The Men in Black
The first recorded account dates to 1947. Albert Bender of Bridgeport, Connecticut shut down his flying saucer research bureau after a visit from three men in dark suits who told him to cease publication. He described them as pale, thin and somehow wrong in a way he could not articulate. Over the following decades, UFO witnesses across the United States reported near identical encounters. The visitors always came in threes. They always knew the witness had seen something. They always left before a photograph could be taken.
The pattern across documented reports
Pale complexion, dark suit, black fedora
Arrived shortly after a UFO sighting, often the same day
Claimed to be government agents but carried unverifiable identification
Demonstrated knowledge of the witness that should not have been available
Any visitor photographed or filmed
Any agency confirmed their employment
Any two witnesses independently identifying the same individual
"They knew everything. My name, my address, what I had seen. I was told in no uncertain terms to go no further with my research.
"Albert Bender · Flying Saucers and the Three Men · 1962
The CIA and Air Force both ran real programmes to discredit UFO witnesses during the Cold War. Some documented visits were genuine federal agents.
Researcher John Keel argued the Men in Black were not government agents at all but a separate phenomenon linked to the sightings themselves.