One such hoax was an article in which Barker was a collaborator that was sent to Ray Palmer's Flying Saucer magazine. The fictitious name signed to the article was Dr. Richard H. Pratt. The article claimed that Pratt had been ordered by the MIBs to keep quiet after he had learned that UFOs were actually time traveling vehicles. The article was published as fact.
On another occasion, Barker faked a letter regarding UFOs, employing a U.S. Department of State letterhead and sent it on with a forged signature.
| Of course, had the details of this hoax come to light while Barker lived, he would likely have been subject to prosecution. It is illegal to use the letterhead, emblems, etc. of a government agency unless one is authorized to do so. Writing a letter using U.S. Department of State letterhead-unauthorized-and sending it to another person would also involved the use of the U.S. Postal Service and would involved the Postal Inspectors and possibly the FBI. The FBI would possibly be involved due to the fact that the fraudulent letter crossed state lines. |
So Barker's apparent love for hoaxing UFOlogists did spill over into his writings. His writings can be discounted wholesale as the bogus scribblings of a bent soul. But, that does not mean the topics about which he wrote were fake.
For example, imagine that Barker had written an article about Abraham Lincoln in which he alleged that Lincoln had actually been an agent of the British Government. Let us also imagine that this article claimed that everything he did was on orders of the Queen, and that he had purposely caused the Civil War. Let us also imagine that the article quoted from some secret document that Barker claimed to have uncovered, but which he had actually manufactured himself.
Such an article, if published as truth, would certainly set off shockwaves. It would cause all kinds of historians and researchers to go to work. There would be many articles written by them, some in support of Barker's claims, and some against his claims.
Now remember, in this example, the entire article was based upon fictional information, but was presented as if it were fact. Once we discovered the hoax, should we then assume that Abraham Lincoln did not really exist?
No, of course not.
However, when we view what Barker did with UFOs and the paranormal, there are many who want to throw out the baby with the bath water. Knowing Barker was insincere and a hoaxer, many skeptics laugh at the whole idea of MIBs. They are fond of pointing out that Barker was the first to publish anything about MIBs, and he was a scoundrel. Therefore, they say, we can have no confidence at all in the existence of MIBs.
That makes just about as much sense as saying we should have no confidence in the existence of Abraham Lincoln if Barker had written about him!
The fact is many fictional and salacious articles were written about Abraham Lincoln. He was, at the same time, one of the most loved and respected men ever to be President of the U.S., and one of the most despised. There was no middle ground. People either loved him, or they hated him.
All the published lies notwithstanding, we have complete confidence in the existence of Abraham Lincoln. Why? Because there are literally thousands of documents, articles, books, and speeches that were either written by him, or that reference him. In other words, we have the testimonies of thousands of eyewitnesses. People saw him. They heard him. They spoke with him. No question about it. He exists. There is also no question that there is a lot of fiction about him still floating around. Yet, we have a generally clear understanding of what is the truth about Lincoln. Why?
Again, it is because of the thousands of witness testimonies.
Men In Black fall into that same framework. There is a lot of fiction floating around about them. Barker seems to be the first to introduce them in print, and he was an exceptionally flawed individual. However, Barker is not the only source of information about MIBs. He is but one. There are testimonies of thousands of people who say they have encountered these mysterious "men".
Do we discount Lincoln's existence because someone lied about him? No. Should we toss out the existence of Men in Black because someone lied about them? No. It makes no logical sense at all to disallow the reality of Men In Black on the basis of the indisputable fact that some writers have embellished, if not lied, about them.
We do not know, and we cannot know, just how much truth there was in Barker's statements about Men In Black being involved with Albert K. Bender's dissolution of the International UFO Bureau, and the closing of its magazine. In fact, there is no way to know for sure what Bender told Barker about it. Further, we have no way to know whether Bender himself was being truthful in what he told Barker.
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