The Maury Island UFO Incident: The Story behind the Air Force’s first military plane crash (3 page)
Authors: Charlette LeFevre,Philip Lipson
Arnold would state there was no better person in all of United
Airlines to verify his story that we were not alone in the air than Capt.
Smith. Well regarded and respected, Capt. Smith’s sighting
was
verified by the entire crew of his DC-3. Arnold was so excited to meet
Capt. Smith that he forgot his guest Col. Paul Wieland who he had
gone fishing with earlier in the day and was waiting for him by his
airplane.
A piece of rock-like metal, alleged to have dropped from one of the
"Flying Saucers" which have been reported sighted from 38 American
States, arrived here (Chicago) today for analysis by metallurgists of
Chicago University. The sample was accompanied by one of the most
detailed accounts reported of the Airborne Discs. The Hindu Madras,
July 10, 1947.
Ray Palmer of Venture Press wrote to Kenneth Arnold:
“Dear (Mr. Arnold): Quite obviously you have been ribbed so
much you'd like to forget the flying saucers -- but I'd sure like to
have your personal story, your photo, pic of your plane, etc., as I
asked before. And you won't be made to look silly, because there's
more to this than the newspapers and the ‘experts’ have made of it.
Besides the articles, I have another proposition. You seem to get
around quite a bit, and if you can
make a trip
to
Tacoma,
Washington at all feasible, I'd be willing to pay expenses plus a nice
amount to make it worth your while.”
I'd want you to see (Mr. Harold A. Dahl), P.O. Box 154, Fern
Hill Station, Tacoma, and (Mr. Fred L. Crisman). Dahl, and two
other seamen, on a patrol near Maury Island, off Tacoma, saw six
discs, one in trouble, witnessed an explosion, saw falling stuff
which smashed their wheelhouse and searchlight and landed on the
beach.
They sent me a sample, which Chicago U has failed to
analyze. I want a picture of the beach and the stuff that landed
there (about twenty tons, they said).
And I want somebody who'll
get the truth. to find out if these boys are on the up and up. You
could do that.
I hope you will.
If agreeable, please write and
perhaps we can talk business. I think you'd like to prove this thing
too!
Anyway, I still want that article!
- FBI Report-August 4, 1947
Kenneth Arnold met Capt. William Davidson and 1
st
Lieut. Frank
Brown at Hotel Owyhee in Boise, ID.
Kenneth Arnold and Dave Johnson of The Idaho Statesman had been
requested to send in a complete written report of the sightings to the
commanding officer of Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH.
- Arnold, Davidson, and Brown met with Capt. Emil Smith.
Winthrop Hotel Tacoma, photo by CharletteLeFevre
July 29, Tuesday
5:30 am
- Kenneth Arnold left for
Tacoma to interview Harold Dahl.
On the way to Tacoma, Arnold
saw a formation of 20-25 brass
colored objects.
2:55 pm
- Dave Johnson Aviation
Editor of
the Idaho
Statesman
asked 1
st
Lt. Frank Brown
to
Investigate Palmer’s magazine
Venture “ as out of line for
present public interest in story”
–
FBI report, 1947
7:43 pm
- Arnold arrived in Tacoma after stopping at Barry’s airport
and checked into room 502 of the Winthrop Hotel. Arnold was trying
to confirm his registration, which mysteriously had already been made
in his name. Dahl informed Arnold he would be there in a half hour
and they talked for two hours.
9-10 pm
- Arnold and Dahl went to the home of Dahl's secretary.
Arnold recalled the secretary’s house was just about 10 minutes away
from the hotel.
Arnold recalled the house was on a corner.
“(Dahl) handed me a dark colored rock ash tray “here is one of the
fragments from Maury Island. We’ve been using it as an ashtray. I
remember saying, “Why Harold that’s only a piece of lava rock!
COS
p.38
Harold did not have any metal pieces at this residence but stated
Fred Crisman had a whole box full in his garage and offered to go over
to see it right away. Arnold declined to visit Crisman’s garage, as it was
likely late in the evening.
Note:
Dahl never attempted to take Arnold to his house; instead, they
went to a house used as an office by his secretary.
This is likely
because of a preceding incident a few weeks earlier with reporter Ernie
Vogel in which Dahl’s wife Helen was quite irate with her husband for
furthering a fabricated story to the extent of brandishing a knife on
Dahl. It is not likely that Dahl wanted a scene like that repeated again.
reporter interviewed Dahl:
“I went out to visit one of them (Dahl) and we sidled out on to the
back porch. His wife came out with a butcher knife and I thought she
was after me but she waved it under his nose and said ‘I’m tired of
being embarrassed by your lies. Tell the man the truth.
Herbert Strentz.
A Survey of Press Coverage of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1947-66 from the Journalism
Department of Northwestern University.1970.
Vogel stated that he went to the home of Harold Dahl on 3903 N.
Gove St. to check with him on this flying disc story. Vogel stated that
Dahl took him into the kitchen and proceeded to talk about this flying
disc story in low muffled tones.
He stated that Dahl acted rather
suspicious and that shortly his wife came into the kitchen and was in a
considerable rage telling Dahl to admit that the entire story was a plain
fantasy, which he had dreamed up. He stated that after his wife told
Dahl to admit the entire story was false, that Dahl then admitted that
there was nothing whatever to the story and it was an entire hoax.
Vogel stated that in view of the enraged condition of Dahl’s wife, he
immediately left and reported to the Seattle PI that the entire story was
a hoax and they should not print it in any way. He advised the PI that
Dahl was a mental case and that nothing which he had reported should
be carried as far as a news story.
- FBI Report August 19, 1947- p.3
- Dahl drove Arnold back to the hotel and made
arrangements to see Crisman in the morning.
July 30, Wednesday
9:30 am
- Crisman and Dahl visited Arnold in Room 502 Winthrop
Hotel – Arnold told Dahl and Crisman he was calling in Captain E.J.
Smith to help with the investigation.
Arnold asked Crisman
for some of the white metal as well as other
fragments he had stored in his garage.
am
– Paul Lantz met Arnold in the Winthrop hotel lobby and tried to
strike up a conversation and he came up to the room several times that
afternoon in attempts to get a story.
Arnold and Smith questioned
Lantz as to how he knew why they were there and his suspicion that it
had something to do with flying saucers.
At the time, Arnold and
Smith were suspicious of Crisman and Dahl leaking information.
Crisman and Arnold left the hotel and Crisman took Arnold to Barry’s
airport in Tacoma. Arnold flew to Seattle where he picked up Capt.
Smith.
3:00 pm
- Smith and Arnold arrived back in Tacoma and Arnold
parked his car at Barry’s airport.
Fred Crisman drove them to the
Winthrop hotel.
-
Meeting with Crisman Dahl, Smith, and Arnold at the
Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma.
Dahl related some bad luck situations including his sixteen-year-old
son
running away and that he had been
picked up
in Montana
following the visit of an intimidating man.
It appeared that Kenneth Arnold had formed a friendship with Smith
in an earlier meeting and by Arnold pulling Smith into this inquiry,
which was receiving so much attention from the news, it looked like a
partnership that could benefit both parties. Smith according to Arnold
would say, “Ken, whether you like it or not, you got a roommate. I’m
going to stay here until I found out what gives
!”
COS p.42
- Crisman drove Smith to Seattle to get his car, Dahl also left
the Winthrop hotel.
Smith returned to the Winthrop.
Paul Lantz tried to
interview.
– Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman arrived and came to meet
Arnold at the Winthrop.
Note:
Arnold and Smith’s unusual sightings formed somewhat of a
kinship.
Arnold by this time was calling Smith “Smithy” and their
partnership would reinforce each other’s stories.
Mo
rning-
Crisman and Dahl awoke Arnold and Smith.
Crisman
and Dahl had brought in more slag. Arnold, Smith, Dahl and Crisman
stepped out for breakfast at a “little working man’s café” in the lower
section of town. There they met Dahl’s work crew and although they
were not asked directly to verify Dahl’s story, a number of references
were made to the original sighting of Dahl on June 21
st
on Maury
Island and it appeared Arnold and Smith were satisfied with the
meeting making a note of the good food. After breakfast, Arnold took
movies of Crisman, Dahl, and Smith near their vehicles.
After breakfast Arnold, Smith, Crisman, and Dahl examined the
large amounts of slag in the hotel room.
“All of the pieces of the dark lava-like substance were perfectly smooth
on one side and slightly curved while the other side looked like it had
been subjected to terrific heat. The metal or lava was extremely heavy,
a little brass colored. Even a small piece of this dark metal, about the
size of a person’s hand and about an inch thick was quite a labor to lift
with one hand.”
It was suggested that these fragments could have been the lining to
some kind of power tube. When they lined up all the pieces, following
the curve of the smooth surface, they saw that they could have been a
lining of a tube of some kind about six feet in diameter.
Fred Crisman handed Arnold a piece of the “white metal.” It was very
light but no more so than the ordinary aluminum, which certain
sections of all large military aircraft are made of. “If this was truly the
light metal that Harold Dahl said was spewed from the strange aircraft
we knew or thought we knew that it was a fake. We had seen hundreds
of piles of this stuff in salvage dumps where surplus Army bombers
had been junked.”
“There was only one unusual thing about this white metal that made
us stop and wonder. On one piece that Crisman had handed us, we
could plainly see that two parts of it had been riveted. However the
rivets were not round, they were square and long rivets. I had never
seen that type of rivet used in the aircraft we manufacture. This piece
of metal did not correspond with Harold Dahl’s’ original description of
the extremely light white metal. “
COS p.47
Arnold related that he asked Crisman how he knew Ray Palmer.
Crisman would say he became acquainted through Venture Magazine,
which he purchased from the newsstands.
What Crisman did not
divulge was that the previous year he had written to Palmer about
being shot by strange beings in a Burma cave.
Arnold suggested they call in Military Intelligence Capt. Davidson
and 1
st
Lt. Brown as they had asked Arnold in a prior interview to call
or wire them if anything unusual came up.
Arnold thought if this
indeed was a hoax or story, an interrogation by the military would show
their hand.
Arnold called Lt. Frank Brown
collect
at
Fourth
Air Force,
Hamilton Field, California.
Oddly, Lt. Brown refused to take the call
collect but informed the operator to notify Arnold he would call back
immediately from an off base pay telephone. Arnold would state that
Lt. Brown had a distinct slow Southern drawl.
Upon the return phone call, Arnold informed Lt. Brown he was
inquiring into the story of a sighting at Maury Island and that he felt
neither Arnold nor Smith were capable of discerning the story as true
or a hoax.
11:30 am
– The first call by an anonymous informant was placed to
Tacoma Times Paul Lantz about a meeting taking place in Room 502
concerning disc fragments.
The anonymous person had initially called for reporter Burt McMurtrie
at the Tacoma Times, but McMurtrie was out and the call was taken by
reporter Paul Lantz.
called Arnold about
information other than he was on a "government mission"
FBI ReportCrisman 8/19/47)
the tip, but
Arnold gave McMurtrie
no