Most people are familiar with the 1997 movie Men in Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. But what most people don’t know is that secret agents in black suits keeping public knowledge of aliens and UFOs under wraps may not be entirely made up by Hollywood.
In the late 1940s, America was experiencing a UFO epidemic. The famous Rosewell crash made news across the nation, while the term “flying saucers” was first used to describe nine shiny disks flying over 1,700mph near Mt. Rainer in Washington. Just these two events happened less than two weeks apart in 1947!
Flying saucers weren’t the only otherworldly news coming out of Washington at that time. Just a few days before the Mt. Rainer sighting, two men would share their UFO encounter. An encounter so spectacular it would prompt investigations by the US military and, eventually, the FBI. It would even result in the first deaths in the history of the US Air Force.
And, of course, the first-ever visit by the men in black, who may have predicted the deaths that were to come. This is the story of the Maury Island Incident.
Table of Contents
The Encounter
June 21st, 1947, was a beautiful and clear early summer day for Harold Dahl. He captained a patrol boat in Puget Sound, Washington, to retrieve logs floating away from lumber mills along the water. These logs posed a threat to other watercraft and meant lost profits for the mills if they weren’t retrieved.
Dahl was joined by two other crew members and his son, who had brought their dog on the boat that day. It was around 2 pm, the workday was winding down, and the crew was ready to return to shore.
At some point, Dahl caught sight of something in the sky, about two thousand feet above his ship. At first, he may have thought it was a group of large birds or some aircraft flying in formation. Then, the objects began to descend, getting closer to the ship with every second that passed. This was when they came fully into sight.
Floating directly above the ship were six “donut-shaped” craft that appeared to be made out of shiny metal. They were round, about one hundred feet in diameter, and had holes in their center. They all also had portholes and what appeared to be an observation window.
One of the six craft began to drop even further down than the rest. It lost altitude until it was only about five hundred feet above the water. It was so low and close to the boat that Dahl was concerned it might crash into them. He decided to run ashore on nearby Maury Island to distance himself from the craft.
Once ashore, he could take some pictures of all six of the craft. Unfortunately, these pictures have been lost to time. The remaining five craft that were higher in the air began circling over the sixth that was closer to the ground. The crew looked on in amazement as they stayed in this position for about five minutes.
At some point, one of the higher ships moved down and made contact with the lower ship, staying connected for a bit until a loud thud sound emanated from the craft. What happened next would both confuse and terrify the crew.
Thousands of what looked like newspapers began dropping from the hole on the lowest ship. Most of the material landed in the water, but some landed on the shore, so Dahl was able to recover some pieces. He found they were shards of white, lightweight metal.
Suddenly, the craft began dropping something else. Dahl described the material as “lava rocks” because they were large, dark chunks so hot the water steamed as the rocks touched it. The crew all took cover after pieces began hitting and damaging their boat.
One piece killed the boat’s dog, while another struck Dahl’s son in the arm, burning it. Some versions of the story even say another crew member was struck, resulting in a broken arm. About twenty tons of this lava rock were dropped before everything stopped.
All six craft abruptly flew west out to sea together, leaving a mess of metal and rock behind. The crew was stunned at what they had just witnessed. They tried using the ship’s radio; however, it wouldn’t work. They pushed the boat back into the water and returned to the port to tell someone what had happened.
Fred Crisman was the shore supervisor on duty that day. He was also the first to hear the incredible story of what happened to the crew. Dahl immediately developed the photos on his camera and showed Crisman when they were done.
Naturally, Crisman was skeptical, even though the pictures did show something in the sky. He also found it strange that the photos developed with spots on the negatives, which usually only happens when a film roll is exposed to high radiation.
Crisman assumed that if the craft had dropped as much material as Dahl and the crew said it did, there would still be some on the shores of Maurey Island. So he took a boat out there to investigate the area himself.
Sure enough, there was still material on the beach. So Crisman collected samples, mainly of the lava rock that had cooled enough to be handled barehanded. To his surprise, one of the craft appeared overhead, and Crisman witnessed it firsthand before it flew away.
He now had no doubts about the story his employees had told him.
Men In Black
Most reports are the same: one or two men dressed in black suits visit the witness. The men always somehow know exactly what the witness has seen. They inform the witness that if they speak about what they saw to anyone, bad things will happen to them or their family. Then, they leave as quickly and mysteriously as they arrive.
Men In Black aren’t just fictional movie characters; according to thousands of UFO witnesses, they are very real. They supposedly visit people who have recently witnessed a very profound otherworldly event. Whether that be a flying saucer or a physical alien species, the Men In Black’s job is to make sure you keep quiet about it. Or, in some cases, completely forget it happened.
This is almost precisely what happened to Harold Dahl shortly after his encounter.
A man pulled up to his house in a black Buick wearing, you guessed it, a full black suit. The man suggested Dahl follow him to a nearby diner so they could have a discussion. Dahl reluctantly agreed to follow the man.
Once they sat down at the diner, the man recounted what happened in the sky that day in incredible detail, somehow knowing exactly what happened without Dahl having to say a single word. The man asked no questions but issued a dire warning.
The man said that bad things would happen to Dahl and his family if he told anybody what he saw.
We’ll soon learn that Dahl did not heed the warning of the mysterious man in black. Whether the man’s warnings were true or just a stroke of bad luck, people will be dead by the end of this story.
Although a short encounter in this case, from now on, people will report meeting men in black themselves worldwide. Who are these people? And are they even real? We may never know, and hopefully, you’re never in a scenario where you have to find out.
The Investigation
Not taking the men in black’s words seriously, Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman decided to send a package containing some of the metal shards collected shortly after the incident to a publisher named Ray Palmer in Chicago.
They were hoping to have their story heard by many more people, more people than they could tell themselves in Washington, at least.
A few weeks after Palmer received the package, he notified Kenneth Arnold, another very famous UFO witness at the time. Within the same week as the Maury Island incident, the now-famous “Mt. Rainer UFO Sighting” took place.
Kenneth Arnold was flying his plane near Mt. Rainer when he spotted nine shiny metallic craft flying at speeds he estimated at around 1,700 mph. This was far faster than any human-made technology at the time.
After Arnold went public with his sighting, he was the first to use the term “flying saucer” to describe a UFO. Oddly enough, he never claims to have been visited by men in black, even though both this sighting and the Maury Island sighting happened only a few days and 50 miles apart.
He became somewhat of an overnight celebrity and a UFO investigator. This is why he was the first person Ray Palmer called when he received the package and learned what had happened at Maury Island.
Arnold was eager to investigate the sightings, so he made it to Tacoma, Washington, around a month after the initial incident in late July. He brought with him fellow pilot and co-investigator E.J. Smith.
They examined the boat and some of the metal shards, followed by interviews with Dahl and Crisman to ensure their stories lined up. At one point, Dahl told the investigators something extraordinary.
He said that his son had somehow gone missing and had a feeling it had something to do with what they had seen. A time later, Dahl’s son would end up waiting tables at a restaurant in Montana, with no memory of how he got there. Take that how you will.
Arnold was intrigued by what he had heard and seen and wanted to escalate the investigation, so he contacted another friend and pilot, Lt. Frank M. Brown, who also happened to be a pilot in the US Army.
The Officers
As strange as it seems that Arnold could easily contact the military and have two airmen join the investigation, it’s not that far-fetched.
In the years following the Second World War, technology was advancing at a staggering pace. Military tech was no exception, as the world saw when the first two nuclear bombs humanity had ever seen were dropped in 1945, ending the war.
America wasn’t the only country developing new and more dangerous weapons; Soviet Russia was also quickly advancing, researching, and developing new aircraft.
The US government wasn’t so much afraid of alien invaders; they were more fearful of secret Soviet aircraft entering American airspace to gather intelligence. For all they knew, these UFOs people were seeing could have been advanced enemy aircraft they knew nothing about. This is why Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. Lee Davidson were permitted to fly into Tacoma, per Arnold’s request, to see what was happening. Not only were these two men pilots, but they were also military intelligence specialists.
After conducting more interviews with Arnold, Crisman, and Dahl, the airmen came to a conclusion. The story differs depending on where you read it. In both cases, the pilots left the scene somewhat abruptly.
Some say they left because they had to make it to Hamilton Field for an important ceremony. Prior to August 1947, the US Air Force did not exist. It was just a part of the US Army. The next day, there was a ceremony for this occasion, and the two pilots wanted to be back at the airfield for this historic event.
Other, more cynical reports say that Davidson and Brown could tell the story was made up as soon as they arrived. They thought the whole thing was a waste of time and decided not to spend any more time there than they had to. So they left for Hamilton Feild around 2 am the same day they got there.
Both sides of the story agree that they did collect a sample of the metal shards recovered from the site of the encounter. It’s possible that they wanted to test the material to see if it was of this world.
They departed on a B-25 bomber with two other enlisted crew. About twenty minutes after they took off, something went wrong with the aircraft, and it crashed near Centralia Washington. The two enlisted crew members survived; however, the two officers, Davidson and Brown, perished in the crash.
This made them the first two casualties in the US Air Force.
It’s said that on the night of the crash, residents heard anti-aircraft fire so clearly that they believed the plane had been shot down. Local police received multiple calls from people believing a battle was raging right over their homes. These reports were so prevalent that they made it to the FBI.
While the official reports state that the plane suffered an engine fire, the rumor that it was shot down still spread. People who believed this say that the material from Maury Island the crew was carrying was indeed of alien origin. And maybe whoever was responsible for shooting down the plane was trying to prevent anyone from finding that out.
Now that lives had been lost over this UFO story, the military broadened its investigation, and the FBI had involved itself with the case.
The Determination
The military investigator visited the bomber crash site and put the pieces together of what happened. They believe an engine fire caused one of the wings to break off and strike the aircraft’s tail. This caused it to enter an uncontrollable spin that the two pilots couldn’t escape.
The military and FBI examined Dahl’s boat and determined that the damage they saw did not match the story they were told. They also couldn’t find any metal fragments on the shores of Maury Island. According to the investigators, the samples Dahl and Crisman had seemed to be metal slag from a smelter.
With these findings in mind, it was determined that Dahl and Crisman fabricated this story purely for publicity. Maybe they just wanted to get their twenty seconds of fame at a time when UFO encounters were as common as birds in the sky.
Amazingly, the FBI did not prosecute the men in any way, even though two airmen had died while investigating their story. They weren’t found directly responsible for the deaths and, therefore, couldn’t be prosecuted.
However, the FBI did warn Dahl and Crisman that they needed to admit the whole thing was a hoax and stop telling people about it, or they would face fraud charges. The pair cooperated, admitted they faked it, and stopped talking about what happened.
For a while, anyway.
In 1950, Crisman interviewed with Fate Magazine and retracted his previous statements to once again claim the encounter did happen. Although nothing states the FBI took legal action against him for this, it’s not the last time his name would be on the government’s radar.
Fred Crisman would be involved in the aftermath of the JFK Assassination years later. He would be falsely identified as a conspirator but was released when it was proven he had no involvement in what happened.
We may never really know what happened on that June day over the waters of Puget Sound. Whether the whole thing was made up or not, Dahl’s supposed encounter with men in black would spark a worldwide phenomenon and even a Hollywood movie franchise.
Visiting the Locations
Visit my site’s “Destinations” page to find these locations on a map. You can go directly to it using this link: https://spookietravel.com/destinations/
Maury Island
Maury Island isn’t really an island; it’s attached to the larger Vashon Island to the west by a narrow land bridge created in 1913, making it a peninsula.
The “Maury Peninsula Incident” doesn’t roll off the tongue as well.
More forests occupy this island than buildings, making it a great place to hike or bike. If you’re really into nature, you can visit the Maury Island Marine Park to the east of the island for some great views of Puget Sound. Visit the Point Robinson Lighthouse while you’re there.
The island also offers a 9-hole golf course as well as a winery. You can stay on the island with the help of Air BnB, but it also only takes about an hour to reach Seattle if you use the ferry. It’s by no means in a remote location.
As far as where the actual sighting happened and where Dahl beached the boat with the metal shards raining down and all that, well, I’ve got some bad news.
No one really knows the exact location where they claim the sighting happened—if it even really happened.
It’s more than likely that it was on the east side of the island, as this is where logs would have been floating around for Dahl and his crew to collect.
I’m sure many locals have their ideas of where it happened, so if you visit, I’d encourage you to ask around; you never know what you might learn.
Bomber Crash Site
As I’ve been doing the research, I’ve learned that, much like the UFO encounter itself, the exact location of where the bomber crashed is unknown. I was amazed by this because with the crash causing the first two deaths in the history of the Air Force, you’d think there’d be some memorial.
A newspaper in Longview, Washington, reported that the bomber crashed near Goble Creek. This is a vast area, and with the crash happening so long ago, there’s nothing that I can see on any satellite map to identify where it happened. Again, locals might be the best source of information with this one.
That same newspaper clipping mentioned the site as being “one mile east of the Goble Creek Bridge ” and also noted that it was about 8 miles outside Kelso, Washington. I used these clues to identify a location one mile east of a bridge crossing Goble Creek that is also about eight miles outside of Kelso. You can find the newspaper article here: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-inter-lake-bomber-crash-near-k/2515769/
However, all hope may not be lost. Amazingly, as I’m finishing up this article, it was announced that a piece of the bomber will be on display at the Burien UFO Festival, along with an announcement that the crash sight has been rediscovered.
I’ve marked the approximate location of the crash on my destinations map page, but if the exact location is revealed, I will update it.
A piece of the lava rock recovered from the beach will also be featured at the festival, as will Kenneth Arnold’s granddaughter presenting new photos and information about the incident.
If you’re a fan of the Maury Island Incident, this festival is a must. It takes place on August 4th, 2023.
The Maury Island Incident Mural
While celebrating everything that has to do with the men in black during the annual “Men In Black Birthday Bash” in Des Moines, Washington, take a stroll to see the Maury Island Incident Mural.
This mural is located at 605 S 223rd St, Des Moines, WA 98198, on the side of a grey shipping container. It features the six craft descending on Dahl’s boat while a man in black watches on from the pier.
If you’re interested in the Men In Black Birthday Bash, it’s a celebration of all things MIB. Attendees dress in black suits and party for the weekend. It takes place annually in June in Des Moines, Washington. You can find their website using this link: https://mibbbfest.squarespace.com/.
Thanks For Reading
As always, thank you for reading! Aliens have always been a strange topic for me. I’m not sure what I believe, but it was fun researching for this article and learning where the first Men in Black encounter took place.
If you’ve been to Maury Island and have a story, please leave a comment below or send me a message.
As I mentioned above, the “Destinations” page lists all the locations mentioned in this blog.
Until next time, remember always to keep an open mind.
