Friday, April 15, 2016

My Albert Bender Obit


You can find an obit from me for Albert Bender - the man who began the Men in Black mystery - at this link. And here's how the article starts:

Over at Wikipedia you can find a new page for Albert Bender, the man who pretty much kick-started into existence the mystery and controversy surrounding the Men in Black. As you’ll note, it reveals that Bender died just recently, specifically on March 29, 2016, at the good old age of 94. Given that there have been claims Bender died in the early 2000s, a few people have already asked me if the Wiki page is accurate. Yes, it is. Bender had a full life and outlived just about everyone else who got involved in Ufology in the late 1940s and early 1950s. And, he was the creator of the International Flying Saucer Bureau, a body that provoked a lot of interest – both within the United States and overseas.

If you know your UFO history, you’ll know that it was Bender’s encounters with a creepy trio of MIB at Bridgeport, Connecticut in the early 50s which prompted author Gray Barker to pen a book on the matter. Its title: They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers. Bender’s MIB were nothing like the Tommy Lee Jones/Will Smith kind, however. Rather, they were ghoulish characters with shining eyes, and who were far more Bram Stoker-meets-H.P. Lovecraft than The X-Files-meets-Dark Skies. It’s highly appropriate, then, that Bender’s encounters with the MIB occurred in his attic, which he had transformed into his so-called “Chamber of Horrors.” It was a room filled with all manner of paintings of demons, black cats, skeletons, vampires, bats, and skulls. Even an “altar” of sorts. Indeed, Bender had a deep interest in the worlds of the paranormal, UFOs, and the occult, in both fact and fiction.

1 comment:

  1. Sad news, it just seems like we keep losing all of these influential people this year. Nice job on the though.

    ReplyDelete