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Men in Black in Maine – The 1976 Herbert Hopkins Case
It is September 11, 1976. You are sitting quietly in a living room near Maine’s Old Orchard Beach. The sea air is strangely balmy as you settle down for a quiet evening. Your wife and children are out for a few hours and for once, you have the house to yourself. You are 58 years old and your name is Dr. Herbert Hopkins and your quiet life is about to encounter a road block that will send you careening into an area you’ve glimpsed but never visited before.
Though you are a renowned allergist and have done research for years on the causes and treatment of multiple sclerosis, you have been going down a slightly different avenue in your career recently. For the past several weeks you’ve been engaged doing what you most enjoy: hypnosis. The most interesting work of your career has been consulting on a case of alleged UFO teleportation in Oxford, Maine of David Stephens in 1975, work you find both fascinating and difficult to dismiss. Lately, it’s been keeping you up at night, pondering the possibilities of such a thing. How strange that so many people are convinced that they are experiencing things that…simply cannot be. Perhaps tonight you will review some of the tape recordings of the sessions to see if you can find your way into this strange case. Did these abductees really see strange mushroom-headed entities inside of their ships?
The peaceful silence is disturbed by the ring of the telephone. You answer, hoping it is a wrong number. Instead, you hear a strange, faint voice of a man who tells you that he is the vice-president of the New Jersey UFO Research Organization calling from a phone booth. He has heard of your recent work. He wonders if he might stop by, since he is in the area, and discuss your findings. This piques your interest – another researcher into the phenomenon that is so troubling you. You agree, telling him your address. You hang up the phone and switch on the porch light so that, when he arrives, he’ll know which door to approach.
But when you flip the switch, you see him mounting the steps, already nearly at your door. But there he is, walking up the steps. You are puzzled, since the closest phone booth is several blocks away. Startled, you open the door and quickly allow entrance into your house the single, strangest visitor you will ever have in your whole life – a man not quite of this world.
So begins one of the most famous encounters in the strange history of the Men in Black and one of New England’s closest encounters with them. For the uninitiated, Men in Black are usually black-suited men, often arriving unexpected in pairs or trios, whose provenance is dubious and whose purpose is unknown. They often arrive directly after a UFO sighting to speak with those who have witnessed the lights or craft in the sky. However, whenever people have reported meeting these mysterious beings, they are often left with a profound feeling of unease and distress. Who did they really just meet? What did these people actually want? Are they even human at all?
Dr. Hopkins let the man in before he even knew what was happening. His guest was impeccably dressed in an apparently new suit, pants perfectly creased, black suit coat, tie and shoes and a starched white shirt. He also wore grey leather gloves. On the top of his head was a black hat which the man removed, revealing a perfectly smooth bald head. Dr. Hopkins realized before he had even spoken a word to the man that he was totally hairless – no eyebrows or eyelashes graced the man’s face. Also, even in the dim yellow light of the hall, he could tell that his visitor’s skin was pale to the point of being nearly white. The only hint of color about him were his deep red lips. Later, Dr. Hopkins would swear that the man was wearing lipstick. His nose seemed too small for a man of his height and statue and his ears were very small as well as appearing to be lower on the head than they should hav
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By Strange New England
4.8
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It is September 11, 1976. You are sitting quietly in a living room near Maine’s Old Orchard Beach. The sea air is strangely balmy as you settle down for a quiet evening. Your wife and children are out for a few hours and for once, you have the house to yourself. You are 58 years old and your name is Dr. Herbert Hopkins and your quiet life is about to encounter a road block that will send you careening into an area you’ve glimpsed but never visited before.
Though you are a renowned allergist and have done research for years on the causes and treatment of multiple sclerosis, you have been going down a slightly different avenue in your career recently. For the past several weeks you’ve been engaged doing what you most enjoy: hypnosis. The most interesting work of your career has been consulting on a case of alleged UFO teleportation in Oxford, Maine of David Stephens in 1975, work you find both fascinating and difficult to dismiss. Lately, it’s been keeping you up at night, pondering the possibilities of such a thing. How strange that so many people are convinced that they are experiencing things that…simply cannot be. Perhaps tonight you will review some of the tape recordings of the sessions to see if you can find your way into this strange case. Did these abductees really see strange mushroom-headed entities inside of their ships?
The peaceful silence is disturbed by the ring of the telephone. You answer, hoping it is a wrong number. Instead, you hear a strange, faint voice of a man who tells you that he is the vice-president of the New Jersey UFO Research Organization calling from a phone booth. He has heard of your recent work. He wonders if he might stop by, since he is in the area, and discuss your findings. This piques your interest – another researcher into the phenomenon that is so troubling you. You agree, telling him your address. You hang up the phone and switch on the porch light so that, when he arrives, he’ll know which door to approach.
But when you flip the switch, you see him mounting the steps, already nearly at your door. But there he is, walking up the steps. You are puzzled, since the closest phone booth is several blocks away. Startled, you open the door and quickly allow entrance into your house the single, strangest visitor you will ever have in your whole life – a man not quite of this world.
So begins one of the most famous encounters in the strange history of the Men in Black and one of New England’s closest encounters with them. For the uninitiated, Men in Black are usually black-suited men, often arriving unexpected in pairs or trios, whose provenance is dubious and whose purpose is unknown. They often arrive directly after a UFO sighting to speak with those who have witnessed the lights or craft in the sky. However, whenever people have reported meeting these mysterious beings, they are often left with a profound feeling of unease and distress. Who did they really just meet? What did these people actually want? Are they even human at all?
Dr. Hopkins let the man in before he even knew what was happening. His guest was impeccably dressed in an apparently new suit, pants perfectly creased, black suit coat, tie and shoes and a starched white shirt. He also wore grey leather gloves. On the top of his head was a black hat which the man removed, revealing a perfectly smooth bald head. Dr. Hopkins realized before he had even spoken a word to the man that he was totally hairless – no eyebrows or eyelashes graced the man’s face. Also, even in the dim yellow light of the hall, he could tell that his visitor’s skin was pale to the point of being nearly white. The only hint of color about him were his deep red lips. Later, Dr. Hopkins would swear that the man was wearing lipstick. His nose seemed too small for a man of his height and statue and his ears were very small as well as appearing to be lower on the head than they should hav
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