In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are allegedly government agents dressed in dark suits, who question, intimidate, harass, and threaten unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have seen. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as various branches of government allegedly tasked with protecting government UFO secrets or performing other strange activities. They are typically described as tall men with expressionless faces, slightly pale skin, and usually wearing black suits with black sunglasses. "Men In Black" encounters are very common in American UFO conspiracy theories.
The term is generic, as it is used for any unusual, threatening, or strangely behaved individual whose appearance on the scene can be linked in some fashion with a UFO sighting.
Folklorist James R. Lewis compared accounts of men in black with tales of people encountering Lucifer, and speculated that they can be considered a kind of "psychological trauma".
Ufologists
Men in black feature prominently in ufology, UFO folklore, and fan fiction. In the 1950s and 1960s, ufologists adopted a conspiratorial mindset and began fearing they would be subject to organized intimidation in retaliation for discovering "the truth of the UFOs".
In 1947, Harold Dahl claimed a man in a dark suit warned him not to discuss his alleged UFO sighting on Maury Island. In the mid-1950s, the ufologist Albert K. Bender claimed he was visited by men in dark suits who threatened and warned him not to continue investigating UFOs. He maintained that the men were secret government agents tasked with suppressing evidence of UFOs. The ufologist John Keel claimed to have had encounters with MIB and referred to them as "demonic supernaturals" with "dark skin and/or 'exotic' facial features". According to the ufologist Jerome Clark, reports of men in black represent "experiences" that "don't seem to have occurred in the world of consensus reality".
The historian Aaron Gulyas wrote: "During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, UFO conspiracy theorists would incorporate the Men in Black into their increasingly complex and paranoid visions."
Keel has argued that some MIB encounters can be explained as entirely mundane events perpetuated through folklore. In his book The Mothman Prophecies (1975), he describes a late-night outing in 1967, where he was mistaken for an MIB while searching for a phone to call a tow truck.
In his article "Gray Barker: My Friend, the Myth-Maker", John C. Sherwood claims that, in the late 1960s, at age 18, he cooperated when Gray Barker urged him to develop a hoax—which Barker subsequently published—about what Barker called "blackmen", three mysterious UFO inhabitants who silenced Sherwood's pseudonymous identity, "Dr. Richard H. Pratt".
In the animated Doctor Who serial Dreamland (2008) the Men in Black are androids controlled by a shadowy unseen group known as the Alliance of Shades. This story has them hide the truth about grey aliens at Area 51. They appear again in The Sarah Jane Adventures sequel The Vault of Secrets (2010) where they keep a hyperdimensional vault hidden.
The Men in Black appear in The Masked Singer. They serve as the security personnel and backup dancers for the contestants and assist in the contestants' unmasking.
The Masked Dancer had a counterpart of the Men in Black called the Women in Black.
Games
The video game franchise Half-Life features a character known as the G-Man, widely regarded as a pastiche of the concept.
In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the “Thin Men” are humanoid alien infiltrators posing as human agents wearing suits and sunglasses, behaving in a manner reminiscent of the Men in Black encounters.
In Revelations: Persona, enemies known as the “Men in Black” (localized as “Blackman” in the original English release) appear as cybernetically enhanced agents serving as hostile security forces.
Other media
The SCP Foundation Wiki is a community worldbuilding project that features a group of interest simply called Unknown, which appear as lone men in black suits whose actions occasionally assist or run counter to the SCP Foundation's goal of keeping anomalous activity away from society. Despite how extensive the lore of the SCP universe has become, Unknown's allegiance and motives remain undefined, like those of MIB agents.
Clark, Jerome (1996). The UFO Encyclopedia, volume 3: High Strangeness, UFO's from 1960 through 1979. Omnigraphis. ISBN1-55888-742-3.
Condon, Edward (1968). Gilmor, Daniel S. (ed.). Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. New York City: Batnam. ISBN0-552-04747-3. ISBN.
The Mothman Prophecies - 1975 book by John Keel an account of alleged sightings of a large, winged creature called Mothman in the vicinity of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, during 1966 and 1967, it also narrates encounters of the author with "Men In Black"
