Gray Barker

Gray Barker was an author and publisher based in Clarksburg, West Virginia, who introduced several concepts that became embedded in UFO culture. His 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers popularised the idea of "Men in Black," drawing on reported experiences of Albert K. Bender, who had abruptly shut down his International Flying Saucer Bureau in 1953 after alleged visits from dark-suited strangers.

Barker published the Saucerian Bulletin and later the Saucerian Press, which produced books by both serious researchers and more fringe figures. He maintained a prolific correspondence network across the UFO community and preserved material that might otherwise have been lost.

His other published works include The Silver Bridge (1970), connecting the Mothman sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, to the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse, and various compilations of case material. Barker occupied an ambiguous position: he promoted sensational material while privately expressing scepticism about some of it, and he was known to have fabricated documents as pranks, including a fake State Department memorandum that circulated for years.

After his death in 1984, his papers and publishing archive were preserved at the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, constituting one of the larger personal UFO archives in the United States.