The Real Men In Black

I remember really enjoying the “Men in Black” movie series. Si-Fi at its best. It wasn’t until later that I realized that the idea for these stories were based very loosely on actual events.

There are hundreds of UFO witnesses reports that have been intimidated, often by men in black clothing. One of the ones that has also intrigued me has to do with the Kecksburg, PA incident.

On December 9, 1965, thousands of people across six U.S. states and Ontario reported seeing a fireball streak across the afternoon sky. In Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, residents reported a crash in the nearby woods. U.S. military personnel arrived shortly thereafter, sealed off the area, and were allegedly seen later removing a large object in a flatbed truck.

Official statements the next day attributed the fireball and the crash to a mid-sized meteor and asserted that nothing had been recovered from the woods in Kecksburg. But over the years, witnesses who arrived on the scene before the military moved in have described seeing a bronze-colored, acorn-shaped object roughly the size of a VW Beetle bearing markings that resembled Egyptian hieroglyphics. Spectators claimed they’d been forcefully turned away by armed military personnel when they tried to approach the site for a better look, and stories circulated about Men in Black-style officials turning up at the homes of Kecksburg residents and warning them to keep quiet about what they saw.    

What is most disturbing occurred after the event. Repo

Reporter and news director for the local radio station WHJB, John Murphy, arrived on the scene of the event before authorities had arrived, in response to several calls to the station from alarmed citizens. He took several photographs and conducted interviews with witnesses. His former wife Bonnie Milslagle later reported that all but one roll of the film were confiscated by military personnel. WHJB office manager Mabel Mazza described one of the pictures: “It was very dark and it was with a lot of trees around and everything. And I don’t know how far away from the site he was. But I did see a picture of a sort of a cone-like thing. It’s the only time I ever saw it. Reporter and news director for the local radio station WHJB, John Murphy, arrived on the scene of the event before authorities had arrived, in calls to the station from alarmed citizens. He took several photographs and conducted interviews with witnesses. His former wife Bonnie Mi later reported that all but one roll of the manager Mabel Mazza described one of the pictures: “It was very dark and it was with a lot of trees around and everything. And I don’t know how far away from the site he was. But I did see a picture of a sort of a cone-like thing. It’s the only time I ever saw it.”
                                     
In the following weeks, Murphy became enveloped with the incident and wrote a radio documentary called Object in the Woods, featuring his experiences and interviews he had conducted that night. Shortly before the documentary would have aired, he received an unexpected visit at the station from two men in black suits identifying themselves as government officials. They requested to speak with him in a back room behind closed doors. The meeting lasted about 30 minutes. A WHJB employee, Linda the men confiscated some of Murphy’s audio tapes from that night, and that no one knows what happened to the remaining photographs.

A week after the visit, an agitated Murphy aired a censored version of the documentary, which he claimed in its introduction had to be edited due to some interviewees requesting their statements be removed from the broadcast in fear of getting in trouble with the police and Army. The new version contained nothing revealing, and did not mention an object at all. Mazza, and also Murphy’s wife, remember the aired documentary was entirely different from what Murphy had originally written. (See pp. 4–5 of CFI’s report in External links for details of the aired documentary.)

After the airing, Murphy became uncharacteristically despondent and completely stopped all investigation on the case and refused to talk to anyone about it again, and never gave clear reasons why. In February 1969, Murphy was struck and killed by an unidentified car in an apparent hit – and – run while crossing a road. Was it an accident, suicide or ………….?