Men In Black

After graduating from the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene period, Manse Everard returns to the same hour in 1954 from which he had left, is congratulated by the man who had recruited him less than an hour before and is given a list of contemporary Patrol agents, several in military intelligence. The Patrol can divert any investigators who may be on their trail.

The powerful protect their secrets, whether those powerful are the ultra-rich, the CIA, Anderson's Time Patrol or SM Stirling's Shadowspawn etc. To answer my earlier question here, two Homeland Security suits tell two police detectives to bury their investigation into people whom we the readers know to be Shadowspawn.

I knew a guy who said that, as an RAF pilot, he saw a classic "flying saucer," then had "men in black" telling him that he had not seen it but he told tall tales and I do not believe him.

Morally, should the two police detectives bury the case? Will they? In the real world, what secrets are concealed by the rich and powerful? Conspiracy theorists assume the worst. Those assumptions fantastically reflect realities that are sometimes uncovered by investigative journalists, political biographers, modern historians etc. The truth is out there and can be found. Meanwhile, we enjoy the fiction and know the difference.