Men in Black is the new book from Conrad Bauer. Its subtitle: Evidence and True Stories About Earth’s Most Mysterious Cover Agents. Certainly, it’s not the longest book ever written on the phenomenon (it’s pretty slim), and it’s not a deeply extensive study of the mystery. But, where the book really scores, is the way in which Bauer approaches his story. What Bauer has done is to write a book on the Men in Black for those who are, perhaps, largely new to the phenomenon – and who want a basic, quick rundown on the puzzle and without having to dig through the 10 or so MIB-themed books that are currently available. And, it helps that Bauer has a good, atmospheric style of writing, one which makes his book a cool page-turner.

Bauer begins with a summary of the extremely controversial saga of the Maury Island incident of the summer of 1947; an incident involving an exploded UFO. Or, which was nothing  but a crazy hoax, one that tragically led to the deaths of two military personnel. True or not, the Maury Island affair became notable for its link to a sinister character in black who warned one of the key witnesses, Harold Dahl, to keep his mouth shut. Or else.

There is a great deal of information in Men in Black on Albert Bender, the one guy who, in almost single-handed fashion, “created” the MIB mystery. Or, who at least brought it to the attention of the UFO research community and – eventually – to the military, the FBI and the public, in a roundabout way. So many researchers have claimed that the trio of MIB who visited Bender’s home in 1953 were from the government. They certainly were not.

Albert Bender

Bauer, in his section on Bender, skillfully demonstrates that Bender’s MIB were not agents from the U.S. Government. They were ghoulish, menacing things that didn’t even look completely human. On top of that, Bauer points out how the MIB that Bender crossed paths with had far more links to the occult and the supernatural than they did the likes of the CIA, the Air Force, etc. Bauer, in a persuasive fashion, make it clear that whoever – or whatever – that trio of terrors in black that plagued Bender really were, they were clearly something paranormal and dangerous.

As Bauer notes, Bender’s story was filled to the brim with paranormal activity, dangerous beings from other planes of existence, and things that sounded like they had just stepped out of the pages of a Victorian era Penny Dreadful. Shadowy figures in black follow him to his home late at night. Strange balls of light appear in his attic bedroom – which becomes overwhelmed by a powerful odor of sulfur, no less.

Bauer then moves onto the matter of Gray Barker’s 1956 book on the Bender affair. Its title: They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Barker’s book is a controversial one. It is filled with rumors fleshed out as facts, and Barker’s imagination going into overdrive. Add to that a few outright hoaxes undertaken by Barker, and what you get is hardy non-fiction: They Knew Too Much…

Strange characters impersonating employees of NORAD crop up, as do a couple of genuinely weird sagas of MIB from the U.K., in the early 1970s. I liked these sections particularly, as Bauer makes it clear just how inhuman these things really are. Of course, it wouldn’t be a book on the Men in Black without a good look back at the MIB presence in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where the Mothman lurked from late 1966 to December 1967. The dark atmosphere that enveloped the area is well-handled, making it abundantly clear that they were truly strange times – and that Point Pleasant was even home to pale-faced Women in Black, as well as the equally creepy MIB. And with the specter of the Mothman hanging over the good people of Point Pleasant.

In the next couple of chapters, Bauer makes an even greater argument to the effect that the Men in Black are not human. Inhuman would be far better. Bauer ends his book with a look at the possible origins of the Men in Black – and their  strange, and almost theatrical, activities, which are particularly in evidence when they are terrorizing witnesses to UFOs.

In conclusion, Conrad Bauer’s book, Men in Black, is the perfect one for people who don’t know too much about the MIB subject – but who would like to – and who don’t want to have to wade through 300 pages or more to get the answers and to learn about the classic cases. In a well-structured, and well-written, fashion Bauer gives the reader the key moments in MIB history, the theories for what they are, their possible motivations and much more. And it’s all presented in a very creepy, bizarre and surreal fashion – which is highly appropriate for a book on the Men in Black!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an asteroid! It’s a weird spaceship from another galaxy! It’s a comet! It’s … Oumuamua! The interstellar visitor didn’t stay long but it has captivated the hearts and minds and computer models of astronomers and space scientists worldwide who want to know what it is. Researchers watching the trailing end of the cigar-shaped visitor as it left the solar system noticed that it was accelerating. While it could have just been trying to get away from the all of the chaos it saw on Earth, the real reason seemed to be that gas coming off of the back end was pushing it to a slightly higher speed … a trait that is commonly seen on … sorry, it’s too late to place your bets … comets!

“After ruling out solar-radiation pressure, drag- and friction-like forces, interaction with solar wind for a highly magnetized object, and geometric effects originating from ‘Oumuamua potentially being composed of several spatially separated bodies or having a pronounced offset between its photocentre and centre of mass, we find comet-like outgassing to be a physically viable explanation, provided that ‘Oumuamua has thermal properties similar to comets.”

A team led by Marco Micheli, a European Space Agency astronomer, released their study this week in the journal Nature. The acceleration of Oumuamua was actually expected since it would be affected by the gravitational pulls of the Moon and outer planets, but the speed at which it was moving could not be attributed to gravity alone.

“It’s an unusual comet, and that’s pretty exciting.”

Karen Meech, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and a team member, explained to Hawaii’s KHON that the unusual lack of dust and ice on Oumuamua meant it didn’t have a tail and that initially led observers to think it was a rocky asteroid rather than an icy comet. In addition, Meech says astronomers were looking for evidence of cyanide, which gives comets a blue hue. They didn’t see it, which means that Oumuamua is still a comet but one with a different chemical composition that those passing thought the solar system before.

Halley’s comet

If you’re looking for a career exploring the stars and you’re too tall or too scared to be an astronaut, Meech recommends astronomy as the job of the future.

“This is the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this. Astronomers have been predicting this for decades, so it was very exciting to see the first one come through. I think the Pan-STARRS in particular is going to start to see a lot more of these with the second telescope now starting its survey, so it’s an exciting time to be an astronomer.”

Exciting, yes … unless you’re the astronomer who spots the deadly asteroid or comet heading straight for Earth.

Oumuamua - New Facts and Discoveries About First Interstellar Visitor

Nathan Myhrvold thinks NASA is up to something. The “modernist cookbook“ author, physics PhD, and former Microsoft executive has just published a peer-reviewed paperrefuting NASA’s data concerning NASA’s analysis of near Earth objects, the potentially deadly asteroids and meteoroids and other objects whizzing about in the area of space just outside of our orbit. According to Myrhvold’s calculations, NASA’s data “suffer from systematic errors and inconsistencies.” Does this mean we’re in a lot more danger than NASA is letting on?

The last thing most of us will ever see: our phones.

Let’s hope not, especially given how utterly unprepared we still are for the event of even a minor asteroid impact. In a blog post, Myhrvold doesn’t specifically state that NASA is intentionally under-reporting the amount of near Earth objects tracked by their NEOWISE project (short for Near Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), but does accuse NASA scientists of “scientific misconduct” and “further misconduct, apparently to cover up the issues” he previously pointed out in their data:

The issues I am calling misconduct in the NEOWISE papers were not inadvertent. They appear to have been deliberate choices made repeatedly by the NEOWISE team over a long period of time. These actions have caused the astronomical community to work under the false belief that the NEOWISE results are more accurate (have smaller errors) than the evidence warrants.

Myhrvold goes on to accuse scientists working on the NEOWISE project of reacting “extremely deceptively,” claiming that NEOWISE scientists ignored his attempts to point out the inaccuracies in private and that “the very NASA managers who should have been supervising the project were more interested in protecting it from scrutiny.”

NASA wouldn’t lie to us, would they?

The reason the NEOWISE data are so important is because hundreds of scientists and even space agencies around the world have used the data for their own separate studies and missions. With so much riding on our ability to understand the NEO activity above our heads, it’s imperative that scientists have the most accurate data available in order to someday be able to protect us from a potentially cataclysmic impact.

For their part, NEOWISE has yet to comment on Myhrvold’s critique of their data. “The NEOWISE team stands by its data and scientific findings that have been published in several peer-reviewed journal articles,” a NASA spokesperson said in a statement. “NASA is confident the processes and analyses performed by the NEOWISE team are valid, as verified by independent researchers.” Meanwhile, UCLA’s Edward L. Wright, head of the NEOWISE project, called Myhrvold’s publication “a waste of paper.”

Is this merely a case of scientists splitting methodological hairs, or might there be some sort of attempt to hide the truth about NEOs? Furthermore, do we really want to know the truth? Personally, I like sleeping at night. Some threats are better left in the dark.