Men in Black encounter
A Men in Black encounter is an alleged meeting with one or more Men in Black (MIB) — a discrete contact event in which dark-suited figures either call on a witness, contactee, or researcher, or are met away from home in a manner that suggests the meeting was sought, typically to demand silence, confiscate or demand the return of physical evidence, and display strange or robotic behavior. A call at the subject's home or workplace is the commonest form and is described below as a visit. Individual visits are catalogued at List of visits by men in black; the figures themselves are covered at Men in black.
A visit characteristically follows a UFO sighting, abduction, or public disclosure by days or weeks.[citation needed] The visitors reportedly arrive in pairs or threes, travel in unmarked black vehicles, identify themselves vaguely as officials, issue a warning, and leave abruptly. Commonly reported features include ill-fitting period dress, atonal or "simpleton" speech, flat affect, and — in the non-human readings — luminescent eyes, a sulfurous odor, and apparent unfamiliarity with ordinary objects or customs.
Interpretations of who conducts the visits range from human counter-intelligence / witness-suppression operatives, to ultraterrestrial or synthetic non-human intelligent beings in human guise; see Men in black for the competing explanatory frameworks.