Clarksburg News Building, Clarksburg, West Virginia

This FBI Headquarters file (case 62-HQ-83894, Serial 403) consists of a retained copy of the dust jacket and cover pages of Gray Barker's book "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers," published by University Books, Inc., of New York. The book, priced at $3.50, was authored by Gray Barker, a Clarksburg, West Virginia, businessman who operated a film booking and buying agency at the Clarksburg News Building. Barker became interested in flying saucers in 1952 after investigating an alleged landing near his West Virginia home, finding eyewitnesses he considered credible. Over subsequent years of research and contact with leading civilian UFO investigators, Barker reported that prominent saucer researchers were being systematically silenced — visited by "three men in dark suits" who apparently discouraged further public discussion. The book is presented as a behind-the-scenes chronicle of civilian saucer research. H. G. Rhawn, publisher and owner of the Clarksburg News, endorsed the seriousness of Barker's inquiry without personally vouching for flying saucer reality. Barker also published a periodical called The Saucerian and contributed to educational and motion picture technical journals. The record was declassified under the FBI Automatic Declassification Guide issued May 24, 2007. The file is administrative in character — it preserves the physical book item rather than recording an original FBI investigation or sighting — but its existence within FBI Central Records documents the Bureau's interest in civilian UFO research literature and the "Men in Black" phenomenon as early as the mid-1950s.