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. 

Insidious Round About Book Banning

A law that was passed in January seems to be strangely under reported. That law concerns vintage children's books; it's illegal to sell them. Vintage meaning any book printed before 1985.

The reason given for this law has to do with lead content in ink.

This law has caused great confusion among libraries, book sellers, etc.

It's not as straight forward as it might seem; there's much more to this just below the surface.

For more, read what my article on my blog Octopus Confessional. And so some research of your own; I think you'll be startled at what you find.

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!"

Gray Barker's The Silver Bridge

I've been wanting to get this book for years. I had a bit of Mothman Synchronicity with this book; (I'm reading Andrew Colvin's Mothman II books right now) not seeing it on eBay or Amazon or ABEbooks for some time, I just found a few copies on eBay and Amazon last night! Problem is, the lowest the book is being sold for is $69.00, the highest price I've seen is $500.00.

Spaceship Under the Apple Tree

While we’re talking about children’s flying saucer books, my husband mentioned today that he remembers one of the first books he read when he was about six or seven, and that was Spaceship Under the Appletree, 1952. He remembered he liked it, and that the cover was green. So here it is:

I also found this version of the cover, but it’s not as nice:

It’s going for a quite a bit too, though not as much as Susie Saucer. Amazon.com has about half a dozen listings for the book, ranging from $31.15, to $94.91.