UFOs: Caught in a Web of Deception Tis paper was originally presented at the Gulf Breeze UFO Conference, Gulf Breeze Florida, February 12, 1994 © R. W. Boeche, 1994, Revised 2021, 2022. All Rights Reserved Note: Tis work was frst presented as an address to a conference, and so is not exhaustively footnoted. Tose endnotes which appear were inserted afer many requests were received for a printed copy version of this presentation. Te orig- inal text is unchanged except for minor corrections of typos and necessary up- dating of the mention of certain events, such as the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide which occurred afer the original presentation. In this paper I will address the phenomenon of UFOs generally, by addressing an ofen ridiculed, little explored, subset of the UFO phenomenon. Tis area, known as the Men-in-Black or MIB 1 phenomenon contains some of the strangest and most bizarre events in the annals of UFO research. And before anyone asks, I don’t mean the Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones movies. What are UFOs? Some 85–95% of sightings have mundane explanations. Planes, birds, meteors, space junk, astronomical bodies, etc., observed under unusual conditions explain most events. Hoaxes explain a few more. But what about that 5–15% of reports which defy explanation? Are they extraterrestrial in origin? Results of secret military development projects? Or something else altogether. Let’s look and see what we fnd. Te Men-in-Black phenomenon has been part of UFO research since 1953. Tat’s when an early re- searcher, Albert Bender, 2 disbanded the International Flying Saucer Bureau afer having been threatened by three “men in black” who allegedly explained to him the horrible secret behind the saucers. At roughly this same time, Edgar Jarrold, an Australian researcher was silenced, as were New Zealand researchers Harold Fulton, John Stuart, and Doreen Wilkinson, and Canadian researcher Laimon Mitris. Not only were these researchers visited by men ostensibly from a “secret government agency,” but they and their families suffered a barrage of poltergeist-like activity, which included — in at least two of the cases — physical attacks by invisible entities, and even an alleged rape. Te MIB enigma, is frst and foremost, a subject about which many would prefer to forget. In this group of those who would like to invoke selective amnesia, one could include those “serious” investigators who feel embarrassed about these reports, and the way in which they seem to refect poorly on their attempts to legitimize the bastard science of Ufology. One would also need to include in this group, those serious in- vestigators who have experienced the phenomenon frsthand. A group of men and women who would much rather have lived out their days without adding an MIB encounter to their catalogue of life–experi- ences. Many relegate the MIB question to some dusty mental shelf where they like to hide all the oddball data, they would rather not have to deal with in developing theories regarding the UFO phenomena. Tis is the