These days, virtually everyone has heard of the Men In Black (MIBs), chiefly due to the popular movies featuring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Unfortunately, those same movies are pretty much responsible for most people thinking of the MIB phenomena as being nothing more than Hollywood fiction. But it is much more than fiction. It is a phenomenon that has been reported by many credible witnesses for many years.
The first known mention of the Men In Black was in the 1956 book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, by Gray Barker. Barker was a native of Riffle, West Virginia. Riffle just happens to be located in Braxton County, the location of the famous UFO encounter that came to be known as the "Flatwoods Monster".
While working as a theatre booker in 1952, Barker became intensely interested in the case of the Braxton county UFO incident, and began collecting stories about it. It wasn't long before he began to write about the incident, and he submitted an article to FATE Magazine. Having been baptized into the genre by FATE Magazine, Barker soon began writing for Space Review, a magazine published by Albert K. Bender.
The 1950's were rife with public interest in UFOs. UFO books, movies, and magazines were being churned out almost as if by mass production. One would expect that just about any magazine dealing with UFOs back in the 1950's would have been a very successful endeavor. This would be especially true for a magazine that had the built-in readership of an organization of people, and Space Review had just that. Space Review was a publication of Albert K. Bender's organization called the International UFO Bureau.
Astonishingly, Bender suddenly closed down the International UFO Bureau and its publication in 1953. Just about everyone who was familiar with Bender and his organization, especially those whose familiarity was via Space Review, was surprised. Space Review had been publishing rather bold articles that were, for that time, leading edge information on UFOs. But, Bender said that he would no longer write or publish anything about UFOs because he had "orders from a higher source".
Whether it was due to his distress as a writer having lost a publisher, or due to journalistic curiosity, Gray Barker pressed Bender for more details. Over a period of time, he apparently got the details he sought, and published his book, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. In 1956, Barker introduced the world to the phenomena known as the "Men In Black."
 Barker apparently referred to his books about UFOs as his "kookie books". If his sister is accurate, he only wrote them for the money.
Furthermore, Barker thought UFOlogy was just a big joke. That certainly would seem to cast a dark shadow across the whole topic of Men In Black.
Or, would it?
Actually, the answer is a resounding "NO."
Barker's own shady character does cast a shadow across his own writings about Men In Black. In fact, it casts deep, dark shadows across absolutely everything he wrote. His penchant for committing hoaxes against other UFOlogists could easily translate to hoaxes against his readers. Apparently, he was not the least bit timid about submitting articles containing trumped up information just to get the readers excited.
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