Saucer People Trading Cards: Men in Black, #23

This is Men in Black, card #23, from the Saucer People boxed trading card set from Kitchen Sink Press, 1992. The set has thirty six cards, with comic book style illustration on front, and information about the UFO event or researcher on the back.

"Some believe them to be government agents, others think they are Saucer People."

I love the objectified female in distress; fearful of the Men in Black who are, apparently, being quite rude to her boyfriend. Tight red dress, frightened… who will rescue her? Or will the Men in Black get her?

The info on the back of the card has nothing to do with the image on the front; the story on the back tells us of George Cook, head of the Pennsylvania NICAP group, who had several run-ins with MIB in 1967. 

On Unexplained Confidential: Author Nick Redfern (The Real Men In Black) | Horror News.net | Horror Movies

Nick Redfern print interview on his latest book, The Real Men in Black.
Interview: Author Nick Redfern (The Real Men In Black) | Horror News.net | Horror Movies

Esoteric Claims to Fame, Or: My Cousin Was a MIB

Originally posted at Trickster's Realm for Binnall of America.

An item on Lon Sticker’s Phantoms and Monsters about Elvis and his life long interest in UFOs inspired me to write about the time I met Elvis in Los Angles when I was working at the Free Clinic.  (see my post on UFO Mystic.) That was one of my brushes with fame, and esoteric in a round about way, since Elvis had a strong curiosity about UFOs and believed in extraterrestrial life.

Another esoteric brush with fame is, I think, waaaaaaaay cool. It concerns Boris Badenov. Yes, that Boris Badenov! Legend has it that the character actor Akim Tarmioff was the inspiration for the spy character Boris Badenov of the  Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.  Here is what a Wikipedia entry has to say about Akim’s inspiration:

Badenov's name is a play on that of the 16th-century Russian Tsar Boris Godunov ("bad enough" vs. "good enough"). His accent and explosive temper are an homage to Hollywood actor Akim Tamiroff, especially Tamiroff's role in The Great McGinty, a 1940 movie directed by Preston Sturges.

Akim (Mikhailovich) Tamiroff, the Russian born character actor who appeared in dozens of films and television shows was often typecast as a Mexican or Greek, among other ethnic characters. He played spies, cops, thieves; all manner of roles.  Among the films Akim appeared in:For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943, Lord Jim, 1965, Oceans 11, 1960, Topaki, 1964, and dozens more.

Akim was married to my grandfather’s niece, actress Tamara Shayne. My mother lived with them when she was in her late teens (that would be in late 1940s, early 1950s) when she first arrived in Los Angeles from Oregon.  I met them once when I was little; I remember Tamara as being stand offish , but Akim was pretty nice, very funny and playful.

Truly, how cool is it that one of the iconic cartoon characters, Boris Badenov, was based on a family member? (Another fun esoteric synchronistic fact: my mother’s name is a variation of Natasha.) 


Is it fair to say Boris was a MIB? No, it just sounded good for the title. Boris was short, fat, and hardly MIB like in behavior or appearance. He was an Eastern European/Russian spy, bumbling, the bad guy, created during the Cold War, when the spy business was everywhere. It still is; and actually, we’ve come back around to Russian spies recently, with movies like SALT and the plethora of Russian spies on television shows.

I have other claims to esoteric fame, which I'll write about in future columns.

Nick Redfern on a classic alien pic: "My Favorite Martian Photograph"

How many blogs does Nick Redfern have? I can't keep up; he also has "My Strange Blog" which is very nicely done, pretty spiffy. Anyway, Redfern writes about a classic image in UFO lore. I've always loved this image too, even though it's not what it appears to be. . .

On Cabinet of Wonders: The Man Who Invented The Men in Black

Cabinet of Wonders (an excellent blog) brings us The Man Who Invented the Men in Black.

Nick Redfern on the MIBS

Clip of Nick Redfern giving a talk on The Men in Black from October at the Mass UFO Show in Boston. on his blog Saucers, Spooks and Spies.

MIB History in America

Researcher Art Champoux has a good piece on UFO Digest on the history of MIBS in this country:Extraterrestrials in America's History.

For more interesting background on the MIBs, read William Bramley's The Gods of Eden.

Also, for a more academic look, see The "Men in Black" Experience and Tradition: Analogues with the Traditional Devil Hypothesis
by folklorist Peter M. Rojcewicz for The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 100, No. 396 (Apr. - Jun., 1987), pp. 148-160 (article consists of 13 pages) You have to be an academic or pay to get this on-line, fortunately I still have this from my college days.

Just for fun, this image of James Cagney from the classic Public Enemy, while having nothing to do with MIBs, just gives the MIBS creeps!

On UFO Mystic: "Remembering Gray Barker"

Greg Bishop has a piece on Gray Barker,(They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers,1956 and The Silver Bridge,etc. )and a cynical mood swing in Barker's life on the UFO stuff; he wrote a poem about UFO being "shit." A "bucket of shit" ---- (there are some days I feel the same way.) Barker was a fascinating character in UFOlogy; worth learning about if you aren't familiar with him and his works.


It may strike some as strange that I consider Barker worth looking into to, or that I "defend" him. He was a hoaxer, and worse, many say. He made up stuff, he embellished, he was lax. But as always, there's more to this than just simplistic accusations of "charlatan!"

MIBs, Clowns and Helicopters

MIBs, Clowns and Helicopters is the title for my Trickster's Realm column, which will be up sometime this Monday on Binnall of America.

I was searching for an image of a creepy scary clown, hopefully with a paranormal edge, and found these images. I couldn't go on looking, I was getting very creeped out and upset. I don't like clowns. At all.

This isn't that creepy, but it gives me an uncomfortable feeling. It's just so cheesy and dirty and you just know there's something smelly and bad underneath all that supposed wholesomeness.


This is obviously scary and creepy. King's novel (I am a King fan although I haven't read his latest five books or so) IT was a good one, in a nasty awful way.


Now this one is creepy and scary but I also kind of like it in a weird, sick way. It's just so off the wall, and I'm a big fan of pulp fiction, so it doesn't quite send me over the edge into the abyss. Still, I don't want it on my night table!


For guitar picks; this is actually kind of funny, but I still can't get there.


Creepy, sick, scary . . . even though it's vintage cover art (I think, it might be an homage to that, I can't tell) it's too much. I can't deal.


Tragic, exploitative, and all too real; surreal.


Fortean Times Magazine was on to clowns. Ironic arch skeptic Benjamin Bradford wrote the article, though not surprising for FT. I found this image on a blog called The Fortean Critic, but as far as I could tell, it isn't active and only had a couple of posts. You can read the article the blogger wrote here.


Killer Clowns From Space. A cult classic, a fantastic title. I can appreciate it from afar for what it is. But, nope, I can't enjoy it. Too damn creepy.


I think this might be the among the scarier ones, because I don't think it's supposed to be scary. But it really gives off a bad vibe!


That's quite enough, I can't take any more.

So what, you may wonder, do clowns have to do with Vintage U.F.O. stuff? Well, there is a Fortean history of weird paranormal clowns and related beings to UFOs, Mothman, etc. There's also the Trickster element; is it one aspect of this clown stuff? There's a whole dark underbelly to UFO experiences that a lot of people don't address. And, as you'll read in my TR column, I muse on the possible relationships with clowns, MIBS (are they a kind of "clown?") and UFO encounters.

Now, let's see if I can get to sleep tonight. . .