Al Bender: The Man Who Knew Too Much

In nineteen fifty two, during the height of the early Flying saucer wave Bender founded the International Flying Saucer Bureau. Then suddenly, and without warning, he shut it all down. Let's find out why. Welcome to the Shadow Signal, The Frequency of the Unknown. I'm josh Rutledge. And I'm Stephen Gearhart. Together we dive deep into high strangeness, UFOs, cryptids,

the paranormal psychic phenomenon, and the hidden truths that echo just beneath the surface. Somewhere between reality and myth lies The Signal. Can you hear it? Tune in? The Shadow Signal is live. And welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another titillating episode

of The Shadow Signal. I'm your host, Stephan Gearhart, joined as always by my co host, mister Joshua Abraham Rutledge. What's happened things? Don't be giving up my middle name too much. It's my secret password. Oh okay, so make sure you don't type in Abraham into his password stuff.

Okay, yeah, don't type it in. Don't don't do it. Oh man. It feels like forever since we've been here, I know, you know? Is it a month? Are we on?

The new season technically, because we're doing one seaton one episode. Yeah, this is number thirteen. Therefore we are on season seven. Yeah, so welcome to season seven, y'all. Do we have a humdinger of an episode for you. We're gonna be talking about Albert Bender, al Bender the Ufologist. We'll get into that. That's gonna be super awesome. But before we

get into that, let's. Get into a little bit of psychic word of the week. Josh, let's do it. The psychic who. Oh oh, all right, psychic word of the Week brought to you by the Encyclopedic Psychic Dictionary, written by June G. Blitzer, PhD. So that's doctor Bletzer to you listening out there.

I love you, honey bear, mission I never me. And me it's definitely to me too. Yeah. So I flipped through the pages and landed on page five hundred and ninety nine, five ninety nine. That's eighteen What is that? Eighteen five? Okay, so whatever that means. Numerologists have fun with that.

Yeah. So the word, the phrase that I came across here was subterranean world. Subterranean world and the first definition were very well aware of, but the second one. I had not had not come across this before, which surprises me. All right, So subterranean World definition one, a place in

the hollow of the earth where cities exist, believe to be a civilization of millions of inhabitants. There's a theory that it's highly intelligent type of life form. They frequently appear in their astro bodies to earthlings. Earthlings have visited them in the flesh in caves. So that's that's the first definition.

The second one is a Buddhist reference, which that's why it surprised me. Uh. It exists under the Earth's surface, where the supreme ruler of the Empire or King of the world in habits. He controls the world through secret tunnels connecting the subterranean

world and Tibet, perhaps connecting the Giza Complex for advance far advanced in the science of technology. Uh. And then three people believe that some flying safticers come from here. So yeah, I'm going to tell you this right now. This is directly related to the content of today's episode. I love it. I love it, Josh.

The research I don't. I don't usually know what we're doing ahead of time, so most he gives me the subject and then we go from there. So that's exciting. So there you go.

Yeah, So if that's a little bit of a enticement to make sure you stick around and listen to the whole thing, there you go. Yep. Also, I guess let's go ahead and get started. Before we get started, I mean, uh, I actually have

an interrupted transmission this week. Cool, so let's do some interrupted transmissions. Interrupted transmissions. So mine, I was at work. Mind tends to always happen at work these days, but I was at work. I was getting ready to leave for the day, and

I share an office with my manager and she's usually gone before me. So I was leaving. I was heading out the door. I turned off the light. I turned around. What I usually do is I reached behind and pushed the lock shut, and then I shut the door. But as I'm shutting the door, the.

Light turns right back on, full on, and I get cold chills, really, I mean, goose goose bumps the whole ninety yards. And I look out when one of my residents is standing there wide eyed because he saw it happen too. I was like, did you see that?

And he just goes yep, and so I go in there and the light was completely pushed all the way up. So what kind of light switch is it? Is it like a demi light switch. Nope, it's a normal, normal light switch. And I had pushed it all the way down I

always do, like there, you know, and I tried to recreate. It, like just push it a little bit. It didn't. It wouldn't do it. It wouldn't pop back up, like it would go like halfway and just sit there. But it was turned off, so yeah, it wouldn't pop back up.

Yep. So it was weird, dude, super weird. And I had a resident that totally saw it happen, yeah, and helped me share the story the whole next week. He was like, I saw it. It was crazy. We all assumed it was one of the residents who

passed last year that we absolutely loved. He was a jokester, so I. Was like, if any and he lived behind our office, so I'm like, if anybody could have done it, it would have been him. So yeah, yeah, it was creepy.

It was good. That's pretty cool, though, I mean, do you would you say, you know, I would have I would have expected, you know, given that you work in a is assisted living. Yeah, assisted living, senior living facility. So given that you where you work, that you would

have probably more activity than like a regular right to mow at home. Would you say, though, that you have more. Yeah, yeah, I don't get any activity really here besides the occasional kenobi. Yeah. But aside from that, it's it's mostly at work.

Okay, Well, I guess mine is mostly at work too, because I work from home. Yeah. You can get onto his work email by using the password Abraham Abraham. You have to spell the Greek letters though, Oh okay, yeah,

gotta have no French keyboards. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So when I was like I do have I was telling you before we started recording, when we were talking about if we had any interrupted transmissions. It seems like I am so inundated with activity these days that it

has become like commonplace and I don't even think about you know, hey, that was a weird thing that I need to tell stephan about or whatever. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Uh. Either it's a good thing that i've it's become so common,

or it's a good thing that I don't think about it as being you know, weirder or phenomena related. It just it's just stuff that happens. But thinking about the last couple of weeks, I've had a lot of so as you know, our cat, Kittie Whiskers died last year, and I've seen him various times around the house. But

lately the common occurrence has been that while I'm sitting here at my desk in the morning, like my my personal computer is here and my work computer is there, so I literally just swivel. My chair to work. So but during the mornings when I'm working, if like

you know, you all message me or something, I'll swivel over here to type. Something to you. Right, And when I swiveled to my personal computer, I always get the sensation of a cat rubbing against my life legs to the point where like the hairs on

my legs stand up, Like I feel like this kind of tingling sensation. You know, what are your legs? You were smooth as eggs. I do. I do have hair, It's just it's like I have

the most weird hair color thing going. Like I've got blonde hair on my arms and legs. I've got brownish red hair and we won't talk about the carpet, so but yeah, I mean it's like it's like even last night, I was sitting on the couch and like I had my I was really tired. I woke up at five

o'clock in the morning yesterday and I was just kind of it was like nine o'clock last night. I was really tired. So I was kind of sitting here, kind of dozing in and out watching Lord of the Rings, and at one point I like, I had my eyes closed and

had them closed for a long time, and I was kind of drifting out, and I immediately snapped my eyes back open, and for a brief second, out of my office door, I saw this pink, pink, white looking thing jump over the back of our couch in the living room and scamper away.

Nope, that was in Ghostbusters too. I ain't having that. So I immediately because I went yesterday and saw I move on presentation where there was just a lot of really I don't want to say bad, but odd energy in the space. So as soon as I saw that, I was like, I think I'll go Sage, just go

Sage and Polo Santo the house and myself and make sure, make sure nothing followed me home from that event. But yeah, but. Yeah, I mean it's just like I said, it's just become so commonplace that, Ye, this kind of stuff happens, and I'm gonna choose to interpret it as a good thing.

It means that I'm staying kind of, if you will, in the zone of being able to see this stuff. So ye got the antenna to catch that shadow signal? Yep? Yeah. Antenna up, by the way is a reference to cars that used to have retractable antennas that today's youth

will have no knowledge of. Or walkie talkies yeah, or transistor radios yeah, or even TV. Or even TVs where you were the remote. Yep, you're the remote. All right. That's aged us very well. Uh So let's go ahead and move on to our main topic. Let's get talking

about Albert K. Bender, the main story. So al Bender. You know, I've often wondered, because I've known about Al Bender now for probably I don't know sis started reading some of Great Barker's books. But yeah, same five six

years ago. I've wondered if the Bender from Futurama. I've always wondered that too, if it. Was pulled from like a reference to Al Bender. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe maybe they're you know, related in some way. I mean, Fries you know, grandfather is in the show. Why couldn't Al Bender's future robot grandfather

be in. The s right exactly? Anyways, So who was Albender? Stephan? Who was? He was a white nerdy guy. That that explains. Yeah, and if you if you look at the thumbnail

for this episode, you would agree. So Albert K. Bender was born June sixteenth, nineteen twenty one. Uh, that makes him what is that a? Is that taurus in June? Well, June sixteen would be uh at that point, uh Gemini, Gemini. Yeah, yeah, so uh he was born in uh Derrhea

I think it's d u r y e a, Pennsylvania, and he basically grew up with an overall interest in the unusual. He liked horror films, science fiction, and the unexplained. Uh maybe maybe he's you're a great great grandfather. Hey, that'd be cool. Yeah, anyways, I have family.

My family did come from Pennsylvania, so that's possible. I see the Dutch in you. Yep, Okay, he's still there. That's who you flipped on the light. So he just wasn't interested any way, shape or form with the casual, mundane parts of life. Okay, and so and then so.

Before he became a you know, kind of a UFO researcher, he had various different jobs. He worked in a factory, he worked office work. He was actually in the US military during World War Two, and after the war he settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he would eventually launch his now famous involvement in early uthology.

Sounds like us, like, just a bunch of different jobs until we got found, until we got found, til we found we found our way. I still like, I have to have a regular job to pay the bills. Yeah, but if I could figure out a way to do this stuff full time and

make money, I would totally do it and have instrumance and have insurance. Like, for example, I'm drinking this. By the way, Josh, I think you'd. Like this, this Fresco peach citrus. It's very good. Look at that.

Not a sponsor, but boy, you sure could be. Shoot us an email. Iron made it, iron Maid, and shoot us an email. I mean it's even got a mummy on it. It does Yep. I just have a Jeep shirt. Jeep, the American. Brand sends us an email.

Anyways. So his entry into ufology happened in nineteen fifty two. So during the height of the early kind of flyer saucer Wave Bender founded the International Flying Saucer Bureau or IFSB. Oh I didn't know, I didn't realize he was the founder of the IFSB.

Yeah, that's cool. And this wasn't just like a small club or like a friend you know, get together thing. It was it quickly became one of the first organized civilian UFO research groups in the world, and it actually attracted members internationally. Yeah.

He also created and published Space Review, which was a newsletter that collected UFO citing reports. It shared theory and interpretations and really just helped connect early researchers into a network. You know, reading this, this is I think what you know, Moufon my hat. I think this is what Moufon started out trying to be. Was there, you know, replacement of

that missing you know, community piece, and then they added in or you know, sprinkled in the we investigate part. I think they try to help attract people who want to be a part of something that is you know, actively looking for an answer. Yeah, the i FSB is still around, which is really

interesting because Bender didn't die till like what twenty sixteen or something like that. Yeah, I think so, yeah, four years old. Yeah, so it'd be interesting. Which nine and four is thirteen and you reduce it down to four half phone with that neurology people.

Yep. Yeah, let's get if you're if you're a part of the IFSB hit us up, maybe we could have you on. That'd be fun. Well, you never had anybody on it from the ISFSB. Well, it's interesting that they're still around because in nineteen

fifty three he shut it down a year after it started in its peak of growth, Bender abruptly shut down the organization. So somebody has since spun it back up. Yeah, But in nineteen fifty three, a year after he started it, he shut it down. He issued a statement that said he had discovered the truth about UFOs, he had been

warned not to continue HINDOS investigations and this subject was quote unquote too dangerous to pursue. Damn. No explanation was given, and the shutdown really just really shocked the UFO community at the time, and that's. Why he lived in ninety four and not twenty eight yep.

So. Bender later claimed that his decision came after encounter with the mysterious figures that would later be. Known as the Men in Black. According to his account, three dark clad men appeared in his home. They communicated telepathically rather than verbally. He experienced

these intense fear and like a physical paralysis, and they warned him to stop his UFO research. This account became one of the earliest and most influential descriptions of the Men in Black phenomenon. Wow, what I think strikes me about this account is this really echoes to a lot of the writings by John Keel about the Men in Black.

Yeah you know that. Yeah, I think a lot of times people associate Men in Black with being government agents. But this writing and John Keell's writings about the Men in Black really associate them with being not really human, potentially like another you know, faction, if you will, within non human intelligence as we would

call it today, that they are themselves some sort of you know, keepers of silence amongst you know, extraterrestrial or alien races. Right. You know, John Keel talked. About them in some encounters that they would like start

to turn pink. Yeah, and they would need they would ask for water, and they would take a pill and then they then their color would return back to white, like a pale white. Yeah. Remember that.

Pale from the or the insight that we got the spooky I don't know, tales from escape or whatever we used to call it, where we are true encounters, and that one woman yeah, talked about her dad was really weird and all that stuff, and asked for a glass of water and all.

That disappeared appeared as her dad, Yeah, but just behaved very strangely. Yeah. And then he left, and then her dad rolled up, and. Then her dad rolled up, and she was freaking out because like he was just there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and I remember in that tale she even talked about how there was, all of a sudden her dad's truck was there, but she didn't remember hearing it coming down the driveway. Yeah. Yeah.

So again it's like they just appeared there. Yeah, crazy man. So his story was later popularized and expanded by Gray Barker Ye, who helped cement Bender's experience into UFO lore and really influenced the later interpretations by researchers like John keel. Right, and that was a lot.

I know, a lot of his experiences were in they knew too much about Flying Saucers, which is one of my favorite books. Yep. I love Gray Barker Man. Yeah, I love him too, except what he learned later

on life him and him and Moseley yep, that they would oftentimes be real pranksters and do things that were not on the up and up sop. So for years after the shutdown, Bender remained mostly silent. Then in nineteen sixty two, so about nine years later he published his book Flying Saucers Into Three Men, and in it he

explained or he expanded on his experiences and presented his interpretations on UFOs, and his interpretations were basically boiled down into these three bullets. Of these four bullets, UFOs were linked to non human entities. Bender didn't describe UFOs as just machines piloted by a controversial sense. He claimed the intelligence behind them was non human, but not strictly alien

in the space traveling sense. He had said they had a highly advanced mentality capable of telepathic communication, and that they were aware of human thoughts and intentions before their interactions. Interesting in his encounter. The three men didn't speak out loud, they communicated directly into his mind, and he experienced a forced awareness, as if information was being inserted rather than explained.

To me. This is if you ever listen to a song and you don't listen to it with the purposes of just listening to the song, but you actually try to be aware of every word that is said or sang in the song as it is occurring. When you do that,

my experience is I become aware I know the word right, but as soon as the word exits my mind, I don't remember the word that was the previous word that I was aware of. And that's what I feel like. This is kind of what he is describing as the words are just there, but you don't quite know how

or why they're there, and they don't really linger once they're gone. Yeah, I could see that. Boy. It makes you wish that you could use that power to get people to forget what you said. Yeah really, or you know, if you could use the

power to forget some of the dumb things you've done in your life, that'd be nice too. Yeah, that too, instead of having to relive them over and over again. So he also described that the entity seemed less like visitors and more like controllers or overseers. Yeah.

Yeah, and so you know, the kind of the one of the key implications of this type of you know, this first bullet of explanation is that this shifts the UFOs from being vehicles to being like manifestations or tools by an intelligence that operates on a different level than humans. Yeah, which makes complete sense to me.

Yeah, I mean, I you know, that's I wrote my article gosh six years ago now calling UFO's uses, and that they are used for a purpose like an initiation for the human that it gets to have the experience or encounter for them to start kind of waking up or realizing that they're bigger than what they are. So yeah,

it fits within that as well. Yep, all right, so bullet point number two, these entities had bases on Earth, including Antarctica. One of benders more controversial claims is that these beings were not just visiting Earth, but they were already here. Yeah, they opened up bars and pubs and yep, and all.

These I'm pretty sure they operate the way mos. They're just so used out of our reality so we can't see them. But really there's a driver driving thing along. Yep, it's only those of us that have woken up. Your antenna is straight up, Yep, it'd be halfway up. Gotta be straight up, you go all the way up.

Not a sponsor emails one of benders. Uh So. He said that there was a hidden base in Antarctica. And here's where it ties back to our psychic word. That they were underground or concealed installations, and that this was a long term presence on Earth, not a recent arrival. Now,

this to me hits all the markers, because I'm a big shaver guy, right, hollow Earth, all of that kind of stuff. John Keel talks about the altra terrestrials. We interviewed that guy in Australia that talked about the crypto terrestrials. I can't remember his name. Oh man, I haven't thought about that in a hot minute.

But you know that there is this race of beings that have always resided here alongside humans. You know, it's talked about in the in the lens of disclosure, that humanity with these UFO or UFP sidings might be dealing with a breakoff civilization. Right.

I've always said what if humanity is the breakoff civilization, I mean. That puts a right back into the whole Mesopotamian lore l and Anke andk you and all that stuff. Yep, uh you know, I mean what you know, what if like you said, I mean, what if the ancient

Atlanteans they're they're there, their island was destroyed, but the majority of the people remained right. And they you know, moved underground or whatever. But then in lil and Iki come along and they they abduct fifty Atlanteans and use them to make a whole other species that we call human.

Right again, Maybe that's why the the oh Neanderthal died out. Maybe, And what if all abductions now and the whole hybridization program is just them trying to do that again because humanity is no longer subservient to in Liland in inky yep, boom, just blew your mind. Yep.

I've got to clean up brains off the floor. Yep. It's all over the ceiling too. I can see it dripping yep. Yep. You can only see that if you're intent as all.

Your intent is all the way up. Yep. That's right signal. Yeah. So anyways, uh, moving on to about mister Bender. The also his his idea also included that beings could move between locations rapidly, suggesting access points rather than travel in the conventional sense. Right, they could teleport to waffle house real.

Quick, they could or what was the other Placealds Yeah, McDonald's. Yeah. And basically that Antarctica is being used due to its isolation and lack of human access, as kind of like a staging point or a base. And then of course there's ties in later on with hollow or underground basis

and just some claims of like remote or restricted zones being used as staging areas. You know, this, this whole vein of thought and conversation also ties back to our mysterious uh terry wrists that contacted us that talked about being you know, embedded with the Taro who were fighting the Darrow. And if if you're listening, you're not familiar

with the Taro and Darrow, I encourage you to listen to our Shaver episode, which I'll link below. But yeah, there's just a lot of commonality or or in that sure with various things. Yeah, I had no idea. I knew about al Bender, but I had no idea the ties.

To the hollow Earth, which is really interesting. So so, as I mentioned, there was four points that Drew's apartment covered. The first two. The third one is the phenomenon was not purely physical or extraterrestrial. Bender described aspects of his experience that don't

line up with a physical reality as we understand it. The entity seemed to appear and disappear rather than arrive. Right, he experienced physical paralysis without contact. Yeah, the environment around him felt altered, almost like a shift in perception or reality state. You know.

That last both that I just read in the one before and around the physical paralysis. It makes me think about something that I've thought about for many, many years, is that some abductions may not be an abduction of the physical body, but rather of the energy body. Right, And so if the men in Black or the entities

in this case were to shift his dimensional alignment so that his energy body was then in this same space with them, but his physical body remained in his physical three dimensional world, yeah, he would feel as if he was paralyzed because he would no longer have access to the dimension where his physical body exists. That would also

give him the same feeling of being that shift in perception or reality state. Yeah, and of course it makes me question all sleep paralysis stuff, you know. I mean, there's a there isn't really interesting that, you know, Like when I when I go to bed at night

with the intention of astro travel, I do mechan I do mechanisms to put my body into a paralysis state so that I can then travel with my energy body. So if if sleep paralysis is just really just the body entering a paralysis state so that your energy body can you know, do whatever it wants to do at night,

go to waffle house, then maybe sleep paralysis is not necessarily the negative thing that people often constituted as, and the shadow people that they encounter could just be two dimensional entities projected in our three dimensional world. We experience a shadow. That's interesting.

Yeah, I break in all the brains today. Yep, it's got me shutting up, so I'll tell you. So there's a strong sense going back to Bender here, there's a strong sense that the craft and the beings were not bound by normal physics, and what he saw may not have been their true form, but something projected

or translated into human perception. And of course the key application of this one is is that the phenomenon isn't fully physical. If that's the case, then rad are cameras traditional investigation methods may only capture partial or distorted evidence. Yeah. So again it kind of gets back to the whole

idea of old euthology I think was primarily focused on nuts. And bolts craft. Yeah, modern euthology, the stuff that I'm interested in, that you're interested in, really kind of blends all the phenomena together. Some of it may be nuts it bolts, but some of it may know may be something else completely.

Yep, I totally agree with that. I don't need to, you know, necessarily put everything into one bucket, right. All right. Fourth bullet point. As I mentioned number four, this is the fourth one, so that there are strong overlaps with paranormal or inter

dimensional activity. This is where Bender's account starts lining up with what later researchers, especially John Keel and Jacques Vallet, would expand on. Elements from Bender's experience that mirror paranormal cases. Telepathy, fear and psychological pressure, that overwhelming dread during the encounter, a sense of being controlled or influenced, apparition like behavior, entities appearing suddenly no clear exit or entry, and then

the after effects, that lingering psychological impact, the reluctance or inability to fully explain what happened. These are the same traits seen in poultry geite cases, apparitional hauntings, certain abduction reports, and even some cryptid encounters in high strangeness zones. Yeah. So the complication of this fourth bullet is that Binder

may have been describing a single phenomenon expressing itself in different forms. I mean, what it sounds like to me is he was ahead of his time before he realized he was ahead of his time. Yeah, because you're right, there's a lot of movement in that regards into that idea of

convergence of all those things together that just makes more sense, and that was very unpopular. It's still kind of unpopular in some circles, but it's very interesting. Yeah, I had no idea about that. It kind of makes me think about, I don't know, like a musical. You know, you can only listen to

the soundtrack, you can only look at the props, you can only listen to the speaking parts, But only when you put it all together, does it really make sense? Yeah? Right, yep, So so some skeptical views on Bender's story. Some people think that it might be exaggerated or fictionalized.

Of course, some critics argue that Gray Barker may have embellished the narrative, which that's possible. That's possible, it's possible, and some psychological explanations that basically he shout it all down because just the stress of running a UFO organization of that size at that time was just too much. Yeah, but his supportive views is that, you know, his account

predates many later similar reports. Elements of his experience, like the fear of paralysis, telepathy match modern you know, encounter cases, and his story helped define recurring patterns in UFO and paranormal research. He's also, I don't know if you knew this, but he's also the creator of World Contact Day, which is

not still yeah, which you know now it's kind of World Contact Week. But yeah, he started World Contact Day, I think back in like fifty three, fifty two or fifty three. Or probably around the town that it was in the tide of its thing.

Yeah. Yeah, and we still in the UFO circles still yep, celebrate that. So yeah, so just kind of the legacy of the work that he did kind of just to start to sum things up a little bit, so you know, he

didn't just contribute to euthology, he changed its trajectory. Yeah, even if we didn't realize how big that change was going to be until much later, you know, after he kind of shut things down. So the you know, he was the first major men. In Black narrative.

Yeah, but you know, before Bender, there were no widely recognized accounts of coordinated human like figures showing up to silence UFO researchers. After Bender, the concept of men in Black becomes embedded in UFO culture. You know, reports begin to include emotionless, almost artificial human behavior, unusual speech patterns. John Keele described it as speaking in a sing song

kind of way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, you know, knowledge that they shouldn't have. Uh. And I think his friendship with Gray Barker really helped to bring a lot of his experience to the forefront. Whether Gray embellished or not, I don't know. I I

you know, we've talked about in the past how Gray and Jim Mosby would pull pranks, you know, especially we received some information that they would brank John Keel at times, But I've never known anybody to claim that Gray Barker. Wrote fictitious things. Right now, The one exceptions I will the one exception

I will make to that is that almost all of the Valiant Thor books that are put out underneath the pen name of Valiant Thor were written by Gray Parker, right, So, you know, take that with grain of salt. But later researchers like John Keel expanded into this, you know, not necessarily government agents, not fully human, possibly part of the

phenomenon itself. Which is something that I think we've kind of gotten away from in you know, recent years, is that we've tend to we've shifted the conversation to be more that the men in black are government people. Yeah, but you know, maybe we've gotten off the trail a little bit because of that type of thinking. And it'd

be interesting to look back and see where that shift occurred, and perhaps a government individual was the reason for that shift. They don't want us thinking about the possibility that they are a part of the phenomenon exactly. You know, early claims the suppression not just the government. Most modern discussions focus on government secrets. See Bender's claim is different and

more complex. You know, modern disclosure model, government's high information secrecy is human controlled. But that maybe that's not the case right this, you know, the model with Bender around this being you know, non human entities that are doing these things is rarely discussed. I think we need to bring it back. Let's bring back n Hi men in black,

n H I M I B. Yes, let's do it. Let's start that hashtag. Stepan hashtag in HI M I B. There you go, There you go. Everybody who listens to this podcast, go to your social media account and post this episode in using the hashtag

n HI M I B. Do it? Do it? Do it? Anyways, this hashtag is brought to you by Fresca, not a sponsor email us. So you know his his his account also helped to

shift the conversation from being nuts and bolts crafts to something else, you know, high strange related. Yep. You know. Before Bender got involved, apology was almost always discussed in the terms of physical craft right oar siting this military encounter and so on and so forth. But after Bender,

it's you know, it opened up the door and researchers like John Keel and Josh Filat really picked up and built off of that shift. Yep, agreed, And I will say to anyone out there that's had an encounter with men in black, we'd love to hear about it as usual, So you can always

email us at the Shadow Signal podcast at gmail dot com. Is that correct? That is so email us and let us know about your experience. We'd love to hear more and share it. So, yeah, didn't have to be in black. Any experience that you've had love that.

That's true too. Yeah, but yeah, and you know, kind of one another contributions that he made was he was a precursor to the control system theory. You know. Jacques Vallet later proposed that phenomena acts as a control system that interacts with humanity over time, shapes

the belief system and culture and adapts its appearance based on context. And that's something that you and I have talked about as well. Yep. You know, are the are the fay and the elves of you know, yes, uk lore is that the new UFOs right? And you know it been it.

Bender's experience lines up with this kind of early form where he investigates and he gets contacted, he gains knowledge, and then he has warned and then he attempts to share and he has stopped. Yep. I also say, you know, dragons, you know, like dragons

are in almost every culture throughout history, is at a craft that they saw and. Exactly didn't know how to articulate it art or maybe it appeared as dragons as a dragon. Yeah, you know, talking We've talked a little bit about Shaver, the Shaver Mystery. You know, one of the things in the Shaver Mystery

is is that the Darrow supposedly had a device that they could project things in the sky to you know, full mankind. Ye John Keel. I think his book The Eighth Tower talks a lot about there being like you know, sky projections if you will, in the sky. So yeah, So you.

Know, the last thing I'll say, uh, that he kind of contributed is that pattern that repeats, you know, researchers getting too deep and stepping back, witnesses describing telepathic communication encounters involving paralysis or overwhelming fear, reports of entities that look human that feel off right, you know it just yeah, now you know one kuld argue that well, people read

his book and then it was in their psyche and then their experience just took on the appearance of what they had read. And that's that is possible. You know, that's does work that way. But I don't know that everyone who's ever had an experience or encounter has read Albender's. Book, agreed, or even Gray's book, or.

Even grades books. Yeah, yeah, so life after death. After publishing his book, Bender gradually stepped away from the public UFO scene. He lived in a relatively quiet life compared to the notoriety of his early years. And Albert Bender died on March twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, at the age of ninety four.

Sure, almost exactly ten years ago from when we're just a few weeks. I know, so yep. So I'm sure you know, he would have been a fascinating person to talk to if he would have been, you know, willing, of course, to open up about his

experiences later on life, right, because I'm sure somebody who was that close to the phenomenon. Even though he shut down his public uh you know, workings within the phenomenon, I doubt he stopped having experiences. Yeah. So nice there he is and all of his grandeur.

Albert cade Bender, thank you for your contribution, my friend. And you know, probably one of those things where it's worth evaluating, you know, some of his works to current events. You know, there's a lot of people who don't like the current disclosure movement. You know, they think the UFO's attempt to reclass everything as UAP is them basically saying that,

you know, if it's if it's called the UAP, it's a man made item. You know, I think it's just the government's attempt to distance itself from the UFO terminology because of the inclusion of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Plus I've read books that pre date, you know, the back in the fifties and sixties that use the term UAP, so

it's not a new term from the government. It's just more visible now. But you know, there are people who think that the disclosure movement is there too to make the phenomenon more human, you know, to provide a human element to it. That humans are the reason we don't know what we know. There's no other reason beyond that.

But you know Bender's works, Gray Barker, John Keel, others of their time. You know, it's worth reevaluating those and checking those, checking the narratives of today against the narratives of the past. Yeah, you know, are we just reliving the same history that somebody else was trying to spend sixty years ago?

Yeah? I like that. So all right, well man, all right, well, I guess we'll go ahead and get out of here. Man, that was a very interesting Josh. I really appreciate the work on that. That was just a good deep dive into bender.

There, go on a bender and listen to all of our episodes. Yeah, there you go, But let's go ahead and get out of here. Thank you guys so much for tuning in as usual to the Shadows signal. We love you guys so much.

And it's been a hell of a year, and you know, we're looking forward to this next year to see. What season seven is going to be like. That's right, got a lot lined up. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So but well we'll get there, y'all.

Just keep on listening, keep on trucking, and we'll see y'all next time. This has been Stefan. Remember to stay in the shadows and listen for the signal. This has been Josh. The truth is now all right, goodnight, folks, good night,