From: ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andy Kurtz) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Beckley/MIB review Date: 7 Oct 93 15:16:04 GMT Organization: Doctoral student, English, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Review: The UFO Silencers: Mystery of the Men In Black by ~famed researcher~ Timothy Green Beckely (Inner Light Publications, New Brunswick, NJ. : 1990.) $9.95 This short review is for the benefit and information of those who have an interest in MIB (most of us, I would assume). I think that all of us would agree that the Men In Black (MIB) phenomenon is one of the more fascinating aspects of UFOlogy. For years, researchers and contactees (at all levels of encounter) have reported being confronted by strange, threatening men, dressed in ill-fitting, aging, black or brown suits, whose purpose is to ward off the researcher/contactee from public pronouncements regarding specific UFO encounters. MIB are often described as being ~not quite right,~ as having a death-like pallor, or of being jaundiced, of having strange, slanted eyes, or of standing with their feet pointed outward at 180 degrees, all of which makes the encounter more uncanny and frightening. These visits are sometimes accompanied by extended periods of surveillance in which the researcher/contactee may have their phone tapped or their house staked-out. In some instances the researcher/contactee will also report poltergeist activity, feelings of angst and paranoia, and most uncanny of all, encounters with the doppelgangers of friends or relatives (who are doubles only in most respects, making them doubly enigmatic and disturbing). MIB have even been known to aggressively pursue the researcher/contactee on the road in their trademark luxury cars, sometimes causing potentially lethal car accidents. Whatever the variation of the theme, those who have encountered MIB agree unequivocally; they are evil, they are malevolent, and they are, above all, powerful and dangerous. In The UFO Silencers, Timothy Beckley has attempted to provide an overview of important and representative MIB encounters. According to Beckley, MIB have been with us for many hundreds of years, speculating that such diverse characters from the history of witchcraft and folklore as the Elizabethan ~Black Men~, the Native American ~Black Man~ and late nineteenth century reports of malevolent traveling salesmen (!), might have been manifestations of what we now know as MIB (sans black Caddilac, of course). However, Beckley is mainly concerned with post-Kenneth Arnold MIB encounters and the major portion of the 160 page book consists of testimonials from witnesses and speculations by scientists (with a couple of religious rantings and magical spells thrown in for the benefit of all you new-age folks). By far the most satisfying portions of the book are the first-hand testimonials of encounters with MIB. There are 10 such testimonials, the variations between encounters such that they do not at all become boring or repetitious. Through these testimonials, we learn of the varying degrees of malevolence that MIB are capable of. From seemingly benign, even saccharine manifestations (in the case of a 14 year-old girl), to menacing zombies with laser and trans-dimensional weaponry, we learn that MIB rely most of all on methods of psychological torture, resorting to physical harm only when the researcher/contactee fails to heed their initial warnings. Beckley has wisely chosen to allow these people to, for the most part, speak for themselves, the chapters reading like unedited transcripts of interviews. Though the syntactical problems of everyday speech sometimes makes these encounters difficult to follow, the fear, frustration, and unease that these people live with all of the time is intact and identifiable. Of note, in this regard, are the illustrations. Though the drawings add meaning to the encounters, most effective is a photograph taken by the author of what he contends is a MIB on surveillance. Whether or not it is truly an MIB (it could, after all, just be some fat dude waiting for the bus), is really not all that important. It occurs in the context of a very weird and violent MIB encounter (laser-beams and doppelgangers) and I could not help but to feel some of the powerlessness and the angst of the contactees upon seeing it. Though I think the testimonials are worth the price of the book, The UFO Silencers is flawed in many, annoying respects. First, let me be blunt. Beckley is a terrible writer. The UFO Silencers is an English teacher~s nightmare: topic sentences, passive voice, dangling modifiers, misplaced modifiers, no transitions between paragraphs, spelling mistakes, non-idiomatic usage, and on and on. It is, without a doubt, the most poorly written book I have ever seen published. Personally I think this is inexcusable. Second, Beckley does not believe in citation. Like any book based on research, The UFO Silencers relies heavily on secondary sources. However, not a citation is to be found. This is particularly frustrating to those of us who use books as sources for other books and articles. And last, there is a curious lack of audience-awareness. Who is this book for? Sometimes it~s for the new-age crowd (~Since war was declared (many eons ago in the Heavenlies), Lucifer, son of the morning was thrust forth and literally cast out of the Holy sphere...~); sometimes it~s for the scientist (~ROI readout time was 2,000 seconds for gross counts inside the area where the depressed grass was found. Naturally occurring Radon daughters ranged from 123 to 178, with a naturally occurring annihilation peak of 256.~); and sometimes it truly is for the interested lay person who wants to know more about the phenomenon. This makes for a truly uneven and frustrating read: Mr. Beckley, get an editor!! That~s about all I have to say about this. I ordered it from a new-age bookstore so it~s relatively easy to get and, despite some serious flaws (which may, after all, reflect only my personal pet peeves), it is informative and interesting. ak Date: Mon, 18 Oct 93 01:04:50 EDT From: mcgrew@klinzhai.rutgers.edu (Charles Mcgrew) To: ak35+@andrew.cmu.edu Cc: mcgrew Subject: Re: Beckley/MIB review Hi, Nice review! Would you mind if I included portions of it in my "ufo bibliography" file (available for ftp from ftp.rutgers.edu)? Thanks! Charles Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1993 09:20:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Andy Kurtz To: mcgrew@klinzhai.rutgers.edu (Charles Mcgrew) Subject: Re: Beckley/MIB review Cc: In-Reply-To: <9310180504.AA01325@klinzhai.rutgers.edu> I'd be happy to have some or all of the review included in the FAQ. Thanks! ak