Piece Of Art

Was one of the earliest "men in black" fictional tales, about three MIBs, published five years before the turn of the 20th century? Perhaps so. This is a significant book written about three men in a secret organization in pursuit of a man "with spectacles" who possesses a vanished Roman coin denoting important mystic symbolism. The Three Impostors  "is the story of three men too absorbed by their own literary interests to realize the truth, or otherwise, of the events unfolding around them. These are Dyson, in thrall to his own imagination, Phillipps, an adherent to science, and Russell, who simply considers himself a realist," writes critic Mark Anderson. Dyson, the man without a first name, lives in a "couple of rooms in a moderately quiet street in Bloomsbury," nevertheless, and is interested in what happened in the streets "beyond Whitechapel" (known infamously for the Jack the Ripper killings). Charles Phillipps lives "in a ...

by Loren Coleman ©2012 In recent postings here entitled " Synchromystic Men In Black " and " Vallée on MIB Imagery ," I have examined the nature of the figurative appearance and illustrations used to display the Men in Black (MIBs). In general, they have been sinister, not comedic as shown in the currently screening film, Men in Black 3 . But there is another level of the metaphor that has evolved in the imagery, which we need to pay attention to before we leave this topic. I want to share a short comparative display of book covers and graphic novels showing the Men in Black to display one simple point. The book covers have developed gradually from the notion of silencers to nearly merge with what we find on the more recent graphic novels. Today, we discover much more aggressive MIBs. First, some book cover examples, followed by the more violent comic book covers. Obviously, this has much to do with the medium of the presentations, but there appears to be something ...

by Loren Coleman ©2012 Jacques F. Vallée, Ph. D. is a great person to have at your side when exploring the hidden realm.  Vallée, as you may agree, is a cornerstone figure in intellectual ufology, who has added his genius to the study of "flying saucers" and the reported "occupants."  He gathers information from diverse fields, including fairylore, cryptid sightings, Fortean phenomena, religious visions, and astrophysics. His third book,  Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1969) elegantly melts many of these threads of thought into a sensible and stimulating thesis on what UFOs might be. For more background on Jacques' ufological work, see here . Jacques wrote me the other day, after I posted my essay on this blog about the synchromystic visualizations of  Men in Black  in television treatments and cinema creations. On May 25, 2012, Jacques emailed the following: My contribution to that imagery was in 1979...