The Maury Island Incident

Seaman Harold Dahl was on his boat near Maury Island, in Washington State on June 21, 1947. Dahl and others were scavenging for drifting logs in Puget Sound. The men said that they witnessed "four, five or six doughnut-shaped objects" flying in formation over their boat.

Dahl reported that one of the strange craft appeared to be malfunctioning and began to eject metal debris. The seaman recovered some of the debris, describing it as "sheaves of white, lightweight metal that fluttered down like newspaper".







Mr. Dahl later told FBI investigators that a man wearing a black suit and driving a brand new 1947 Buick invited him to breakfast at a nearby diner the morning after the incident. The seaman said that the stranger issued unspecified threats to Dahl and his family if they reported seeing the flying craft.
Despite the threats from this original member of the "men in black", Dahl told a co-worker about the sighting.

The co-worker's name was Fred Crisman. FBI investigators believe that it was Crisman who began leaking the Maury Island story to the media and shipped some of the debris Dahl recovered to the University of Chicago for study. The story of the mysterious flying objects spread rapidly. FBI and US Army Air Corps investigators quickly arrived on the scene.

Two US Army Air Corps investigators were returning to their base at Hamilton Field, California, bringing with them samples of the debris Dahl recovered. In an odd turn of events, the two investigators were killed when their B-25 crashed shortly after taking off from Tacoma, Washington. Conspiracy theories abounded, including a claim that their B-25 had been shot down by 20mm cannon fire.

 



There are some reports claiming that Harold Dahl admitted that the Maury Island Incident was a hoax. Dahl disputed those reports, saying that any contradictory statements he made were a result of the threats he had received from the "man in black". The seaman steadfastly maintained that he was attempting to protect his family.

Interestingly, the Maury Island Incident took place just three days before pilot Kenneth Arnold's famous flying saucer sighting near Mt. Ranier, Washington State and twelve days before the alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico.. Arnold's sighting is the one credited with beginning the modern UFO era. What happened at Roswell continues to be a mystery. The Maury Island Incident remains a hotly disputed argument over whether Dahl and his companions witnessed a flying saucer, a classified early aerospace project or were perpetrating a hoax.