In the immediate aftermath of Kenneth Arnold’s famous UFO sighting in June, 1947, a strange event occurred at Maury Island in the state of Washington, where a fisherman by the name of Harold Dahl claimed to have seen multiple unidentified aerial objects flying above him on the Puget Sound near the eastern coast of Maury Island.
After his story was publicized, Arnold was approached by editor of sci-fi magazine “Amazing Stories”, Raymond A. Palmer, and relayed to him the story of two harbour patrolmen who reportedly possessed fragments of a flying saucer, and requested Arnold to fly over and lead an investigation.
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.”
Dahl further claimed that one of the crafts fell nearly 1,500 feet and “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 also reported that some of the metallic debris which resembled lava rocks fell upon them and injured his son, Charles, on his arm, as well as the family dog, who didn’t survive the ordeal.
Dahl was able to take some pictures of the aircraft with his camera, and showed them to his supervisor, Fred Crisman, who went back to the scene and witnessed this strange aircraft with his own eyes.
The following morning, Dahl was visited by a man dressed in black, and ended up at a local diner, where he told Dahl not to speak of the incident, otherwise bad things would happen.
According to Gary Barker, author of 1956 book ‘They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers’, the man in black recounted in extraordinary details what Dahl had experience, and told him: “What I have said is proof to you that I know a great deal more about this experience of yours than you will want to believe.”
Further during his investigation, Arnold contacted Army Air Corp Intelligence Officers Capt. William L. Davidson and 1st Lieutenant. Frank M. Brown, who had interviewed Dahl about his sighting, collected the metallic debris and prepared to fly back to the Air Force Base. According to press reports, the two officers lost their lives when the B-25 Bomber they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington.
The FBI then proceeded to investigate the case and concluded that Dahl and Crisman sightings were a hoax. In their files, they noted 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.” The files also detailed a few alternate stories communicated by Crisman and Dahl to local newspapers and other media outlets “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.”
