Al Barker

Gray Barker (1925-1984) was an American UFO writer and publisher from West Virginia. He played a pivotal role in ufology by popularizing the 'men in black' (MIB) phenomenon through his 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers, detailing how three mysterious men silenced Albert K. Bender's UFO research revelations. Barker founded The Saucerian magazine (1953-1962) after Bender shuttered the International Flying Saucer Bureau, and established Saucerian Press, publishing contactee works like Howard Menger's From Outer Space to You (1959). In the 1960s-1970s, he collected contact and conspiracy tales, issuing Gray Barker's Newsletter and leading the Saucers and Unexplained Celestial Events Research Society (SAUCERS). He was active in the National UFO Congress. Barker died on December 6, 1984.