The second annual festival celebrating the anniversary of the world’s first encounter with the iconic Men in Black will kick off a full weekend of events with its signature “6/22” party on June 22, 2023,, where over 100 attendees in cosplay black-and-white will receive the annual – and humorous – “warning to humanity.

According to festival co-founder Steve Edmiston:

“The warning is the key element to Men in Black history and culture. Everything we now think we know when we think of the Men in Black in popular culture – the movie franchise, the X-Files, even Twilight Zone – is a legacy of Harold Dahl’s June 22, 1947, story of being confronted and warned by a mysterious man dressed in black. And surprise – he was warned not to tell anyone what he’d seen in the sky the day before over Puget Sound.”

While components of “the warning” are unique from year-to-year, the core element is unchanged and involves a rather existential prediction – “how many years until the invasion.” The warning arrives in a sealed envelope from “The Maury Island Incident Historical Society’s “Burning Saucer” event held one day earlier.

“We understand why communities love festivals that rise from local history or mythologies,” Edmiston said. “Who hasn’t thought about what it must be like to run with the bulls in Pamplona or join a giant tomato fight at La Tomatina? Or watch a rodent named “Phil” look for his shadow to predict how many weeks until Spring? We appreciate why 25,000 people gather in Estes Park, Colorado, to celebrate – literally “frozen” dead guy. It just makes sense to us that Pacific Northwest folks want to get their black-and-white cosplay on and embrace our truthful place in UFO history – where a controversial UFO sighting and men in black encounter started it all.”

This year’s MIBBB Fest features a full weekend of events, commemorating the first-ever sighting of Men in Black on June 22, 1947 (6/22/47) during the Summer of the Saucers, when thousands of UFO incidents were reported worldwide.

Photos

Click arrows to view slideshow from last year’s event:

Scott Schaefer

Founder/Publisher/Editor. Three-time National Emmy Award winning Writer (“Bill Nye the Science Guy”), Director, Producer, Journalist and more...