Maury Island incident participant Fred Crisman
The Maury Island incident refers to claims made by Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl of falling debris and threats by men in black following sightings of unidentified flying objects in the sky over Maury Island in Puget Sound. The pair would later claim the events had occurred on June 21, 1947."On June 21, 1947 in the afternoon about two o'clock, I was patrolling the east bay of Maury
Island [...] I, as captain, was steering my patrol boat close to the shore of a bay on Maury Island. On board were two crewmen, my fifteen-year-old son and his dog.  As I looked up from the wheel on my boat I noticed six very large doughnut-shaped aircraft "
Dahl further claimed that one of the objects "began
spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its
center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very light weight metal,
fluttered to earth". Dahl reported that a substance resembling lava rocks fell onto their boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog.Dahl said his superior officer, Fred Crisman, investigated. Dahl also claimed he was later approached by a man in a dark suit and told not to talk about the incident. Crisman, when interviewed, reported having recovered debris from Maury Island and having witnessed an unusual craft.Further investigation
Arnold first recruited Captain E.J. Smith of United Airlines, who had reported witnessing a flying disc on July 4. Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold and Smith, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with Dahl's description. Arnold then decided to contact Lt. Frank Brown of Military Intelligence, Fourth Air Force, Hamilton Field, California. Brown arrived at Arnold's hotel in Tacoma along with Captain William L. Davidson.Davidson and Brown conducted interviews, collected fragments, and prepared for the return flight out of McChord. In the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the B-25 Mitchell they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington on their way back to California.The FBI then proceeded to investigate this case, and concluded that Crisman and Dahl's sightings were a hoax. In their files, they noted that Dahl stated that "if questioned by the authorities he was going to say it was a hoax because he did not want any further trouble over the matter." The files also detail a few alternate stories communicated by Crisman and Dahl to local newspapers and other media outlets, and conclude that they had contacted a variety of publications "in the hope of building up their story through publicity to a point where they could make a profitable deal with Fantasy Magazine, Chicago, Illinois."An FBI report concluded that the "Tacoma Harbor Patrol" 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.