Maury Island: Washington State's Bowl of Crap.

Greetings. Washington state's bowl of crap, Maury Island. 

The Maury Island incident refers to debunked claims made by Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl in June of 1947. The men told of falling debris and threats by the "Men in Black" following sightings of unidentified flying objects in the skies over Maury Island, Washington, in the United States. The pair claimed that the events had occurred on June 21st of 1947. The incident is widely regarded as a hoax, even by believers of flying saucers and UFOs, although not by everyone in the UFO subculture. 

On August 1, two Air Force officers tasked with investigating the incident were killed when their aircaft crashed to the ground just outside of Kelso, Washington. Project Blue Book chief Edward J. Ruppelt characterized the story as "the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history."

On July 29, Kenneth Arnold interviewed Harold Dahl, pictured above, who reported the following, and I quote: "On June 21, 1947 in the afternoon about two o'clock, I was patrolling the east bay of Maury Island [...] I, as captain, was steering my patrol boat close to the shore of a bay on Maury Island. On board were two crewmen, my fifteen-year-old son and his dog. As I looked up from the wheel on my boat I noticed six very large doughnut-shaped aircraft." Dahl said that one of the objects "began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very light weight metal, fluttered to earth." According to Dahl, a substance resembling lava rocks fell onto their boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing their dog.

Dahl testified that his superior officer, Fred Crisman, pictured below, investigated the incident. Dahl also claimed he was later approached by a man in a dark suit and was told not to talk about the alleged event. Crisman, when interviewed, reported having recovered anomalous debris from Maury Island and having witnessed an unusual, unidentified craft.

Arnold first recruited Captain E.J. Smith of United Airlines, who had reported witnessing a flying disc on July 4. Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold and Capt. Smith, who interpreted the content as mundane and completely inconsistent with Dahl's description. Arnold then decided to contact Lieutenant Frank Brown of Military Intelligence, Fourth Air Force, Hamilton Field, California. Brown eventually arrived at Arnold's hotel in Tacoma along with Captain William L. Davidson. Capt. Davidson and Lieutenant Brown conducted interviews, collected fragments, and prepared for the return flight to California out of McChord Field. In the early hours of August 1, the B-25 Mitchell the two officers were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington, killing both men.

The FBI then began a formal investigation into Dahl and Crisman's claims, and quickly determined that they were false, noting that Dahl stated "if questioned by the authorities he was going to say it was a hoax because he did not want any further trouble over the matter." FBI files also detail a few alternate stories delivered by Crisman and Dahl to local newspapers and other media outlets, and conclude that the two men had contacted a variety of publications "in the hope of building up their story through publicity to a point where they could make a profitable deal with Fantasy Magazine, Chicago, Illinois." Self-promotional efforts, sounds like today's UFO subculture doesn't it?

Writing in 1956, Air Force officer Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the former head of Project Blue Book concluded, and I quote: "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history." Ruppelt observed, "The majority of the writers of saucer lore have played this sighting to the hilt, pointing out as their main premise the fact that the story must be true because the government never openly exposed or prosecuted either of the two hoaxers. This is a logical premise, but a false one. The reason for the thorough investigation of the Maury Island Hoax was that the government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men."

Despite the fact that the FBI quickly determined that the entire incident was a hoax, the tale has been retold numerous times. Gray Barker's 1956 book  "They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers," which helped to popularize the mythology of the "Men in Black," cited the supposed event. The debunked Majestic-12 documents also made reference to the story, claiming that the metal fragments were part of a nuclear reactor, and had been turned over to the CIA. In "The UFO Investigator's Handbook," published in 1999, Craig Glenday offers up the Maury Island incident and Arnold's own UFO sighting on June 24th as examples of notable UFO encounters in the area of Mount Rainier, which he describes as a "UFO laboratory." Some "researchers" of the UFO problem continue to entertain the validity of the Maury Island hoax. Embarrassing to say the very least.

Thank you for your time and consideration.