First and foremost, we must wipe from our minds the fact that Hollywood made not only one but two movies that were named for the Men In Black. Like many things in the world today, Hollywood has a habit of making the general public “believe” something that is a complete fabrication of any resemblance of the truth. This is not always a bad thing. Hollywood is in the business of entertaining after all.

The actual phenomenon of the Men In Black (MIBs) goes hand in hand with sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. Let’s keep in mind the very concept of a UFO doesn’t necessarily mean that these objects come from beyond our world. They are just unidentified. There does seem to be a connection between the two though.

Documented sightings of these MIBs really started in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This just happens to coincide with the onset of documented sightings of UFOs. There are a couple of explanations that can be brought forth for this time frame.

One, we had just finished with WWII. Not only did we make great technological strides because of the war, but since we won the war, we had access to the technologies that the enemy may have had. While Americans may have been use to seeing American military aircraft flying around (most of the sightings did take place near military installations), people may not have been use to seeing enemy aircraft that the US military may have been reverse engineering. In this case, the bases would have been restricted areas (which they usually were) since top secret studies were being conducted. In this scenario the MIB could simply be federal agents that were enforcing the secrecy of what the government was doing. In the 1950s this may have seemed odd, but if we put it in todays atmosphere, it doesn’t seem all that strange.

A second school of thought is that the MIBs were extraterrestrials themselves (or government agents that knew about the ETs). This would make sense if you had alien life forms doing scouting missions or even routine flights but didn’t want the “human race” to know about them just yet.

There are some strangely similar characteristics about the MIBs that should be taken into consideration. Whether the encounter happened in California, Utah, or West Virginia the descriptions of he MIBs were remarkably similar. Once again, in today’s world this doesn’t seem all that odd. With cell phones and the Internet you have instant access to anywhere in the world. Sixty or more years ago this just wasn’t the case. Making a telephone call across the country was a lengthy process. Are we to believe that miraculously two separate people on opposite sides of the country that happened to witness an unexplainable flying object, also happened to see the same type of men dressed in black suits with very similar features. They had no identification except they drove dark colored sedans with government plates.

Over the next several decades, many times when a sighting of a UFO happened, the MIBs often followed behind. According to most witnesses they didn’t make obvious threats, but their intentions were not in question. They usually would let the observer know that they would be watching them to make sure that they “behaved the way they should”. Most people that were interviewed about the MIBs admitted that they were afraid of the strange men.

I think that there is a definite connection between UFOs and the MIBs. The true question is whether or not the MIBs are human or ETs themselves? What is it that they are protecting? They obviously go hand and hand with sightings of unusual objects in the sky, and there presence usually is in the form of a warning for the observer to “keep their mouth shut”. They seem to be the ground based guardians of the UFOs and they don’t seem to be going away. Even today people will still report seeing the strange men dressed in black driving black cars with government plates on them.