BLUE ÖYSTER CULT PUT THE MEN IN BLACK ON ROCK RADIO
Before Hollywood gave the Men in Black matching suits, government badges and a franchise budget, they were already lurking around UFO folklore—and Blue Öyster Cult helped drag them onto mainstream rock radio. The band had been circling extraterrestrial territory for years. In 1976, “E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)” pulled the Men in Black directly into the song’s mythology. By 1983, “Take Me Away” pushed the obsession further: strange lights, possible visitors, secrecy, and a narrator who sounds less frightened of aliens than disappointed they haven’t picked him up yet. That part matters. Because the Men in Black did not begin as a Hollywood invention. The modern folklore traces back through 1950s UFO culture, especially figures such as Albert Bender and writer Gray Barker , who helped popularize stories of ominous men appearing after unusual sightings and warning witnesses into silence. Whether any of that actually happened is another matter. But culturally...