The Maury Island UFO Incident

The Maury Island UFO Incident

The Story behind the Air Force’s First Plane Crash.

The classic case with new discoveries and new photos on modern day UFOlogy’s first UFO incident.

By Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore

1st Edition Published 2014

ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1493674961 ISBN-10: 149367496X

Copyright

The Maury Island UFO Incident © 2014, Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson Self published, Seattle, WA Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore 501(c) 3 educational nonprofit www.northwestlegendsmuseum.com seattlemysterymuseum@gmail.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material unless under fair use is prohibited. without express written permission from the authors.

Cover: Longview Daily News, Aug. 1, 1947 Illustrations by Charlette LeFevre

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the military’s first UFO Investigators who lost their lives investigating and protecting evidence, Capt. William L. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown and Paul Lantz - a true investigative reporter who asked the tough

Capt. Davidson

questions.

1st Lt. Brown Paul Lantz

“The report of the investigation of this incident, the Maury Island

Mystery, was one of the most detailed reports of the early UFO era…and the Maury Island Mystery was never publicly solved”…

– Edward J. Ruppelt, former head of the U.S. Air Force Project Blue The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. 1956.

Acknowledgement and Thanks to:

Robert Davenport

Rod Dyke

Steve Edmiston

Elmer Frombach

James Greear and Dorene

Dr. Larry Haapanen

Scott Schaefer

William Shortley

Kenn Thomas

John White

and the many families and friends of the figures involved and those that have supported the open case investigation.

Maury Island, King County Library

Map of Maury Island

Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown watched closely as the lights from the airfield glinted off the rivets of the B-25 bomber in the night air as the locked metal box scraped the bottom of the plane floor.

It was so heavy; it took two men to lift the box into the front. The light also caught the eyes of the guards who had been protecting the plane - eyes that were just a bit wider because they knew that whatever was being loaded was top secret and likely held new technology, foreign and unexplained.

And that created fear. McChord Field was on edge.

All that night at the base, the guards were whispering about unusual craft sightings that had happened in the weeks prior. They couldn’t help notice all the newspapers were giving it front page coverage and the reporters were hounding them for more information. Reports of UFOs included pilot Kenneth Arnold seeing nine discs in formation over nearby Mt. Rainier that had made International News.

Index

Forward..................................................... pg. 7

Forward by Dr. Larry Haapanen .......... pg. 8

The Incident............................................. pg. 9

Capt. William Davidson ......................... pg. 41 1st Lieut. Frank M Brown....................... pg. 44 Paul Lantz................................................. pg. 45 Kenneth Arnold ..................................... pg. 48 Harold Dahl ............................................ pg. 52 Fred Crisman .......................................... pg. 56 Raymond Palmer..................................... pg. 66 Ted Morello ............................................. pg. 69 Sgt .Elmer Taff ........................................ pg. 70 Sgt. Woodrow Mathews......................... pg. 71 Mysterious Informant ........................... pg. 71 Rediscovery of the Crash Site ............... pg. 74 The Slag ................................................... pg. 79 Newspaper Articles .............................. pg. 87 Theories .................................................... pg. 93 Still a Mystery........................................... pg. 101 Bibliography............................................. pg. 102 About the Authors.................................. pg. 106

Forward

by Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson

The Maury Island UFO Incident is a mysterious case with a series of events spanning several months in the summer of 1947 in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. The mystery for the most part has remained one of the lesser-known UFO cases in UFOlogy even though it is as complex and as well documented as the Roswell UFO mystery.

The Maury Island sighting occurred two weeks before Roswell and involved three facets. The first facet involved an account by Harold Dahl of UFOs seen over Maury Island, the second Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of UFOs over Mt. Rainier and the third, the tragic crash of a B-25 Bomber and the deaths of two military intelligence officers. This book focuses on the crash site of the B-25 Bomber, a first ever interview with a local who was first on the scene, a newly discovered news photo of the crash site believed to be the only photo available of what would be historically become the Air Force’s first plane crash and new photos and news articles discovered.

The mystery of what actually was seen has only grown over the years. Now over 65 years since the incident, one would think the mystery has gone “cold,” or long forgotten but we believe to the contrary as for decades questions have gone unanswered. The incident was dismissed perhaps too readily as a hoax alongside the tragedy of the death of two military officers in the crash. Yet recent news articles found in the basements of libraries have given new insight and family members today are more open and talking about their families thus shedding some light on the incident.

We have strived to make the accounts and stories related in this book as accurate as possible regarding the history of what we consider one of the Northwest’s greatest mysteries in the hopes that one day more light will be shed on what really happened or that it will be solved. At the very least, we hope these reports give some recognition to the former investigators and investigative journalists by connecting a face to a name and relating their efforts and to those that dared to ask questions in search of the truth.

We have relied upon FBI files, newspaper articles, and first hand reports including Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer’s Coming of The Saucers. Our hope is that this is the most comprehensive and accurate report of The Maury Island Incident available.

– Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson

Directors Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore

Foreward

by Dr. Larry Haapenen

In 1947, the term “flying saucer” (later to be supplanted by Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO) emerged as part of the everyday vocabulary of Americans. While many people today may associate the so-called “Roswell crash” in New Mexico with that first year of the modern UFO era, it was Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of UFO’s near Mount Rainier, Washington, that truly started it all, and quick on the heels of that sighting came the bizarre story of the Maury Island incident, told by two self-styled “harbor patrolmen,” that drew in Arnold himself and ultimately resulted in the death of two Army Air Force intelligence officers, Capt. William Davidson and Lieut. Frank Brown.

I would personally like to salute Davidson and Brown as the tragic heroes of the story, as those two intrepid airmen were the first UFO investigators for the 4th Air Force headquartered at Hamilton Field, California. Twenty years later I was one of the last UFO investigators for the Fourth Air Force, serving as Base UFO Project Officer at Kingsley Field, Oregon, from the Autumn of 1967 to the end of 1969, when the U.S. Air Force discontinued Project Blue Book. It was during that time that I became interested in the colorful career of Fred Lee Crisman, one of the principal characters in the Maury Island story, and I have continued that interest ever since. When I met Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson in 2007, I found them to be enthusiastic researchers who were energetically pursuing and impartially sifting through the facts about the Maury Island incident. This book is the result of their efforts. It presents new evidence and new analysis, and every reader will find it intriguing and informative.

Larry Haapanen, Ph.D. Lewiston, Idaho

January 10, 2013

The Maury Island UFO Incident June 1947

Early June - Dahl and Crisman stated that in the early part of June they sent a publisher, Ray Palmer some rock formations they found on Maury Island. (FBI Seattle Report, August 7, 1947)

Dahl’s sighting, June 1947, illustration by Charlette LeFevre

June 21, Saturday

2:00 pm off Maury Island The story goes, Harold Dahl was patrolling the East bay of Maury Island close in to the shore in Puget Sound Washington.

“I as captain was steering my patrol boat. On board were two crewmen, my fifteen year old son, and his dog.” Dahl claimed to have witnessed six doughnut shaped aircraft about 2000 feet above the water. Five of these aircraft were circling around the sixth one, which was stationary.

“It appeared to me that the center aircraft was in some kind of trouble as it was losing altitude fairly rapidly. The other aircraft stayed at a distance of about two hundred feet above the center one as if they were following the center one down. The center aircraft came to rest almost directly overhead at about five hundred feet above the water.” COS p.31

The aircraft had no motors or propellers and made no sound. The aircraft were about 100 feet in diameter. Each had a hole in the center about 25 feet in diameter. They were “shell like gold and silver” color. Dahl would explain that they saw no motors, or any visible sightings of propulsion and to the best of their hearing made no sound. The surface appeared to be burled metal and was brilliant like “a Buick dashboard” All of the aircraft seemed to have large five to six feet round portholes equally spaced around the outside of their donut exterior. The craft also appeared to have dark, circular continuous window on the inside and bottom of the craft. Dahl said he took three or four photographs. The center aircraft began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which were later described as a white type of very light metal, fluttered to earth, most of them lighting in the bay. The white metal was followed by tons of hot black lava-like rock into the water, which created steam upon hitting the water. The falling slag is said to have wounded Dahl’s son Charles and killed his dog. Charles was taken to a local hospital in Tacoma for first aid and the dog’s body was buried at sea on their return trip.

Dahl tried to pick up several pieces of the metal and found them very hot. Dahl and the crewmen loaded a number of pieces of the metal and newspaper type slag aboard the boat. The wheelhouse on the boat was reported damaged.

Later that day Dahl related his experience to his supervisor Fred Crisman who he called his “superior officer.” Crisman said he would investigate the beach. Dahl judged that at least twenty tons of the debris had fallen in the water and on the beach at Maury Island.

Note: There is a discrepancy between Kenneth Arnold’s timeline and the FBI files. This book follows the FBI timelines as they had additional statements from other persons.

June 22, Sunday

7:00 am - Harold Dahl claimed to have been paid a visit at his home with what we would call a “Man-in-Black...” The man “wore a black suit, was of medium height.” He had been driving a new “1947 Buick sedan.” The man invited him to a nook breakfast cafe in the “uptown section” of Tacoma and began to relate in “great detail” the experience that

Harold and his crew had seen as if he had been there himself. The man made strong not-so-veiled threats and told Dahl he and his crew “had made an observation that shouldn’t have happened” and that “if he loved his family and didn’t want anything to happen to his general welfare, he would not discuss his experience.” Dahl would later relate he didn’t put much stock in what this fellow said and didn’t intend to keep his experience a secret later discussing the event with other seamen at the pier.

Crisman claimed to have gone out to Maury Island, seen the bizarre white and black material, and collected samples himself. Crisman also claimed to have seen one of the disks himself come out of a cloudbank.

June 24, Tuesday

3:00 pm Kenneth Arnold, a pilot who ran a fire equipment business took off from Chehalis Washington on a “clear as crystal” day on his way to Yakima. Arnold would state he wasn’t in the air more than two or three minutes when he saw a bright flash catch his attention. He next observed over the North face of Mt Rainier “a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from North to South” at approximately 9,500 ft. for over two and a half minutes. Arnold assumed they were at first were jet planes but would change his mind when he estimated their speed between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams at 1,200mph. Arnold was extremely curious, as he had never seen planes fly so close to the mountaintops and aircraft with no tails. Arnold observed this formation dipping and changing their course slightly but essentially keeping the same elevation in a formation similar to that of a flock of geese “in a diagonal chain like line.”

As the formation approached Mt. Rainier, Arnold was able to observe the disk outlines against the snow quite plainly and estimated the chain of disks to be five miles long. With the disks at about twenty to twenty - five miles from Arnold and at the same elevation, Arnold had a clear line of sight to the UFOs.

Notes:

Arnold would later relate the reason he was flying near Mt. Rainier is he had been looking for a downed C-46 Marine Transport plane that went missing Dec. 10, 1946. It is believed that the C-46 Marine Transport plane crashed on Mt. Rainier with 32 men aboard and there was a $5,000 reward for finding the wreck. Eventually it was found July 21st, 1947. The Marine transport would be later mentioned by a mysterious informant as having been sabotaged.

Arnold would also write in his first accounting of this sighting that he openly invited an investigation by the Army and the FBI “as to the authenticity of my story or a mental and physical evaluation as to my capabilities, I received no interest from these two important protective forces of our country until two weeks after my observation.” I Did See The Flying Disks. Fate Magazine, Vol. 1, #1.1948.

July 1947

Frank Ryman’s photo of a UFO

July 4, Saturday

Frank Ryman sighting.

US Coast Guardsman Frank Ryman of Seattle had a UFO sighting and his resulting photo of a UFO would catch the attention of news and later Kenneth Arnold and Capt. E.J.Smith.

“Yeoman Frank Ryman, off duty from his job with Coast Guard public relations, said he saw a shiny disc flying across the Seattle skies. Ryman rushed into his home in Lake City Washington, at that time outside the Seattle city limits in King County.

“I grabbed my Speed Graphic (press camera) and field glasses and ran back outside,” the 26-year-old told the Seattle P-I. “The disc came over about 9,000 or 10,000 feet. It was flashing brilliant silver in the sun.

The picture, he said, was taken while the disc was directly overhead. He used Super-XX film, a 1/50 shutter speed with an f 22 lens opening.

“There was no noise,” he said, adding he watched it with binoculars. “No sound of engines. And I am positive there were no wings or fins in sight. It definitely was not a plane.”

After spotting the object and talking with neighbors, Ryman called the Post-Intelligencer and rushed to the newspaper’s darkroom at Sixth Avenue and Wall Street.

“Enlarged many times the disc showed up clearly as a slightly blurred whitish object,” the newspaper’s account read.” -McNerthney, Casey. UFO frenzy was sparked here 65 years ago; Seattle PI, June 27, 2012

National wire photo of Captain E.J. Smith, Kenneth Arnold, and First Officer Ralph Stevens reviewing Ryman’s photo, July 5, 1947

July 5, Sunday

Arnold first met Capt. E.J. Smith regarding Smith’s own sighting on July 4th. Locating the Seattle

offices of the International News Service in Seattle after landing at Boeing field, Arnold was escorted into a room where Capt. Smith and his co-pilot Ralph Stevens were reviewing a UFO photo taken by Frank Ryman. Capt. Smith and Ralph Stevens had taken off from Boise in their DC-3 and had observed nine disks flying in a loose formation. They called stewardess Martie Morrow to the cockpit and she saw them also. The pilots and stewardess observed the formation for over ten minutes as the formation seemed to take off at tremendous speed and observed at one point where three of the disks clustered together and the fourth flying some distance away.

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.

July 8, Tuesday

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.

July 22, Tuesday

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

July 22, Tuesday

Kenneth Arnold met Capt. William Davidson and 1st 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.

9:30 pm - Arnold, Davidson, and Brown met with Capt. Emil Smith.

Winthrop Hotel Tacoma, photo by Charlette LeFevre

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 1st 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.

In early June on a Sunday Evening, Ernie Vogel a United Press 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

12:00 am midnight- 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.

4:30 pm -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

5:00 pm - Crisman drove Smith to Seattle to get his car, Dahl also left the Winthrop hotel.

7:30 pm Smith returned to the Winthrop. Paul Lantz tried to interview.

9-10 pm – 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.

July 31, 1947 Thursday

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 21st 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 1st 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)

Sometime thereafter reporter Burt McMurtrie the tip, but Arnold gave McMurtrie no

3:30 pm – Arnold and Capt. Smith discussed airplanes and fishing with Crisman and Dahl for the next hour.

Elevators at the Winthrop Hotel Tacoma, photo by Charlette LeFevre

Ted Morello called and again mentioned he had received a call from the mysterious informant from a payphone who was limiting the conversation time to fifteen or twenty seconds. Morello had him on the other line and asked Arnold to count noses in his hotel room. Morello said it was the same person and voice that had been calling him for the last two days. This discounted Dahl or Crisman as suspects of the mysterious informant.

Paul Lantz called a few minutes after Ted Morello asking for an interview and Arnold gave the phone to Smith who promptly hung up. Lantz came and knocked on the door and Smith frisked him to the shock of Lantz and ushered him back into the hallway informing him whatever they were doing was none of his business.

Harold Dahl gave Arnold and Smith his phone number and said something like Crisman would be able to take care of everything as far as his part went and left the hotel. Capt. Smith invited Crisman downstairs Arnold believed for a private conversation.

4:30 pm- Brown and Davidson arrived at the Winthrop Hotel.

The B-25 Bomber that Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Brown flew in was serviced with 200 gallons of fuel. Having two new engines recently installed it was an updated plane and by all appearances in fine working condition although on July 24th the B-25 was test flown for one hour by Capt. Pesik Test Pilot who reported “the hydraulic pressure was too low” but was corrected on July 29th.

Sgt. Woodrow Mathews, a passenger that was going to fly back to Hamilton Field with Davidson and Brown made an exterior inspection of the aircraft, which included checking all the exhaust stacks. He would state in his Air Force testimony that “the plane was scheduled for Long Beach previously but they changed the schedule.” Sgt. Mathews also related there was nothing abnormal in the first 40 minutes of the plane flight.

4:30-7:00 pm - Crisman related Dahl’s Story. 7:00 pm-Davidson showed Arnold privately a photo of a Phoenix, AZ sighting the day before.

Crisman handed Davidson and Brown some of the fragments that were lying in a pile on the floor. There were 25-30 pieces. When they offered (Brown and Davidson) pieces of the fragments from the room to take them with them, they were just not interested. Neither did they seem a bit enthusiastic about the box of fragments Fred Crisman had gone to get.

Near Midnight - Crisman told Brown and Davidson that he would go home and get a box of the fragments and would bring them down immediately so they could take them to Hamilton Field.

Smith stated to the FBI that Brown asked Smith in confidence to take a look at fragments when they visit Maury Island and he would contact him the next day to see what he thought and if it was of interest, they would return immediately. This request might have explained why Davidson and Brown were not very interested in returning to Hamilton Base with slag fragments.

“Just as the army command car pulled up in front of the hotel, Fred Crisman arrived. He started taking a large Kellogg cornflakes box out of the trunk of his car. We assumed it was the fragments. Arnold helped Crisman unload this box from the trunk of the command car and put it in. Arnold could see the top of the box flapping open. Inside the box were a great number of large chunks of material that looked similar to the fragments we had in our room. Somehow, though they looked more rocky and less metallic. All of the pieces I could see were much thicker than any of the pieces we saw in our room.” -COS p.56

After Midnight - After Capt. Davidson and Brown left, Crisman, Arnold, and Smith went out for coffee and donuts. Crisman left for home. Arnold noted that Crisman said he wasn’t married, but according to public records Crisman had married Filo Veristain in 1942 and they were living together in 1947.

Ted Morello called after they had returned to the hotel room and insisted Arnold and Smith deny or confirm information that had taken place in the room. Arnold handed the phone to Smith who hung up. Arnold would relate that they had previously agreed to not discuss information with the media and perhaps now felt more comfortable that this investigation was turned over to the military.

Arnold related in his book that Capt. Smith in the tub or upon retiring sang a leaky faucet song that was nationally popular at the time. (The song was likely “Bloop Bleep,” sung by Danny Kaye about a man tossing and turning to a leaky faucet, a surprise hit from Frank Loesser.)

Bloop, bleep, bloop, bleep, bloop, bleep The faucet keeps a-drippin’ and I can’t sleep Bleep, bloop, bleep, bloop, bloop, bloop, bleep I guess I never should’ve ordered clam soup…

Notes: Why was the B-25 Bomber flight plan changed from Long Beach to Hamilton field?

Could the metal pieces been from the wreckage of a plane that was secretly dumping slag from Hanford Nuclear Plant in Central Washington?

In the book “What Happened in Room 502?”, it’s stated that Crisman had given Arnold the idea of making a short film of the entire trip and cash in on his name to make a lecture tour with it. Crisman had informed Arnold about a Hollywood production company who had come into Tacoma last December, filmed for ten days, and made a full travelogue of the city and surroundings. Arnold would later claim his film was stolen. It is believed though that due to a later interview Arnold had made an agreement with Palmer at one time that Palmer would have the rights to the book and Arnold would retain movie rights.

August 1, 1947 Friday

12:00- 2:00 am - Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Brown left the Winthrop Hotel to return to Hamilton Air Force Base in California. Passengers Technical Sgt. Woodrow D. Mathews and T4 Elmer L. Taff joined them. – FBI Report, SAC Wilcox, 1947

2:12 am -Takeoff “Approximately 25 minutes later the left engine caught fire, the left wing came off and the aircraft crashed into a wooded area”.- John A. Walring, Police Patrolman, Longview Police Station

2:35 am Kelso Patrolman John A.Walring saw the B-25 bomber on fire and witnessed the crash.

“I was on duty the morning of August 1, 1947 and was cruising in my police car at about 2:35 in Longview, Washington when I looked up and saw airplane lights flying at approximately 21,000 feet. I noticed then it caught on fire again engulfing the whole airplane. It appeared then the pilot pulled the airplane up and seemed to go into a spin and lost altitude. The airplane came out of the spin, and started to corkscrew down and crashed straight into the ground. When the airplane pulled out of the first spin, he seemed to hold the airplane down to gain speed so others could get out. As he was pulling out of the dive the airplane rolled and the red light was visible above the flames at all times circling in a wide arc. The airplane was at about 8000 or 9000 feet when he started to cork screw out of control. I’ve had experience as a civilian pilot and have seen a Corsair and B-26 crash and a B-25 crash in the Marshall Islands. All three of these accidents occurred at night.

“It is the opinion of the accident board that an exhaust stack either burned or fell off exhausting flame into the engine cowl creating engine fire.

“After leveling off at 10,000 feet on course Sgt. Mathews observed sparks flying over the bomb bay and believed the source to be the junction box and the main hydraulic reservoir in the bomb bay. Immediately thereafter the pilot called the engineer’s attention to the left engine which was on fire.”

According to the flight engineer’s statement, flames were first seen emitting from the power section on the outboard side of the left engine.

The fire extinguisher to the left engine was operated and the mixture control and fuel shut-off valves were cut off.

The fire was next observed burning through the cowl flaps. Upon receiving the pilot’s order to abandon the aircraft, the flight engineer secured all the chutes for the crew, helped the pilot, co-pilot, and passenger fasten the parachutes to their harnesses, and then followed the passenger out of the aircraft.

Lt. Brown quickly told Sgt. Taff how to pull the rip cord when he was sure he was clear of the ship and actually forcibly shoved him out of the plane into the night.” Taff related a good ten minutes had elapsed between the time he parachuted out at 10,000 ft. until the fire reached serious proportions and the plane started to dive.

Woodrow D. Mathews, crew chief of the bomber reported helping Davidson and Brown into their parachutes and that at the time he jumped, flames from the blazing left engine were pouring into the cockpit. It was reported that Brown was “standing in the aisle ready to leave the plane “when Mathews himself jumped out.

Brown was found outside the plane 50 yards away at the crash site with his parachute harness on. Matthews related that the only reason he could see that the officers did not get out was that the left wing might have crumpled, trapping them in the plane.

T/4 Woodrow D. Mathews, crew chief of the bomber who put the parachute on Sgt. Taff saving his life was proposed for the Soldier’s Medal.

The aircraft crashed at approximately an 80 degree angle into a heavily wooded area and exploded upon contact with the ground The outer panel of the left wing was found intact approximately 500 yards from the main point of impact.

The wreckage was confined to an area approximately 150 long by 100 wide. - Air Rescue Service Final Report, McChord Field, Tacoma Washington, Aug. 4, 1947

3:30 am - Seattle airway Traffic Control reported aircraft crash. State police were investigating.

3:32 am - Air Force requested Portland Airway contact with Army

131c, the only Army aircraft in vicinity, on Channels “C” and “O” VHF. Channel “A” at Portland was inoperative”

3:39 am Portland Airways advised that Portland Tower reported crash to be B-25.

3:41 am Air Force called Chief of Police in Kelso Washington. Office advised aircraft crashed at 02:35am. State Police and Kelso Police are searching.

3:42 am Portland Tower reported that Chief of Police in Kelso stated that crash was still burning.

4:19 am Chief of Police Kelso reported crash and location. “Aircraft crashed, burst into flames, and burned rapidly.

5:00 am Captain Manschneider advised he had contacted Maj. Sanders, McChord Information Officer and is handling press releases.

5:15 am – Seattle Airway Traffic control called for cross check of available information.

5:25 am - Chief of Police, Kelso calls McChord and reported no luck in finding aircraft.

5:45 am Hamilton Flight Service requested passenger list as filed with Base Operations Office.

6:32 am Sheriff at Kelso WA called AF with latest information. The AF requested that no information be released to the press by either the Sheriff’s office or the Kelso Police Dept.

8-9:20 am- Arnold and Smith informed of Crash.

Crisman called Arnold to inform him of a plane crash that he had just heard over the radio. Smith stated to the FBI that it was approximately 8am. Crisman believed it was the B-25 bomber the one Davidson and Brown were flying. “Did you hear over the radio this morning that a B-25 exploded and crashed some twenty minutes after take-off from McChord Field about 1:30 this morning? I think you and I know who was aboard that plane._ COS p,58 Arnold remembered Capt. Smith was ready to take a bath and came out of the tub still wet on hearing news of the crash. Smith grabbed the phone and heard Crisman repeat the information. Arnold commented that Capt. Smith became quite pale after listening to Crisman. Capt. Smith called McChord and verified the crash but no other details.

Arnold turned on the radio but the news by then had passed the news of the crash.

Smith called Morello and said he would stop by his office after the AF contacted them.

Crisman came to the hotel.

Call to Palmer - Arnold called Palmer to say he wanted out of this situation and investigation. Arnold offered to give back the $200 expense money and drop the story. Arnold felt the plane crash and the two lives lost had a direct connection to the Maury Island sighting. Palmer told Arnold to keep the money and that it would probably be best to drop the investigation. Palmer warned Arnold and Smith not to carry any of the fragments aboard his plane and suggested that if we wanted to keep any to mail them to ourselves or to him. He advised him to prevent Smith from taking any fragments. Smith, standing by and listening, got the impression that the editor was no longer interested in the story after hearing about the crash and angrily took the phone from Arnold and shouted to Palmer that this was a serious situation and that the editor better “shed some light” on the matter. Ken Arnold took the receiver back. Crisman also wanted to speak to Palmer and was “jockeying for the phone.” “I’ll substantiate it! “ I’ll give him the facts!” What Happened in Room 502? Arnold handed the phone to Crisman who Arnold would write that Crisman wanted to assure Palmer the B-25 had crashed. Ray Palmer would later state he recognized the voice and was positive that it was the same voice that had called him long distance on the occasions from various parts of the country. Arnold had been lucky to reach Palmer as that day was Palmer’s birthday.

Call to Chicago - Smith then called reporter Maurice Roddy, an aviation editor for the Chicago Times and personal friend of Smith, and told Roddy the story of what had occurred. Roddy expressed interest but said that without confirmation from the AAF they couldn’t do much. Smith had just hung up when a Colonel from McChord Field called and asked if they would be available later for questioning. The Colonel confirmed the room number and hung up.

Also, that morning, Col. Gregg of McChord Field called Arnold's room and asked, "that Arnold, Smith, Crisman, and Dahl submit their addresses to Hamilton Field for convenience of any Army investigation of the incident which may be forthcoming.”

11 am-noon – The second of five anonymous calls was placed to Tacoma Times reporter Paul Lantz and advised that there had been a big meeting in 502, that the B-25 was carrying disc fragments and that “McChord Field officials had stated it was shot down or sabotaged. Lantz then went to the Winthrop to see if the anonymous caller was the hotel’s switchboard operator and then went to Arnold’s room where Arnold could provide no additional information.

Staying at the Hotel for Lunch - Given the aspect that Arnold and Smith had to be reached for questioning they decided to have lunch at the hotel where they were joined by Dahl.

During the lunch, Dahl said something to the effect that “You two have nothing to worry about.” This reminded Smith of what Brown had said the night previously, and seemed to him to link Dahl to the bugging of Room 502 and the anonymous calls. – Room 502 It is likely lunch took a somber tone with thoughts of what would happen to them. Arnold and the others could imagine everything from loss of their jobs, prison sentences involved with this event, conspiracy to commit fraud, sabotage, and loss of Government Property, charges or implication in murder…

At one point, Smith excused himself from the table and attempted to make a call to an acquaintance, FBI agent Bobbitt of the Portland Field office. Bobbitt was unavailable and it appears Smith did not attempt to again contact the FBI office.

3:30 pm Tacoma Times reporter Paul Lantz called Arnold to gain some information but Arnold declined.

The Note under the door – All four were back in the hotel room 502 when an envelope was pushed silently under the door. Both Crisman and Dahl turned white until Arnold picked it up and read the letter. It was a notice from the management that there was an imminent strike of the “Cooks, Waitresses and Bartender’s Union, Local 61, AF of L” at the hotel. No meals or room services would be provided and the switchboard would only be open for emergency calls. The strike was scheduled for that day Friday at midnight but staff would work until the end of shift Sat. 7am. Only essential service would be provided by management. For safety reasons, the elevators would not be in service. Arnold became annoyed and phoned the desk and asked to speak with the manager. “We’re expecting important calls here, it may relate to national security.” Arnold eventually came to some kind of arrangement with the hotel desk. The clerk assured Arnold that military call would go through.

The tone of the room was strained so Dahl and Crisman left and decided to put the boat trip off until the military had contacted them.

5:30pm – The third of five calls by anonymous informant placed to United Press Wireman (Ted Morello). Caller stated the B-25 that crashed was carrying disc fragments and that McChord Field and officers were Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown, A-2 Intelligence officers. (before names were officially released).

Caller stated that the Army would verify his information was accurate, as the Army had not released the names. Caller said fragments were top-secret material. - FBI Report 8/19/47.

6:45 pm - Fourth of five calls by anonymous informant to UP Ted Morello. Informant again would state B-25 was definitely shot down and that if asked, the Army Intelligence Officers would not deny it. Morello thought the informant said to contact Colonel Guys but it was discovered it was Colonel Gregg who was in charge of Army Intelligence A-2. Civilians and the sheriff had been kept away from the wreckage with the army guarding it.

Arnold and Smith had dinner inside the hotel. Upon returning to their room, they checked the desk where they had a phone call from Ted Morello. Smith called Morello back at the room and they contacted him at KMO, a Tacoma radio station that Morello was associated with. Morello refused to talk with Smith until he had left the room and called from a pay phone. Smith did this but thought Morello was being overly theatrical.

“You’ll change your tune when you hear this,” said Morello. “I had another one of those anonymous calls. He said he had proof that the B-25 had been followed shortly after takeoff from McChord, and was downed by a 20mm cannon. It also said that both you and that private flier, Arnold, had similar attacks, but both missed somehow. Also that the January 26 crash, remember, Grace Moore and some Crown Prince (Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, second in line to the Swedish throne) and the May 29 one at La Guardia were done the same way. Now I phoned the FBI on this – had to—and they told me it was probably some nut, and not to broadcast it. Room 502

Smith talked a bit with Morello and hung up, then returned to 502. Before he talked to Arnold, they went into the bathroom and turned on all the taps as a precaution – a procedure now that did not seem at all theatrical.

10:45 pm - Arnold and Smith went to bed.

Aug. 2, 1947 Saturday

Arnold and Smith woke up to an early call from Maurice Roddy at the Tribune in Chicago. The Tribune was preparing a story on Venture Press including Maury Island and the B-25 crash, was looking to interview General Spaatz or Brig. General Schramm. Smith explained he couldn’t comment until he received the military questions. When Smith ended the phone call, he informed Arnold that Venture Press was a personal sideline of Ray Palmer with its latest claim to fame of finding the “long-lost Jesse James.”

Arnold started to worry and called his brother in Boise asking him to visit their mother and explain that he might be in some news story but not to worry. Arnold next phoned a cable to his wife Doris that everything was ok and he would come home soon. Smith heard the wire being phoned in and asked perhaps as a cautionary procedure where Western Union was located. Arnold gave him the address of South 10th and Smith wrote it down.

Arnold ran out of cigarettes and walked down to the lobby to get some more. He bought an Amazing Stories at the newsstand, which featured “The Star Kings.”

The picket lines had started from the AF of L local and they were lined up all along Broadway and Commerce St. with just a skeleton crew on 9th. One staffer said “Sorry about this, sir.”

The desk man mentioned they are asking all guests who remain to make their own beds.”

Upon returning to the room and relaxing Smith and Arnold were briefly surprised when they heard on the radio Fred Crisman mentioned on the local Veteran’s program.

Smith called McChord but was informed to “Sit tight, we’ll get around to you.”

Noon – Call from Dahl asking to meet him up the street for lunch in a café. Fred Crisman said he would meet them there and show them the boat. By this time, Smith and Arnold were tired of waiting around for the military to call and agreed to meet Dahl.

The made their way past the picket lines to a café on St. Helens St. Dahl and another man were sitting at a booth. Dahl introduced them but not the man who eventually left after they finished their discussion. When the man left, Crisman arrived and said, “All set?” After a small meal of coffee and toast, Arnold and Smith would then visit Crisman’s boat – the boat that Dahl supposedly was using during the UFO sighting.

Crisman drove all four down Commerce St, across a bridge and turned left to an area a sign designated as “City Waterways.” They parked on D Street and walked to the pier. The boat was much smaller than what either Arnold or Smith expected; it looked like a tugboat. Smith inspected the boat for the damage supposedly caused by the flying saucer but was unimpressed by the evidence. A section of the rail was missing and the edges were sealed with layers of old paint. The deck cabin roof was whole and Smith couldn’t believe tons of rocks fell on the boat.

Dahl ducked inside to talk to a man in coveralls who returned to work perhaps on the engine after Dahl whispered something to him. Arnold wrote that the “boat was gray in color, a very small type of partially enclosed inboard fishing boat. It in no way looked like a harbor patrol boat that I had seen in pictures” COS p. 62. Arnold and Smith both felt this wasn’t a seaworthy boat and wasn’t necessarily convinced of any evidence of repairs that was said to have occurred due to damage from the slag. Crisman would offer to have them visit his cabin where he believed his photos were but Arnold and Smith declined. Arnold was annoyed and not surprised that Crisman had not brought his Venture magazines as promised. This would be the last time Arnold and Smith would see Crisman.

Dahl dropped them off at their hotel where they checked the desk and received a message from Paul Lantz of the Tacoma Times. When they called the Tacoma Times Smith told Lantz, they would be across the street at a coffee shop.

When Lantz arrived, he wanted to know if they had any of the rock, the Times could take photographs of to run in a future story. Both Smith and Arnold declined to offer any slag as they thought it might be evidence. Lantz said both the Tacoma Times and the wire service were preparing to run a story on the previous meetings in Room 502 and again asked them to disclose the nature of the meetings. He was concerned he would be scooped on the news and promised to respect their requests for privacy but he had to know more information or he would run his articles with all he knew. Smith asked “All you know?” Lantz replied, “That’s just what I meant” and got up to leave and added, “Well, I just wanted to tell you beforehand.”

On returning to the hotel, they received two non-emergency calls that were cut off by the switchboard operator. They had come from a Broadway or Proctor exchange when they quizzed the operator. – WH Rm. 502.

Smith placed a wire to Roddy at the Western Union.

They then waited at the Olympic Hotel at 815 Pacific St. informing the Winthrop they would be there at Main 4161 if any messages came in. Dahl dropped by with the latest Tacoma Times with the headline in red ink:

“SABOTAGE HINTED IN CRASH OF ARMY BOMBER AT KELSO” written by Paul Lantz.

The mystery of the ‘Flying Saucers’ soared into prominence again Saturday when the Tacoma Times was informed that the crash of an army plane at Kelso may have been caused by sabotage.

The Times’ informant, in a series of mysterious phone calls reported that the ship had been sabotaged ‘or shot down’ to prevent shipment of flying disk fragments to Hamilton Field, California for analysis.

The disk parts were said by the informant to be those from one of the mysterious platters, which plunged to earth on Maury Island recently.

Lending substance to the caller’s story is the fact that twelve hours before the Army released official identification, he correctly identified the dead in the crash to be Captain William L Davidson, pilot, and First Lieutenant Frank M Brown.

Classified Material: At the same time, he informed the Times, Kenneth Arnold, Boise businessman who first sighted the flying saucers, and United Airlines Captain E. J. Smith, who also sighted them, were in secret conference in Room 502 at the Hotel Winthrop. A check confirmed the information but neither Smith nor Arnold would disclose the nature of the conference nor the reason for their being in Tacoma.

According to the anonymous caller, platter fragments were loaded aboard a B-25 at McChord Field Friday for shipment to the California field. Half an hour after the takeoff, the plane crashed near Kelso, Washington. Two enlisted men: Master Sergeant Elmer L. Taff and Technician Fourth Grade Woodrow D. Mathews parachuted to safety.

At McChord Field, an intelligence officer confirmed the mystery caller’s report that the ill-fated craft had been carrying ‘classified material’.

Hint Sabotage: Major George Sander explained ‘Classified material means there was a somewhat secret cargo aboard the plane. No one was allowed to take pictures of the wreckage until the material was removed and returned to McChord Field.’ He declined to say what constituted ‘classified material.’ The theory of sabotage was borne out by the statement of the two crash survivors that one of the engines burst into flames and that regular fire apparatus installed in the engine for such emergencies failed to function.

Names Revealed: Notified of the information passed along by the anonymous informant, Captain Smith said:

‘When the story breaks it will be given general release but it will NOT come from this room’ At the time he was in the Hotel Winthrop in conference with Arnold.

Saturday Smith said he and Arnold would deny anything that was printed about the secret sessions held in the hotel. However, he was visibly disturbed and expressed consternation when notified late Saturday that the names of the dead pilot and co-pilot had been revealed before the army released them.

According to the telephone callers, both the dead officers were members of military intelligence at Hamilton Field,

Dahl said he would duck into a movie until it all blew over, seeming to escape all the sudden attention. Smith neglected to catch the name of the theater, which would lead them later on a hunt for Dahl. Smith and Arnold returned to the Winthrop hotel.

5:30pm – Fifth and last call of anonymous informant placed to UP Ted Morello. Morello stated to the FBI that the informant that one of the men conferring with Capt. Smith and Arnold was taken to Alaska that day. The informant also stated the B-25 bomber was shot down from the air with a 20mm cannon. The informant also said the Marine plane recently found on Mt. Rainier had also been shot down and that Capt. Smith would be taken to Wright Field Tuesday morning. The informant also mentioned that United Airline pilot Morgan who flew with Capt. Smith was shot at over Montana. The anonymous caller stated he was leaving for San Francisco and would be back Tuesday.

Morello had received word that Crisman had been taken aboard an AAF transport headed to Alaska. “They had a military prison up there and were going to sweat him, but good.” – WH Rm. 50 Smith called McChord and did confirm a transport for Alaska did leave but received no passenger list.

A Visit to Ted Morello Smith and Arnold went over to see United Press reporter Ted Morello where they read the latest press releases and had a discussion with Morello regarding the anonymous phone calls.

According to DeWayne Johnson, in Flying Saucers over Los Angeles, the gathering took place in the backroom of a Tacoma radio station probably KMO, which Morello was associated with.

“During the course of the interview Arnold, particularly was extremely jumpy. He questioned us closely about hidden Dictaphones and, not satisfied with our assurance that none was planted, made a personal investigation of the tiny office. However, he did not discover that the ‘intercom’ had been converted into a microphone(!) According to Johnson, “a recording device hidden in an inter-office communication speaker took down the entire conversation.” Johnson,

DeWayne Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles

Ted Morello had invited them to hear a recorded interview of Sgt. Taff and Arnold and Smith made arrangements with Crisman to see Dahl’s boat about an hour later.

Ted Morello’s office was just down on Broadway Street a few blocks away. On meeting Morello, Arnold would note he was a small, dark, middle-aged man with a limp. Morello led them to an auditorium that looked like a private screening room to play a recording of Sgt. Elmer L. Taff recounting the events on board the B-25.

Taff in the recording according to Arnold would say, “Shortly before they took off the pilot and the co-pilot loaded a heavy cardboard box aboard the B-25. He noticed it particularly because it seemed very heavy for one man to carry. This box was placed over to one side of the compartment that he and the engineer occupied… Fifteen to twenty minutes after takeoff the left engine was on fire. Sgt. Mathews tried to pull the valve on the emergency firefighting system but it did not work.” COS p.60-61

Morello when asked where he got the wire recording stated that he had phoned the hospital where Taff was being checked over. Arnold related to Morello his amazement at the quality of tape over the phone and how did they get past the AAF? Morello would reply “All the latest gadgets.”

Ted Morello made a comment to Arnold and Smith that something was wrong when his informants could not get any information in the area. Ted Morello also informed Kenneth Arnold that the B-25 Bomber that landed at McChord Field had been under military armed guard every minute it was at the field. It was implied by the nature of that statement that this was unusual and Morello was scared for their safety.

Ted Morello told Smith and Arnold, “You’re involved in something that is beyond our power here to find out anything about. We’ve exhausted every avenue attempting to piece what has happened together so it makes some sense. I’m just giving you some sound advice. Get out of this town until whatever it is blows over….I’m concerned with your welfare. I think you are nice fellows and I don’t want to see anything happen to you if I can prevent it.” COS p.69

8:30 pm Smith called reporter Paul Lantz because of Lantz's earlier message to call at that time. Lantz repeated to Smith the information from the anonymous caller given to Morello, including that "one of the men... was taken to Alaska that day.”

Later that evening Dahl came to Arnold's room, told them he didn’t know Crisman's whereabouts, and Dahl "left saying that he would try to find out where Crisman was and that he would call them tomorrow (Sunday) and that they would go out to Maury Island at that time.” Arnold phoned Barry’s “Sky Harbor” to check on his plane but they reported no disturbance. Even so, Arnold and Smith drove down to look the plane over then returned back to the hotel where they listened to the radio before retiring.

Aug 3, Sunday

9am – Breakfast with the Secretary - Dahl stopped by the Winthrop hotel shortly after 9am to take them to breakfast. He had changed his mind about meeting them at his secretary’s house and instead would drive them to breakfast.

Dahl drove them to the secretary’s house to pick her up. Arnold in Coming of the Saucers blanked out or was confused how he arrived at the café. Arnold would later write he couldn’t remember how he got back to the Winthrop.

Dahl would relate to Arnold that he had received a letter from Crisman shoved under his door. Dahl mentioned the letter was an “okay” to “take care of business” while he was gone, that he’d be back in a while, but thought he ought to be lying low for a spell. -WH Rm. 502.

Note: Crisman’s behavior in leaving the area and “lying low” is questionable behavior as he was just informed by the military to give his address and make himself available. As a former Army personnel, it is highly possible Crisman could have taken a military plane on a hop to Alaska but would have had to give his name to McChord Field for their passenger list. It is also likely that Crisman never went to Alaska as he arrived back in Tacoma three days later on Aug. 5th to the Tacoma FBI office.

Nobody seems to have noted the secretary’s name or any comments from her that would have verified aspects of Dahl and Crisman. Arnold said they had bacon and eggs. Another account says they stopped by The Inn on Pacific Hwy 99.

“The Inn and had fried chicken as it was their special even though it was too early for lunch”. What Happened in Room 502?

Smith placed a pay phone call and said he would return around noon.

Smith stated in his FBI report that Dahl declined taking them to Maury Island saying he was “sick of the entire business” and if contacted by Army or authorities he would deny even having seen anything and claim to be “the biggest liar that ever lived.”

After BreakfastSmith met with Major Sanders at The Coffee Pot Restaurant on South Tacoma Way (now known as Bob’s Java Jive) and told him what had taken place in Room 502. They went back to the Winthrop. – What Happened in Room 502?

2-3:45 pm Smith met with an officer from McChord, Major Sanders of S2 Army Intelligence of McChord Field at the Winthrop hotel. Arnold remembered him saying that they would have the slag analyzed for the sake of being thorough but that he wanted us to take a drive with him. He was going to show Arnold and Smith thousands of tons of this stuff. Major Sander had gathered up all the pieces and piled them on top of several towels. He started to bundle them up, stopped short, and said, “We don’t want to overlook even one piece.” I handed him my piece.”

Arnold said, “This Major Sanders is a pretty smooth guy, but he’s not smooth enough at this point to convince me that these fragments aren’t pretty important in some way.” I suddenly felt that no one had played a hoax on anybody-COS p.77

We drove clear out on the point of the peninsula. Soon we arrived at a large sign that read Tacoma Smelting Company. There were literally piles of lava like smelter slag. “At first glance it looked identical to the fragments Major Sander had taken from our room. I guess Major Sanders is right someone has played a hoax on us.” - COS p.77 “It looked a lot like the fragments we had been handling in our rooms

--I thought it looks like the same stuff but it doesn’t feel like the same thing. The smelter slag that I picked up looked more like the box of supposed fragments that Crisman had given Davidson and Brown”

COS p.78

The FBI report stated McChord Intelligence Officer informed Public Relations officer had received a call from Army HQ in Washington D.C requested to obtain a signed statement from Dahl and Crisman, which could be published to publicly close matters.

The FBI in their report said they would “set a trap for Crisman” who at the time was sent to Alaska. Whatever “the trap” was, Crisman was to next appear in Tacoma’s FBI office August 5th, three days later asking if the Seattle office was investigating the B-25 crash.

4:30pm Smith and Arnold checked out of the Winthrop Hotel and decided to visit Dahl one last time. Arnold gave directions to Smith who was driving. When they arrived, Arnold was amazed the house was empty and vacant with cobwebs and did not look like someone had lived there for months. Arnold verified the corner lot, the porch, the door handle, and the aerial antenna coming from the window as all the same when he had visited the house a few days earlier. Arnold even had Smith drive around in case he mistook the address but they did not find any similar houses. Arnold and Smith left the area perplexed.

Aug 4, Monday Noon -Lantz was contacted by Dahl and

Crisman. Lantz stated to the FBI that he contacted Harold Dahl who advised Lantz if this were not used in the paper, he and Fred Crisman would meet him after lunch. Lantz stated that about noon Dahl and Crisman contacted him and stated the he Dahl and his son had been exploring a gravel pit on Maury Island and found some strange rock formations. They picked up some of these samples and Fred Crisman later saw the samples. Crisman sent these to a friend of his (Palmer?) to have analyzed. They stated that they received a report and that his friend had asked a newspaperman to check out where the rock formations were obtained. Both Crisman and Dahl informed Lantz that sometime after the first flying disc story had appeared, they received a telegram from Trans-Ocean Press from Chicago wanting information on the flying disk fragments. Crisman stated they had at no time indicated the rock formations were a part of a flying disc and that the military and Arnold were not interested in the rocks.

Aug 5, Tuesday

Fred Crisman walked into the Tacoma FBI office and asked if the Seattle FBI office was investigating the crash. They said they were not. Crisman was reported to have offered in a rambling story that said he had forwarded some rocks to Univ. of Chicago to have them analyzed and that in some manner unknown to him, the rocks were reported as being fragments of a flying disk.

Aug. 7, Thursday

Dahl and Crisman were interviewed at Tacoma FBI office. Dahl and Crisman at first denied any knowledge that these rock formations were portions of a disk fragment. The FBI agent would note in the report ”It was apparent from the start of the interview that Dahl and Crisman were not telling their complete and true connection with the flying disc story. They gave evasive answers. They stated that in the early part of June they sent to Palmer some rock formations they found on Maury Island. Palmer asked Dahl if the rock formations could have come from a flying disk? Dahl stated that in a letter he wrote Palmer the fragments “could have been portions of a flying disc.” Dahl claimed that he thought he told Palmer over the phone something about being on his boat when he obtained the rock formations but stated to the FBI he could not recall what he had written to Palmer and he claimed that he passed the whole thing off as a joke.

Both Dahl and Crisman would say the only thing they had done was tell Ray Palmer the formations could have come from a flying disc in view of the fact it appeared “that’s what he wanted them to say.” - FBI Report 8/19/47 p.6A

Note: Crisman admitted to working with Dahl to send Ray Palmer rock formations in the early part of June no light weight metal or discs were mentioned. If rocks were of interest in the early part of June this discounts that, the rocks came from a UFO later in June on the 21st as reported to Arnold.

There is some speculation that the metal sheets and black lava like rocks came from a plane crash carrying industrial waste from the Hanford nuclear plant and the story was changed to UFOs as a cover for the mishap.

Capt. William Lee DavidsonCapt. Davidson,

courtesy of family William Shortley, unknown date.

Capt. William L. Davidson, who was killed in the Kelso crash on August 1, 1947. It would become technically the Air Force’s first fatality as the Air Force separated from the Army August 1st.

In reviewing the location of the crash and Capt. Davidson’s actions there is no doubt he attempted to put out the fire by diving and steered the

plane to an unpopulated area five miles east of the Kelso Portland population. Capt. Davidson stayed with the plane until the very end.

Davidson was born January 16, 1920 in Guymon, Oklahoma. According to Jim Pobst in “What Happened in Room 502,” Davidson had been married to a Panamanian native Ursula around 1940 who later returned to Panama.

Davidson enlisted in the Army Air Corps in August 1942. He graduated as a pursuit pilot from the Army Air Forces School at Mission, Texas. He graduated as one of the ten highest in his class. He also received a medal as an expert aerial gunner. “Lt. William Davidson Graduates-from William Shortley’s Family Scrapbook

Capt. William L. Davidson, second from right, photo courtesy of family, undated.

Capt. William L. Davidson, photo courtesy of family, undated.

A young William Davidson his wife, Ursula undated

1st Lt. Frank Mercer Brown

1stLt. FrankBrown, photo courtesy offamily.

1st Lt. Frank M. Brown, who was killed in the Kelso crash on August 1, 1947, was born February 19, 1919 in Montague, Texas. Brown served in combat in Italy as a B-25 pilot during World War II entering service in 1943. At the time of his death, Brown lived in Vallejo, California. Brown had received a purple heart, awarded when he was shot down during his fifth combat mission in Italy and the Air Medal.

Brown had experience handling emergency situations. Flying his second combat mission with the 15th A.A.F. in Italy 2nd Lieut. Frank Brown was the pilot on a B-24 bomber and landed the plane after a draft caused the plane to take a spin and dive 6,000 ft. Brown had to pull the levers hard and they came out of the spin but as a result several 500 lb. bombs in the bay had broken loose. Brown asked his engineer to check on the rest of the plane who discovered all four of the passengers had parachuted to safety.

“I never thought that Frank’s death was an accident” – Velma Brown, Widow of 1st. Lt. Frank M. Brown said in a letter to Kenneth Arnold.

Paul Lantz

Paul Lantz, courtesy of his family, unknown date “Paul Lantz was the one who smelled a story” – Ted Morello, UP reporter.

Indeed Paul Lantz, the quiet reporter always inquiring would become an example of the consummate tenacious investigative reporter for the Maury Island Incident, always digging for answers. In the arena of Ufology, one cannot come across more intriguing those that Paul Lantz beginning days of modern day sightings and those regarding the Maury Island incident.

Paul Lantz worked for five years for the Tacoma Times as church editor and police reporter.

He is best known for writing the article in the August 2nd Tacoma Times that the B-25 bomber had been sabotaged.

headlines than

wrote in the

Mysterious Death?

Paul Lantz’s name, which was sometimes spelled erroneously as “Lance.” was born on April 24, 1918 and died January 10th, 1948 at the age of 29. Although Arnold had said it was two weeks after the Kelso crash, Lantz actually died six months after the incident of streptococci meningitis. Kenneth Arnold writes in his book “The Coming of the Saucers” an appreciation to Paul Lantz – “whose death we regret.” Regardless of any error of timeframe of death, there seemed to be a serious concern about the sudden passing of Lantz. Paul Lantz’s grandparents have communicated about their grandfather. “We are told that he died of Streptococci Meningitis. “Whether that’s true or a cover up I guess we'll never know.” According to Paul Lantz’s wife Evelyn, Paul died suddenly and unexpectedly. Jeni James, Paul Lantz’s granddaughter would comment, “As far as the polio goes...it sounds as though it left him with a noticeable limp or something. His spine was crooked and you could tell he had a problem. My grandma says that one leg was shorter than the other was. He was in pain a lot from his spine and would go to therapy for it. But my grandma says that he never used a cane or wheelchair.”

Evelyn and Paul Lantz

Jeni James stated she documented some information from her grandmother before she passed. “His wife mentioned that two FBI agents came to their house. I'm not sure at what point in time...I forgot to find that out. Two of them were dressed in black.”.

“ The only details I have about this visit (so far)... are that there were two of them dressed in black, she recalls...they came in showing their FBI Identification...My grandma went into the kitchen to cook and clean while they talked to Paul in the living room. She tried to listen in on their conversation from the kitchen... She said they were basically telling Paul to stop! She says they were threatening him...but Paul was bold and was clearly not afraid of them in any way. My grandma was really scared and at one point peeked in on them to make sure everything was okay. She said that Paul was lying on the couch with his knees bent (I'm not sure why. .maybe because of his spine problems?). She said they were there for what seemed like hours, but in reality maybe only a couple of hours. She said that Paul was defiant and determined to get to the bottom of things and he was not going to let the FBI stop him from doing so! Paul was not willing to back off; he was going to dig deep. From what I understand that was his nature with reporting. “Paul was a strong Christian man (he attended a Methodist church in Tacoma off of 6th Ave.) Grandma says that the Lantz family was the main pillar of the church back then. Paul was someone you could trust, he was extremely dependable, reliable, and honest, and he had high moral standards and was kind and generous. He was conscientious and a hard worker and my grandma says he was the perfect husband and father. It was stated that even though he was small (in stature) he had the soul and spirit of a giant. He was musically talented (he sang and played the trumpet). Grandma says he was great with his finances. She also says that he was highly intelligent, a genius!”

–Mike and Jeni James, October 13, 2006.

Kenneth Arnold

Background

Press photo of Kenneth Arnold in front of his plane.

Kenneth Arnold would write the definitive first hand report of the Maury Island mystery in his and Ray Palmer’s “I Did See the Flying Disks!” in the first issue of Fate Magazine in 1948 and the later book “Coming of the Saucers” in 1952.

The first Fate Magazine featuring

A Kenneth Arnold gives a detailed personal account of all the stories, sightings, and information that cannot be lightly dismissed as a hoax, and details of the era in 1947 still reeling and on the alert from World War II.

Kenneth Arnold’s plane and UFO sighting personal account of the events,

Kenneth Arnold was born March 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minn. He moved to Scobey, Montana when he was six. He attended school in Minot, ND. He played football and was a swimmer and diver for the University of Minnesota. Arnold would take his first flying lessons at the age of 16, paid for in barter for gasoline from his father's filling station. However, it would take him 13 more years to gain his pilot's license, just short of his 30th birthday. In 1938, he went to work for Red Comet, Inc. of Littleton Colorado.

He invented a specialized automatic dry chemical fire extinguisher system, which he distributed through his company Great Western Engineering that he founded in 1940.

He married Doris Lowe on January 30, 1941 and moved to Boise, Idaho in 1944. He was active in the Idaho Search and Rescue Mercy Flights and acted as a Deputy Federal US Marshall.

On June 24th, 1947, Kenneth Arnold would became world famous when he sighted a formation of nine flying discs over Mt. Rainier. Bill Bequette's report on the AP news wire of Arnold’s sighting has been attributed to first using the term "flying saucer" thus the “flying saucer” was coined.

On April 7th, 1950, Arnold would be interviewed by Edward R Murrow, the famous TV journalist and explained the origin of the term “flying saucer”:

MURROW: Here's how the name "flying saucer" was born. ARNOLD: These objects more or less fluttered like they were, oh, I'd say, boats on very rough water or very rough air of some type, and when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion.

In an interview with Bob Pratt in 1978, Arnold mentioned that he was constantly bothered by “busybodies and intelligence people, they ask a bunch of stupid questions and then all of a sudden ask a question that I know they couldn’t possibly have asked if they weren’t pretty familiar with what the military was trying to do. It’s like they all went to the same school.

He also mentioned that he learned that Lieutenant Frank Brown was a counter-espionage agent working out of Mitchell Field in NY. Nevertheless, he and Captain William Davidson were very gracious to him. Around 1950 he was invited to speak at “The Knife and Fork Club” on its lecture circuit for $100 per day concerning his sighting. He even printed his own booklet” The Flying Saucer as I Saw It” to use as a program guide for his speech. Arnold said that Brown and Davidson said, “You let us take care of it, Ken. Don’t offer yourself for exposure, or we would advise you not. Of course you can do as you please, but I think you will regret it.”

“Another thing that puzzled us was that we were familiar with the details of what happened there at Tacoma (Maury Island) and when the news releases came out the public relations apparently through the Pentagon, there wasn’t any semblance of the truth of the whole thing. It was just laughed off as if was just kind of a big hoax, and I have photo static letters and what not from people that were involved in the immediate family of Lieutenant Brown, I don’t think Smith or I could figure out why the personnel that we worked with in connection with military intelligence, why their stories got so completely loused up when it came out of their public relations as explanations for various things that happened.

I have photo static letters of Lieutenant Frank M Brown as to what happened after their crash, what the flight engineer (Woodrow Mathews) said about the plane, when he left the plane he saw something lift off the top of it and he said he thought probably it was Lieutenant Brown or Captain Davidson, but he said he found out when he got on the ground—he had dropped 11,000 feet in a chute-he heard the crash and then he discovered the next morning in Kelso that both of the people that were left on the plane were killed. He couldn’t understand what this was that came off the top of the plane as he left the plane. They (the flight engineer and the other crewman who survived –Elmer Taff) were forced out by Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown and both Davidson and Brown had on their harnesses but they didn’t have their chutes on when there were found.” http://www.mufon.com/bob_pratt/kenarn.html

According to Kim Arnold as to the reason why her father did not do speeches later in his life, a man came had come to their house shortly after a speaking invitation was withdrawn. The man threatened Arnold by saying he knew the government and knew that men had been eliminated. He told Arnold that these government men were serious and dangerous people and that Arnold should not talk about flying saucers. In an interview with Greg Long in 1981, Arnold revealed his interest in the works of Charles Fort. He found similarities between his initial sighting and things described in Fort’s work. - Long, Greg “Kenneth Arnold UFO Pioneer,” Mufon UFO Journal, November 1981

In the same interview, Arnold also mentioned that Brown and Davidson went through his mail and selected letters from religious groups and organizations that had written Arnold for accounts of his was aware of the effects of religious fervor and they did not want that to happen here.

Kenneth Arnold, Guy Baskin, 1977

Kenneth Arnold in one of his last rare interviews in 1977 revived by Author Stan Deyo from the archives of Guy Baskin relates his frustration even thirty years later.

“We’ve seen something, I’ve seen something. Hundreds of pilots have seen something in the skies. We have dutifully reported these things and we have had fifteen million witnesses before anyone is going to look at the problem? Why, this is utterly fantastic! More fantastic than flying saucers or people from Venus or anything as far as I’m concerned!”

In 1977, Arnold spoke at the First International UFO Congress in Chicago.

In 1980, Yorkshire Television Ltd, from Leeds, England were allowed to film and tape a reenactment of his original flight and sighting over Mt.Rainier.

He had four daughters, Kiska, Karla, Kimberly, and April. Sources - CUFOS Associates Newsletter, April-May, 1984- Obituary, Kenneth Arnold p.6.. http://www.project1947.com/fig/arnbiog.htm Project 1947-“Some Life Data on Kenneth Arnold”

http://www.mufon.com/bob_pratt/kenarn.html

Transcript of Ed Murrow-Kenneth Arnold Telephone Conversation Long, Greg “Kenneth Arnold UFO Pioneer,” Mufon UFO Journal, November 1981

Harold Dahl

Harold Dahl (aka Harold Doll) courtesy of daughter Louise Bakotitch, unknown date)

Harold Dahl would also turn out to be a mysterious figure in the Maury

Incident.

innocent

Island UFO

Seemingly an figure who by chance happened to see something amazing over Maury Island, he would change his story several times, leading people to speculate if he really saw something, changed an event to sell a story, was intimidated to say what he saw was a hoax or created a sighting purely out of thin air. Dahl himself seemed to live a double life with his connections to CIA operative Fred Crisman.

Harold Albert Dahl also known as “Trader” was born on August 15, 1911 in Cosmopolis, WA, a town in Greys Harbor County. He originally spelled his last name, as “Doll” His parents were Theodore and Emma Doll. In the 1930’s he was living in Grey’s Harbor with his first wife Ruby and son Charles. He had married Ruby Toler in 1927 at the age of 16. According to the 1940 census in 1935, he was living in Tacoma with wife Meda. He was reported to be a car dealer.

Harold married Helen Larson in 1943. He then changed his name to Dahl. In 1945-1947, he was living at 3903 Gove with his wife Helen. His son Charles who allegedly was injured by falling slag was born January 15, 1929 and died April 10th, 1996. According to records, Charles maintained the spelling of “Doll.”

In 1947 Dahl operated the Commercial Lumber Company at 235 Millwater Avenue, Tacoma (FBI Report 8/19/47)

It was found that from 1945 until 1947 Harold A. Dahl had lived in the same duplex. He worked at the Seattle-Tacoma Ship yard throughout the war, until the end of the war shutdown the yard.

Arnold says that Dahl referred to Fred Crisman as his "superior officer,” in fact the "Tacoma Harbor Patrol" -- according to an FBI investigative report dated August 19, 1947 -- was the name of a privately owned for-profit business enterprise seeking to charge owners of vacation homes on the island for keeping an eye out on their properties during the owner's absence.

“Owners were given the legal right to pursue logs onto private property. But chasing lost logs took time, and owners found it unprofitable to maintain search boats. So, in 1928, a group of them banded together to finance the Washington Log Patrol. Part of its assignment was to keep poachers from precipitating spills by sabotaging the boom-log pens that kept loose logs confined while under tow. But the patrol also retrieved floating and beached strays.

Private citizens could round up strays on their own and return them to the owners. Soon a dozen or more free-lance patrol boats were roaming Puget Sound in search of runaway fir, hemlock, and cedar. The going price for returned branded logs averaged $17.50 a thousand board feet – John Covington,

htp://www.seanet.com/~johnco/maury.htm

Harold Dahl lived in Tacoma, Aberdeen, and Tenino. He was a selfemployed surplus dealer and a member of the Gun Collectors Association.

Dahl moved twenty miles south to Tenino, Washington, where he started a used furniture/second hand store and lived peacefully until his death in 1982.

An article in a Centralia paper showed an interesting aspect of Dahl’s later life in 1975 near Tenino as a used car and junk dealer. The article states “now he has a collection of ‘you name it we have it’ that fills his shop, his junkyard, his Cadillacs, and even his house.

‘It took us 16 years to accumulate all this junk’ Dahl says proudly, his hand sweeping across the acreage he owns along Washington 507 in Thurston County. Dahl deals in just about anything, but he can’t resist Cadillacs. ‘I was a travelling repairman for Cadillac’ he explains. He specialized in hearses and ambulances. “The other vehicles serve as fine homes for his collection of pets-chickens ,ducks, dogs, and one lovable wild goose named “Silver.”.. ’ We’re constructing a new building out back, said Dahl ‘We’re going to use it as a showroom. We’ll line up our Cadillacs and display some of our antiques.’ The new building, of course will be made of scrap material-discarded telephone poles, sheets of metal from a steam power plant and lumber from the Tenino Dreamland Dance Hall , which Dahl razed.

When the main building began to sag, Mrs. Dahl even though she describes herself as ‘more of a businesswoman than a housekeeper,’ became restive when her husband ‘set up shop in the house.

“You name it, he’s got it: all but space that is.” Centralia Daily Chronicle November 19, 1975

He had two sons Charles who later moved to Hammond, LA and Daniel of Tacoma. He had two daughters Louise Bakotich who is now 83 and living in Aberdeen and Lynn Palmer of Portland

Obituary Harold A Dahl Tacoma News Tribune, February 1, 1982

Note: There has been much controversy over whether Charles Dahl was actually injured or was even on Harold Dahl’s patrol boat.

MAURY ISLANDS NO LONGER A MYSTERY: A UFO HOAX EXPOSED! by Anthony Bragalia, July 2010

http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2010/07/maury-island-no-longer-mystery-ufo-hoax.html In Anthony Bragalia’s 2010 article, he claims that Charles Dahl said that he was never on his father’s boat, and “the entire affair was a hoax and characterized Crisman as a smooth talking con artist.”

There is little doubt that most people saw Crisman as a con artist. When the authors talked to Louise Bakotich, Dahl’s daughter recently in the preparation of this report she mentioned, “This is a mystery no one knows what to think about.” In 2003, Frank Warren sent her 50 pages of material about the incident. “She also told me that she was estranged from her brother early in life and didn't know him well; nor were they together as family at the time of the occurrence. “ She wasn’t raised by her father and only reunited with him after 1965. She also told Warren that she took care of her father the last two weeks of his life, and although he didn't reference the Maury Island Incident, he did talk mildly about UFOs, which he held onto as a belief until the day he died.”

Haldor Dahl

Many researchers have assumed that Harold Dahl’s boat was called the “North Queen.” This comes from the listing in Merchant Vessels of The United States-1947 of a boat called North Queen owned by a “Haldor Dahl.” Researchers have considered this to be merely a misprint and assumed that it really was Harold Dahl. However, the 1947 Tacoma City Directory lists both Haldor Dahl as president of the Tacoma Boat Building Company and Harold Dahl at different addresses. Haldor Dahl was a well-known figure in the shipping industry. As the Merchant Vessels of 1946-1948 do not list a Harold Dahl, Harold Doll, or Crisman, there is no documented reference to the name of the boat Harold Dahl was using at the time of the claimed sighting. Arne Strom and his brother-in-law, Haldor Dahl, established Strom & Dahl

Boatbuilding Co. The company, later renamed Tacoma Boatbuilding, built purse seiners, and trollers. Haldor Dahl-Obituary, Tacoma News Tribune, November 4, 1953

Fred Lee Crisman

(photo of Fred Crisman courtesy of Dr. Larry Haapanen, photographer unknown)

Early connection with UFOs Crisman would become one of the most interesting characters in the Maury Island UFO Incident with even more covert relationships than one would think of a Tacoma small businessman and teacher would have.

FBI documents and statements

from friends would show Crisman would later be involved with political campaigns, shady church organizations as well as eventually be subpoenaed by Jim Garrison on the JFK assassination. It is very likely much of his skills played a part in manipulation and cover up in the Maury Island UFO Incident.

In June 1946, Crisman wrote a letter to the editor of Amazing Stories who was Palmer about his battle in Burma with Deros. Crisman would write:

Sirs:

I flew my last combat mission on May 26 [1945] when I was shot up over Bassein and ditched my ship in Ramaree Roads off Chedubs Island. I was missing five days. I requested leave at Kashmere. I and Capt. (deleted by request) left Srinagar and went to Rudok then through the Khesa pass to the northern foothills of the Kabakoram. We found what we were looking for. We knew what we were searching for.

For heaven's sake, drop the whole thing! You are playing with dynamite. My companion and I fought our way out of a cave with submachine guns. I have two 9" scars on my left arm that came from wounds given me in the cave when I was 50 feet from a moving object of any kind and in perfect silence. The muscles were nearly ripped out. How? I don't know. My friend has a hole the size of a dime in his right bicep. It was seared inside. How we don't know. But we both believe we know more about the Shaver Mystery than any other pair.

You can imagine my fright when I picked up my first copy of Amazing Stories and see you splashing words about the subject.

Do not print our names, we are not cowards, but we are not crazy.

Palmer would later reveal this the author as Fred Lee Crisman

Background

Crisman was born on July 22, 1919, He moved with his family to Vale, Oregon, in 1933 where his father was the proprietor of a hotel. He graduated from Vale Union High School in 1939 and attended Eastern Oregon College in LaGrande, Oregon, for a short time during the 1939-1940 school year before leaving to go to work for the Union Pacific Railroad as a brakeman. In 1942, Crisman joined the military. He was a graduate of Williamette University with degrees in political science, history, and education and psychology-“Crisman Native Tacoman,” Tacoma News Tribune, Dec 16, 1975

In 1942, in Ontario, Ore., he married Filomena Veristain just before he was sent to the Pacific Theater as a fighter pilot in the US Army Air Corp. Later that year, Filomena gave birth to a daughter, Rita Louise Crisman who was killed in a car accident in 1964. In 1955, Filomena gave birth to a son, Fred Lee Crisman Jr.

According to political ads, he enlisted into army service on May 26, 1942 and he flew 211 combat missions, was wounded twice, and was shot down twice. He separated from the Army Air Force on February 19, 1946 and went to work for the State Department of Veterans Affairs.

In Crisman’s own words, in his book “Murder of a City… Tacoma” he would state: “in 1946-1947, as a recently released fighter pilot, I had been appointed a Special Investigator and assigned to a now defunct department of the state government, The State Department of Veteran Affairs. My job – take a look at the variety of rackets, con jobs and out right cheating of newly discharged veterans from our Washington located camps of the armed forces. My job brought me into contact with many of the local men and most of the political leaders of the day.” Crisman would also relate he had a close working relationship with most of the police officers of Tacoma and Seattle and most of the judges and a great many lawyers.

It is highly likely that Crisman met Harold Dahl at this time and established what would appear to be a mutually beneficial relationship that often seemed strained.

According to an FBI report on Crisman of September 13, 1947 after working for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs up until March 31, 1947, he “went to work for Harold Dahl piloting Dahl’s personal plane.”

Note: This is the only reference we have seen that Dahl owned a personal plane.

Crisman worked for the State Veterans Rehabilitation Council from March 20, 1946 to March 31, 1947 handling Veteran problems “Particularly those in trouble with the law.” Crisman was terminated following a reduction in force and is stated to have then worked for Harold Dahl. An unknown person interviewed by the FBI stated they thought Dahl “was rumored to be a black market operative.” Crisman told an informant that he had developed an idea for a log patrol and beach patrol, which would involve the recovery of unmarked logs from Puget Sound and the patrolling of summer beach cottages for private owners. Crisman said that Dahl stole this idea from him.

A few days after the Kelso crash Crisman was ordered by the Army to Alaska. There is no evidence of Crisman actually going. A statement given to the FBI on August 8th led the Fourth Air Force headquarters to revoke his Air Force Reserve Commission as “undesirable and unreliable officer.”

In The January, 1950 issue of Fate Magazine, Crisman denied that the Maury Island UFO Incident was a hoax.

“Why, if we were such blackguards and deliberately caused the deaths of two Air Force Pilots and the loss of a $150,000 airplane did not the government or some agency there attempt to seek justice through the courts of the state and federal government” Fate, January,1950

Crisman was recalled to active duty during the Korean War in 1950. He served as a fighter pilot for the next two and a half years and he moved to Japan with his family. In 1953, he returned to teaching in Elgin, OR. At one point Crisman in the 1950’s underwent psychiatric treatment in Ft. Steilacoom, Washington.

He later was a teacher and school administrator in a number of high schools in Washington and Oregon, and he worked for the Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle for two years in the early 1960s.

According to Joan Mellen,”Some thought the entire brouhaha was a scam to cover up a Boeing aircraft accident involving radioactive material. Boeing refused to supply Garrison with Crisman’s employment records.” Mellen, Joan. A Farewell to Justice.

For years, he was a freelance writer, especially writing books, speeches, and campaign materials for many political figures, including state governors and members of the U.S. Congress.

In the late 1960s, Fred Crisman moved back to his native Tacoma, Washington, and became involved in a highly charged political struggle in which he and friends and colleagues sought to end the CityManagement form of government. As part of this struggle, Crisman became well known and controversial as the host of a radio talk show using the pseudonym Jon Gold, and he wrote a book about the period called Murder of a City that was published in 1970.

On July 22, 1967, Fred Crisman spoke at the Northwest UFO Space Convention at Seattle Center sponsored by Understanding Inc. concerning Maury Island. He claimed to still have prints of the Maury Island photographs. This began his correspondence with Gary Lesley who wanted to get copies of the Maury Island photographs. He provided an address for Harold Dahl in Tenino, WA who he said had the photographs. Gary Lesley contacted Dahl and asked about damage to the boat because of the slag. Dahl told Lesley that it was their policy not to answer letters that wanted to discuss Maury Island, because of how it was treated by the press. Dahl said he had left the matter up to Crisman to discuss Maury Island.

In September of 1967, Crisman wrote to Lesley that he did not approve of his correspondence with Dahl. Crisman said he wanted no publicity and did not want to get involved in any way.

Thomas Beckham aka Mark Evans, photo from A Farewell to Justice

Crisman and his JFK Connection

Regardless of the publicity Crisman would receive during the Maury Island incident; it is his history later in life and with the JFK assassination investigation by Jim Garrison where he would achieve the most notoriety during his life. Crisman would become the first person Clay Shaw would contact after his

arrest by Jim Garrison for conspiring in the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy. – Mellen, Joan, A Farewell to Justice, 2005. strongly that Crisman and Shaw were CIA somehow Crisman was his supervisor or could somehow get him out of this situation.

This contact implies

Operatives and that

Crisman himself would be later subpoenaed by the Orleans Grand Jury in Jan. of 1968 and asked what his relationship was to Thomas Beckham – a suspect in the JFK assassination. At the time, Crisman was conducting a talk program on Puyallup radio station KAYE under the name of Jon Gold. Crisman in his statement to the Jury said he met Beckham through Harold Dahl in 1966 – that Harold Dahl who was operating a small second hand store had introduced Thomas Beckham to Crisman. The facts are that Crisman met Beckham years earlier in the summer of 1963. Mellen, Joan, A Farewell to Justice, 2005.

Thomas Beckham would relate he first met Crisman talking to Newbrough at a restaurant named Holsum. Joseph is asking Crisman about federal fraud charges. Crisman states to Newbrough “Didn’t it scare you when you read “U.S. of America vs. Joseph Newbrough? How did that hit you?”

Thomas Beckham occasionally went by the name of Mark Evans as a recording artist. Crisman oddly helped finance a trip for his new friend Beckham to New Orleans to promote Beckham’s record. Beckham would later make an LP called “Material Witness” in which he mentioned Crisman.

In late 1966, Crisman and Thomas E Beckham incorporated seven businesses. Among these companies were the Northwest Relief Society, Associated Discount Services, TAB Productions, Professional Research Bureau, and The National Institute of Criminology.-Jeffords, Edd “Jury orders Crisman to Testify November 21st in Garrison’s JFK Probe Tacoma News Tribune, November 1, 1968

Crisman’s relationship with Beckham would later become strained. Beckham would state Crisman sent him a message through Bob Lavender that “If I am subpoenaed as a result of anything he [Beckham] says to that grand jury, I’ll kill him!” Mellen, Joan A Farewell to Justice, pg. 286.

Beckham would later confess in his book “Remnants of Truth” that he lied to the Orleans Grand Jury about Crisman. Beckham would write in his book, “By no means is this memoir a statement or confession” but written to clear up questions. He states Jim Garrison went to his grave “knowing the truth” and that he gained the trust of officials as well as the mob.

Beckham said that later he officials, and did his job well. acquaintances he had including ”There was not only the death of the President, “my friend Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Martin, Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby.

Beckham believed he was used in some type of a plot. He said if he knew then, he would have run. “But as far as I ran, someone always managed to find me (like my CIA buddies Jack Martin and Fred Crisman).” Beckham relates in his book how right after his brother contacted him about the newspaper’s announcement of his subpoena that “Within ten minutes or even less, Jack Martin and Fred Crisman called me about the same thing.” Crisman and Martin told Beckham not to worry, “.everything was being taken care of.”

became a courier for government Beckham would talk of the many

Beckham wrote a whole chapter entitled “Fred Crisman” in his book and would write “He always seemed to be there for me, and always knew where I was, no matter what state I lived in. “ One time Fred and I were sent to a small town in California to get someone out of trouble.” Beckham hid in a closet at the hall of justice and ransacked the office until they got what they were looking for. On another occasion, Beckham relates how Fred sprung him from a small town jail in Louisiana. “I knew that I had it in this rat hole of a town, but I called Fred and told him I needed help. Within a few hours, I was told by the jailer to pack up because I was going. It was the best news I had heard since I had been there, until he said the FBI was there to get me. I got sick inside, thinking Fred had let me down. But when I walked out, the first thing I saw was Fred dressed in a gray suit. He handcuffed me, signed some paper and took me out to a car and put me in the back seat. We drove a few blocks down before Fred took the cuffs off.”

Crisman would drive Beckham to his home in Mississippi and would later see Beckham again a couple of years later when Beckham moved to Washington State before moving to Nebraska.

Beckham would also state, “Fred had an auto with a phone that was hid under the dash.” – Beckham, Thomas, Remnants of Truth, 2008.

Crisman would be called Beckham’s “mentor and supervisor” with “an operative at a deep cover level in a long-range clandestine intelligence mission…an operative at a supervisory level, a Fagin to the Artful Dodger.”

(Fred Crisman, Murder of a City, 1970)

An indication of Crisman’s involvement with Garrison is reflected in Ray Palmer’s letter to Gray Barker in 1976.

“Dear Gray:

The Fred Crisman summoned to testify in the Clay Shaw trial was the same Crisman who was involved in the Tacoma-Maury Island Affair, and the same Fred Crisman who claimed to have shot his way out of a cave in Burma, receiving a hole the size of a dime in his arm from a “ray gun” wielded, (he said) by the dero. His exact words to me: “For God’s sake drop the Shaver cave stories! You don’t know what you are dealing with here! He is the same Fred Crisman who offered to go into a cave in Texas and bring out some of the ancient machinery if I would send him $500 expense money.

It was not Clay Shaw who was ruined financially, personally and physically, it was Jim Garrison who was ruined. He was (as I told him in a letter) subjected to IRS audit, finally won the case in court but at tremendous financial cost – which was the IRS goal in the first place. He was also libeled, framed in a drug ring, and hounded from office, finally losing out in a re-election run.

I have Garrison’s letter stating that they were one and the same man. I also have my answer to Garrison, predicting that Crisman could not be subpoenaed, that he was CIA, and tremendously powerful.

There is a definite link between flying saucers, The Shaver Mystery, The Kennedy’s assassinations, Watergate and Fred Crisman. There is one common denominator for everything that is happening in the world today. That common denominator is right where Shaver said it was – no matter whether you prefer caverns or the lower astral or another dimension. Rap (Ray Palmer, Rt. 2, Box 36, Amherst, Wisconsin 54406)

- Gray Barker’s Newsletter #5, March 1976, Letters to Editor, pg 15. Interestingly, another figure in the JFK assassination Guy Banister himself researched a UFO sighting case July 11, 1947 when what appeared to be 30 inch diameter “flying disks” had been found at Twin Falls Idaho.

“In a lengthy handwritten memo to Jonathan Blackmer, an investigator for the House select committee that re-investigated Kennedy's assassination in the late 1970s and had a keen interest in Crisman, Garrison spelled out what he had concluded about Crisman:

" . . . I suggest the only reasonable conclusion is that he was (and probably is, if still around), an operative at a deep cover level in a longrange, clandestine, intelligence mission directly (in terms of our national intelligence paranoia) related to maintaining national security . . . Crisman emerges as an operative at a supervisory level . . . acquired by the apparatus to carry out the menial jobs that are needed to push a current mission forward, a middle man--in the final analysis--between the mechanics who eliminate, and the handy men, who otherwise support a termination mission, on one hand, and the distant, far removed, deeply submerged command level, on the other."

http://greyfalcon.us/restored/Fred%20Crisman.ht

During the Assassination Hearings of JFK in 1978 Robert Groden was asked to identify pictures of the tramps on the grassy knoll and stated that one of the men was Fred Lee Crisman “who is another ultra-right winger - a member of the Minutemen. He has become a prime suspect for critics of the report as a candidate to be the short tramp.” The Investigation Of The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy, Hearings Before The Select Committee on Assassinations Of The United States House Of Representatives, 95th Congress, 2nd Session. .1978

Crisman says that he was teaching school in Rainier, OR when the President was killed. School officials in Rainier confirmed that Crisman was a high school teacher in November, 1963 .Shomshak, Vern “True Magazine Less Than True-Crisman Says of Article on JFK’s Death, Tacoma News Tribune May 22, 1975

In 1973 Palmer commented on Crisman “Fact: Fred Crisman is always present; in The Shaver Mystery, in the flying saucer mystery…in the Bay of Pigs, in the assassination of Diem ,in the John Kennedy case, and quite often causing Ray Palmer all kinds of hell.” - Palmer, Ray Forum, November, 1973 p.12

On April 13, 1975, he married Mary Frances Borden, whom he had met when he was a member of the Tacoma Library Board of Trustees. He had been appointed to the board in 1970 by the outgoing mayor of Tacoma, A.L. Slim Rasmussen, and a compatriot in the local political wars. Fred Lee Crisman died at the age of fifty-six of kidney failure in the Seattle Veterans Hospital on December 10, 1975. The official cause of death on his death certificate was Cardiac Arrhythmia and Severe Coronary atherosclerosis.

Notes: Crisman led a very covert secretive life with a pattern of creating discrediting reports at Boeing, misleading statement, and running cover church businesses.

Were psychiatric units convenient hideouts? It was common for CIA operatives to check themselves into psychiatric hospitals to perhaps hide for a period of time or “lay low.” Because of privacy of medical records, they would have been perfect sanctuaries. It is interesting that Beckham was established with a second hand shop perhaps similar to Harold Dahl’s second hand shop.

An autopsy was performed on Crisman. Autopsies are not performed normally unless there is a reason. This autopsy would have either been prior requested by Crisman himself or his wife.

Of interest also is in the FBI reports on Crisman in Sept. of 1947 filed by Guy Hottel SAC, the character of case is listed as “Atomic Energy Act Applicant. Crisman had requested an application and the FBI was more than interested in doing a complete security check on Crisman.

Raymond A. Palmer

Ray Palmer would continue over the years to adamantly question the military on the Maury Island Sighting. Palmer perhaps wanted to assert his innocence in the whole affair or deflect his involvement in the death of Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Brown.

Raymond Palmer, the person who assigned Kenneth Arnold to the case claimed that he had “Photostats of [Charles Dahl’s] hospital record” Palmer, Raymond. The Truth about Ruppelt’s Book Flying Saucers, December, 1958 p.37

Background

The “Father of Science Fiction,” Raymond Palmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 1, 1910. A healthy baby he was even featured as a healthy toddler in advertisements. In 1917 at the age of seven, his foot got caught in the spokes of a wheel on a passing milk truck and his spine was so severely damaged that it would affect him the rest of his life.

Palmer spent the next five years until age 13 in the hospital. He educated himself. A voracious reader, Raymond read as many as fifteen volumes a day brought by the Milwaukee Library and became a fan of Jules Verne, HG Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1930, he edited the first fanzine, “The Comet.” In 1938, he became the editor of Amazing Stories. In 1948, along with Curtis Fuller, he founded Fate Magazine. Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of “flying saucers” and the Maury Island incident were featured in the first issue of Fate Magazine. In 1957, he started Flying Saucers Magazine, which also featured a serialization of “Coming of The Saucers” and other articles on the Maury Island UFO incident.

Kenneth Arnold first heard from Palmer on June 15, 1947. He was interested in an article on his sighting of “flying discs.”

Ray Palmer in one of his last interviews in 1977, Guy Baskin.

Kenneth Arnold would later write of his reaction...from Palmer when he sent him a letter dated June 26, 1947

“At the time had I known who he was, I probably wouldn’t have answered his letter... It wouldn’t have been because he wasn’t a sincere or a good man, but later I found he was connected with the type of publications that I not only never read but had always thought a gross waste of time for anyone to read.”

Arnold received a second letter from Palmer inviting him to write an article. Arnold declined but sent Palmer a copy of the detailed report and biography he had mailed earlier to the Air Force at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.

On July 22th, Palmer sent Arnold $200 to investigate the Maury Island Case.

Palmer later made a statement about the fragments

“How important was the original cigar-box of fragments sent to the Chicago publisher by Dahl? Bear in mind that McChord intelligence knew the exact pile of slag they had come from. Yet when an intelligence agent visited the Chicago publisher (asking questions about the Shaver mystery primarily, and only casually mentioning saucers, and being remarkably uninterested in the box of fragments which were shown him, and certainly not recognizing the fragment being used as an ashtray on the Chicago publisher’s desk), the box and its contents were promptly stolen from the file cabinet in which the intelligence agent watched the Chicago place it, the theft occurring that very night. At least, the box was gone in the morning as the Chicago publisher had expected, because he deliberately planted the whole thing to find out if the fragments were worth taking. Why a midnight visit to steal fragments intelligence knew was only slag.” - Palmer, Ray “The Truth about Ruppelt’s Book” Flying Saucers, December 1958

Ray Palmer would be interviewed in 1977 by Guy Baskin and is staunch in his belief in UFOs.

Palmer would comment in the interview: “Kenneth Arnold fits into it and it’s his 30thanniversary and strangely enough it’s my 33rd because I knew about flying saucers three years before Kenneth Arnold made his first sighting.

In describing Deros – “Briefly it was about a radioactive flare from the sun about 12,000 years ago which virtually

wiped out life on earth. While others left for other planets, the persons left behind were called “abanderos” or “Deros” for short. The Deros still had access to some technology, among them a “rolat” disk used to go through caves controlled automatically. They traveled about 1,200 miles per hour.- Guy Baskin, 1977.

Richard S. Shaver and the Shaver Mysteries

Richard Shaver

In an odd connection to the Maury Island Incident, Ray Palmer is believed to have sought out Arnold to also help further the stories of Richard Shaver. Shaver was a writer who had written a successful series of what he claimed to be true stories of underground tunnels and humanoid figures called “deros” who would fly

underground crafts much like UFOs.

Ray Palmer first became familiar with Shaver in 1943 when he fished out of the garbage a crumpled letter his Assistant Editor Howard Browne had read for laughs and tossed. He would print Shaver’s stories under the title “I Remember Lemuria.”

Shaver was a Pennsylvania steelworker who believed he could hear voices and lived a life where he was in and out of mental institutions but would end up becoming lifelong friends with Palmer. When the Maury Island UFO Incident occurred and Arnold had his sighting, Palmer would say that Shaver would exclaim, “See they [UFO rolats] do come out of the caves!”

Ted Morello

Ted Morello’s role in the Maury Island

Incident would prove significant. Not only

because Morello was an upstanding reporter for

Associated Press but because he would be able

to verify as a third party the calls by the

mysterious informant, the details related and

express an urgency to Arnold of his safety.

Ted Morello was born December 15 1918 and

died on July 15th, 2007 in New York City at the age of 88 following a stroke.

Morello had resigned from the United Press sometime before 1948 and had moved to Milwaukee. According to Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles Arnold called Morello and suggested that Morello “had been ‘eased out’ of the Tacoma Bureau because he knew too much about the disks” Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles.

Morello taught journalism at the University of Washington, then moved to New York where he began work in television and the making of television commercials

He was a reporter for the United Nations from the late 1960’s on, Morello was twice elected as president of the U.N. Correspondent’s Association, the group he helped establish after the establishment of the U.N. in 1945. - Hasan, Khalid. “Veteran UN newsman Ted Morello dies.” Daily Times July 21,2007

Sgt. Elmer L. Taff

Seattle Times, Aug.2 1947

Sgt. Elmer Taff, one of the survivors of the Kelso Crash was born on August 23rd, 1924 in San Saba, Texas. Taff had left Fort Lawton on a 25-day furlough and was hitching a ride to his home in Mertzon, Texas on the B-25 bomber. “I had just relaxed after takeoff when the left engine burst into flame. I don’t know what caused the fire, but they strapped a parachute on me and pushed me out of the plane”

“No he said, I’m not going to try for another plane ride to Texas. This time I’m going all the way by bus. They can take all their airplanes—and keep them.

Landing several miles from the scene of the crash, Taff crossed 200 yards of farm land, awakened residents of a house there, and got a ride into Kelso.

In an August 2 1947 article in The Seattle Times, he said, “he was through with airplanes for all time…it was his first and he said last flight.”

Sgt. Taff died in Columbia, South Carolina on October 6th, 2005. Taff was a technician 4th grade station at Fort Lawton, in Seattle.

Source“Chuting Soldier on first flight says it will be his last” Seattle Times, Aug 2nd, 1947 p.1

Sgt. Woodrow D. Mathews

Sgt. Woodrow D. Mathews, Pasadena Jr. College, 1938

Sgt. Woodrow D. Mathews was the other survivor of the Kelso crash. He was injured and taken to Cowlitz General Hospital. Mathews was born October 15th, 1991 in Jefferson, Alabama and died on May 23rd, 2000. He had enlisted in the military in 1946. He married Rena Howard in 1961. Ancestry.com

The Mysterious Informant

The mysterious informant was a critical figure in the Maury Island Incident. A person who was reported to have a “deep baritone voice,” he has never been identified or at least disclosed to the public. At one time, the informant related to Lantz he was a telephone operator and “would be back on Tuesday.” His motive? The informant would state, “Don’t think I’m doing this for you.” He wanted somebody or some organization in New Jersey to know about what was going on. Informant using The informant also at one time had to answer another call. Why did he keep his conversations under 20 seconds? Perhaps the informant knew the time it takes to track a call.

What was in New Jersey in 1947? Was the print media to send a message?

The first call was actually for Tacoma Times reporter Burt McMurtrie who wasn’t available. McMurtrie was primarily a radio personality and news commentator. He was known locally for his radio show “Breakfast with McMurtrie" on KTAC which was actually located in the Winthrop Hotel. He interviewed locals and celebrities while they dined in the Daffodil Room. In the 30’s he was considered one of the top national radio broadcasters for the Columbia Broadcasting System. He died on October 25th, 1979.

He was a friend of Fred Crisman. Crisman complained that McMurtrie called him “Freddie” which he did not like.

Gold, Jon Murder of a City, 1970

Per FBI files, Paul Lantz of Tacoma Times mentioned a second call on Aug. 1st between 11-noon by an anonymous informant stating he “might have info.” “The caller then hung up after making some statement to the effect that he was a switchboard operator.” Lantz went to the Winthrop Friday (Aug. 1st) noon and found no male operators on duty. Note – the hotel strike did not start until Aug. 3rd and it did not end until Sept. 23, 1947.

Paul Lantz would also state that at 5:30pm Aug. 1, the informant said “... civilians and the sheriff had been kept away from the wreckage with the Army guarding it. (Wilcox, 1947)

Paul Lantz would have been the person who would have known more about this figure than anyone. Was Lantz still investigating disks and this incident months later that would warrant a visit by two “Men in Black” at his home?

In the end, with all the detailed information, it appears the Informant had insight into military calls and immediate information perhaps with new technology.

It is also possible the informant was an innocent civilian phone operator that felt some moral obligation to let investigator know what was going on.

The reported calls from the Informant:

1st– July 31st Thursday 11:30am to Lantz, meeting taking place in 502 concerning disc fragments.

2nd– Aug. 1, Friday 11-noon – to Lantz, advised big meeting in 502, that the B-25 was carrying disc fragments and that “McChord Field officials had stated it was shot down or sabotaged. 3rd– Aug. 1 5:30pm by United Press Wireman (Ted Morello). Caller stated that the B-25 that crashed was carrying disc fragments and that McChord Field and officers were Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown, A-2 Intelligence officers. Caller stated this information would verify his information was accurate, as the Army had not released the names. 4th– Aug 1, 6:45pm by UP Morello. Informant again would state B-25 was definitely shot down and that Army Intelligence Officers would not deny it. Civilians and the sheriff had been kept away from the wreckage with the Army guarding it

5th– Aug 2, 5:30 to UP Morello. Stated B-25 bomber shot down by a 20mm cannon. C-46 also shot down. Smith would be taken to Wright Patterson for questioning) (Wilcox, 1947 p. 6)

8:30 pm Paul Lantz related to Arnold about anonymous caller.

8:30 pm Arnold goes to United Press to talk to Lantz.

Notes: There were no reported distress calls to the local airports. It is possible because Channel “A” at Portland was inoperative may have been one reason. Regardless, there is good reason to believe Capt. Davidson maneuvered the plane away from the flight path headed due south and away from the populated cities of Kelso, Longview, and Portland into a heavily forested area, as he knew the plane was going to crash. As it’s not known when the first radio announcement was broadcast, it’s speculative how Crisman knew of the B-25 bomber crash so early the morning of Aug. 1st.

On August 2nd, 1947, a signed article was put on the United Press teletype by Ted Morello concerning the mysterious informant. “When Morello’s story got on the nationwide United Press wire, The New York Bureau killed it.” Flying Saucers over Los Angeles

Whoever the Mysterious Informant was, his identity still remains a mystery.

Rediscovering the Kelso Crash Site.

In early 2006, we stopped by Kelso to do some research on the Air Force crash. The local Kelso museum had bound volumes of the Kelsonian Tribune. We discovered a news article that was headlined “Flying Disk Investigators Die in Army Bomber Wreck.” which gave main details about the local incident. We started asking locals in the area and were referred to Bob Davenport who still lived in the area. Many of the neighbors recall how the local firefighters helped out the military.

Kelsonian-Tribune with headlines “Flying Disk Investigators Die in Army Bomber Wreck.”

Bob Davenport was one of the first persons at the crash site as a fifteen year old. We interviewed him at the local bowling alley in Kelso, Washington March 18, 2006.

Robert Davenport of Kelso WA in 2006. Davenport was first on the scene at the crash site as a fifteen year old.

LeFevre: Can you mention something about the B-25 bomber Kelso crash?

Davenport: “Early in the morning of 1947 our neighbors woke us up to let us know there had been a plane crash up a mile or so above our place. There had been two men that survived that parachuted out. One of them was injured rather severely

because he had come down through some big maple trees. The other one had made it down to the neighbor’s place and got a hold of him and he was taken to the hospital early in the morning. It was somewhere after daylight and my father and I and my older brother went up to the crash site to see if possibly anyone else survived. We first came upon a wing that was standing up alongside a fir tree. That was a first indication of where the crash site was. And then the fire and smoke led us to the actual crash, maybe about 300 yards away.

It wasn’t…there wasn’t any survivors, it was like the plane had come down at a very steep angle... possibly 80 degrees and imbedded part of it in the hillside. The rest of it was scattered all over the creek canyon there. We found the remains of two men. At the time, there was still a lot of fire where the gasoline had gone into the ground and was being ignited by the flames there.

Other than that, it was a very gruesome place to be that time of morning. We checked out to make sure there was nobody alive around there and then we left and went back home. Later in the day state police came up there and they had quite a hard time getting there with their fancy cars but after that the military came and cordoned the place off up there and then you couldn’t get up there till later.

When they left, more or less the scavengers showed up and started picking the aircraft apart. But there still remains some of the parts up there. It would be very hard to find.

I don’t really know much more to tell you other than it was an experience I don’t really care to go over again.

The military air dropped supplies to the men up there because it was a very rough road up there at the time. So that was our very first experience of seeing anything like that. I was probably fifteen years old at the time so it has been a long time. About all I got to tell you. Anything else you need to know?”

LeFevre: “Was there any indication of any secrecy or do you think it was a classified mission?”

Davenport: Well, later on we heard it was carrying some classified documents but that’s all I ever knew of anything like that. Other than that, I don’t know if they found anything. There was a lot of charred paper remains and stuff like that up there and logbooks and stuff of that nature but as far as any classified documents I couldn’t tell you.

LeFevre: The two officers Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown who perished in the crash were supposedly carrying a strongbox of evidence. Do you know if there was any indication of that or do you know if the military ever found anything?

Davenport: “There was no mention of that to my knowledge up there. There may have been a strongbox in there but all I saw was charred wreckage.”

LeFevre: “Well thank you and this has been very educational and informative regarding the Air Force’s first plane crash and definitely an intriguing museum mystery.”

The First Photo

Stark, Brent. Dahlquist photo. Longview Daily News, Aug. 1, 1947

After the interview, we decided to check out the local area and see if we could find any further newspaper articles on the crash as the previous year we had discovered a Kelso article that provided more details of the crash area.

Our efforts proved more fruitful than we had imagined. We discovered not only another article but also a photo of the crash site in the archives of the Longview Daily. The photo was likely taken in the early morning hours by a local photographer for the small newspaper long before the military arrived. As the date was Aug. 1st, it was likely printed for the evening edition of the newspaper. We believe this is the only photo available of the crash made available to the public and the first historical photo of the Air Force’s first plane crash and fatalities. (The Air Force officially separated from the Army in 1947).

The photo suddenly made the incident seem even more real - more so than any other document could describe and gave a weighted impact to the deaths of Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank Brown. Kenneth Arnold stated the military authorities had roped off the surrounding 150 acres around the crashed plane and nobody was allowed within that area. According to Kenneth Arnold not even the Civil

Air Patrol, themselves could approach the crash site. Philip Lipson, Charlette LeFevre, and James Greear at crash site dedication, 2008.

The Slag

At the heart of the Maury Island UFO Incident was the main “evidence” – the black lava like rock or metal remnants called slag. Was the slag simply cast offs from the nearby Tacoma smeltering plants or dumpings from Central Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Plant doing secret atomic projects?

“Maury Fragments Not From Discs”

Tacoma Times, Aug.5, 1947, pg3.

It didn’t take long Tuesday for Dr. Robert Sprenger (above), College of Puget Sound chemistry professor, to identify specimens of “queer, black rock” found in a Maury island gravel pit.

The stuff which a student at University of Chicago failed to identify was common, ordinary smelter slag, Sprenger said.

A Chicago news association heard of the specimens and tied them up with flying discs. But Capt. E.H. Smith and Kenneth Arnold did not bother to take any of the samples when they were in Tacoma last week. Material being flown to California aboard the ill-fated B-25 bomber which crashed at Kelso, is believe by The Times to have come from another source, being kept a close secret by military intelligence. (Read story starting on page one.)

"The actual saucer fragments, and the Tacoma slag, were analyzed by the same agencies. One was found to be slag, the other cannot be explained by any metallurgist. Like the pure tin found in South America, it does not exist naturally on the Earth, nor can it be duplicated. The mystery ingredient is calcium; its purpose is for protection against radioactive material; it is an absolute necessity at heights of 600 miles or more.

Morello was reported to be the one that sent the slag to be analyzed by Sprenger. They were identified as slag from the Ruston copper smelter. Sprenger said that Maury Island residents often brought them from the smelter dump to use for bulkheads and retaining walls.

From The Hindu Madras, July 10, 1947...

EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNT OF "METALLIC RAIN"

CHICAGO, July 8, 1947. 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 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 sender, Mr. Harold Dahl, of Tacoma (Washington State), said that the substance was dropped in heavy rain on June 25 over Puget Sound, near the Canadian Border, from a huge circular flying machine.

From Ray Palmer’s book “The Real UFO Invasion,” The analysis of the original initial fragments sent to Palmer from Dahl is as follows:

High Constituents: - Calcium, Iron, Zinc, Titanium. Middle Constituents – Aluminum, Manganese, Copper, Magnesium, Silicon.

Low Constituents: - Nickel, Lead, Strontium, Chromium Traces – Silver, Tin, Cadmium.

“Nothing of an unusual nature exists in this combination of metals except the unusually high quantity of calcium and titanium. It is interesting to note that titanium, one of the high constituent metals, is now believed to be the key metal in constructing missiles or ships capable of space travel. Also, calcium has an affinity for particles of radium, and the ability to capture them and prevent contamination of surrounding areas.

Analysis of Tacoma Slag Fragments pointed out by Maj. Sanders

1 . The crude sample is magnetic. This indicates the presence of the mineral magnetite (iron oxide, FE3O4), free iron or both. Both appear to be present in this sample.

2 . About 21% of the sample is soluble in hydrochloric acid. This is the iron-iron oxide fraction. The acid insoluble residue is nonmagnetic. Since the acid soluble and insoluble fractions are obviously different chemical individuals, both fractions were analyzed separately.

3. The acid soluble fraction is 49.7% Fe (iron). Qualitative tests showed a small amount of Zn (zinc), a trace of Cd (cadmium) and Mo (molybdenum). No nickel, cobalt, or copper are found in this fraction. The remainder of this sample is largely oxygen.

4. The acid insoluble fraction has the following analysis:

%SIO2 49.2

% FE2O3 30.2 %FE 21.2 % C2O BaO 13.1 % Ca & Ba 9.35 % MaO 1.1 %Ma 0.87

_____

93.6

The remainder of the material is aluminum, titanium, magnesium, and alkali oxides together with small amounts of other metals. No cobalt or nickel were found in this fraction.

5. A mineralogical analysis under the petrographic microscope shows that the sample is a very complex mixture of silicates and oxides, typical of an artificial slag.

On the basis of the above five points, the material is slag from the production of steel. The presence of appreciable amounts of iron in the slag suggests that it is slag from an open-hearth furnace. Palmer with the comparison of the initial slag and the later Tacoma samples states Crisman and Dahl’s slag was neither slag nor natural rock.–Palmer, Ray, “The Real UFO Invasion” Greenleaf Classics Pub. 1966. Notes: Arnold’s article in Fate 1948 did not mention titanium in construction of missiles and ships capable of Arnold, Kenneth, Fate, “I Did See the Flying Disks!” Palmer, “The Real UFO invasion”

space travel. Fate, 1948 and

He said that he and two companions on board a small boat saw what appeared to be huge silver doughnuts coming down between the clouds.

"I anchored the boat and went ashore and watched the objects through binoculars," Mr. Dahl said. "I saw five objects rotating around a sixth. They were about 200 feet in diameter with a center hole, surrounded by what appeared to be a row of portholes."

The "ships" as Mr. Dahl described them, hung level about 1,500 feet, and then rose rapidly to a height of nearly a mile. At this point, according to Mr. Dahl, the central ship began raining a substance that rained down upon the water and along the shore. Pieces of the "metal rain" smashed a hole in the wheelhouse of his boat and broke a searchlight lens on deck. Some of the substance which, he said, was picked up on the beach was sent along to back up his story. -- Reuter.

We did not take any samples of the smelter slag….I was thinking that it was odd how Major Sander knew just the right side of the road to take out at the smelter and he stopped only where there were pieces of slag that closely resembled the pieces we hadCOS p.79

From Seattle FBI Files: “Palmer wrote them saying that he had been unable to analyze the rocks and ordered additional samples. ... A few days after the flying disk stories started in the latter part of June, Palmer contacted them saying he would pay for an exclusive story if the parts were fragments of a disk.”

Reporter Vogel would state he visited Dahl “Sunday evening” a few days after disks started appearing in papers in the early part of June. (The date would have likely been Sun. June 1, 8th or 15th).

Note: Vogel’s time frame clearly indicates the slag or black lava type “rock” was in possession of Crisman and Dahl weeks before any UFO sighting and indicates a monetary reason for salvaging the rocks, perhaps in the same manner as salvaging logs.

The slag in the above photo does appear to have a thickness of about an inch with rough liquid flow lines on one side.

Piece of Slag donated by Elmer Frombach.

Taken from Maury Island beach 1965.

Maury Island Slag

In 2010 a gentleman by the name of

Elmer Frombach donated to the

Northwest Museum of Legends and

Lore a piece of metal, he had picked

up on the beach of Maury Island in

1965. Assay records prove his family

owned a farm just North of Pembroke cove and the gravel pits. Frombach recalls how his dad had found a meteor and he also wanted a piece of something unusual so one day when his father was in conversation with a friend on the beach he came across this piece of metal looking “rock”. He would keep this metal in his bedroom forgetting about it for years until he read an account of the Maury Island mystery.

Although yet to be analyzed, the metal fragment is not radioactive and does bear marking of flow lines similar to the slag analyzed by Sprenger in 1947.

Today the area on Maury Island has greatly changed. Maury Island in the area of Pembroke cove, the area most likely where Dahl would claim to have his sighting has been a public park since 2010 called Dockton Forest and Glacier Park, stewarded by Vashon Maury Island Land Trust.

Vashon Island’s park Paradise Ridge confirms the area’s history with the military as it was the site of a Nike missile -now a 43-acre equestrian park located in the center of Vashon Island.

Additional Details from the Air Force Report

According to a letter dated Aug. 7, 1947 Robert Grafton T. Sgt, Sq. “A” 314th AAF McChord Field that the pilot Capt. Davidson arrived at McChord from Hamilton on July 31st 1947 at 19:29. The pilot was granted two hundred gallons of gasoline by the Operations Officer and put into the plane.

The crew chief was checking over the exhaust stacks and the pilot and co-pilot were changing into civilian clothes. “We asked what time they wished to take off and were told between 22:00 and 23:00. They later called and said takeoff time would be near 24:00. However, the time of takeoff was near 2:00 am Aug. 1st 1947.

“We couldn’t see anything wrong with the plane. It landed here in what seemed to be a good condition.

It appears Capt. Davidson stayed with the plane until the very end and 1st Lieutenant Frank Brown very likely was thrown from the wreckage. With close to 200 gallons of fuel on fire at impact, the crash scene was likely a small inferno.

The statements from Hamilton Field appeared to one of the few indications of the officer’s mission from the Air Force. Statement from Maj. George B. Felton:

A statement letter labeled “Restricted” from HQ Fourth Air Force Hamilton Field Subject: Operations Order to Officers Concerned stating Capt. William L. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown “will proceed o/a 31 July 1947 via military aircraft to McChord Field, Washington on business pertaining to investigating duties for A-2 Section, Headquarters Fourth Air Force. Upon completion of mission, officers will return to proper station.

By command of Major General Hale: Signed George B. Felton Major. Air Corps

Asst Chief Opn & Tng”

The weather at 1:30am was clear with visibility at ten miles. Temperature was 53 degrees; wind North 3mph and shallow ground fog south.

FBI Hoover Letter

The following letter indicates that the FBI themselves did not know who was doing the wiretapping, an aspect that regardless of the origins of the slag should have caused a great deal of concern in the agency. Note: (parenthesis indicates likely person in redacted field)

Federal Bureau of Investigation United States Department of Justice To: Communications Section SAC, Seattle, August 14, 1947, URGENT

Transmit the following message to:

Reutel August Twelve. It is noted from interrogation of (Arnold) claims that during the conference on July thirty one that (Dahl) and (Crisman) apparently repeated their false story about the material being fragments of a flying disc and only on Saturday night, August second did (Dahl) admit that the story was a hoax. If such is the case it would appear either (Dahl) or (Crisman) made the anonymous phone calls since they would have been under the impression at that time that the material furnished to Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown was actually parts of a flying disc. It would also appear that (Dahl) and (Crisman) did not admit the hoax to the Army Intelligence officers because if they had done so the officers probably would not have taken the alleged fragments with them on their fatal flight. This matter should be cleared up upon re-interview with (Dahl) and (Crisman) when this point clarified no further investigation necessary. Hoover

RGF: mjp

Newspaper Articles

Wrecked Bomber Carried Disc Secret

Mon. - Aug. 4, 1947

Army Says Data Was On Plane

By Paul Lantz

The army air forces Monday confirmed reports the B-25 bomber, which crashed at Kelso Friday carrying classified secret material pertaining to discs.

According to a United Press report Monday, Brig. Gen. Ned Schramm, chief of staff of the Fourth Air Force at San Francisco, confirmed a story carried exclusively in the Tacoma Times Saturday that the planes had been on a disc mission. The Times, which was the first newspaper to break the story, had been informed by an anonymous tipster that the fallen plane carried disc data at the time of the crash. Still unconfirmed is the tipster’s statement that the crash was caused by sabotage. It was revealed Monday that specimens obtained on Maury Island by two Tacoma businessmen are of a substance unknown to the University of Chicago metallurgists.

H.A. Dahl in the newsroom of The Tacoma Times told reports that fragments picked up at the island by himself and partner prior to the first sighting of the discs, were still unclassified by University of Chicago technicians.

IN GRAVEL PIT

He said that he first saw the fragments in a gravel pit on the south end of the island while exploring the pit with his son. He said that he informed his partner, Fred Crisman of the find. Crisman, thinking they might have a mineralogical value, went to the island and secured several of the fragments. The fragments were sent to a friend at the Chicago institution but technicians in the laboratory there were unable to identify their metallic content. Shortly after the first of the flying discs were sighted, Dahl said, he received a query from the Trans-Ocean Press, a wire service, asking information on his “flying disc fragments.” FLAT FRAGMENTS The fragments which were picked up in the Maury island pit were flat, approximately one inch in thickness of heavy, coppery color on one side, the other side being covered with a heavy, hard substance which resembled melted tar but which is heat resistant. The pieces, he said, had been examined by Kenneth Arnold and Capt. Emil Smith.

Arnold and Smith are considered the most reliable observers of the mysterious disc phenomenon. Brigadier General Ned Schramm, fourth air force chief of staff, Monday confirmed a story carried exclusively in The Times Saturday. Arnold and Capt. Smith were visited by Capt. William. Davidson and First Lt. Frank M. Brown, the ill-fated army intelligence men from Hamilton field who perished on the return trip while taking back material to Hamilton field headquarters. Capt. Smith and Arnold checked out of Hotel Winthrop Sunday and closeted all afternoon with McChord field intelligence officers. When interviewed by a Tacoma Times reporter Sunday night at the home of friends on Lake Washington, Capt. Smith said all information he and Arnold had gathered was turned over to the army. He also took the occasion to deny a story printed in Boise and Chicago papers quoting him as saying he had turned over six pieces of flying disc material from Maury island to Davidson and Brown. REPORT ON CRASH.

Army officers meanwhile said that the mystery surrounding a bomber, which crashed near Kelso, Wash., while reportedly carrying “disc fragments,” would be cleared up “by midweek.”

Major George Sanders, public relations officer at McChord field, the departure point for the ill-fated plane, said “testimony of one more person” was all that was needed before the army could make a complete public report. He denied that the plane was carrying saucer fragments.

INTERESTED IN MESSAGES As the mystery of “flying discs” deepened, army authorities were reported interested in the anonymous phone messages received by The Tacoma Times and the United Press in Tacoma. The mysterious caller, who has maintained a high batting average for accuracy, reported late Saturday that he was leaving the city that night but would return Tuesday.

At that time, he emphatically insisted that the bomber carrying disc data had been shot down “by a 20-millimeter cannon.”

He further predicted that Capt. Smith would be called to Wright field [now called Wright-Patterson AFB] by the army Tuesday.

ACCURACY SCORE So far, the mysterious caller has been accurate on the following scores:

“1. He correctly named the two pilots killed in the crash at Kelso and correctly identified them as army intelligence officers 12 full hours before the army released the information.

2. He was correct in saying that the plane was carrying disc information at the time of the crash.”

Still to be verified are his statements that the crash was caused by sabotage and that the plane was actually carrying parts of a flying disc. The “disc mystery” was resurrected from the Limbo of forgotten news stories in an atmosphere of cloak-and-dagger secrecy as profound as any in an Oppenheim thriller.

Events started Thursday afternoon with the first of a series of phone calls to the Tacoma Times and the United Press.

At that time the informant, who has remained anonymous, informed a reporter that Kenneth Arnold and army intelligence officer had met in room 502, Hotel Winthrop, for an investigation of flying disc data.

ASKS FOR REPORTER

The informant hung up abruptly and was not heard from again until the following day – Friday, when again the rich, baritone voice asked for a Times reporter. Asked why he hung up so abruptly, the mystery caller said he was a switchboard operator and had had to answer another call. He then said that army intelligence officers were meeting with Arnold and Capt. Smith in the hotel room; that flying disc material was in the plane, which crashed at Kelso, and that McChord field officials believed the plane had been either sabotaged or shot down. That was the last call to The Times office.

NO STATEMENT

A Times reporter, checking on the information, discovered Smith and Arnold in conference with two other men in the hotel room. Both, at that time, refused to make a statement.

Meanwhile, United Press Correspondent Ted Morello received a call from an unknown man who, speaking in muffled, obviously disguised tones, identified the pilots killed in the Kelso crash as Capt. William L. Davidson and First Lt. Frank M. Brown.

This was 12 hours before the army formally announced the names of the dead. It was information unknown to anyone outside the army. Saturday evening the mysterious caller phoned the United Press again. At that time, he stated positively that the plane had been shot down by 20-millimeter cannon fire and that fragments of the flying disc were aboard.

Meanwhile, in Boise, Ida, and Chicago Ill., newspapers reported: 1. That Smith and Arnold had loaded disc fragments aboard the lost plane.

2. That there had been a tremendous explosion at sea prior to the first sighting of the flying saucers.

Plane Crash Near Kelso Kills Man, Tacoma Times, Aug. 1. 1947 2 Parachute From B-25 Which Left McChord Field

McChord Field – (UP) The body of one army flier was found in the wreckage of a B-25 bomber that crashed into a hill 11 miles east of Kelso, and burned Friday, the fourth air force reported.

A McChord air rescue service ground party, headed by Capt. T H. Forsberg discovered the plane and located the body after tramping through hilly, brushy terrain of the Gobel creek area since early morning.

ONE OFFICER MISSING

Two noncommissioned officers who parachuted from 10,000 feet with only minor injuries, the army said. McChord officials said one officer still was missing.

S/Sgt. Elmer L. Taff, 24, Fort Lawton, reported to Kelso Police chief O.C. Clark he and T/Sgt. Woodrow D. Mathews, 27, the bomber’s crew chief, had bailed out when the plane developed motor trouble. Taff was a passenger aboard the plane. The B-25, stationed at Hamilton field, Cal., took off from here for its home base at 2:12 a.m. today. Clark reported at 2:35a.m. He spotted the plane flying low over Kelso. It appeared to be out of control, he said.

CRASHES AND BURNS

According to Clark, the aircraft proceeded on course for about 11 miles, went into a steep dive, crashed, and burned. He immediately instituted a search but was unable to locate the ship. An air rescue plane from here was unable to spot the wreckage from the air because of an early-morning ground fog. McChord officials had reported earlier that only three men were aboard. They said they had not been aware that Taff was riding as passenger.

FBI Called Into “Disc” Plane Case!

Bomber Wreckage Being Examined for Secret Material

by Paul Lantz Tacoma Times Aug. 6? 1947

A party of high-ranking air force officers from Hamilton Field, Calif., was reported Tuesday to be examining wreckage of the B-25 bomber, which crashed near Kelso, reported to be carrying flying disc data from McChord Field. The “top brass” was said to be interested in determining whether any secret material remained at the scene of the accident, which occurred last Friday, resulting in the death of two army intelligence officers attached to the Hamilton Field base.

….

Disc “Discoverer” Unhurt in Crash

Pendleton, Ore. (UP)

Kenneth Arnold, Boise businessman who started the national epidemic of flying saucer stories, Monday night escaped injury when his light plane crashed here as he was taking off for Boise. CAA said the motor “conked out” after he had climbed to 30 feet. The plane fell to the runway, bending the landing gear and breaking the main spar of the left wing.

Monday that FBI agents had been called in by the army to assist them in investigating cause of the crash.

“The army and the FBI are going to get to the bottom of this,” Sanders said. “It’s the biggest hoax ever perpetrated, and it’s not funny. Two army officers lost their lives as an indirect result of this fraud.” Sanders declined to name the person or persons responsible for the hoax, but added quickly that the army was confident both Arnold and Smith “acted in good faith and were in the clear.”

He also indicated investigators were closing in on the mysterious telephone caller who touched off the latest wave of saucer speculation by naming Capt. William L. Davidson, San Francisco, and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown, Vallejo, Cal., hours before the army announced they had been killed in the B-25 crash.

Sanders said he did not know whether there would be prosecution as a result of the hoax, which he admitted, deceived the army.

CENTERED ON PLANE

Attention had been centered on the plane since The Tacoma Times first reported last Saturday that a telephone message had been received from an anonymous tipster claiming the plane was carrying disc fragments and that it either had been “sabotaged” or “shot down.”

Brig. –Gen. Ned Schramm, chief of staff of the Fourth air force at San Francisco, at first denied there were disc fragments aboard, but later admitted that Capt. William L. Davison and First. Lt. Frank M. Brown, the dead fliers, had been dispatched to Tacoma to interview Kenneth Arnold, Boise business man-flier, and Capt. Emil Smith. United Airlines pilot who are considered to be the most reliable observers of the flying discs.

CONFIRMS REPORT Later it was admitted by Brig. Gen Schramm that “classified material” pertaining to discs was being carried back to headquarters by the two intelligence officers at the time of the crash. Capt. Smith, interviewed at a home on Lake Washington, revealed that all facts about their investigation in Tacoma had been turned over to army intelligence. He refused to answer further questions. Since that time, a military “cloak of secrecy” has been thrown around the case. A fragment of fused rock. Thought to be smelter slag, was being analyzed Tuesday after it was learned a specimen had been examined by Arnold and Smith as a possible flying saucer fragment. The Black material was picked up by two Tacoma businessmen in a gravel pit on Maury Island.

Smith denied turning any of these fragments over to the army, however. Material, or data, aboard the plane is believed by The Times to have come from another source.

For the FBI, E.J. Smith gave a disposition at the City-County building in Seattle. In it, he mentioned the names of the others on board Dahl’s boat at the time of the incident. In Covington’s copy of the disposition, the names are redacted out. - Covington

Theories

Numerous theories have been offered. One theory is that Crisman was covering up illegal slag dumping having been familiar with transport planes through Boeing and wanted to make some money off of the scrap metal having just been laid off from the Veterans service.

Note: “Crisman stated that Dahl is crooked. - that Dahl was rumored to be a black market operator during the war but there was nothing concrete. FBI Report, 1947

John Keel’s Theory

From Keel, John“The Maury Island Caper” UFOs 1947-1987: The 40-Year Search for an Explanation. ForteanTomes, London, 1987. p.42

“The truth is frustratingly simple. In 1947, the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) huge metallurgical plant at Hanford, WA was processing plutonium and creating vast quantities of radioactive waste. Getting rid of this material was already a major problem and one method was to load it into cargo planes and dump it unceremoniously into various large bodies of water…such as Puget Sound and Tacoma harbor. Dahl happened to be an unwitting witness to one of these dumping operations. When newspaperman Paul Lance (Lantz) visited Maury Island a few weeks later, he found a high chain fence had been erected around the slag piles and there was a sign: PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT .KEEP OUT

Apparently, a group of cargo planes was heading north-west from Hanford to a dumping ground in the Pacific when one of the aircraft developed serious trouble. It unceremoniously dumped its ugly cargo into Tacoma harbor and onto Maury Island, and then returned to Hanford. Dahl and his crew were seen from the air and photographed. It was easy for AEC security officers to check with the hospital later and track Dahl down. The Man-in-Black who visited Dahl was actually an agent for the AEC intent on covering up what was even then an illegal dumping of dangerous atomic waste.”

“Everyone was under suspicion. Hotel rooms in Tacoma and Seattle were wired. Telephones were widely trapped. This accounted for Arnold’s strange experiences when he arrived in Tacoma. Confidential conversations in his hotel room were passed on to the press by mysterious telephone informants etc. Why? Because the AEC knew, it had committed a No-No and security officials saw the Crisman story of a “flying donut as a perfect cover for a botched operation. “Kenneth Arnold had managed to send Ray Palmer some samples of the original Maury Island slag and Palmer had them analyzed. He was baffled by the laboratory analysis because he knew nothing about metallurgy and he certainly didn’t know anything about the Top Secret process for creating plutonium. It was not until the 1960’s that information about that process was publicly revealed. Part of it included piping deadly fluorine gas through tubes of pure nickel. The slag-like material that accumulated in these tubes was high in calcium and matched Palmer’s sample. But Ray Palmer died in 1977 without ever knowing that the mysterious slag from Maury Island was not from outer space but was merely garbage from the miles of metal tubing in the world’s largest factory building in Hanford.”

Deceptive Practices, Untold Stories

Later statement, letters and documents would show that the slag never came from a UFO but appeared to be a fabricated story started a year earlier to possibly commercialize and sell salvaged metal.

As Dahl and Crisman were already in the business of salvaging logs and familiar with Maury Island, it would have been convenient to take up another source of revenue in the area. Crisman had just been laid off a month earlier, was claiming to be single yet in reality separated from his wife and daughter, living in a small surplus military housing and was likely financially strapped. Harold Dahl was in the same predicament, going to movies to get away from his wife and also financially strapped.

UFO Proponents will claim Dahl’s retraction was due to intimidation but the total absence of the light metal and the shiftiness of Crisman behavior even gave Arnold and Smith great pause for concern. Arnold even in his later writing was likely reticent to admit Dahl’s story was true because that would have undercut his own sighting. In 1947, Kenneth Arnold was eager and even desperate to have the military and the public believe his sightings. Later interviews would show that Arnold still carried a chip on his shoulders at the lack of attention the military was showing to what many were concerned were foreign craft in our domestic airspace. In fact, even today sixty years later researchers are no closer to identifying the origins of these strange crafts that dozens of people have seen.

We Want to Believe

Looking back, researchers are now seeing how the story of UFOs over Maury Island developed. The original story was that Dahl sighted six disks, one of which “fluttered to the earth and disintegrated.” Crisman and Dahl wrote Ray A. Palmer this story to Ziff-Davis Company.

“Dahl and Crisman have admitted that the material which they sent to Ray Palmer had no connection with any flying discs and had given a statement to that effect.

An UP Wireman in Tacoma (likely Ted Morello) advised that in early June 1947, he was requested by the Seattle PI to check on a story, which had been obtained from the Fire Chief at Harper Washington. The story originated with Fred Crisman – that Dahl saw 5-6 disks, one which fluttered to the ground and disintegrated.

Official Air Force Report, B-25 Bomber crash.

The official Air Force Report on the crash states “The cause of the fire could not be determined definitely”.

The First UFO Military Cover Up

In 1947, just two weeks before Roswell, the military was unprepared for the rash of UFO sightings and a bit of a loss to explain what was flying around. The military was also perhaps reluctant to admit informing other countries in a developing cold war setting. 1947 was still a time of “Loose lips sink ships” and government secrecy. A person didn’t question the government as an authority.

According to a recently discovered article on the crash, in the Longview Daily article published shortly after the crash of August 1, entitled “Springer Arrives To See Crash Scene” some indication is given that there was an attempt to provide a different explanation for the officer’s investigations. Was this perhaps an early example of government disinformation? The article states “Information reaching The Daily News concerning the flight tended to dispel rumors of flying discs or secret missions, indicating that the aviators, Capt. William L. Davidson, San Francisco, and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown of Vallejo took off from McChord Field bound for Hamilton Field, California, early Friday morning to gain some night flying time on their logbooks.” This may have been one of the military’s first attempts at a UFO sighting cover up to the press.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer I.N.S. article states “a Fourth Air Force officer verified Capt. Davidson’ and Lt. Brown’s deaths but stated that the report that their ill-fated bomber was returning with classified or secret material was “just a flight of fancy.”

Despite speculation of a hoax with Dahl and Crisman, Smith in his FBI statement would relate that Brown and Davidson were of the opinion that there might be some truth to the current flying disk stories but their immediate superiors did not agree with them. Perhaps this is why 1stLt. Brown called Arnold at a pay phone upon Arnold’s request to review Dahl and Crisman. Smith says that Crisman left after the military officers left for McChord field and he and Arnold went for donuts.

Smith’s statements to the FBI generally reflected Arnold’s account except for several details. Smith recalled Dahl saying his sighting was around the 23rd or 24th of June and the “Man in Black” visited him 4-5 days subsequent to his sighting. Another discrepancy, albeit slight is Smith recalls Harold Dahl stating his son was “16 years old,” not fifteen years of age.

Later that day Kenneth Arnold again received a call from Ted Morello. The mysterious informant that kept calling Morello stated the B-25 bomber from Hamilton Field had been shot down by a 20mm cannon.

The Tacoma Times that day’s headlines read “Sabotage Hinted in Crash of Army Bomber at Kelso and a sub-headline read “Plane May Hold Flying Disk Secret.” Written by Paul Lantz the article stated the plane had been sabotaged or shot down to prevent shipment of flying disk fragments to Hamilton Field, California, for analysis. “The disk parts were said by the informant to be those from one of the mysterious platters which plunged to earth on the Maury Island” recently. Leading substance to the caller’s theory is the fact that twelve hours before the Army released official identification; the informant correctly identified the dead in the crash to be Capt. William L. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown.

This Tacoma Times article also stated “At McChord field an intelligence officer confirmed the informants report that the B-25 Bomber had been carrying ‘classified material’.

Seattle Post Intelligencer Aug. 3, 1947 AP report states “Pieces not Located” Brig. Gen. Ned Schramm, chief of staff, Fourth Air Force, said he knew nothing about reports that the plane was carrying “classified” or secret material”

“As far as I know, the plane was supposed to come in here empty.” he said, “and there wasn’t a single, solitary, secret thing aboard.” Air Rescue Service Final Mission Report states “at 0930PST, a message from Sq. B informed that top secret material was in the navigators kit and to request Commanding Officer McChord Field to expedite all available information to Commanding Officer Hamilton Field.”

Edward Ruppelt mentions in his book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects” that “The report we had in our files had been pieced together by Air Force Intelligence and other agencies because the two intelligence officers who started the investigation couldn’t finish it. They were dead. Ruppelt also mentions “The two officers went to McChord AFB, near Tacoma, where their B-25 was parked, held a conference with the intelligence officer at McChord and took off for their home base, Hamilton.“

“When they [Davidson and Brown] left McChord they had a good idea as to the identity of the UFO’s. Fortunately they told the McChord intelligence officer what they had determined from their interview.”

“The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first possibly the second-best and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history."

Crisman would later in his letters to others say that he took great issue with the Maury Island UFO Incident being called a hoax. In one letter to Lucius Farish, Crisman would write he believed “they” presumably the Air Force still had the original negatives of the photos Dahl took and some of the material of the UFO. Crisman would claim that not all the material was aboard the B-25 Bomber the night it took off from McChord and crashed. Crisman would also claim the B-25 bomber “was recovered in it’s every piece”. (We know that comment not to be true as there were still many pieces of the bomber at the crash site in 2007). Crisman would also state in the letter “The plane was perforated in a 1,000 places by what is now the same type of holes that a laser beam makes in metal.” Crisman would also state some erroneous comments. Crisman stated he had read the Thurston County Sheriff’s report although the crash occurred in Cowlitz County and that the pilots were strapped in their seats when in fact 1st Lt. Brown was thrown from the plane and found some distance away. letter to Lucius Farish (undated) Thomas, Kenn.-Maury Island UFO, 1999.

If the officers had related this was just a story or a hoax to AF intelligence why shoot down the plane? I believe whoever shot down the plane didn’t know completely any fabricated story and had plans to down the plane shortly after they arrived at McChord and believed they did have some fragments or evidence of some kind on board. A saboteur would have had to have immediate access to the plane or known the flight path home to align a 20mm cannon. The questions would be who would have access and be able to shoot a 20mm cannon at a plane between Tacoma and Kelso Washington? How did the informant know details of this crash before the Army released the names?

Trail paved over part of the crash site in Kelso, Washington. Photo by Charlette LeFevre

Still a Mystery

Indeed, these new discoveries demonstrate that not all cases are investigated fully and time may reveal more information on a mystery that remains as complex and unsolved today as it was almost sixty years ago.

New documents, news articles and a review of all the pieces of the puzzle points to a fabricated story that may have tried to capitalize on a dumping of remnants of a top secret atomic energy project the public was not to know. Did Harold Dahl and Crisman stumble upon a secret project and their attempt to sell a story go awry?

If a fabricated hoax story was an explanation then another question still remains as to why Harold Dahl would fabricate such a bizarre detailed story of a Man in Black. And yet, after all the scrutiny on Dahl’s story the numerous other disks sightings in the summer of ’47 from pilots cannot be explained.

This incident serves to commend the actions of the officers that whether or not they believed the slag was legitimate or that the stories were contrived, these two intelligence officers took the witnesses and sightings seriously enough to interview the pilots and witnesses and risked their lives to secure what they believed to be evidence. This article is dedicated to the men and women who take a risk to find the truth.

Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson will continue to investigate this case, and document this Northwest mystery.

Recommended Reading

Coming of the Saucers, Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy, Kenn Thomas What Happened in Room 502, Jim Pobst

The Man from Mars, Fred Nadis

Flying Saucers over Los Angeles, DeWayne Johnson A Farewell to Justice, Joan Mellen

Remnants of Truth, Thomas Beckham

Bibliography

Air Rescue Service Final Report, McChord Field, Tacoma Washington, Aug. 4, 1947

Airline Head Mystified Over ‘Flying Disk’ Fragment Story. Seattle Post Intelligencer, I.N.S. article, Aug 3, 1947

Ancestry.Com (addresses and relatives for Dahl, Crisman etc.)

Arnold, Kenneth and Palmer, Ray. The Coming of the Saucers, Amherst, Wisconsin: Ray Palmer, 1952.

Arnold, Kenneth. I Did See The Flying Disks. Fate Magazine, Vol. 1, #1.1948.

Arnold, Kenneth, The Mystery of the Flying Disks. Fate Magazine, Vol. 1, #1, 1948

Arnold, Kenneth. Proceedings Of The First International UFO Congress. 1980, Warner Books, New York, NY.

Arnold, Kenneth. Project 1947-Some Life Data on Kenneth Arnold project1947.com/fig/arnbiog

Beckham, Thomas Remnants of Truth. Echo Communications Inc., Louisville, KY, 2008

Biographical Sketch of Fred Crisman

deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?1107-Fred-Lee-Crisman

Bragalia, Anthony Maury Island no Longer a Mystery, A UFO Hoax ufocon.blo gspot.com/2010/07/maury-island-no-longer-mystery-ufohoax.html

Chuting Soldier on first flight, says it will be his last Seattle Times, Aug 2nd, 1947 p. (Elmer Taff)

Covington, John seanet.com/~johnco/maury.htm (no longer active) A Curtis Commando R5C transport plane crashes into Mount Rainier, killing 32 U.S. Marines, on December 10, 1946.

historylink.org

Crisman Native Tacoman. Tacoma News Tribune, Dec 16th, 1975.

Crisman, Fred (aka Jon Gold), Murder of a City…Tacoma. Transistor Publishing Company, Twin Gates, WA, 1970.

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Disc “Discoverer” Unhurt in Crash-UP

Eye-Witness Account of metallic rain. The Hindu Madras, July 10, 1947. FBI Report 1947.

Hanohano, Kalani and Kaliuska. Notorious Fred Crisman. UFO Magazine, Volume 9, No 1, 1994.

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James, Jeni, and Mike (grandchildren of Paul Lantz) email to authors 2006 and 2013.

Jeffords, Edd. Jury orders Crisman to Testify Nov 21st in Garrison’s JFK Probe. Tacoma News Tribune

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Keel, John- “The Maury Island Caper” UFOs 1947-1987: The 40-Year Search for an Explanation, Fortean Tomes, London, 1987. p.42

Keith, Jim . Casebook on The Men in Black. Illuminet Press, 1997

Lantz, Paul. FBI Called Into “Disc” Plane Case! Bomber Wreckage Being Examined for Secret Material, Tacoma Times, August 6,1947

Lantz, Paul. Wrecked Bomber Carried Disc Secret Army Says Data Was On Plane, Tacoma Times, August 4,1947

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About the Authors

The “Scully and Mulder” of the Northwest, Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson have been researching, exploring and investigating Northwest Mysteries for over twenty years along with the Northwest Museum of Legend and Lore. Both Charlette and Philip can be found in Seattle living with their two dogs.

Charlette LeFevre

Philip Lipson

Charlette LeFevre - has a BA in Research and Design from Wright State University. She founded and is current Director of the Northwest Museum of Legend and Lore and the previous Seattle Chat Club - a lecture group founded in 1998..

The daughter of an Air Force Sargent, Charlette grew up at WrightPatterson AFB in Ohio. She currently writes for the Seattle PI online as the Charlette Report.

Philip Lipson grew in up Philadelphia and Detroit. He has been a librarian and a researcher for over 40 years.

He is a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, MI with a Masters Degree in Library Science. He has been involved with UFOlogy for about 15 years and has helped direct conferences as codirector of The Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore. Philip has lately become interested in genealogy and has provided much of the biographical material in this book.

Northwest Museum of Legends and Lore www.northwestlegendsmuseum.com