The Mysterious First Appearance of the Men in Black: The True Story of William Rhodes’ UFO Encounter

When William Rhodes captured shocking photos of a UFO in 1947, mysterious government agents came knocking—taking his evidence, his story, and leaving behind a chilling blueprint for the Men in Black phenomenon.

Of all the accounts of mysterious government agents visiting UFO witnesses, perhaps no single case has been better documented than one involving a Long Island, New York, pair who claimed they were visited in 1959. The case involves William A. Rhodes, whose encounter with what are commonly referred to today as the “Men in Black” is recorded in the United States government records.

The story starts on July 7, 1947, in suburban Phoenix, Arizona. Rhodes, who was working as a professional musician (while dabbling in photography and electronics), was headed to his backyard workshop when a strange noise caught his ears, and his eyes turned skyward. What he saw was stunning: a flat, elliptical object, gray in color, about 20-30 feet in diameter, spiraling down from a high altitude. Thinking fast, Rhodes ran back to his workshop and grabbed his Kodak Brownie 1-20 box camera, firing off two pictures of the object — one when it was closest to him, and then again as it cleared him at a 45-degree angle.

In what would turn out to be a fateful decision, Rhodes reached out to the Arizona Republic newspaper, providing both his photographs and his version of events. Although the story attracted interest, its timing was unfortunate. The observation came just two weeks after Kenneth Arnold’s now-famous “flying saucer” sighting and, more significantly, on the very day that the Roswell incident was making national news. What Rhodes could not know, however, was that his report had drawn heavy scrutiny from military and government officials.

What would become a five-year case, with multiple legal proceedings, was termed “Incident 40” in the Project Grudge Archives.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Project Grudge was a short-lived U.S. Air Force program established in 1949 to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). It was the immediate successor to Project Sign (which ran from 1947–1949) and a precursor to Project Blue Book (which ran from 1952–1969).

The government’s initial response was swift and methodical. Air Materiel Command at Wright Patterson Air Force Base started collecting information from newspapers that had reported on the sighting. By late August 1947, they sent Special Agent George Fugate Jr. from the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), with an FBI agent known only as Special Agent Brower, to interrogate Rhodes.

Before the agents made it to Rhodes’ home, however, the investigation took an interesting turn. Fugate directed Brower to conceal his name and credentials, introducing himself only as “a representative of the United States Government.” That directive, which Brower later characterized as “a peculiar procedure” during his debriefing, established the tone for what was to follow. The agents told Rhodes they wanted him to hand over all photographs and negatives pertaining to the incident. Rhodes handed over the photographs on the spot, but said the negatives were not at the office and would need to be picked up the next day. Having gathered up the negatives as arranged, the agents left, and Rhodes would never see his photographic evidence again.

While Rhodes continued to pursue legal action to recover the property, the government continued to argue they could not find the materials. This is now known to be a blatant lie; government archives have extensive documentation of the negatives’ travels between offices and the multiple technical studies done on them. The investigation also pursued information beyond the photographs, looking into Rhodes’ personal life and background, notably emphasizing his mother’s Russian immigration status in what seemed to be an effort to call his national loyalty into question.

Serious researchers did not overlook the significance of Rhodes’ evidence. “Incident 40”, the astronomer J. Allen Hynek later said, was “one of the most important in the history of these objects,” noting that Rhodes’ photographs appeared to match the objects described by Kenneth Arnold as he took to the skies.

This recorded encounter brings up interesting questions about government protocols in the initiation of early UFO investigations. Was Agent Fugate’s order to Brower an ad hoc strategy, or did it follow a prescribed procedure? The timing is especially interesting, as this was at the dawn of what would be considered the modern era of ufology. It remains unknown whether this is an isolated incident or a case of more common practices, but as with most things in scientific discovery, uniquely individual situations are very rare.

What is inarguably true is that inside the records of government agencies is an actual account of at least one authenticated “Men in Black” encounter – a situation in which governmental agents intentionally masked their identities while interrupting research, and seizing evidence of UFO activity — bolstering the claims of what most would have considered little more than folklore.

We’ve all heard those tales about the creepy men in black suits swooping in after someone claims to have seen a UFO. We actually have a documented instance of one of those visits within the U.S. government’s own records. And it all began with a young man named William Rhodes one summer afternoon in 1947.

Imagine… Rhodes is heading to his backyard workshop in suburban Phoenix, where he spends his days crafting music and experimenting with photography and electronics, when something catches his eye. It was July 7 — a date that would become somewhat significant in UFO history, if not because of Rhodes’ encounter. He heard a strange noise and looked up. There, spiraling down from the sky, was something that would change his life… a gray, disc-shape, maybe 20 or 30 feet across.

Well, Rhodes wasn’t going to let this one get away. The farmer ran to his workshop, got his trusty Kodak Brownie camera, and took two shots of the mysterious craft — one as it flew low overhead and one as it sped off at a 45-degree angle. Happy about his meeting, he did what many of us might do — he called the local paper, the Arizona Republic, and told the paper both his tale and his story.

Here’s where the timing betrayed Rhodes in a cruel twist. His sighting might have received more attention if it had not happened just two weeks after Kenneth Arnold’s famous “flying saucer” report and the very same day as the Roswell incident. Talk about stiff competition for headlines! But though the public may have had its attention elsewhere, some very interested parties were paying close attention to Rhodes’ story.

Then about a month later an interesting twist. They’d decided — the Air Force’s Counter Intelligence Corps — that they wanted a word with Rhodes. They dispatched an agent named George Fugate Jr. with Brower, who was an FBI agent. But before they got to Rhodes’ house, Fugate gave Brower some unusual orders — don’t show your badge, don’t show your name, just be “a representative of the United States Government.”

When they came to knock at Rhodes’ door., they were calling for his photos and negatives, and they were not taking no for an answer. Rhodes provided the photos but said he would need to retrieve the negatives later. The agents returned the following day to retrieve them, and that was the last Rhodes ever saw of his evidence.

But Rhodes was not going to give up on getting his property back. The government’s response? They said they couldn’t locate the proof — which was rich, since their own records contained receipts detailing precisely where those negatives had gone and what tests had been conducted on them. They even delved into Rhodes’ background, pointing out suspiciously that his mother was a Russian immigrant, as if that meant anything.

The kicker? Arguably the most reputable UFO researcher of his era, J. Allen Hynek, would later call Rhodes’ case “one of the most crucial in the history of these objects.” The pictures perfectly mirrored what Kenneth Arnold said he saw.

But this is where it gets really, really interesting. This was not just some isolated incident. Imagine if you found one trick that works: you might want to use it again and again. Governments have a long and sordid history of keeping secrets when it believes its own interests are at stake. Take the Tuskegee experiments, for example, or the Army’s secret drug tests on soldiers in the 1950s. These weren’t just conspiracy theories — they are documented facts that were successfully hidden for decades.

And the reports kept coming. The same year as Rhodes’ sighting, 1947, a man named Harold Dahl in Washington state also claimed to be threatened by a man dressed in black following a sighting of strange objects. UFO hunters Jack and Mary Robinson came back to their apartment in 1968 to find it searched, having received warnings to abandon their investigations – one of the unknown men lurking outside their home even got his photo taken sitting in a car. Flash forward to 2008 and witnesses in Stephenville, Texas, also reported similar visits following sightings of bizarre lights in the sky. In 2014, a man in New Orleans accused those shadowy figures of harassing him to cease his UFO research and materials.

Might some of these reports be hoaxes or misunderstandings? Sure. Then again, human nature being what it is, it’s always possible. But all of them? When we have written evidence that the government actually did do this at least once? This is not some fringe conspiracy theory we’re talking about here – this was noted within official government documents; there’s paperwork demonstrating precisely how they dealt with Rhodes and his evidence.

What is really interesting is how this technique has been consistently used over the decades. From the earliest days of the modern era of UFO sightings up to more recent years, the pattern is eerily similar: someone witnesses something strange, they report it, and then they get visited by whoever those mysterious figures are warning them to shut the hell up. Almost as if someone discovered a successful playbook and followed it.

So the next time someone tells you that all Men in Black stories are urban legends or products of overactive imaginations, just remember William Rhodes. His case shows that at least some of these encounters were not flights of fancy — they were deliberate operations by very real agents of government who wished for certain evidence to disappear. And if they did it once, that’s one thing, but then… who’s to say how many other times they were able to employ the same technique?”