What do you think?
Rate this book
The Black Diary: M.I.B, Women in Black, Black-Eyed Children, and Dangerous Books
“His skin was strange” “She had total black eyes” “You could almost taste the menace” “The impulse to burn the book is mighty interesting”
Nick Redfern reveals the very latest information on the sinister Men in Black, the chilling Women in Black, and the creepy Black-Eyed Children. Highlights dozens of never-before-seen stories of encounters with these creatures; Nick’s own sighting of an MIB; the ability of these multi-dimensional entities to invade our space in hostile fashion; and how and why writing, reading and even thinking about them can be hazardous.
Nick Redfern is the author of more than forty books. They include Men in Black; Women in Black; The Roswell UFO Conspiracy; and 365 Days of UFOs. Nick has appeared on many TV shows, including the BBC’s Out of This World; the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive; the History Channel’s Monster Quest, America’s Book of Secrets and UFO Hunters; the National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural; and MSNBC’s Countdown.
He can be contacted
Nick Redfern reveals the very latest information on the sinister Men in Black, the chilling Women in Black, and the creepy Black-Eyed Children. Highlights dozens of never-before-seen stories of encounters with these creatures; Nick’s own sighting of an MIB; the ability of these multi-dimensional entities to invade our space in hostile fashion; and how and why writing, reading and even thinking about them can be hazardous.
Nick Redfern is the author of more than forty books. They include Men in Black; Women in Black; The Roswell UFO Conspiracy; and 365 Days of UFOs. Nick has appeared on many TV shows, including the BBC’s Out of This World; the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive; the History Channel’s Monster Quest, America’s Book of Secrets and UFO Hunters; the National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural; and MSNBC’s Countdown.
He can be contacted
- GenresParanormal
260 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 28, 2018
57 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Nick Redfern
135 books224 followersNick Redfern is a British best-selling author, Ufologist and Cryptozoologist who has been an active advocate of official disclosure, and has worked to uncover thousands of pages of previously-classified Royal Air Force, Air Ministry and Ministry of Defence files on UFOs dating from the Second World War from the Public Record Office.
He has has appeared on a variety of television programmes in the UK and works on the lecture circuit, both in the UK and overseas, and has appeared in internationally syndicated shows discussing the UFO phenomenon. He is also a regular on the History Channel programs Monster Quest and UFO Hunters as well as National Geographic Channels's Paranormal and the SyFY channel's Proof Positive.
Redfern now lives in Texas and is currently working as a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena, and also works as a feature writer and contributing editor for Phenomena magazine and writes regularly for other magazines and websites.
In 2007 Universal Studios bought the rights to Redfern's book: "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monster, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs and Ape-Men" in the hopes of making a movie from it.
He has has appeared on a variety of television programmes in the UK and works on the lecture circuit, both in the UK and overseas, and has appeared in internationally syndicated shows discussing the UFO phenomenon. He is also a regular on the History Channel programs Monster Quest and UFO Hunters as well as National Geographic Channels's Paranormal and the SyFY channel's Proof Positive.
Redfern now lives in Texas and is currently working as a full-time author and journalist specializing in a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, alien abductions and paranormal phenomena, and also works as a feature writer and contributing editor for Phenomena magazine and writes regularly for other magazines and websites.
In 2007 Universal Studios bought the rights to Redfern's book: "Three Men Seeking Monsters: Six Weeks in Pursuit of Werewolves, Lake Monster, Giant Cats, Ghostly Devil Dogs and Ape-Men" in the hopes of making a movie from it.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 10, 2021
Unorganized, Paranoid and Pointless
December 9, 2022
Entertaining but ridiculous
Why ascribe to simple chance a prosaic event when you can assign paranormal activity? If a picture suddenly falls from the wall and breaks, don't ascribe it to the fact that maintenance men are pounding on the wall nearby doing repairs, blame it on the paranormal. If you have a weird dream, don't just say it was a weird dream, ascribe it to paranormal entities interfering in your dreams. If your building gets hit by lightening in a severe storm, frying some of your electronics, blame it on paranormal forces, not the severe thunderstorm (which also must be of supernatural origin). The author takes a bit too much of normal life and it's oopsies and oweis insists they must be MIB or BEK entities screwing with him and others. I myself enjoy watching YouTube vids about UFOs, MIBs, BEKs, and other stuff and after a few videos of that YouTube gets REAL choppy and laggy. I have to exit it and restart it to continue (on my smartphone or tablet, not my PC). I suppose it isn't because YouTube is poorly written bloatware with a memory leak or bad cache handling, it must be entities getting onto me and causing mayhem because I am "inviting them in" by thinking about them while watching the vids.
Why ascribe to simple chance a prosaic event when you can assign paranormal activity? If a picture suddenly falls from the wall and breaks, don't ascribe it to the fact that maintenance men are pounding on the wall nearby doing repairs, blame it on the paranormal. If you have a weird dream, don't just say it was a weird dream, ascribe it to paranormal entities interfering in your dreams. If your building gets hit by lightening in a severe storm, frying some of your electronics, blame it on paranormal forces, not the severe thunderstorm (which also must be of supernatural origin). The author takes a bit too much of normal life and it's oopsies and oweis insists they must be MIB or BEK entities screwing with him and others. I myself enjoy watching YouTube vids about UFOs, MIBs, BEKs, and other stuff and after a few videos of that YouTube gets REAL choppy and laggy. I have to exit it and restart it to continue (on my smartphone or tablet, not my PC). I suppose it isn't because YouTube is poorly written bloatware with a memory leak or bad cache handling, it must be entities getting onto me and causing mayhem because I am "inviting them in" by thinking about them while watching the vids.
June 9, 2021
Unfortunately Disappointing
The author seems to want so badly to relate himself to John Keel in this book. It's full of paranoid delusions. At one point, seeing a man in a black coat walking in his neighborhood early in the morning is most defintely a MIB stalking him, even though there is nothing mentioned that explains this assumption or reaction - no odd detail. I've liked the other books in the series but this one was just all about the author himself making wild assumptions and living in a state of paranoia. There are countless personal events presented that seem more than likely completely mundane. I am actually not a skeptic at all however this book naturally had me skeptical. Just skip this one.
I also HATE when researchers/authors start stating things as if they are fact. We don't know what the MIB/WIB are and though they seem to appear before or after strange and usually negative experiences, this doesn't mean they are the cause of those things. Perhaps they are a symptom of the true cause. We just don't know. That's the whole point of this!
The author seems to want so badly to relate himself to John Keel in this book. It's full of paranoid delusions. At one point, seeing a man in a black coat walking in his neighborhood early in the morning is most defintely a MIB stalking him, even though there is nothing mentioned that explains this assumption or reaction - no odd detail. I've liked the other books in the series but this one was just all about the author himself making wild assumptions and living in a state of paranoia. There are countless personal events presented that seem more than likely completely mundane. I am actually not a skeptic at all however this book naturally had me skeptical. Just skip this one.
I also HATE when researchers/authors start stating things as if they are fact. We don't know what the MIB/WIB are and though they seem to appear before or after strange and usually negative experiences, this doesn't mean they are the cause of those things. Perhaps they are a symptom of the true cause. We just don't know. That's the whole point of this!
August 4, 2018
The Black Diary
I purchased this book after listening to Nick Redfern on a podcast. The stories in this book are quite interesting. I especially enjoyed the stories that revolved around Point Pleasant, and the chapters that included Susan Sheppard's writing. Anyone who is interested in the MIB phenomenon should read this book.
I purchased this book after listening to Nick Redfern on a podcast. The stories in this book are quite interesting. I especially enjoyed the stories that revolved around Point Pleasant, and the chapters that included Susan Sheppard's writing. Anyone who is interested in the MIB phenomenon should read this book.
February 22, 2025
I couldn’t even finish this. Poor writing, poor research, and presents limited details on MIB stories. Written in quick diary entry format expecting the reader to just trust the author’s inclinations about third person accounts. I’m sure there are genuine accounts of unexplainable MIB possible encounters in this, but the writing style was elementary and completely turned me off.
July 19, 2018
Compelling
Very compelling read. You get a better feel for Redfern’s personality than on Ancient Aliens. He’s compiled a healthy list of encounters with strange beings that are not to be missed.
Very compelling read. You get a better feel for Redfern’s personality than on Ancient Aliens. He’s compiled a healthy list of encounters with strange beings that are not to be missed.
January 5, 2021
Good stories but for having a book editor, she missed alot of typos. I think she should offer you a discount for editing your next book due to that. I literally found mistakes in nearly every chapter.
August 5, 2021
Poorly organized, paranoid, rambling, and riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
Hopefully Mr. Redfern never sees me driving around, a basic white man who often wears exclusively black clothing and drives a black car. I MUST be an MIB! Not a normal man!
Don't bother with this one.
Hopefully Mr. Redfern never sees me driving around, a basic white man who often wears exclusively black clothing and drives a black car. I MUST be an MIB! Not a normal man!
Don't bother with this one.
July 1, 2025
A solid collection from Redfern, detailing stories of MIB and related beings that were related to him and which occurred to him. I have no doubt he has received plenty of prank reports, but overall it is a fun book.
August 11, 2018
A can't put down read!
A great, and informative author, Nick Redfern is at it again. From WIN to the historical and modern day MIN accounts, this writer has much to bring to light.
A great, and informative author, Nick Redfern is at it again. From WIN to the historical and modern day MIN accounts, this writer has much to bring to light.
August 14, 2018
Review of The Black Diary: M.I.B., Women in Black, Black-Eyed Children and Dangerous Books, by Nick Redfern (Lisa Hagan Books, 2018). ISBN: 9781945962110
By Joey Madia
Embedded in the upper righthand cover of this book is a red and white warning label: “Just picking up this book invites them in.”
Given the publishing industry’s penchant for sexy marketing strategies, it might be easy to dismiss this warning label as more of the same—a clever ploy on the part of the publisher to grab your attention and get you to buy the book.
But I know better.
And that’s what this review is about.
First of all, Nick Redfern is one of the most respected and published authorities on the subject of the paranormal, and the enigmatic (Wo)men in Black. I have read several of his books, and, having spent the past nine years studying and experiencing the paranormal, I have no reason to question anything he reports in them. He mixes field experience, interviews, and extensive research into his work, in the kind of self-checking triangulation that many investigators could learn from.
Second, and even more important, I know several of the people whose stories are quoted at length in the pages of The Black Diary. I also know them to be solid, honest folk with a genuine interest in the paranormal. I have been privileged to do field investigations with some of them.
Third, and most important, I have experienced many of the phenomena discussed in this book.
The Black Diary couples Redfern’s experiences—ranging from hard-to-explain-away synchronicities to damage to his apartment to threatening phone calls—with firsthand accounts from people who have contacted him or whom Redfern has met during his extensive travel and interview schedule.
At the heart of this complex mystery of the (Wo)Men in Black (this is the third in a trio of books Redfern has published on the subject) is just who or what they are. This question has been asked by researchers of the paranormal for decades, including by Fortean researcher and journalist John Keel. Answers are slow to come.
If you are interested in these oddly dressed, oddly behaving, weird-looking entities who drive classic black cars and seem to be unfamiliar with modern technology and at times even the most fundamental of cultural ideas, The Black Diary is for you. The range of visitations and experiences is considerable—they can turn up anywhere at any time and disappear again as quickly, instilling fear and wreaking havoc in a matter of moments.
Right in line with the debate about nuts and bolts/flesh and blood versus ultraterrestrial phenomena (from UFOs to Bigfoot), the (Wo)Men in Black mystery is deepened by two age-old nagging questions: Who or What Are They? and What do They Want?
I doubt it’s all one thing. In some cases, military-industrial-intelligence complex misdirection and intimidation seems to be in play. In others, it seems like they’ve crossed into our plane through a portal or other dimensional door and leave the same way, evoking a sense of dream-like disorientation in the people who encounter them. Oh, and speaking of—they will invade your dreams as well.
How’s that for menacing?
It’s all in the book.
My experiences with the Men in Black have been of the spectral variety, in a library in North Carolina my team recently investigated over the course of two years, and on the road home from an investigation in Point Pleasant, WV—an MIB hotspot. The phenomena reported in this book—the clothes, the facial features, the menace, and in one instance violence (choking a spirit trying to intervene on our behalf)—were right in line with our experiences in the library. The mysterious appearance (out of thin air) of a 1974 Eisenhower Silver Dollar, two UFO sightings in tandem with MIB appearances, and our encounter with a hairy, fanged interdimensional deepened the mystery of our encounters with the phenomena that are the Men in Black.
The Black Diary provided some context and a reminder that we are not alone in what we’ve seen.
The MIB are insidious, and not to be messed with unless you know what you’re getting in to—and perhaps not even then. The documented experiences in The Black Diary, collected by Redfern between 2014 and 2017 but spanning decades, are necessary reading. At times they bring warnings to forget what you’ve seen and keep silent; at other times they seem as keen to investigate a site or sighting as you are; at others their behavior is so bizarre as to defy rationale explanation.
The Black Diary includes some of each and plenty more.
Here’s a final suggestion. If, when you start to read this book, the phone rings in the middle of the night with all 0s or 1s on the caller ID (as has happened to me after several investigations)—don’t pick up.
You can’t say you weren’t warned.
By Joey Madia
Embedded in the upper righthand cover of this book is a red and white warning label: “Just picking up this book invites them in.”
Given the publishing industry’s penchant for sexy marketing strategies, it might be easy to dismiss this warning label as more of the same—a clever ploy on the part of the publisher to grab your attention and get you to buy the book.
But I know better.
And that’s what this review is about.
First of all, Nick Redfern is one of the most respected and published authorities on the subject of the paranormal, and the enigmatic (Wo)men in Black. I have read several of his books, and, having spent the past nine years studying and experiencing the paranormal, I have no reason to question anything he reports in them. He mixes field experience, interviews, and extensive research into his work, in the kind of self-checking triangulation that many investigators could learn from.
Second, and even more important, I know several of the people whose stories are quoted at length in the pages of The Black Diary. I also know them to be solid, honest folk with a genuine interest in the paranormal. I have been privileged to do field investigations with some of them.
Third, and most important, I have experienced many of the phenomena discussed in this book.
The Black Diary couples Redfern’s experiences—ranging from hard-to-explain-away synchronicities to damage to his apartment to threatening phone calls—with firsthand accounts from people who have contacted him or whom Redfern has met during his extensive travel and interview schedule.
At the heart of this complex mystery of the (Wo)Men in Black (this is the third in a trio of books Redfern has published on the subject) is just who or what they are. This question has been asked by researchers of the paranormal for decades, including by Fortean researcher and journalist John Keel. Answers are slow to come.
If you are interested in these oddly dressed, oddly behaving, weird-looking entities who drive classic black cars and seem to be unfamiliar with modern technology and at times even the most fundamental of cultural ideas, The Black Diary is for you. The range of visitations and experiences is considerable—they can turn up anywhere at any time and disappear again as quickly, instilling fear and wreaking havoc in a matter of moments.
Right in line with the debate about nuts and bolts/flesh and blood versus ultraterrestrial phenomena (from UFOs to Bigfoot), the (Wo)Men in Black mystery is deepened by two age-old nagging questions: Who or What Are They? and What do They Want?
I doubt it’s all one thing. In some cases, military-industrial-intelligence complex misdirection and intimidation seems to be in play. In others, it seems like they’ve crossed into our plane through a portal or other dimensional door and leave the same way, evoking a sense of dream-like disorientation in the people who encounter them. Oh, and speaking of—they will invade your dreams as well.
How’s that for menacing?
It’s all in the book.
My experiences with the Men in Black have been of the spectral variety, in a library in North Carolina my team recently investigated over the course of two years, and on the road home from an investigation in Point Pleasant, WV—an MIB hotspot. The phenomena reported in this book—the clothes, the facial features, the menace, and in one instance violence (choking a spirit trying to intervene on our behalf)—were right in line with our experiences in the library. The mysterious appearance (out of thin air) of a 1974 Eisenhower Silver Dollar, two UFO sightings in tandem with MIB appearances, and our encounter with a hairy, fanged interdimensional deepened the mystery of our encounters with the phenomena that are the Men in Black.
The Black Diary provided some context and a reminder that we are not alone in what we’ve seen.
The MIB are insidious, and not to be messed with unless you know what you’re getting in to—and perhaps not even then. The documented experiences in The Black Diary, collected by Redfern between 2014 and 2017 but spanning decades, are necessary reading. At times they bring warnings to forget what you’ve seen and keep silent; at other times they seem as keen to investigate a site or sighting as you are; at others their behavior is so bizarre as to defy rationale explanation.
The Black Diary includes some of each and plenty more.
Here’s a final suggestion. If, when you start to read this book, the phone rings in the middle of the night with all 0s or 1s on the caller ID (as has happened to me after several investigations)—don’t pick up.
You can’t say you weren’t warned.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews