Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (12 page)

G
ENUINE FORMATIONS
Once the formations had been looked at scientifically, it began to become clear that human beings could not possibly have made them. When plants from the circles were analyzed under the microscope, it was noticed that their biological structure had changed. Not only this, but nodes on the plant stems appeared to have been blown open in a way that was consistent with them having been heated up. In many cases, otherwise brittle stems were bent but not broken, something that would have been impossible for human beings to do by hand.

Another odd aspect of the formations was that they seemed to alter the magnetic field of the area, so that camera crews filming them suddenly discovered that their equipment was not working. Compasses, mobile phones and batteries also stopped working when they were close to the formations. Aircraft flying above them also reported equipment failure. People living in villages that were close to where circles appeared often told of power cuts, cars failing to start and animals refusing to walk across or near the circles.

W
HAT CAUSES CIRCLES
?
Most people prefer not to believe that little green aliens travelling around the planet in flying saucers are responsible for the happenings, so a variety of other explanations have been sought. Archaelogists, geologists and others have pointed to the fact that crop circles often occur over the Earth's magnetic energy lines, which are also known as ley lines. Early humankind often built structures in these places: Stonehenge is just one example. Recent thinking suggests that eddies in the Earth's magnetic field cause crops to flatten and that other environmental factors, such as underground water tables, may make the nodes of plant stems swell up as if heated.

However, this by no means accounts for the appearance of all crop circles, especially the very complex ones. There remains a great deal of controversy over whether the most spectacular crop circles occur naturally, whether they are the work of human beings or whether they are evidence of alien intervention. It is certainly true that many groups of artists and nature lovers make crop circles, either because they believe that they have a healing effect on the human psyche or because they feel that they are beautiful to look at. However, many have argued that such activity cannot account for every instance of the phenomenon.

Thus, until scientists come up with a completely persuasive explanation for the way in which crop circles suddenly appear on our landscape, enthusiasts will continue to believe that they are the result of supernatural forces. Not little green men, perhaps, but forms of life that, as yet, we know nothing about.

Who are the men in black? Legend has it that these elusive figures are a group of agents that materialize whenever an unidentified flying object appears or any other extraterrestrial occurrence takes place. Their task is to harass or frighten witnesses into denying all knowledge of what has happened. The conspiracy theory that lies behind the idea of the men in black is that alien beings are threatening our planet and want to hide the information from the public. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the men in black are government agents who also wish to suppress the truth.

According to the theory, the government agents or "MIBs" are usually dressed in black suits and display behaviour which is unusual and, possibly, non-human. They threaten witnesses and confiscate photographs, video tapes and anything other means of recording a sighting. In some cases, their black suits have been described as made of a strange shiny fabric which witnesses have not seen before. They have also been described as "mechanical", with monotonous voices and robotic movements. Some reports even attest to the fact that their faces are not like human faces but have odd slanted eyes and high cheekbones. They are said to travel in threes most of the time, but they have occasionally been reported as travelling alone.

MIBs, so the story goes, drive new Lincolns or Cadillacs, often with the headlights off, and the inside of the cars is lit with a strange green or purple light. The license plates of the cars are false and there are sometimes odd emblems on the doors. Occasionally, the MIBs arrive in black helicopters and tail witnesses of UFO happenings, intimidating them into giving up any evidence they might have.

F
IRST SIGHTINGS
Since the earliest times, there have always been accounts of emissaries from the gods, or from devils, who disguise themselves to do their masters' business on Earth. In particular, demons were said to wear black, usually sporting the fashions of the day, and to ride about in black carriages in a similar way to the Men in Black of today's urban tales. An eighteenth-century Norwegian story tells of a young girl who was travelling with her grandmother to meet the devil (who turned out to be her grandfather!) and who, on the way, met three men dressed in black. Another, from the early twentieth century, tells of a religious cult that was centred around a woman named Mary Jones. Its members reported seeing strange lights in the sky and encountering "dread apparitions" in the night, including men dressed in black.

There has also been speculation among some ufologists that mythical figures from the past, such as Elizabethan and Native American "black men" or nineteenth-century evil travelling salesmen, could in fact have been "Men in Black" who were travelling the earth in order to silence those who had witnessed extraterrestrial events.

The first modern sighting, however, took place in 1947, when a sailor named Harold Dahl reported seeing six unidentified flying objects at a place called Maury Island near Tacoma, Washington. Dahl, who was with his son and his dog, took some photographs. His dog was reportedly killed when some hot sparks from the UFOs landed on the boat. Next day, a man called at his home and took him out to a diner for breakfast. The man, who was tall and dark and wearing a black suit, pumped him for details of the sighting and gave him a severe warning not to tell anyone of it – otherwise his family might be harmed. Later, Dahl claimed that the sighting was a hoax. This was apparently an attempt to follow the MIB's orders, but it caused some confusion and many began to doubt the veracity of his story.

A
LBERT
K. B
ENDER
One of the earliest people to pick up on the story was Albert K. Bender, director of the "International Flying Saucer Bureau" and editor of a UFO newsletter entitled
The Space Review
. In a 1953 article, Bender alleged that he had acquired information about flying saucers but was unable to print it and warned that anyone who had similar information was in danger. Issues of
The Space Review
then ceased. Later, Bender explained what had happened. He said that he had been visited by three men in dark suits who had told him the secrets of UFOs and then intimidated him into silence.

After Bender's story was made public, controversy arose around the question of whether or not the "Men in Black" story had been dreamed up by UFO enthusiasts to cover up the fact that they had very little evidence for their stories. Sceptics pointed out that having government or alien agents harass UFO witnesses into silence was a very handy device for explaining why concrete information was not forthcoming. The ufologists, such as writer Gray Barker, Bender's friend, countered by alleging that "sinister men" were suppressing the real story of what was going on in the extraterrestrial world.

R
ETURN OF THE
M
EN IN
B
LACK
In 1976, a visit from a "man in black" was reported in Maine, by Dr Herbert Hopkins, who had been told about a UFO sighting in the area. According to Hopkins, the man was dressed in a smart black suit but looked extremely strange, with a pale face and bright red lipstick. He threatened Hopkins in a slow, monotonous voice, telling him not to publicize the UFO encounter in any way. He then walked out, leaving Hopkins in a trance-like state.

Four years later there was another visit, this time to Peter Rojcewicz, a folklorist, while he was in the library at Pennsylvania University. A tall man with a dark face, dressed in a black suit, came up behind him and began to question him about his studies. Rojcewicz told the man that he was researching UFO encounters, whereupon the man became angry but then calmed down. After he left, Rojcewicz became panicky and went to find help, but there seemed to be nobody around. Later, he realized that there had been people in the library all along, but he had not been able to see them.

W
HO ARE THE
MIB
S
?
According to US government sources, there is some evidence to suggest that people who have witnessed UFO activity have sometimes been harassed. It is thought that ordinary members of the public have sometimes posed as government officials and intimidated witnesses. In one case, witness Rex Heflin of Santa Ana, California, took photographs of a UFO in 1965, which were published. He later told of receiving a visit from two men who claimed to be representatives of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. They asked for the negatives of the photographs and took them away, never to return them.

Although this case was well documented, there were thought to be many inconsistencies in Heflin's account and to date there is little concrete evidence to suggest that the Men in Black actually exist. One complicating factor is that those who claim to have been visited by them often report themselves to have been in a trance-like mental state both during the encounter and after it. This has led some commentators to believe that instead of having been visited by MIBs, the "witnesses" have actually been undergoing some kind of mental crisis which has impaired their state of mind, so that they imagined the whole event.

Another explanation, advanced by the pro-UFO lobby, is that government officials have in fact dressed up in strange clothes in order to discredit the stories of UFO witnesses. Others suggest that the MIBs are in fact alien-human hybrids whose job it is to cover up any trace of alien activity on Earth. Whatever the truth, it seems that these visits have a long history – whether as real events, or as stories that have moved from the folklore of the past to present-day urban mythology – and they look set to continue in the future.

It is one of the iconic images of the past century: Neil Armstrong emerging from Apollo 11 and uttering the immortal words "A small step for man, a giant step for mankind" – words so apt that they seemed to have been scripted. But what if the whole thing actually was scripted? What if the moon landings never really happened, but were mocked up in a film studio as a propaganda exercise?