The Silver Bridge And The Men In Black!

Gray Barker is one of the more interesting figures in the whole of the UFO community. He was among the earliest investigators, working on the seminal case of "The Flatwoods Monster" from West Virginia. Being a native of the state he brings a deft understanding of the people who were witnesses then and he does likewise for the various people involved in the infamous Mothman case from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Barker was the editor of The Saucerian, an early home-grown UFO magazine for afficionados and others. He would also become a publisher of various books about the paranormal and UFOs. 

It should be noted that Barker's book The Silver Bridge was published in 1970, five years before John Keel's more famous The Mothman Prophecies. (Keel does appear in this book.) This is a curious tome, part reportage and part creation. We meet some of the witnesses and get a detailed understanding of the circumstances of their encounters. But Barker is trying to do something more than just report the facts. He's trying to create an atmosphere in which the reader can more readily accept the existence of something like a Mothman. I'm put in mind of what Hunter S. Thompson tried to do with his work, to create a continuum in which the reader is put into the experience. 

Gray Barker is also famous for "creating" the M.I.B. or Men in Black, mysterious agents who show up after UFO sightings and toy and tinker with witnesses and evidence. Whether these are men from the bowels of the government or aliens fresh from the cold of space is left to interpretation. Many years later, just before his death in 1984 Barker wrote a book about the Men in Black - The Secret Terror Among Us, which was little distributed at the time. 

This book along with his early They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (which I looked at last month) and the later The Silver Bridge is considered a fitting finale for his trilogy on the paranormal. Frankly this book is nowhere near as compelling as The Silver Bridge, which is my favorite of the Barker books. I've already read it twice and could well see myself reading it again before long. Barker is a talented writer and his skills are very much on display in the book which not only talks about the Mothman but connects that event to the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge which too forty-eight lives. 

(The Flatwoods Monster)

Barker has a bit of reputation as a hoaxer, but he also has a reputation as very entertaining writer. And that's what I'm looking for. I don't necessarily believe that UFOs are spaceships, but I believe that people see things that they don't understand, and which can change the lives of those who see them. Barker I think felt the same way. 

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They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers!

Gray Barker is a name synonymous with early investigation of UFO's. He was on hand in his native Braxton County, West Virginia when the notorious "Flatwoods Monster" appeared in 1952 and as a consequence, he began a lifelong involvement with such bizarre events. He started publishing his own UFO magazine called The Saucerian. He was on hand when the Mothman appeared in the late 60's and his book The Silver Bridge is the best account of those weird times I've read, superior to the more famous Mothman Prophecies by John Keel that was published five years later. Barker's most successful book was They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, published in 1956 in which he covered (as best he could) the events concerning a man named Albert Bender and his run in with the mysterious Men in Black. Barker is credited with making these infamous characters a popular aspect of UFO research. 

(The Flatwoods Monster)

They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers details several UFO events, but eventually settles in on Bender and his early UFO organization the Internation Flying Saucer Bureau. Barker was a member of his earliest of UFO outfits and it was growing and becoming more and more effective when suddenly Bender closed up shop. He was questioned by Barker and other members but he refused to give details, save to suggest that he had discovered the real story behind the flying saucers and that he was unable to say more. Much of the book is spent trying to get to the bottom of the story but ultimately the secret remains with Bender. 

That is until some years later in 1962 when Bender revealed the secret in a book titled Flying Saucers and the Three Men. Barker not published this book but also helped to craft it, presumably because Bender was not a fine a writer as Barker. This is book is not as compelling, but we do learn why Bender shut down his UFO operation. It turns out he was visited by three Men in Black who demanded that he close down his operations or come to personal harm. Later he is taken to Antarctica where there are bases. Further he was taken into a space ship, and given a special metal disk which was active as long as the aliens were operating on Earth. They were apparently harvesting some substance from Earth's oceans which they needed and when that was completed they would be on their way. Other aliens from other worlds might arrive, but this particular batch would be gone. After much hemming and hawing they do leave and the metal disappears. Bender then feels it is safe for himself and his wife to tell his story. 

So the mystery was solved at long last, but Barker among others is quite skeptical of the story. But he takes his colleague at face value. I'll take a look at Barker's The Silver Bridge next week. 

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