by a man in a black suit driving a black 1947 Buick that he would do well to keep silent about the incident. Hilary Evans points out that all elements in the MIB scenario (three visitors of swarthy or "foreign" complexion, in a black Cadillac) is never played out in complete form; e.g. some were limited to telephone calls. Even before the idea of dark men in dark suits, wrap-around sunglasses and driving black automobiles gained any wider currency, General Carl Spaatz, Air Force Chief of Staff, saw fit to tell a press conference in 1948: "There is no truth to the rumour that the flying saucers are from Spain, or that they are piloted by Spaniards."[4] Early reports of Men in Black often described them as men short in stature with swarthy complexions, as if they were deeply tanned. Some reported them as Gypsies. Sunglasses, black suits and black cars have been a feature for the entire period since modern sightings began in 1947. The term has been adopted as a tongue-in-cheek term in geek culture for any generic suited government/corporate official. This usage has its roots in both the popularity of shows such as The X-Files and UFO culture, and the "threat" to hackers of Men in Black actually coming for them (in the form of the FBI or other cybercrime institutions). John A. Keel mentioned their appearances when questioning witnesses in reporting UFOs.