Somewhere in the Skies - Rob Kristoffersen: Men in Black

Episode Date: November 19, 2017

On episode 32 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with Rob Kristoffersen, researcher, and host of the upcoming Our Strange Skies podcast. The two discuss the elusive history of the Men in Black phenomenon. Who are these dark-suited, strange men who seem to appear directly following a UFO event? Why do they silence witnesses? And just exactly why are they so damn weird!? Ryan and Rob cover some of the most mysterious and bizarre accounts of MIBs and how they have evolved throughout the years.  This episode was sponsored by Rob Kristofferson. His contributions to the show landed him a guest spot on this week's episode. To learn how you can become a guest or co-host of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, visit the official Patreon Campaign at www.patreon.com/somewhereskies. Guest Bio: Rob Kristoffersen is the host of the Our Strange Skies podcast, and has been an amateur UFO researcher/paranormal investigator for nearly 10 years. He has been a lifelong resident of the Adirondacks and has had an interest in the paranormal from a very early age. When he's not investigating incidents of high strangeness, he can be found indulging in his love for professional wrestling, music, and good writing. Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with Antica Productions Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. Today's episode is also sponsored by my guest, Rob Christopherson. Rob's level of Patreon contribution landed him a guest spot on this week's show, and I know you're going to love this one. If you'd like to come on the show as a guest or a co-host, this reward is among many others, being offered right now at the official Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. While the podcast is always free to consume, it's not free to create. So to help offset personal costs and to help the show grow, both in quality and quantity, I've created this campaign where you can truly be a part of it all. Bonus episodes, videos, one-on-one discussions, and much, much more awaits you by becoming a Patreon subscriber today. To learn more and to become a patron, visit patreon.com backslash somewhere skies.

Thank you so much. And now, on to this week's show. This is Somewhere in the Sky. with Ryan Sprague. Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus. But I assure you it was Venus. I know what I saw.

Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare, seeing is believing. Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder. And I wouldn't flaunt your ignorance by telling anyone that you saw anything last night other than the planet Venus. Because if you do, you're a dead man. You can't threaten me?

I just did. Ah, that song brings back some late 90s memories, doesn't it? I remember when this movie came out in theaters a mere two years after my personal UFO sighting. I distinctly remember surfing the early internet message boards where I heard tales of strange men approaching UFO witnesses and threatening them to keep their mouth shut about what they saw. This terrified me as I became paranoid that I was the next on a long, long list of witnesses

that they'd eventually get to. But then, the Men in Black movie came out and shed a rather comedic and science-fictional approach to the Men in Black. But the more I began to research what inspired this Hollywood franchise, I began to realize that this was no laughing matter, and it all began on Moray Island in the summer of It was late morning when a man named Harold Dahl was out on his boat with his son, Christopher, and their dog, and two other workers. Harold collected logs floating in the sound and resold them to lumber mills.

Harold looked in the sky and saw six objects floating about 2,000 feet above his ship. The objects were made of some reflective metal, donut-shaped, and about 100 feet in diameter. The center holes were about 25 feet in diameter as well. as well. Harold said he also saw round port holes and what he thought was an observation window. Five of the craft circled over the sixth, which stopped slowly. It hovered about 500 feet above the water. Harold put to shore because he was afraid the center aircraft was going to crash into his boat. Once ashore, he took several pictures with his camera. The lower ship stayed in position for about five minutes, with the others still circling above. One of the ships left the formation and moved to the

down, touching the lower ships. Suddenly, thousands of pieces of what he thought were newspapers dropped from the inside of the center ship. Most of the debris landed in the bay, though some of it hit the beach. Harold recovered a few pieces, finding it was white, lightweight, and metal. Along with the white metal, the ship dropped about 20 tons of dark metal, which he said looked like lava rock.

When the lava rock hit the water, it was so high. hot, that steam erupted. The men in the boat took cover after several pieces landed on the boat damaging it. Some debris hit his son in the arm, burning him, and another piece killed Harold's dog. After the rain of metal, the craft rose into the air and headed west out to sea, disappearing out of sight. Soon, Harold buried the dog at sea, took his son to the hospital for treatment for his burns, and reported what had happened to local authorities and to his boss at work.

The next morning would perhaps bring about one of the very first ever reported encounters with the men in black. Just as Harold awoke, a man arrived at his front door. He was dressed in a perfectly pressed black suit and hat. He suggested that they go to breakfast together and that he wanted to hear all about what had happened the day prior. Harold drove his own car following the stranger's new Black Buick to a restaurant. While they ate, the stranger asked no questions, but instead told Harold in great detail about what had happened to Harold the day prior, as if he were there with him that day.

This startled Harold, and soon the man in black warned him that bad things would happen to he and his family if he told anyone what had happened. Days later, several investigators came to question Harold. He ignored the threats of the man in black and told them what had happened. These investigators were on a classified mission to see Harold and to gather evidence. Harold was able to give them some of the metal that had crashed on his boat. Upon the investigators returned to a California air base, the B-25 they were piloting, crashed, killing both of them and destroying whatever evidence they were carrying.

The FBI closed the case without any resolution. After the Mori Island incident, many others began to come forward to claim visitation by similar men dressed in black suits. These men would cryptically converse with a UFO witness and end with threats to remain silent about what they'd seen. These encounters were often brief, and sometimes very bizarre.

But who and what are these men in black? And what could their end game be in perhaps one of the greatest and longest cover-ups of all time? Today, I speak to Rob Christofferson. Rob is the host of the Our Strange Skies podcast and has been an amateur UFO researcher and investigator for nearly 10 years. He's been a lifelong resident of the Adirondex

and has had an interest in the paranormal from a very early age. Today, Rob and I died deep into some of the strangest men-and-black encounters that he's come across in his research and how men-and-black have morphed and evolved as the ever-increasingly elusive UFO phenomenon seems to be doing as well. So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Rob Christofferson. So today, guys, I have decided that I wanted to hear

from one of my favorite and most loyal listeners, and that is Rob Christofferson. We'd been discussing what we really wanted to talk about, what we haven't covered on somewhere in the skies yet, and we decided on men in black. Now, this is a topic that I have found very fascinating for many years, but one that I haven't really looked into as much as I can fully admit as a UFO researcher. So who better than the guy who I know does his thorough research is starting a podcast of his own soon and has all of the amazing cases of men in black, the actual real cases of men in black, unlike the Hollywood version, to bring to you today. So, Rob, thank you so much for joining me on Somewhere in the Skies.

Thanks for having me on, man. I'm so excited for this. Yeah, we've been trying to make it work for a while now, but the powers that be, the MIBs, have made that a little difficult, but we are going to make it happen today, my man. Dang right. If this airs and no one hears from either of us again, they'll know why. Yeah. And remember us. Get our names out there.

We will become figureheads for this movement. Yes, we will. Remember me. All right, man. So in my intro for this week's episode, I spoke about the 1947 Harold Dahl incident, Mori Island, which a lot of us in the UFO community are familiar with. And in some ways, it's arguably it kicked off. this whole men in black phenomenon, but there have been many other encounters with them.

And I wanted to talk to you today about some of the most popular and also some of the most bizarre cases of men in black. And one of those I found, and I know you are aware of, was that of Albert K. Bender in 1955. So to really go out of the gate, running strong, my man, could you sort of run us through your knowledge of the Bender case? Sure. Albert Bender, a young guy from Bridgeport, Connecticut, he became obsessed with the occult and the paranormal through Flight 19, the disappearance of Flight 19. And from there, it just kickstarted this drive to, you know, learn more and more and more about the paranormal. He also, he had an affinity for like scary movies and stuff like that. And he would eventually turn, because he lived with his stepfather in the attic.

He turned his bedroom eventually into this like house of horrors kind of room where he would freak out his friends and stuff like that. But yeah, in the late 40s, he's all obsessed with the paranormal. And then when we get to the 50s, he starts to change a little bit and he starts to focus on, you know, flying saucers as they were known at that point. And in April 1952, he created. the International Flying Saucer Bureau, and he publishes a monthly magazine called Space Review, and the group really takes off, and for a few months it's just going steady.

And then in July of 52, he gets a phone call, and nobody's on the other end of the line. But he gets the sense that somebody is actually on the other end of the line. And, you know, he's a little paranoid about this, a little freaked out. And all of a sudden, he becomes disoriented and his head is just like spinning and everything. And, you know, he hangs up the phone and just immediately goes to bed. And days later, he decides he's going to go to the movies and goes to the movies. And this feeling comes back over him. And he also gets the sense that he's being watched, that somebody is following him around.

and he leaves the movie theater and he goes home and he goes up to his because he lives in the attic in this room of horrors that he's built and he sees a light underneath the door and he opens it up and he sees this bright just bright light in his room and he smells sulfur and he can also notice because he has he's kind of like OCD oriented he definitely has the characteristics of OCD he can notice he notices that like the files that he had started to collect through the International Flying Saucer Bureau. They're all rifled through and everything like that. So he gets the impression that somebody's going through his files and stuff like that. So the light eventually goes out and he's just like, he's a little freaked out and stuff like that, but he doesn't think anything of it. And then November comes around and he's back at that same movie theater. And the same intense feeling that comes over him again.

in his head and everything like that. And he looks next to him and a man just suddenly materializes in a seat like right next to him. Oh, my God. And typical kind of men in black kind of outfit. He's got the black suit on, white shirt, all that stuff. The really freaky thing about him, though, is that his eyes are like the best way to describe them because he said they were emitting light is the you've seen Ghostbusters too, right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you remember when Yano, she's that one scene with Yonosh in that, in that hallway after he goes and checks on Dana and his eyes just glow like flashlights. That is the, that's the way that he describes it. So, yeah, he gets freaked out and eventually he just closes his eyes, tries to put it out of his head, opens him up, guys not there anymore. So it just keeps watching the movie. And, uh, I can't believe he just kept watching the movie. Yeah, but then the same feeling comes over him again, and he turns around and he sees the guy there, and then he just books it right out of the theater. Okay, okay. I'm glad I was going to say.

Yeah, yeah. And eventually after more repeat visits, he basically shuts down the IFSB, stops putting out space review, and sends a letter out in the last issue telling people to be careful. And it was maybe a few years after that because nobody really knew why he had shut it down and everything like that. And then Gray Barker comes out with his book, they knew too much about flying saucers. And Gray Barker was an investigator with the IFSB. And he publishes this book, which it delves into kind of the Men and Black phenomenon a little bit. And the key story in that is Albert Bender's story. And he comes out saying that there were these three guys that appeared in his bedroom and told him to stop talking about it.

So that's the story for a long time. And then about six years after Barker published his book, he, Albert Bender comes out with his own book called Flying Saucers and Three Men. And he tells his story and says that these three men did appear to him in his bedroom. And they weren't etypical like men in black as we think of them today. He said that their outfits made them seem more like priests, almost like they were wearing clerical collars and stuff like that. And they transported him to the Antarctic. Okay. All right.

We really are starting with the most interesting one here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So Bender is in the Antarctic. Got it. Yes. And these aliens, they're aliens.

They're not people. They're not men. They are aliens. They take him and they have this operation underground. And they're basically using salt water as fuel for their spaceships. Okay. And they basically tell Bender, you know, you're getting too close to this. You need to stop talking about it or we're going to, you know, take care of you.

They did not speak, but I could understand the message they were conveying to me. It definitely was telepathic. And here's the message. You have dedicated yourself to the solution of the strange problem of unidentified objects in your atmosphere. Your interest is deep and sincere, and you have devoted many hours to it. We also know that such interest and determination might lead to something that could bring you harm. We feel that you are a very good contact for us on your planet Earth. You are an average person, and we know that what we tell you and show you will not be believed by anyone you might tell. You are not a person. You are not a

of great renown on your planet. Therefore, we have nothing to fear at present. We have a purpose for being here, and we will be here for some time yet. We must not be disturbed in our ultimate goal. So that was that. And to make the matter even stranger, the appearance of these men in black, their real true appearance, he said they look like exactly like the Flatwoods monster. Okay. All right. And we did have a bonus episode of someone in the sky, where we covered that case extensively. I'm sure you heard that one. That's very, very interesting.

Yeah, I can imagine those big glowing eyes being a big part of this. I have to ask, what do you make of all this with Bender? Being one of the, you know, besides Moray Island and a few others, this is one of the bigger men and black cases that we really start with. And this is the mid-50s. So, you know, getting transported to the Antarctic, We've got the Flatwoods monster involved. What do you make a Bender?

What are your thoughts on all this? Bender is an interesting character because he definitely had mental issues. He had mental disorders, you know, that Nick Redfern points to in his book, The Real Men in Black, where he had, he was definitely had OCD of a certain type. He was also a hypochondriac. He had a deathly fear of contracting cancer. So what I believe is that what he ran afoul of was actually the FBI because back in the early 50s, the FBI were looking into these types of UFO groups that keep popping up in all these civilian UFO groups. And they see them as almost a way for like communists to infiltrate. And like they, you know, the FBI was thinking at the time that they could fake a like a massive UFO.

foe event and and then launch an attack. Interesting. Okay. Now that's interesting because for any of our listeners who follow the work of Stephen Greer, I personally am not one of them, but we won't go there. That is his big

thing right now with his unacknowledged film which went completely mainstream. It was one of the top documentaries 2017, I believe. And he has this idea that even today, that the military wants to stage an alien invasion to see how we would react and to use their, their militant power.

So that's, that's pretty fascinating, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. And to drive the point a little further home, Gray Barker also received a visit from the FBI a couple months before they shut down the IFSB because he had been given cards to give out to people. It said, you know, Gray Barker, investigator with the IFSB. and these bogus, well, they weren't bogus, but these FBI agents show up at his door claiming that they got this card from some guy who had had a seizure in Florida and was in this hospital and they, you know, wanted to know more about what the IFSB was doing and all that kind of stuff. So definitely seems to be more leaning towards the official, you know, like an official body trying to intervene here. and I wouldn't put it past Bender to kind of stretch the truth like a lot.

So it would kind of make sense, you know? Yeah, yeah. I completely get that. Well, I mean, all right, let's move on, Rob. This is a bizarre case. We could definitely hash this one out forever. But one of the more interesting ones that I really took to and found some credence and credibility with was in 1967. This was a case that you brought to my attention that I'd never heard of.

when someone who was not involved directly with UFO research kind of had it fall into his lap or onto his car, I guess. It's a better way of putting it. And that's when things really got strange. This is the case of Robert Richardson. So you got to tell us about this one. So yeah, back in 67, Robert Richardson, he's driving near White House, Ohio,

and he's driving with this friend, Jerry Quay. And they round a bend, and when they turn around this bend, they can see an object, a bright object in the road. And he's coming up on it quick, and he basically just shuts his eyes, and he tries to, you know, slam on the brakes, but he still ends up hitting this thing. And whatever it is, disappears instantly once he hits it.

And Richardson's kind of freaked out about it. He gets the police out there. Police can't find anything other than, like, skid marks, his own skid marks from the car. But the next day, Richardson's looking at his car and he finds a piece of metal that he thinks came off this thing. And he also notices that the chrome from his front bumper is kind of stripped off a little bit. So he sends a telegram to Coral Lorenzen and he sends all this stuff to APRO, the metal. And like parts of his, I think he sends part of the bumper too just to have it analyzed.

And a few days later, three days later, he receives a visit from two guys. They're driving a 1953 mint Cadillac. There we go. Perfect. And they have a strange plate on it, and he eventually checks the plate, and the plate doesn't, it's never been issued. But they just have a friendly chat about, you know, UFOs and stuff like that. And they don't say anything else. They just show up for like 10 minutes talk and then leave.

And then about a week later, there's a. two different men. They're darker complex. He describes, Richardson describes them as looking almost foreign. And they show up and they in no uncertain terms. And they're even at a different car. It's a 1967 Dodge sedan. And they show up looking for the piece of metal.

And Richardson says, hey, I gave this piece of metal to APRO. And the guys in no uncertain terms say, if you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, you'd better get that metal back. Whoa. Easy. And the thing is, is Richardson claims that the only people he discussed the metal with were Coral Lorenzen, Nils Paquette, who was an APRO researcher, and his wife. That was it.

So they got wind of this somehow. So it makes you wonder, well, who was into craft? This craft and how did they know? Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, here we have a case where there's trace evidence and presumably metal from a craft. And where is it now, Rob? That's what I'm wondering. Like, who's in possession of it? It was examined.

It was examined by a man named Roy Craig of the Colorado University Project. And he tested the metal and the bumper. And he found that the metal piece didn't have any, it wasn't. made up of anything exotic or anything like that. It was made up of iron and chromium and with trace elements of nickel and manganese. But he found that the bumper, where this chrome was stripped away, was 92% magnesium. So it was unusual, but they don't determine that it's anything really incredibly out of the ordinary. Right.

You know, we might not be looking at something extraterrestrial. But again, like, who's to say that some of these men in black aren't working for our own government and this wasn't some top secret military project. You know, we run into that time and time again. But, uh, wow, that's a fascinating case. What a mean thing to say if you want your wife to not be as pretty. I just can't imagine. That's, that's the threat they came up with. Yeah, pretty much, you know, it's like, uh, dang, you know, can't we just talk about this? Yeah, yeah, let's hash this out over some beers, guys. Yeah, nothing too serious. Come on. Yeah. All right. Well, this next one, Rob, that you brought to my attention, this is a two-parter. So we'll take our time with this one because we have two aspects of this by a gentleman named Herbert Hopkins. And the first half of the story is a case that Hopkins was personally investigating, one that you've been digging deep into recently. And then his encounter with men in black being the second half. So let's start with the first act, you know, the first act of the play before we get to the intermission. What was this case in 76?

that Hopkins was researching and then ultimately we'll get to how the MIB got involved. Yeah, so Hopkins was asked to take part in the investigation of the abduction of a man named David Stevens. He was a 22-year-old guy who had recently been discharged from the Navy. And he shared a trailer with this guy named Glenn Gray. They had just met like maybe weeks before this incident happened. And they were both worked in the same factory, worked the same shift and everything. And it was their day off. And they were staying up extra late because they worked a night shift.

So they wanted to sleep in the morning to stay with their sleep schedule. So they decided to go for a drive. And they were going to drive past Stevens' parents' place, which was like miles down the road and stuff like that and head towards this lake. And almost nearly after they leave their drive. way, he claims he doesn't have control of the vehicle. That's something else has control of the vehicle. It's 2.30 in the morning. They cover about eight miles in two to three minutes. And he claims that, you know, this is a really bumpy road and they didn't feel, it didn't feel bumpy at all. The ride didn't feel bumpy. He felt like they were almost gliding, like the vehicle was off the ground a little

bit. And they come up to this bend. They round this bend and that seems to be a theme with this kind of stuff. You round a bend and they see these lights in a field. And then all of a sudden they shoot up and this craft lifts into the air. And they describe this craft as being as big as a football field. So, and cigar shaped. It made no noise. They rolled down their window just see if they could hear it and everything. And they, uh, they're, they get freaked. out. They drive off. This craft stays with them for a certain period of time, flying overhead, and then at a certain point it hits them with a beam of light. It moves the car to the other side of the road into the left-hand lane. And that's when both men just black out. And at that point,

David Stevens remembers he's on board whatever craft this is. He's looking down at his vehicle. He can see it. And he can see Glenn in the driver's side still down there in like some kind of suspended animation of some kind. And this being comes into the room. And it is the craziest. And we talk about graze and stuff like that and descriptions of graze. This even goes a little bit beyond that. Yeah, you were showing me these images last night we were talking.

And yeah, yeah, give us a little description of what these were. These are beings that I have never. encountered in all of my abduction research. Yeah, me either. They were about four and a half feet tall. He said the head was shaped like a mushroom. It had slanted eyes like a gray. Two dots for a nose.

No facial hair. Pale, complexed. It had three fingers and a thumb, but the fingers were webbed, which was really weird. They wore like a robe. He described what they were wearing as like a paper-thin robe that went down.

to pretty close to their feet. And he also described them as wearing like paper thin shoes at the same time. And this being comes in. It speaks to him telepathically and says, you know, don't be afraid. We're not going to hurt you. And he gets him to come into this next room. And there's four more beings like this in the room. And they put them on a table.

And it's not exactly like your typical abduction experience. He, they take, what he describes is two prick. of blood. And at that point, they want him to undress, and he doesn't want anything to do with it. And he ends up hitting one of them in the head. Okay. It doesn't react. It just reassures him, hey, we're not going to hurt you. We promise all this good stuff. And, you know, it calmed him down. They help him out of his clothes. He lays down on this table, and they run this, like, x-ray machine all over his body. They take fingernail samples and hair samples. Gather it up.

He puts his clothes back on. They put them back in the vehicle and they're ready to drive off. The craft pursues them even after this for a few more miles. And when all is said and done, when they finally make it to David Stevens' parents' house, it's 7 o'clock in the morning. So five and a half hours have gone by. Okay. There's our missing time.

Yep. Wow. Can't go wrong with it. some missing time. Wow, man. That's, that is a pretty bizarre abduction case, I must say, especially how detailed it was with what they were doing to him. You know, often, you know, when we hear these hypnotic regressions, it can be pretty typical sometimes, but this one was so detailed. So, okay, so we have this abduction case. Now, how did Herbert Hopkins get involved with this one? This case was investigated by at least three independent. And,

investigators with different groups. The first one was Brent Raines. He came, he was an investigator with Q Fo's at the time. He comes in, he does the initial investigation. He gets a woman by the name of Shirley Pickett. She's with a group called the International UFO Bureau. And through her, she, uh, she knows Dr. Herbert Hopkins. Herbert Hopkins is essentially, he's a family physician, but he also does hypnosis. He does hypnosis too. He uses it primarily during pregnancy to help manage pain. But also he came to use it for people who have addictions to help them combat that and stuff like that.

And so she brings Herbert Hopkins in. Herbert Hopkins over the course of about a year does these hypnotic regressions on David Stevens. Glenn Gray, poor Glenn Gray, he flees to over. Oklahoma. One, he doesn't want anything to do with it. Right. Two, even his parents don't believe him, the poor guy. So he ticks off for Oklahoma to go live with his, he had family out that way. So they bring in Herbert Hopkins.

He, he uncovers all of this information. And about a year later, almost a year later, on September 11th, 1976, 8 p.m., Saturday night, Herbert Hopkins gets a call on the phone from a man claiming to be from the New Jersey UFO research. George organization, which later on he checks into and does not exist. Okay. And he wants to talk about the David Stevens case. He also asks him if he is alone, which is a red flag right there. If someone's asking you if you're alone, I don't, I don't, no.

There's plenty of. Don't say yes, for the love of God. Yeah, just don't do it. And, you know, asks him if he could stop by. So he, and this is completely uncharacteristic for Dr. Hopkins. He says, yeah, sure, come on over. So from the time that he hangs up to the phone, to the time that he goes to turn on his front porch light, there is a man that starts coming up the porch stairs, before he's even made it.

So he turns on the light and he sees this guy, he's already coming up his porch stairs. Yeah, that's not freaky at all. So he, you know, he lets the guy in. And the description of this man is so chilling. He's about 5'8, 140 pounds. He's wearing, you know, the typical men of black clothing. And he's got a black derby on. He, Dr. Hopkins makes painful details about the man's clothes.

Like, they were ill-fitting, but like they did not have a wrinkle. And they didn't wrinkle, like, when he sat down. The creases were perfect every time. But he was hairless. He had a small, he had small nose and ear. Very pale. He had very red lips and just had. had really odd mannerisms.

And he inquired about the, the Stevens case in an expressionless dull tone. And he didn't use complete sentences. He just used, like, random words and phrases. Like, this is a guy that would have been obsessed with the M-Dash, you know, all that long. So after Dr. Hopkins tells him about this, the man in black says, yeah, that's just what I thought. And then at this point, he wipes his mouth. And Hopkins notices that he's definitely wearing red lipstick because it's smeared on his glove. He's wearing some gray gloves.

And he tells Herbert Hopkins that he has two coins in his pocket. And he says, take one of them out. That's not freaky at all. Guy knows exactly how much change you got in your pocket. Yeah. Okay. So he takes it out of his pocket. He holds it in his palm.

And the guy says, don't look at me. Look at the coin. And it's a penny, and it changes from the copper color to a silver color. Then it becomes a light blue color. And then it becomes blurred. And it almost like it's going out of focus. And then he says it becomes vaporous until it just completely fades away. So, you know, Herbert Hopkins, he's like, hey, that's a pretty cool trick.

Yeah. And without missing a beat, the man of black says, hey, do you know how Barney Hill died? Like, what? At the time, Hopkins thought that Barney Hill had died from a heart attack, but that's not true. He actually died from a stroke. But anyway, the man in black says, no. He died because he didn't have a heart. Just as Hopkins no longer has a coin.

Perhaps the most convoluted empty threat I've ever heard. Yeah, right? But still, just the way the guy that was saying it, it was intimidating enough to him. And he says, you need to destroy your work or you'll suffer the same fate as Barney Hill. At this point, this MIB, his speech begins to slow down. He gets to his feet. And he's struggling a little bit. And he says, my energy is running low.

Must go now. Goodbye. He rushes out. He goes one step at a time down the stairs. And Hopkins can see this light that's coming up his driveway. And he assumes that it's a car headlights. But no, what happens is this guy. this MIB walks into the,

into his driveway, into the light, and then it just disappears, and so it's the man of black. Of course. Of course. Now, wow, Rob, this one, I don't even know where to begin. You know, there's some theories

that this was some sort of robotic, uh, alien men in black, you know, and then we have other cases where they're pale and they have black eyes. Now, the MIBs, they run a gamut, man, from like straight up government officials to, aliens to B-E-Ks. It's astounding the amount of accounts that have come in terms of what happens after someone has a UFO event. And a lot of these cases, too, we often think of having happened

in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s. But you brought another one to my attention that is pretty recent. This is in 2009 in Niagara Falls when a hotel manager and a security guard that worked at the Sheraton Hotel, they supposedly saw a triangular. UFO and almost a year later is when they got visited. So you have to tell me about the case of Shane Sovar. So yeah, Shane Sovar, he's working one night and the security officer is looking out over the falls and he can see this, he can see a light out there and he gets Sovar's attention and he says, there's either, they're either looking for something that is crashed over there or it's a UFO. Those are your only two options right now.

Yeah, black or white. Yeah, so at a certain point, they say that, you know, this thing is starting to head in their direction. This, it has a light on the front. It's a black triangle shaped. It has a light on the front. It has a red light on the bottom, as they've been described so many times before. And that light is shining in their direction. So that's always good.

And it passes overhead, and it actually stops for a little bit right above them. before taking off. And at this time, there's, there's kind of a flap going on in the Niagara area. People are seeing black triangles all summer long. And, you know, they, they,

once it's done, they go about their business. Like, nothing else has happened. And, you know, that's that. And then you think that's that. But no, there's more. There always is. And they get a visit a little while later from two men in black.

They come in, they're looking for Sovar in the security, the security guard. They're not there. They're described as really tall, identical height, in fact. No facial hair, again, no eyebrows, no o're eye lashes. Hair that looks like it's attached to their hat because they both had hats on, but the hair, yeah, it looks like it's attached. Very big blue eyes that they never blinked, extremely pale skin. They had the exact same faces and wore the same. outfits. So yeah, that's that's that's startling. They they went to talk to staff for about 30 minutes

and including the it was a travel agent that was there and she felt like they could read her mind and it freaked her out to no end. They stayed for about 30 minutes and then just left, never to be seen again. And then so var comes in the next day and they're in they're told hey these guys came in they were looking for you. And sure enough, he goes and looks at the surveillance footage and sees two really large men walking in the lobby wearing the exact same clothes and looking pretty similar. Wow. And we have this video that almost has evidence now. Now, I mean, this thing went viral. I remember, I remember when this thing actually hit YouTube at the time. And then the case started to unravel about what actually happened. So pretty freaky if you ask me. Yeah. And I mean,

if you watch that video, there's another man. He's a hotel worker. He comes, he looks like he's going out the door that these two men are coming in at the same time. And he, and he goes to the left. And you can tell that these guys are tall. They are really tall. Yeah, yeah. And definitely on a mission. Oh, yeah. They've got purpose written all over. Oh, man. Yeah, it's really interesting. I highly suggest people, uh, just, you know what, just go to YouTube, type in real men in black, check out the video. It's pretty freaky if you ask me. Now, Rob, I want to, I want to sort of move on from the mythology of the men in black. We could talk for hours about that, and I'm sure we will at some point, um, over a glass of whiskey, my friend. Um, oh yeah, definitely. But it seems

as though these MIBs, um, they've almost morphed into something. new within the UFO community, instead of threatening people to remain silent or to sort of dissuade them from coming public about the UFO sightings, we're seeing many more accounts of disinformation agents, as it were. We have the famous case of Richard Doty and the likes, who has actually been cropping up on social networks recently, which is a little creepy. You got to wonder why this dude's trying to get back in the UFO game. Could it be the whole Tom's long thing? I don't know. We will. get to that in a little bit.

So what do you think, man? What do you think of disinformation agents within the government, within the military? Does this have anything to do with the MIBs and sort of the tricksterish nature of them? What are your thoughts? I think this whole disinformation campaign that the government has going on because it's it's clear that they do their best to try and control the public's perception of what UFOs are or what they could be. And you have met in black, and there aren't as many reported cases anymore, and God knows how many

cases go unreported. Right. Like the best ones that we have are, you know, few and far between, but there are enough of them to suggest that they are out there. What I feel like is going on is like they're part of, they're cogs in a wheel almost, because in a way, they are almost there to discredit what you have seen, what you have experience. They're almost like a bipedal, humanoid UFO themselves because there's always strangeness associated with them. They're, uh, they don't act the normal way. They,

they, they, they're just so weird. And then, but they, it's them that are controlling your experience at the time. And then you have like the Richard Doty types that come in and they control almost the information that you're being given. Now, Richard Doty, especially if you go and read or watch the Mirage Men documentary, he talks about how essentially you're putting a truth sandwich between two lies. Supposedly, there is some truth to it, but there's a lot more lies out there. And he talks about how the government basically, you know,

through OSI and other government agencies, how they really shape the mythology of what's going on. So it's clear that this is important. whatever they're shaping and how they're shaping our perception is important, that you have this really integrated system with a lot of working parts, and there's probably working parts we don't even realize. So it's all cogs in a machine, and at certain times you're just getting different glimpses of the cogs. You're not even getting a view of the whole machine. So it's all fascinating in how it works together to control public perception. Now, in terms of

of those cogs in the wheel, we got to move to the hot button issue. This guy has been all over the news. I have to know what you think about this. Tom DeLong, where do you land on this entire thing? Is he a men in black? He may very well be, you know? Tom DeLong is for the, he's kind of the outsider, but at the same time, he's not because he's inside. Supposedly, according to social media, his parents have like majestic clearance. and all that stuff. Like, okay. Okay.

I wish my parents had majestic. Yeah. Like, it was so weird that he tweets out like what his parents' government level clearance is. But Tom DeLong is this hybrid between what Stephen Greer tried to do, has tried to do with the Disclosure Project and that whole press conference that he had back in the early 2000s. And he's also like this hybrid of Robert Bigelow.

He thinks he can be bold. And you can't. My problem is, is like, today when we throw around the word disclosure, all right, we're getting to the truth. And here we are, we have all of these retired government officials, people that have worked in the government, and they're going to bring us disclosure. When in reality, disclosure comes from the government. It doesn't come from Tom DeLong claiming that he wants to bring people disclosure, and yet he wants to build, for lack of a a better term because I don't want to get into how ridiculous the titles that he calls these things. He wants to build UFOs. Yeah. With this supposedly, you know, with this technology that has supposedly, you know, been declassified or whatever. I don't know the whole story, but like, it's ludicrous. Like, this is not the way you bring about disclosure. And at the same time, Tom DeLong is not the most trustworthy person that I would, I would go. to he's nobody I trust okay I was on a podcast recently and we we threw around names for who

should be the disclosure spokesperson what person would you believe uh if they told if they you know got this press conference going and presented all of this body of evidence to you it's not tom the long i said tom hanks i think that'd be perfect oh my god what a wonderful wonderful person i would Definitely get him up there, man. I would believe anything that man said. Yeah, I would too. With Tom, when you talk about things like disclosure, they don't come with an initial public offering of your company.

Like, they don't come with this idea that, like, you can start a company or an academy in this case, and you can get in on what they're doing if you can throw $200 their way. minimum, yeah. Minimum. And they'll let you in on the secret. Well, that's not disclosure. That's not disclosure in the slightest bit. To me, the fundamental thing about disclosure is it has to come from the government. And if it's coming from Tom DeLong and he's got all these guys that have retired from government, that to me is not the government. That's guys who've retired from the government. That's a good point. You know, I often look at the citizen hearing as well as another prime example of that. Yeah, it was great that the U.F. faux community, military, everyone was bringing this information to ex-congressional members, but it was a mock hearing. This was not going to get to the higher-ups in actual government

officialdom. So I would have to agree with you that while it's fascinating the history and the resumes of these people DeLong is working with, they are no longer indebted to the government. Yes, I'm sure they have oaths that they have to keep for certain things in terms of national security, but they are no longer indebted and it's interesting. I look forward to where this may be going. I see it crashing and burning in terms of the actual UFO they build crashing and burning, but also this entire thing. Why is he posting hoaxed UFO photos on his social media? You have to wonder, is this the new Richard Doty in sheep's clothing? Yeah, and like the thing is too is like when you talk about wanting to blow the doors over on open on something you talk about

whistleblowers okay you you got these people inside that can you know blow the lid off of everything well that doesn't work for the UFO phenomenon it never has it didn't work for bob lazar it did not work for phil schneider whether you didn't which those guys are not believable at all because you know bob lazar's credentials have never been you know established neither has phil schneider's I mean, Phil Schneider is pretty much connected to almost every conspiracy theory there is out there. Interesting. I'm going to have to have you on with Jeremy Corbell, my friend, to hash out this Bob Lazar thing. He's an interesting character, but it didn't help that he got arrested a year after coming out with all that stuff.

But these people are not, they're not helping. So, like, the whistleblower phenomenon does not apply here. And it's kind of sad because in most other things, you take this to the press. It blows the doors wide open like it did with Enron and all these other types of bad stuff going on in the world. But this is a unique thing where unless it comes directly from the government and the government becomes more transparent, it's not going to be believable. And as your publisher, Richard Dolan has alluded to again and again and again. our government has become less and less and less transparent over time. And that's it, and then it just becomes a pipe dream.

So. Yeah. It's, uh, it's sobering in some ways. I mean, this clearly shows that even up until today that we are not going to get that disclosure that everyone dreams of. I don't see it happening within my lifetime. Uh, it is either going to come officially forced, I believe, by whatever, whatever intelligence may be out there coming here. here and forcing their hand and saying we're here. Or it's going to come person by person and their personal UFO sightings, their personal encounters, and that'll be their personal disclosure, in my opinion. What do you think? Yeah, I think one day down the line, you know,

if we can, because it really makes you wonder if, you know, with these UFOs, we're seeing them, I've seen them, you've seen one, we're all seeing them. They clearly mean. They clearly means something. They're clearly here for a reason, whether they're designed by the government or not. I don't believe that all of them are. I believe that a good portion of them are. But at a certain point, whoever's flying those needs to come down, get out, they got to come talk to us. And I think maybe someday they will. But unless the government strictly comes out and says, so, yeah, it's going to be a long time. and that does, it's kind of depressing, but at the same time, we are clearly important enough that these things keep appearing to us, and we can't overlook that fact, whatever they are.

I think there's that hope. You have to hold on to that hope that eventually someday in the future we'll get to the bottom of it. That is a very optimistic for you, and I would have to agree with you, man. I'm definitely with you on that one. Well, in terms of personal research, you are going to to be coming out with the podcast soon. And I want to hear about this, man. What do you got going on? What can we expect?

What is it called? Give me all the details on your podcast. So, UFOs have been something that is fascinated by mine since I was a kid, and I was being terrorized by Robert Stack on Unsolved Mysteries. That man scares me to this day. Yeah, that music alone. But the UFO thing, it's been there, the whole. whole time and and and I've been I've been involved in other podcasts nothing paranormal but uh they

eventually fell through and I decided like man I really want to make I really want to do something here so uh over the course of the last six months I've been putting together this idea of a podcast that is slowly materialized uh into what is going to be known as the our strange skies podcast because we do have some really strange stuff in our skies in the states oh yeah So I'm going to be looking at the UFO events and myths that kind of make up our identity as a country because there are a lot of these sightings and stuff that make up like a state's identity or a town's identity to the point where like every year in Kexburg they celebrate the Kexberg crash and Roswell has its own thing and Mothman Festival. And like that has always fascinated me to no end. So I'm going to be talking about some of the UFO events that people know a lot about and some that people may not know so much about. And just going to dive into this really strange place that is the States.

I've always been kind of insulted by Neil Gaiman's American gods because there's a quote at the beginning of it saying that the gods were too scared to cross the ocean. I'm like, dude, we got our own gods over here, man. I don't know what you're thinking. You just only need to look up in the skies. You'll see them. No problem. Exactly, man. Just get your eyes off the phone and put them in the sky.

I keep preaching that to the people, the younger people getting involved with this topic who have an interest, but they're too busy looking down instead of looking up. Well, that's fascinating, man. That sociological aspect of all this has always intrigued me most. So I really look forward to hearing these historical events, the folklore behind it all, and how it does shape us. Look at other countries and how they do. deal with UFOs. It's much different than how we deal with it here in America. So I am sure that is

something you're going to tackle for sure. Where, if any of our listeners do want to reach out to you, do you have anywhere that they can find you right now where you're willing to let us know about? Yeah, I've got, I've already got some social media up for the podcast. I've got a Twitter page at Our Strange Skies. And there's a Facebook page right now, Facebook.com slash our strange skies. You can reach, reach me there. I'm also on. Twitter at your UFO guy, Y-E-R-U-F-O-Gy. So reach out to me. I'm always willing to talk about this stuff.

It's so much fun to dive into this stuff and just really, you know, look at it and try to figure it all out. So reach out to me. That's awesome, man. I love when people are willing to listen and to hear out other people's thoughts and opinions. And that's exactly what we did today. You know, you started listening to my show, and I realized how knowledge.

I said, I have to get him on. He's got to be one of my guests. And it's clear. It's clear that you do your research. And I couldn't think of a better person to cover the men in black with me today. So I got to thank you for coming on somewhere in the skies. And I'm wishing you all the best with your upcoming endeavor. Dude, thank you so much. This has been a blast. I was been excited to do this since you asked me to come on. So thank you. Of course. Pleasure was all mine. All right. That is it for this week's episode. Please be sure to check out Rob's work soon. I'll keep you all posted on the Our Strange Skies podcast premieres. The show is on Twitter at SomewhereSkies, Instagram at SomewhereSkies pod, and all past episodes and articles can be found on the website, somewhereinth skies.com.

Also, I've released a brand new design for merch over at the Somewhere in the Sky's store. Star Wars fans will be very pleased. Be sure to check out the store and help represent the show in style. Visit tpublic.com and search for Somewhere in the Skies. That's T-EEEPublic.com. And if you don't hear from Rob Rye next week,

it's very likely the M-I-B's got to us. In that event, it's been a hell of a ride, and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies. Where in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with Antica Productions and the Antica Podcast Network. To learn more, visit anticaproductions.com.