The Maury Island incident refers to claims made by Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl of falling debris and threats by men in black following sightings of unidentified flying objects in the sky over Maury Island in Puget Sound. The pair would later claim the events had occurred on June 21, 1947.
| 1947 flying disc craze |
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On June 24, 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/h). Arnold's report garnered nationwide news coverage and his description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs. [1] [2] Ten days later, Capt. E.J. Smith, his co-pilot, and a stewardess reported witnessing unidentified objects in the Pacific Northwest. [3]
After his story was publicized, Arnold was contacted by Raymond A. Palmer, editor of fringe/sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories . [4] Palmer relayed to Arnold the story of two harbor patrolmen in Tacoma who reportedly possessed fragments of a "flying saucer". [4] Palmer requested that Arnold fly to Tacoma to investigate, and on July 28, Palmer wired $200 to Arnold to fund the investigation. [4]
On July 29, Arnold interviewed Harold Dahl, who reported:
"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 " [4]
Dahl further claimed 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". Dahl reported that a substance resembling lava rocks fell onto their boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog. [4]
Dahl said his superior officer, Fred Crisman, investigated. Dahl also claimed he was later approached by a man in a dark suit and told not to talk about the incident. [5] Crisman, when interviewed, reported having recovered debris from Maury Island and having witnessed an unusual craft. [4]
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 Smith, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with Dahl's description. [4] Arnold then decided to contact Lt. Frank Brown of Military Intelligence, Fourth Air Force, Hamilton Field, California. [4] Brown arrived at Arnold's hotel in Tacoma along with Captain William L. Davidson. [4]
Davidson and Brown conducted interviews, collected fragments, and prepared for the return flight out of McChord. In the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the B-25 Mitchell they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington on their way back to California. [6]
The FBI then proceeded to investigate this case, and concluded that Crisman and Dahl's sightings were a hoax. In their files, they noted that Dahl stated that "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." The files also detail a few alternate stories communicated by Crisman and Dahl to local newspapers and other media outlets, and conclude that they 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." [7]
An FBI report concluded that the "Tacoma Harbor Patrol" was a company seeking to charge owners of vacation homes on the island for keeping an eye out on their properties during the owner's absence. [8]
Writing in 1956, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt concluded "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history." [9] 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. [9]
According to skeptical writer Joe Nickell, publisher Raymond A. Palmer, who is often credited with inventing the concept of the UFO, hired a "credulous" Kenneth Arnold to investigate "what is now known as the Maury Island Hoax". [1] The story was later retold in Gray Barker's 1956 book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers , which helped to popularize the image of "Men In Black" in mainstream culture. [10]
An account also appeared in the debunked Majestic 12 documents, which claim that the metal fragments were part of a nuclear reactor and that they were subsequently turned over to the CIA. [11] Craig Glenday also cited the Maury Island Incident, along with the Arnold sightings, in his 1999 book The UFO Investigator's Handbook as a notable UFO incident surrounding Mount Rainier, which he described as a "UFO laborator[y]." [12]
Dahl's story was told in the 2014 short film The Maury Island Incident. [13] [14]
In 2017, the Washington State Senate passed a resolution acknowledging the 70th anniversary of the incident. [15]
An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified aerialphenomenon (UAP), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UFOs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
UFO conspiracy theories are a subset of conspiracy theories which argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects are controlled by a non-human intelligence or built using alien technology. Such conspiracy theories usually argue that Earth governments are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrial visitors despite public disclaimers, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction.
Ufology is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins. While there are instances of government, private, and fringe science investigations of UFOs, ufology is generally regarded by skeptics and science educators as a canonical example of pseudoscience.
Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. The project, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was initially directed by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt and followed projects of a similar nature such as Project Sign established in 1947, and Project Grudge in 1948. Project Blue Book had two goals, namely, to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.
Kenneth Albert Arnold was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.
On January 7, 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, died in the crash of his P-51 Mustang fighter plane near Franklin, Kentucky, United States, after being sent in pursuit of an unidentified flying object (UFO). The event was among the most publicized early UFO incidents.
The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by extraterrestrial intelligence or non-human aliens, or non-occupied alien probes from other planets visiting Earth.
Fred Lee Crisman was a fighter pilot and later educator from Tacoma, Washington known for claims of paranormal events and ties to 20th century conspiracies.
Project Sign or Project Saucer was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) undertaken by the United States Air Force (USAF) and active for most of 1948. It was the precursor to Project Grudge.
Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) to investigate unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but continued in a minimal capacity until late 1999.
The Mariana UFO incident occurred in August 1950 in Great Falls, Montana. The film footage of the sighting is believed to be among the first ever taken of what came to be called an unidentified flying object. The footage was investigated by the U.S. Air Force, and initially found to be reflections from two F-94 jet fighters, which was later retracted.
This is a list of alleged UFO sightings in the United States.
A flying saucer is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has generally been supplanted since 1952 by the United States Air Force term unidentified flying objects. Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.
The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred on June 24, 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/h). This was the first post-World War II sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings over the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also led to the press quickly coining the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.
The Twin Falls saucer hoax was a hoaxed flying disc discovered in Twin Falls, Idaho, United States, on July 11, 1947. Amid a nationwide wave of alleged "flying disc" sightings, residents of Twin Falls reported recovering a 30 in (76 cm) "disc". FBI and Army officials took possession of the disc and quickly proclaimed the object to be a hoax. Press reported that local teenagers admitted to perpetrating the hoax.
The Coming of the Saucers is a 1952 book by original 'flying saucer' witness Kenneth Arnold and pulp magazine publisher Raymond Palmer. The book reprints and expands early articles the two had published in Palmer's Fate magazine. The work blends first-person accounts attributed to Arnold with third-person summations of UFO reports.
The Flight 105 UFO sighting occurred on July 4, 1947 when three crew members aboard a United Airlines flight reported seeing multiple unidentified objects in the skies over the Pacific Northwest. A week prior, private pilot Kenneth Arnold had reported seeing similar objects nearby -- a sighting that was followed by nearly 800 "copycat" reports during the summer of 1947. Four days after the Flight 105 sighting, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that they had recovered a "flying disc"; that statement was quickly retracted after the crashed object was identified as a conventional weather balloon. The following month, on July 29, an air crew flying the same route also reported unidentified objects.
The 1947 flying disc craze was a rash of unidentified flying object reports in the United States that were publicized in the summer of 1947. The craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold's story of witnessing disc-shaped objects which headline writers dubbed "Flying Saucers". Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands.
The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects is a 1956 book by then-retired Air Force UFO investigator Edward J. Ruppelt, detailing his experience running Project Bluebook. The book was noted for its suggestion that a few UFO sightings might be linked to spikes of atomic radiation. Contemporary media summarized four topics discussed in the book:
