Men In Black

When I was in sixth grade I decided to research the “Men In Black” phenomenon. This was obviously before the Will Smith movie. This was the seventies, when Men in Black were not cartoon characters; they were a dark, menacing, and sinister unknown entity.

Back then I got most of my UFO-related information from the 001.94 section of the library. I spent a lot of time in libraries; me and my buddy often biked to my town’s library, and my mother worked evenings in the library an adjacent municipality.

But I also got information from In Search Of … , that excitingly strange weekly half-hour documentary show hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I remember watching a lot of them as a kid, so my father, guardian of the teevee, was probably into that stuff, too. Though I don’t believe they ever did a show on Men in Black, they did an early show on UFOs which left a humongous impression on me. I recall being terrified that night, frozen in my bed awaiting a glowing spaceship to land in the woods a block behind my house. The next day I probably borrowed a bunch of books on flying saucers from the library.

The local radio station would play a five-minute “report” about UFOs every night around seven p.m. or so. My brother and I had a radio in the shape of a Giants football helmet, and I sat riveted during those five minutes, staring into the helmet, hypnotized by the scary tales of flying saucer encounters told by the narrator in an ominous voice. The closing bumper music consisted of a creepy crescendo of three or four discordant notes held together, one after the other, then a fade out. Raised the hairs on my arms. I recall taking notes a few nights. Another night I recorded the program on one of those giant tape recorders popular at the time.

Then, it happened.

I was laying in my bed in the large refurbished attic bedroom I shared with my brother. He was sleeping. I relaxed in the quiet darkness, not really thinking about anything. Suddenly, the silence was shattered as I heard one of the drawers to my dresser pulled out. I knew it was the top one, because I heard marbles rolling around. What a jarring sound! Immediately adrenaline flooded my system, and I iced over, still and motionless, petrified, scared senseless.

Slowly I pulled the covers up to my neck; slowly, ever so slowly ... Listening all the time. Listening for any tell-tale creaks in the floorboards. Listening for breathing – and hearing it, trying to figure out if it was my brothers or even mine, or not … Willing my eyes to see stronger in the darkness, to adjust, to take in more detail, to see whether that patch of darkness or that one was just the darkness of my room or the darkness of something else entirely.

Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. The next morning: refreshed, not a care in the world, because the sun lit up our house and my parents were awake downstairs. Later on, after a good old fight with my brother, I remembered what happened as I finished my bowl of Honey Combs. I raced up the stairs to my bedroom, to the dresser, to that top drawer –

And they were gone! My UFO notes were gone!

And so I am left only to ask: What was in my room that night?


NOTE: The preceding is a true story. Well, with the exception of the parts concerning UFO notes. Otherwise, I did indeed hear a dresser drawer be pulled out in the blackness of my bedroom.