MIB's - Men in Black

[zorgon]

Men in Black


Drawing by Albert K. Bender, 1953.

"Their faces were unpleasant to look at. Their eyes shone like tiny flashlight bulbs, and the teeth were pearly white, set in a very dark complexion. I could not see their hands, covered by black gloves. A bluish radiance enveloped their entire bodies, and I wondered if this was giving off the sulphuric odor." - Albert Bender in FLYING SAUCERS AND THE THREE MEN  (page 106) 1962

Albert Bender and the M.I.B. Mystery

In 1953 a man by the name of Albert K. Bender of Bridgeport Connecticut was running an organization called the International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) and editing a little publication called "Space Review" that was dedicated to news of flying saucers.

The IFSB had a small membership despite its rather grandiose title, and Space Review reached at best, no more than a few hundred readers. But they were all deeply devoted to the idea that flying saucers were craft from outer space. In common with other true believers, these saucer buffs were convinced that they were in possession of a great truth, while most of the rest of the world remained in darkness and ignorance. They felt very important, and thus it was with a sense of surprise, even shock, that they opened up the October 1953 issue of Space Review and found two unexpected announcements: "LATE BULLETIN. A source which the IFSB considers very reliable has informed us that the investigation of the flying saucer mystery and the solution is approaching its final stages. This same source to whom we had referred data, which had come into our possession, suggested that it was not the proper method and time to publish the data in Space Review."

The second and more shocking item read: "STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: The mystery of the flying saucers is no longer a mystery. The source is already known, but any information about this is being withheld by order from a higher source. We would like to print the full story in Space Review, but because of the nature of the information we are very sorry that we have been advised in the negative."

The statement ended with the ominous sentence, "We advise those engaged in saucer work to please be very cautious." Bender then suspended the publication of Space Review, and dissolved the IFSB.

The tone of the announcements would have been familiar to anyone who had much experience with occult organizations. Occultists often claim they are in the possession of some great secret which, for equally secret reasons, they cannot reveal. Even the appeal, "please be very cautious" was not unique. It made those engaged in "saucer work" feel more important. After all, who is going to bother to persecute you if you are just wasting your time?
Next

By Chevon Wallace - Class of 2004

Shortly after Bender closed down his magazine and organization he gave an interview to a local paper (in) which he asserted that he had been visited by "three men wearing dark suits" who had ordered him "emphatically" to stop publishing material about flying saucers. Bender said that he had been "scared to death" and that he "actually couldn't eat for a couple of days". Some of Bender's former associates tried to press for a more satisfactory explanation, but to all questions he replied either cryptically or not at all.

This state of affairs created considerable confusions among the flying saucer buffs. What were they to think about such a strange story? Some were openly skeptical of Bender's tale. They said that his publication and organization were losing money and the tale of the three visitors who ordered him to stop publishing was just a face-saving gesture. Yet, as the years went by the "Three Men In Black" began to sound more respectable and they took on a life of their own. Some of Bender's friends first thought that the Men In Black were from the Air Force or the CIA, and indeed Bender's original statements do seem to sound like (the men could have been) government agents. But after a while the Men In Black began to assume a more extraterrestrial, even supernatural air.

Finally in 1963, a full decade after he first told of his mysterious visitors, Albert Bender elaborated further in a book called "Flying Saucers and the Three Men In Black". It was a strange, confused and virtually unreadable book that revealed very little in the way of hard facts, but did significantly enhance the reputation of the Men In Black as extraterrestrials. The book also introduced into the lore "three beautiful women, dressed in tight white uniforms." Like their male counterparts in black, the women in white had "glowing eyes".

Bridgeport Herald Article

But even before the publication of Bender's book in 1963, the Men In Black (or MIB's as they were known to insiders) had already been reported to be visiting others besides Albert Bender. By now they have been reported so often that they have become an established part of the UFO history. The Men In Black, naturally enough, wear black suits. They also usually wear sunglasses, presumably to disguise their "glowing eyes". Most of them are reported to be short and delicately built with olive complexions and dark, straight hair. They are often described as "Gypsies" or "Orientals". Most MIBs are reported to travel in groups of three and usually ride around in shiny, new, black cars, often Cadillac's. These cars are even supposed to "smell new". Sometimes the MIB's pose as investigators from the CIA or some other government agency. They may flash official-looking credentials, but these can never be checked out. Occasionally the MIB's display badges with strange emblems on them, or have unrecognizable symbols painted on their cars. The purpose of the visits seems to be to get people who have seen UFO's to stop talking about them, of somehow to confuse and frighten the witnesses.

People who worry about MIB's tend to lump all sorts of mysterious visitors into the category, even if they don't wear black, have no glowing eyes nor show any of the familiar MIB characteristics. The primary qualification for the Men In Black is that they be of unknown origin, and that they appear to act oddly and vaguely menacing.

Some of those who write about UFO's and other strange phenomena rather casually mention "countless" cases where people have been visited by Men In Black. In reality these "countless cases" are difficult to pin down. In fact, there really seems to be a rather small number of MIB cases where there are any details available at all.

The impression given by the writers is that the publicized cases represent only "the tip of the iceberg". Beyond these, say the writers, are many "more sensational" cases, the details of which cannot be revealed for a variety of reasons. In any event solid evidence for a vast number MIB cases is lacking. But we are, after all, dealing with beliefs as much as with reality, and 'impression' is an important one.

By Chevon Wallace - Class of 2004
Central High School - Bridgeport

[zorgon]

Albert Bender and the M.I.B. Mystery

Bender's Account

After nine years Albert Bender broke his silence and revealed the "truth" in Flying Saucers and the Three Men. According to Bender, the men in black were monsters from the distant plant Kazik. - Fortean Picture Library

Reprinted from Bridgeport Central High School

Discord first arose at IFSB [International Flying Saucer Bureau] headquarters at a meeting held early in March 1953. We voted to hold what we would term a "World Contact Day", on which we would urge all IFSB members to attempt to send out a telepathic message to visitors from space. If there was anything to the claims of people expounding telepathic methods, and if we did have visitors from space, perhaps such a message might get across, particularly with so many minds concentrating on the same message.

Two IFSB officials thought the idea was ridiculous and voted against it. They thought people would feel we had all lost our minds and that our organisation would be ridiculed as a result. Other officials and I felt differently. The two opposing members turned in their resignations the following evening and withdrew all financial support. But this did not dishearten the remaining members of the executive staff. Two other sources, learning of the matter, offered financial support immediately.

So we decided to go ahead with "Contact Day", or "C-Day", and quickly multigraphed instructions to send around the world by airmail so that all members would get the material in plenty of time before March 15, the day of the experiment. We received letters from many who thought the entire thing crazy and said they would have nothing to do with it.

We do not know who took part and who did not, but I am certain that a great many of our members did so. The special bulletin was as follows:

ALL OFFICERS, REPRESENTATIVES AND MEMBERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FLYING SAUCER BUREAU SPECIAL BULLETIN: March 15, 1953 is C-Day (Contact Day)

"On March 15, 1953, all officers, representatives and members are asked to participate in an experiment, something that has not yet been attempted by any other group such as ours. We will attempt to send a message to the occupants of the saucers (if they exist) by the use of mental telepathy. Each member will memorize the message on this form, and on the time designated will close his eyes in a quiet secluded spot, lie down if possible, and repeat this message in his mind (do not repeat vocally). If the saucer people are able to pick up mental telepathy they certainly will be able to pick up a message that will be sent by hundreds of IFSB members. We may never know if this message has reached anyone, but if a sudden flurry of saucer sightings occurs in 1953 or soon after our message, or even a saucer landing, we will know that we may have been indirectly responsible for it.

"Members must remember that, in order for mental telepathy to work, you must have nothing on your mind at the time you send the message. You must only think of the person or persons to whom you are sending the message, and repeat it over in your mind. You must not have troubles or worries of any kind in the back of your mind, as this will tend to distract. This experiment is not compulsory to anyone in IFSB; we merely ask you to volunteer your services in trying to make it a success. Everyone participating must do so at the time designated, and not too soon before or after the time shown. We are sending this bulletin far enough in advance so that you may be sure to have your clocks set correctly that day and that the message has been memorized. THE MESSAGE (To Be Memorized)

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft! Calling occupants of interplanetary craft that have been observing our planet Earth. We of IFSB wish to make contact with you. We are your friends, and would like you to make an appearance here on Earth. Your presence before us will be welcomed with the utmost friendship. We will do all in our power to promote mutual understanding between your people and the people of Earth. Please come in peace and help us in our Earthly problems. Give us some sign that you have received our message. Be responsible for creating a miracle here on our planet to wake up the ignorant ones to reality. Let us hear from you. We are your friends. (End of Message.) The date, the places, and the times for this message to be sent: THE DATE: March 15, 1953 PLACES TIMES States in the USA using Eastern Std Time 6 pm States in the USA using Central Std Time 5 pm States in the USA using Mountain Std Time 4 pm States in the USA using Pacific Std Time 3 pm Great Britain 11 pm France 11 pm Australia March 16, 9 am New Zealand March 16, 11am Canada Same as United States

On March 15, 1953, in my den at Bridgeport at exactly 6.00 pm, I proceeded to take part in the experiment as planned. I put out the lights in my room and then quietly lay down on my bed. After studying the saucers for eleven years, I felt that I would try anything that might help solve the mystery. Saucer investigation had become the biggest part of my life, and I had worked diligently to reach a solution. As soon as I was comfortably situated on the bed, I closed my eyes and began to repeat the message over and over-three times, to be exact.

It was after the third attempt that I felt a terrible, cold chill hit my whole body. Then my head began to ache as if several headaches had saved up their anguish and heaped it upon me at one time. A strange odour reached my nostrils-like that of burning sulphur or badly decomposed eggs. Then I partly lost consciousness as the room around me began to fade away.

Then small blue lights seemed to swim through my brain, and they seemed to blink like the flashing light of an ambulance. I seemed to be floating on a cloud in the middle of space, with a strange feeling of weightlessness controlling my entire anatomy. A throbbing pain developed in my temples and they felt as if they might burst. The parts of my forehead directly over my eyes seemed to be puffed up. I felt cold, very cold, as if I were lying naked on a floating piece of ice in the Antarctic Ocean.

I opened my eyes, and to my amazement I seemed to be floating above my bed but looking down upon it where I imagined I could see my own body lying there! It was as if my soul had left my body and I was hovering above it about three feet in mid-air. Suddenly I could hear a voice which permeated me but in some way did not seem to be an audible sound. The voice seemed to come from the room in front of me, which remained pitch dark.

"We have been watching you and your activities. Please be advised to discontinue delving into the mysteries of the universe. We will make an appearance if you disobey."

I replied in words, though my lips did not move. "Why aren't you friendly to us, as we do not mean to do any harm to you?" "We have a special assignment," came the reply, "and must not be disturbed by your people."

As I tried to remonstrate, I was interrupted by another statement. "We are among you and know your every move, so please be advised we are here on your Earth."

With this, the voice faded away, but I could sense that something was watching me. My body seemed to drop suddenly and I once again regained my senses and realised I was on my bed. The room was filled with yellow mist. Not far from my bed was a shadow, resembling that of a man, but as I made a move to rise from the bed it disappeared. The yellow mist was gradually fading and my room was becoming normal.

I rubbed my eyes in bewilderment. I couldn't believe that what I had just experienced had been real. I must have dozed off, and with the telepathic experiment on my mind must have had a terrifying dream as a result. Looking at the clock, I noticed it was five minutes past six, which certainly would have allowed time for me to have slept and dreamed.

As I sat up on the edge of my bed I grew sick at my stomach; I felt as if I had eaten something rotten. Had I really experienced something unearthly? I could hardly force myself to rise from the bed. My head still throbbed and the spots over my eyes retained the same puffed feeling.

After a while I got up from the bed and walked about the room. I heard a humming and noticed that my radio was on. I turned it off, as I realised I had not turned it on when I came into the room. The same thing had happened on previous occasions. I was beginning seriously to feel I might be losing my mind. Again I wondered if I should tell anyone about it.

I sat down and made a diary of everything I could remember of the experience, sealed it in an envelope and locked it in the desk. I felt that if anything of a serious nature did happen to me, somebody would find the envelope and would know what had happened that day.

After I convinced myself that I had fully recovered from the experience, I was left puzzled by a smell of sulphur which lingered in my room for two days afterward. This smell had accompanied the other experiences and had been the most physical part of them. This time I opened my windows and used room sprays to get rid of the odour, but this did not completely dispel it. When I went to bed I still could smell it in the bedclothes. This convinced me even more strongly that I was witnessing some very real events and that I would no longer be wise to assume they had been my imagination or dreams.

I felt I should bring some IFSB officers into my room and have them witness the odour, but thought better of it. I did not want to divulge my experiences to anybody, for fear that it might be repeated and I would be thought of as a crackpot or insane. If publicity should get in the newspapers, I would become the laughing-stock of Bridgeport, and, worse, I might lose my job. My best friends would advise me to see a psychiatrist and I might even end up in a mental hospital.

I knew that people throughout history have witnessed strange events but were unable to convince others they were telling the truth. Many people are not convinced of these matters until they, themselves, experience them-then they look for believers, only to be met by charges of "fake" and "fraud".

It is a lonely position you occupy when you have looked into the fantastic, and there is nobody to believe you have actually done so. Picture yourself, say, alone on a beach at night, when suddenly out of the sky a flying saucer appears and lands a few feet from you. Strange figures get out and walk toward you. They greet you and then get back into the ship and sail away. You go home and tell others what you have witnessed, but with no proof, other than your reputation for truthfulness, to offer. They laugh and tell you that you should lay off the stuff for a while, that you are seeing much more than the average person-they see only snakes! How could you convince them; how could you win when they are all against you? I felt up against the very same thing after the happenings in my room. I did not know what to do or where to turn.

After some time went by and nothing further happened to me, I decided that I should write up the whole thing in Space Review, so I made a notation in the April number that I would make a startling revelation in the July issue. I consulted two of the officers at the meeting and took them into my confidence about everything that had happened. But they were of the opinion that I had invented the story in order to gain more publicity for IFSB, and insisted they didn't want their names dragged into it. They said they felt that the policy of the IFSB was to tell the truth and nothing but; if I went ahead with my plans they would drop out of the organisation, and such an action would make me appear as mentally unbalanced.

From that time onward I had trouble trying to convince them of anything or to get them to do anything for me. One of them further threatened that if I publicised my "nonsensical plot" and he became connected with it, he would have me arrested. So after considering the attitude of these two people I decided against publishing anything about it at that time. When the July issue came out without the scheduled announcement, many members wrote me, asking why it had not appeared and what it was all about.

Secretly I sat down and wrote up the experiences of C-Day, with the intention of mailing it to some official in Washington, DC, possibly the Pentagon, to see if they would help me in my dilemma or if they, too, would share the reactions of our own officers. I locked the report away safely because I wanted to think about it for a few days before mailing it. When I did get up enough courage to mail it, I went to get it and could not find it. The inside of the box where I had locked it contained the now familiar odour of sulphur. I searched the box thoroughly, but the report had vanished.

Had one of the members with whom I argued been able to get into the box and remove the document? I used this as a mental argument because I did not want to believe that its disappearance was a part of the phenomena the paper was written about.

Soon afterward I would have the biggest shock in the chain of frightening events. I will never forget it as long as I live, and to me it is the greatest yet the most fantastic thing ever to happen to anybody on Earth.

It happened the day I returned from a two-week vacation. My room had been locked all the time I had been away, for my stepfather knew how fastidious I was about my room and seldom went into it when I was not around. On that hot July evening I carried my suitcases up to my den and unlocked the door. As I swung it open, an inordinate smell of staleness met my nostrils-intermingled with the sulphur odour. I opened all the windows. Everything seemed to be in place, just as I had left it, but again the radio was on. This time the set was so hot that it is a wonder it had not started a fire while I was away. I knew I hadn't left it on before leaving on vacation. As usual, the dial was set to a portion of the band where no station came in. I shut it off and told my stepfather about it when I went downstairs. He assured me nobody could have been in my room and that I had simply forgotten it when I left.


continued...

[zorgon]

The central figure in a UFO legend, Albert Bender supposedly was silenced by menacing men in black because he had discovered the answer to the UFO mystery. - Fortean Picture Library

I ate a cold snack and decided to go to bed since it was late and I was very tired. I went back to my room, closed the door and latched it. I had a washroom in my den and set about cleaning up before sleeping. After I had brushed my teeth and gone back into the room, I sensed that something was just not right. Then the prickly feeling came at the back of my neck, and my eyes began to water.

Blue lights appeared from nowhere and swirled about the room. I grew dizzy as the areas above my eyes throbbed and again felt puffy. I stumbled to the bed and threw myself upon it. As I did so, I felt my body grow icy cold. I could feel I had quickly come under the complete power of someone or something.

The room seemed to grow dark, yet I could still see. I noted three shadowy figures in the room. They floated about a foot off the floor. My temples throbbed and my body grew light. I had the feeling of being washed clean. The three figures became clearer. All of them were dressed in black clothes. They looked like clergymen, but wore hats similar to Homburg style. The faces were not clearly discernible, for the hats partly hid and shaded them. Feelings of fear left me, as if some peculiar remedy had made my entire body immune to fright.

The eyes of all three figures suddenly lit up like flashlight bulbs, and all these were focused upon me. They seemed to burn into my very soul as the pains above my eyes became almost unbearable. It was then I sensed that they were conveying a message to me by telepathy. Their message went something like this:

"You have dedicated yourself to the solution of the strange problem of unidentified objects in your atmosphere. Your interest is deep and sincere and you have devoted many hours to it. We also know that such interest and determination might lead to something that could bring you harm. We feel that you are a very good contact for us on your planet of Earth. You are an average person, and we know that what we tell you and show you will not be believed by anyone you might tell.

"You are not a person of great renown on your planet; therefore we have nothing to fear at present. We have a purpose for being here, and we will be here for some time yet. We must not be disturbed in our ultimate goal. As you see us here, we are not in our natural form. We have found it necessary to take on the look of your people while we are here. This is mainly used as a means of returning here without being detected by anyone. We have made numerous contacts with Earth by means of craft from our own base and at present we have craft hidden at a remote spot on your planet. We have found it necessary to go to great extremes at times to frighten off your Earth people, and it has resulted in their deaths. We have also found it necessary to carry off Earth people to use their bodies to disguise our own.

"We wish to keep in touch with you and tell you many things because one day you will write about this, and we are certain that nobody will believe you, but you will be much wiser than anyone else on your planet. You will know what is out there in space, and you will know what the future holds for your mankind. You will see all three of us again, but we shall not reveal our names as they would mean nothing to you. Refer to us as Numbers 1, 2 and 3. We will answer according to number. We will leave with you a small piece of metal similar to your coins. It is to be kept in a secret place of your own. We wish to have you come with us at a time to be announced to you soon."

I was to keep the piece of metal and when I wished to make contact with them I should hold it tightly in my palm and close my eyes, at the same time repeating "Kazik", and turn on my radio. I should contact them in two days, at this same time. As they gave me this information, one of them went to my radio, turned it on and switched the dial. I asked him mentally why he was doing it, and he replied only that it was a method of getting back to their base.

They disappeared, and once again I could feel my body resting on the bed. I was covered by perspiration, though during the experience I had felt so cold. In my hand was the piece of metal: finally I had physical evidence that I was not insane. This cheered me in spite of the shocking circumstances I had just encountered.

The metal was most peculiar. It seemed to shine almost like a light. In weight it was very light, yet very hard. I tried to make a mark on it with a file, without success. With the metal I could make somebody believe me. I put it in my locked box for the night. Already it was 2.00 am, and lying down I went off to sleep, waiting for morning when I could reveal the news to everybody.

When I awakened I thought the experience of the preceding night had been a dream. Then I thought of the metal. I jumped from bed and went to the box. I couldn't find it! I threw all the contents out on the floor, but the metal was not there. Then I wondered, as I had previously, if it had been a dream. I had been very tired; I had gorged myself with a midnight snack and it had given me a nightmare.

I felt disappointed as I thought I would be looked upon as a person of importance if I could only produce the piece of metal to back up my story. Then I thought that the three in black probably had read my thoughts and taken the metal until they again made contact with me. Perhaps they did not wish me to tell, or to have the metal fall into the hands of the government. This piece of metal could reveal the truth that we were under surveillance by people from space.

I felt sick all day and couldn't eat. I told my stepfather I wasn't feeling well, and that it was probably due to the heat wave we were having. I felt uneasy at work and little things upset me. I was cranky and snapped at people for no reason.

Two days after I'd either had the contact or experienced a dream, I waited in my room to see what would really happen. For the sake of curiosity I went to the box where I had put the metal. When I opened the box it was there, glowing slightly-in the same spot I had placed it two nights before! I reached in and got it, and, as I did, so the thought of showing it to somebody came back into my mind. As I thought of this, the metal began to glow with a deep red colour and got so hot I had to drop it. When it hit the floor it resumed its former appearance. I could see that I was not to use it for any personal glory or gain, so I picked it up again and decided to try to contact the three strange personages who had recently been my uninvited guests.

I held the metal in the palm of my hand, switched on my radio and repeated the word "Kazik" several times. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then again I got the sensation of extreme cold enveloping my body. My temples throbbed like the breast of a bird when you hold it in your hand, and excruciating pain abounded just above my eyes. Again an overwhelming power was taking over my entire person. I immediately went to my bed to lie down: I felt so giddy I was afraid I would fall.

I had hardly touched the bed when once again I could sense leaving my body, and looking back could see myself lying on the bed as I drifted away from it. Everything went dark and I felt myself floating, as if on a cloud. How much time this floating consumed I do not know, but it seemed like days. My only feeling then was the pain above my eyes. Why I should have this annoying discomfort I did not know, but it must have had something to do with the transformation taking place. I sensed that the living part of my body was being transported to some other place-where, I didn't know. I squeezed the shiny piece of metal tightly in my palm, as if it were my only contact with reality and life. Very well it might have been.

A sudden jolt ended my floating and all movement ceased. The darkness cleared away and I was suddenly surrounded by a brilliant glow, as if the beam of a large searchlight had suddenly hit me in the eyes. As my eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance, I began to make out my surroundings.

I was in a huge, circular room with a glass dome. The walls gave me the impression of stainless steel, but they seemed to give off light, accounting for their unusual glitter. I was seated in a chair made of the same metal, while directly before me I noted a sort of dais where a large tubular object about eight feet in diameter was mounted in the wall. Other similar chairs surrounded me, reminding me of a theatre or lecture room. I looked for a door, but the walls appeared smooth and unbroken all the way around. The ceiling was made of glass or some transparent substance, for I could see what resembled a night sky with twinkling stars above. My first impression was that of being inside a flying saucer which had landed in some secluded place. The chair was of simple design, modernistic with straight lines. It was made entirely of the shiny metal. It tilted backward slightly so that I had a full view of the area in front of me where the dais was located.

Once again I was thrown into complete darkness. I tried to rise from the chair but found that although I could move my arms and my head I could not raise my body to a standing position. A bluish light began to make itself present on the dais directly behind the tubular object; then, out of nowhere, a wall panel slid open and someone stepped onto the dais. The panel closed, the person walked to the edge of the dais and spoke to me (his lips did not move).

"Welcome to our domain. We now meet under different conditions. You are where no other Earth creature has ever set foot. In this domain you will witness things that will be most astounding to you, things that you did not know of on your planet, things that will make you disbelieve what your very eyes are witnessing." As he conveyed this message, he seemed to be using words I could speak myself, somewhat as if I were talking to myself-this is the very best way I can describe it. I could understand everything well. I assume this and other communications were carried out by means of telepathy. Whether it was augmented mechanically or electronically, I do not know. He continued to deliver the message.

"Behind me you will see a large circular object, and if you will focus your eyes upon it I will endeavour to tell you something about ourselves and why we are here."

He made a motion with his hand and the large circle immediately came to life, in some ways similar to a television screen.

"The first pictures you will see will show you the part of the universe from which we come. We are far from the reaches of your Earthly telescopes."

With this, he motioned again and a spectacular view appeared. It seemed that the tube had come to life and that I was actually there. It had a fluorescent appearance, yet was in full colour. I could see a group of glowing objects on a dark background that appeared to be blue, yet at times seemed to be a velvety black. I can best describe the picture by comparing it to a "3-D" movie, but this will not do it justice. Added to the stereo effect was a peculiar identity I associated with it-almost as if I were a part of the picture itself! He then continued.

"The view you now have on the tube is our home. It is many, many light years from your small system of planets. We are much older than your system, for we were created long before the Earth or any of the planets revolving about your central body. All of these systems of planets and their central bodies have been formed from a central source so powerful that you could not even approach it by light years, for if you did you would be immediately destroyed. It is a vast, glowing body so immense one cannot calculate its density. It is the creator of all of us, and more families of planets are constantly being formed and thrown off into orbits. Such systems are not always perfect, and some disintegrate after a few years.

"We do not all revolve at the same rate of speed, and eventually some of us overtake others after billions of your years on Earth. We have overtaken your system many times before, but, of the years that have passed between, you could never begin to conceive. Your planet was not always inhabited, although others in your system have been before yours; but the years have made changes, and many civilisations have died on other bodies in your family of planets, while others are to be yet created.

"Most of the smaller bodies revolving about your planets were at one time parts of the planets themselves, but were thrown clear when the bodies took their ultimate shape and cooled down. The nearest planet to Earth at one time nurtured a great civilisation which was destroyed by marauders from another system of planets in an orbit beyond ours. They will once again make their appearance in the future when they reach this same spot in their trip about the central body. Almost every system of planets that has an orbit about the central body contains some sort of intelligent inhabitants, but not all the same in body structure, being adapted to the various conditions that exist on their particular worlds. Because many of these are far advanced in their ways of life, your planet Earth will constantly be under surveillance by these systems as they overtake you and pass you by. Your planet is yet an infant as far as progress is concerned, and you have far to go to accomplish what many others in your neighbouring systems have already achieved.

"Your planet has been disproportionately cursed in some matters, which so many do not suffer and which slows your progress. For instance, our planet has but one race and one people. Because of your many races and national groups, there may always be conflict which may result in the complete destruction of your world.

"We have been within reach of your system for a number of years, but will soon pass beyond the point of no return. So we have found it necessary to accomplish our task speedily.

"We have been taking a valuable chemical from your seas. This substance is vital to our existence, so whenever we come within reach of a planet that contains such sea water we go there and take the material without harming anyone who lives there. We process the sea water to remove this substance. A sticky residue that remains floats back to your planet in the form of long strings. In the past we have been careless and have allowed some of this to fall upon land areas; but we are now more cautious and make certain that it returns to the sea from which it comes. As the sea water is broken down and the vital product extracted, it is shipped immediately to our own planet by a spacecraft capable of speed you could hardly imagine possible."

He then paused in this discourse, and with a motion of his hand changed the picture on the tube. I saw a landmark familiar to every American: the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the surrounding area.

"You wish to know why I am showing you this view," he continued. "It is only to inform you that we have some of our people stationed in your so-called Pentagon while we are visiting your planet. We have them stationed in numerous places about your planet, to keep us informed of all that is taking place."

The next scene showed a vital spot in the United States, but unidentified as to locale. It was one of our atomic stockpiles. Then, continued changes of scene exhibited similar storage places in the United States and other countries including the Soviet Union. I asked him why he was showing this to me, and he startled me with his blunt answer. I sensed he wished to appear friendly, but his reply led me to doubt.

"With the push of a small button in our space laboratory we can detonate every bomb you have in your stockpiles all over the globe, causing almost total destruction to your planet."

The first thing that came to my mind was the question, "Why would you want to do something so horrible?".

His reply was also blunt and to the point. "Only if we were discovered and your people tried to stop us with whatever means they had at their disposal. But having looked over your planet thoroughly we have nothing to fear in this respect, for nothing you have on Earth could harm us. Our weapons for self-defence against marauders in space are far superior to anything you have."

Then he switched to a horrifying picture that made me shudder. It depicted a hideous monster, more horrifying than any I have ever seen depicted in the work of science fiction or fantasy artists. The monster was alive. As I reacted in repugnance to this scene, I did not see the speaker leave the dais, and started again when I noted his absence.


continued..

[zorgon]

Caption: Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894-1978). Albert Bender, 1929. Gelatin silver photograph, 5 7/8 x 4 1/4 in. (14.9 x 10.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wallace B. Putnam from the estate of Consuelo Kanaga, 82.65.84. copyright transferred to Brooklyn Museum by the Estate of Wallace Putnam -  Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2008

He then seemed to be speaking from the screen itself, and from the mind of the monster itself. It was as if he had instantly changed himself from the form of a man to a creature which appeared to be similar to that pictured by the West Virginia witnesses who described the Flatwoods monster!

"You view me here on the screen in my normal appearance. I note you find me horrible to look upon, yet the people on our planet do not find me horrible. We looked upon your people as odd when we first saw them evolve. We watched your people develop from small sea creatures into what you are today, but if your planet continues to exist without self-destruction, your people will change in appearance over the billions of years ahead. For your atmosphere will change. It will become thinner. Your supply of oxygen will diminish, and you will find it necessary to exist on whatever type of air mixture you may have at that time. This and other environmental changes will lead to necessary adaptations in body structure. Continued experimentation with radioactive material will undoubtedly have effects upon future generations. This could even lead to loss of reproductive capabilities, which could eventually leave your planet devoid of human life. These things are ahead of you and you must face them and solve these problems if you can. To us, your progress is of academic interest but little more.

"On our planet we have three sexes: female similar in function to yours; male also similar to yours; and the third is neither male nor female. These latter individuals are the exalted ones who become our rulers. They are few, and when they are born there is great celebration. Our females bear eggs which are stored away. We control our population, and these eggs are permitted to be hatched only when the great blackness covers our planet and takes many lives."

The great blackness and many other things would be explained at a later date; but evidently he felt I had witnessed enough at this time, for the screen glowed bluish again and went black.

Once again he stood on the dais in human form. He then went to the sliding wall panel and, as it opened, disappeared behind it. The room suddenly went into complete darkness, and I felt myself losing consciousness. Then again I had the feeling of being on a cloud and drifting off into space. As I held tightly to the piece of metal, the icy coldness enveloped my body. My temples throbbed and the pain above my eyes returned with frightening, sharp jabs as if needles were being thrust through my skin.

Then all movement seemed to stop and my head cleared. I opened my eyes and found myself lying upon my bed in my own room on Broad Street. I sat up and looked about. Glancing at the clock, I noted only half an hour had elapsed. It didn't seem possible that so much could have taken place in such a short time, but it had-and I really didn't know how far I had travelled.

Of the entire experience, my mind dwelled more greatly on the monster I had seen on the screen-and yet it wasn't really a monster as we would think of the term. We had created pictures of monsters here on Earth, and the many representations we made of such creatures had led us to think of them as hideous, terrifying, supernatural and unearthly. The last is more likely to be correct, but not in the fashion of our thinking. They could be terrible to look upon only because we have made them appear so to everybody; but actually they could possess an intelligence far superior to ours. Such had been the case with the person in the room with the glass dome.

I opened my hand and looked at the piece of metal resting in my palm. How was I to tell anyone? I would be open to so much ridicule that life could become almost unbearable. I had actually been transported to another place-perhaps the inside of a spacecraft, as I had surmised previously. It had been accomplished in the span of half an hour, yet I had learned so much in that length of time, had been exposed to matters no other person had ever seen or heard before, even in their wildest imaginings.

Many might ask why I, instead of some noted scientist or astronomer, had been the person chosen for such an adventure. The only reason I could summon was that which my visitors had given me-that I was an average person, interested in science and flying saucers, who had devoted much valuable time to the subjects. If I related my experiences it wouldn't mean anything, simply because people wouldn't believe me. Had I been a well-known scholar or statesman, I might possibly be believed. If people did believe, they might become horrified and go into mass panic. This the visitors did not want, for they had a job to do and wanted to go about it without being disturbed. They had not come here to cause trouble; they felt we had enough of our own.

I found myself with an overwhelming desire to relate my fantastic experiences to somebody who would listen to me without questioning my sanity. So I put the metal away in my strongbox and telephoned my closest friend, who was a member of the executive committee.

I asked him to come over right away to discuss something which had happened to me and which I could not talk about over the phone. He didn't seem to be impressed and wouldn't answer yes or no about coming over. He talked hesitantly as if he were building up to some point, then blurted out, "Say, Al, stop having those pipe dreams so you can get publicity for the IFSB! Do you think people are going to believe such nonsense? Give up the idea of making contact with creatures from another world. If they were going to contact somebody, it wouldn't be you. There are more intelligent people around they would want to meet!"

He hung up as I held on to the phone with a sinking feeling. My best friend had refused to listen to me. How would others react? What a predicament to be in-with nobody to confide in. What had I got myself into?

Suddenly I became conscious of and more afraid of another threat, a mundane terror which eclipsed the more unearthly fears I had gone through and survived. What might happen if my story did get out to the wrong people? I was reaching a kind of numb familiarity with the people from another world, and as I chuckled somewhat ironically to myself I realised that my final downfall might more likely come from a visit by a different kind of men-dressed in uniforms of white, freshly laundered at their home base, the booby-hatch!

I didn't know when I might be contacted again, but I hoped it would be soon! Now for the first time I found that what the aliens had shown me had given me an insatiable curiosity to learn more. It was as if the film had broken during an engrossing movie and I was sitting in the darkness hoping it would resume soon. This curiosity had grown into an incredible longing to see and hear more from them.

I had to make a decision about my further relationships with the IFSB. I decided that my best way of handling the committee would be to tell them only part of the truth. I could tell them I had a visit from certain individuals, whom I could not name, who had warned me against further investigation of UFOs. If I told them they had shown credentials, had revealed much to me as to the secret behind the saucers, and that the saucer mystery was approaching a solution, the committee might tend to be satisfied and even attach an Earthly explanation, in their own minds, to my actions.

I would simply tell them it would not be possible to publish anything, because such was not the proper method, nor was it the proper time for such an action. All information was being withheld by orders from what I would simply term "a higher source".

I decided the best possible thing to do would be to discontinue publishing Space Review in its present form, for I already knew the secret of the UFOs and no one would believe the story anyhow if it were published. Why go on conducting an investigation of something no longer a mystery?

Money for memberships was pouring into IFSB headquarters. I felt that accepting memberships under the present circumstances was not fair, for these were joining under the charter of the IFSB which stated we would one day find a solution to the mystery and inform all members about it. So this was the main part of the business conducted at the next meeting. As I had hoped, the committee agreed to everything I proposed after I had told them the altered version of the visitations. I asked them to reveal nothing I had said until Space Review came out in October. They pledged their silence, but I was to learn within a few days that the pledge was not kept.

Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 5, #2 (February - March 1998).
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381
From our web page at: www.nexusmagazine.com

© by Albert K. Bender 1963
Extracted from his classic book:
Flying Saucers and the Three Men
First published in 1963 by
Neville Spearman Limited, London, UK
and more recently by Illuminet Press, USA as a limited edition

Reprinted from Bridgeport Central High School

[zorgon]

ENCOUNTERS WITH MEN IN BLACK



(Minneapolis Star Tribune) -- They sat quietly, leaning toward the lectern
in a dark-paneled room near Lake Calhoun as a professor from New York told
of his encounter with one of the mysterious Men in Black. In the audience
were people like biophysicist Otto Schmitt, a retired professor of
electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota, retired aircraft
developer and physicist Cecil Behringer, physician Steven Zuckerman and
polymer scientist Arthur Coury, Medtronic's director of venture
technology.

Peter Rojcewicz told them there have been hundreds - perhaps thousands -
of such encounters over the centuries. "The Men in Black are part of the
extraordinary encounter continuum - fairies, monsters, ETS, energy forms,
flying saucers, flaming crosses," said Rojcewicz, a 37-year-old professor
of humanities and folklore at New York's Juilliard School. The modern era
of Men in Black - visitations by mysterious, black-clad men who seem evil
and threatening - goes back to at least the early 1950s when a man named
Albert K. Bender allegedly saw a UFO in Bridgeport, Conn., and was later
frightened by a visitation from three Men in Black.

Rojcewicz told the audience that his own MIB (Men in Black) experience
occurred in 1980. "I have never gone public with this before," he said.
Most of the modern era MIB encounters have followed sightings of UFOs or
strange lights.  Rojcewicz's encounter involved no sightings.  He was just
sitting in the University of Pennsylvania library, reading a UFO book
suggested by another professor who thought that Rojcewicz, as a
folklorist, would be interested in such phenomena. "Then in the corner of
my vision I noticed a black pants leg and a black shoe, scuffed,"
Rojcewicz said. The folding chairs in the auditorium of the Bakken Library
of Electricity in Medicine, 3537 Zenith Av. S., stopped creaking as
Rojcewicz's audience listened intently. Standing in front of him,
Rojcewicz said, was a very gaunt, very pale man.  He was about 6-1,
weighed about 140 pounds and wore a black suit, black shoes, black string
tie and a bright white shirt. "His suit was loose and it looked as though
he had slept in it for three days,"  Rojcewicz said.

Rojcewicz didn't know what to make of the figure. At the time he wasn't
aware of the Men in Black phenomena which, he subsequently learned, dates
back to at least Biblical times. "He sat down, like he had dropped from
the ceiling - all in one movement" - and folded his hands on top of a
stack of books in front of him, Rojcewicz said. The Man in Black asked
Rojcewicz what he was doing. Rojcewicz said he was reading about flying
saucers.  "Have you seen a flying saucer?" the Man in Black asked.
Rojcewicz said he hadn't. "Do you believe in the reality of flying
saucers?" Rojcewicz said he didn't know much about them and wasn't sure he
was very interested in the phenomena. The man screamed: "Flying saucers
are the most important fact of the century and you are not interested?" "I
tried to calm him," Rojcewicz said.  The man got up, once again all in a
single awkward movement, put his hand on Rojcewicz's shoulder and said:
"Go well on your purpose" and left.

Rojcewicz looked out at his audience.  "In 10 seconds I was overwhelmed by
fear. . . . I had a sense that this man was out of the ordinary and that
idea frightened me. . . . I got up and walked around the stacks toward
where the reference librarians usually are. The librarians weren't there.
There were no guards there - there was nobody else in the library. . . . I
was terrified."

He went back to the table where he had been reading "to get myself
together. It took me about an hour. Then I got up and everything was back
to normal, the people were all there." He didn't talk about his experience
in public because he was concerned about how people might react to his
story, he said.



Was he dreaming? He doesn't think so. He said he suspects he was in an
"altered state." Rojcewicz said he thinks his experience - and that of
others who have been exposed to the Men in Black - are somewhere "in the
crack" between real life and fantasy.

He has been studying anomalous phenomena such as the Men in Black ever
since his 1980 experience. He has interviewed many people who have
reported UFOs, flying saucers and Men in Black experiences. He said the
Men in Black most frequently appear in threes, but sometimes in twos, ones
and fours.  Some of the MIBs carry brief cases and represent themselves as
being Air Force UFO investigators, he said. The MIBs warn UFO spotters to
tell no one of their experiences with aliens from outer space.

When the MIBs leave, people are fearful, dizzy and, sometimes, nauseous,
he said. Frequently their lives are changed by the experience. Some become
more successful in their jobs and marriages and report a joie de vivre.
Others lose their jobs and marriages. One of his friends quit a good
academic position and went into hiding, he said. Some become addicted to
drugs, and many feel they have been victimized, he said.

He said the reaction varies with a person's culture, religion or openness
to imaginative ideas. To illustrate the various reactions he cited a case
of a psychiatrist and her husband, a professor of education, who saw a UFO
in Maine and subsequently had a MIB encounter. "She has been all right
since then, but he has not." The professor was left lethargic and troubled
by the encounter.

Rojcewicz, who teaches at the C. J. Jung Foundation for Analytical
Psychology as well as at Juilliard, said he suspects the psychiatrist was
able to handle the experience better because she is more open to spiritual
matters while her husband by training and experience is rooted in the
acceptance of only what seems reasonable.

In another case, Rojcewicz interviewed a woman named Deborah from
Burlington, Va., who said she had been visited by a slender, 6-foot, 9-
inch Man in Black who was wearing a bowler hat.  She said her knees went
weak when the man was close to her.  She said of her experience: "There
was something wrong - evil about this." When Rojcewicz telephoned Deborah
to recheck his notes, there was a beeping on the line and they couldn't
hear each other. He redialed and the line was all right.

Rojcewicz said there are references to Men in Black going back to Abraham
in Biblical times, and there have been many similar stories in folklore
over the years.  Often the Men in Black have been considered to be the
devil or his representatives. Some of the Roman Catholic church's saints
had Men in Black experiences.  The church itself recognizes the
possibility by endorsing exorcism, Rojcewicz said.

What is a good defense against the Men in Black? "Laughter," Rojcewicz
said. "If they ask you why you're laughing, tell them, `Rojcewicz told me
to do it.' " He added: "When you confront evil, don't feed them your fear.
Say you are not worried - ha-ha."

When his talk was over, several of those attending were asked if they took
the Men in Black stories seriously. "Maybe there is something there," said
Dennis Skillings, director of the Archaeus Project, which sponsored the
meeting.  But he said he doubts that there is any way of confirming that
MIB encounters "really, truly happened."

Zuckerman, a specialist in internal medicine, said he thought  Rojcewicz
was serious. "I have a friend who knows a fellow who is investigating
reports that men from space are coming to Earth and taking biopsies of
people's calf muscles," Zuckerman said.  "He says the biopsy sites heal
right away." Why would people from outer space take biopsies of people's
calf muscles? "An interesting question," Zuckerman said with a smile.

The Archaeus Project, which is subsidized by Medtronic founder Earl
Bakken, regularly brings in researchers in the field of the paranormal and
so-called alternative science for special lectures.

ENCOUNTERS WITH MEN IN BLACK

[zorgon]

Maury Island Incident

Maury Island, Tacoma, Washington
47° 22? 37? N, 122° 25? 47? W

The Maury Island Incident is said to be an early modern UFO encounter incident, which allegedly took place in June 1947, three days before the famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold, widely considered the original encounter with flying saucers. It is also one of the earliest reported instances of an alleged encounter with so-called Men in Black. Opinions remain divided on whether the case was a genuine flying saucer sighting, a hoax or an attempt to cover up the leak of an advanced, classified aerospace project.

Background

The incident took place shortly after June 21, 1947. On that date, seaman Harold A. Dahl, out scavenging for drifting logs, claimed to have seen six UFOs near Maury Island (which is now a peninsula of Vashon Island, in Puget Sound, near Tacoma, Washington, United States; Maury Island is located directly across a narrow section of Puget Sound from Sea-Tac International Airport and Boeing Field). Dahl, his son Charles, an unnamed hand and Dahl's dog were on the boat. Dahl reported seeing four, five or six (the initial FBI report says four or five) "doughnut-shaped objects" flying in formation over the area where his boat was. He said he could see blue sky through the holes in the center of the discs, and that there appeared to be port holes lining the inside of the ring. One of the craft appeared to be malfunctioning, Dahl reported, and another craft edged up to it, then retreated. At this point the troubled craft began ejecting objects through the inner port holes. Slag-like material began hitting the boat and damaged the windshield, the wheel house and a light fixture, and killed his dog on the deck. He said his son was also slightly injured by falling debris. Dahl claimed to have taken a number of photographs of the UFOs, and recovered some type of slag ejected from the craft that malfunctioned. Dahl also recovered samples of sheaves of lightweight white sheets of metal that fluttered like "newspapers" out from the inner ring of the troubled UFO to the ground.

The next morning, Dahl reported a man arrived at his home and invited him to breakfast at a nearby diner; Dahl accepted the invitation. He described the man as wearing a black suit and driving a new 1947 Buick; Dahl assumed he was a military or government representative. Dahl claimed the man told him details of the UFO sighting while they ate, though Dahl had not related his account publicly. The man also allegedly gave Dahl a non-specific warning which Dahl took as a threat that his family might be harmed if he related details of the sighting.

Some confusion and debate over Dahl's statements have occurred. Dahl later claimed the UFO sighting was a hoax, but has also claimed the sighting was accurate, but he had claimed it was a hoax to avoid bringing harm to his family.

Investigation

In spite of the threat, Dahl had reported the incident to his employee at his sawmill operation, Fred Crisman, who had long claimed to have experience with unusual phenomena (and who was later alleged to be linked to the John F. Kennedy assassination) and who also was the owner, or co-owner, of the boat used by Dahl. Crisman and Dahl also had a joint-venture to retrieve drifting logs from Puget Sound as a source of raw lumber. Crisman sailed to the island the following day and said he spotted a craft briefly, but it went behind a cloud. He gathered more of the slag which he found littering the beach area. He then sent a sample to Chicago with a request it be tested. According to the FBI report, Crisman either sent it to Ray Palmer, science fiction writer and editor of Amazing Science Fiction, or sent it to a friend at the University of Chicago who failed to identify the material and then sent it on to Ray Palmer. While the "rock formation" was being passed around in Chicago, the famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold took place at Mount Rainier in Washington state. Palmer contacted Arnold and asked him to investigate the incident for the story Arnold was writing for one of Palmer's publications (the FBI report states Palmer was the editor of the magazines Venture and Fantacy [sic, given as "Fantasy" elsewhere in the report] at this time, although both Venture Science Fiction Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction first appeared long after the incident. Palmer inaugurated the first issue of Fate magazine in January, 1948 with a cover featuring flying disks and the article he paid Kenneth Arnold to write).

Arnold flew from Boise, Idaho, to Tacoma and met with Crisman, Dahl and at least three military intelligence officers at the Winthrop Hotel there. During the meetings over several days, an unknown person (the FBI agent who wrote up the main report on the incident believed Crisman was the most likely suspect) began leaking details of the UFO sighting at Maury Island, the meeting in the hotel room and details of the conversation there to reporters at the Tacoma Times and at United Press, the latter reporter also working for Tacoma News Tribune. The anonymous caller also contacted the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Boise Statesman.

The two United States Army Air Corps investigating officers who arrived at Arnold's request, Captain William L. Davidson and Lietuenant Frank M. Brown of Army A-2 Intelligence, decided to fly back to Hamilton Field the same day they arrived in Tacoma after interviewing Crisman in the hotel room. Dahl had decided to leave, citing possible danger to himself if the story got out, presumably because of the warning he received from the man in black previously. The two intelligence officers said they had to return to Hamilton Field in California quickly because the next day was Air Force Day, when the Air Force officially became a new service branch distinct from the Navy, Marines and Army. As the investigators were preparing to leave, Crisman produced samples of the "rock formation" from his automobile and gave it to the investigators to take back to California. The plane carrying the two investigators and the slag crashed near Kelso, Washington, shortly after leaving Tacoma, killing both men. In April 2007 it was reported that the crash site had been rediscovered and some material recovered, although the initial military investigation did recover exhibits and remove the bodies. The FBI report notes that investigators from McChord Field near Tacoma had investigated the wreckage and were convinced there was no sabotage involved. The FBI report further mentions that two other people on board the airplane survived by parachuting from the airplane after it lost its left wing and the tail section due to a fire in the left engine. One of the survivors was named as a member of the flight crew and the other was referred to as "a hitch-hiker." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer identified them as Sergeant Elmer L. Taft and Technical Sergeant Woodrow D. Matthews. Initially the Air Force denied the men had been carrying a secret cargo, but in later years admitted that they had been officially investigating the Dahl report.

Crisman alerted Arnold of the crash early the next morning and Dahl and Crisman returned to the hotel to discuss the situation with Arnold. Arnold had invited another person, accidentally identified in the FOI copy of the FBI report as a Mr. Smith of Seattle (probably Captain E. H. Smith (elsewhere E. J. Smith) of United Airlines, identified in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article under External links below), to Tacoma to attend the UFO conference, and this informant related to the FBI field agent that a Mr. Lantz (elsewhere identified as Paul Lance) of the Tacoma Times contacted Arnold at the hotel and informed him of the leaks, including information that the Army intelligence officers had been shot down in the B-25 airplane over Kelso by 20 mm cannon, and that a Marine airplane whose wreck that had allegedly been found earlier at Mt. Rainier had also been shot down with the same weapon. The anonymous caller claimed knowledge of on-going investigations by military intelligence. He was not identified but claimed to be a switchboard operator. Mr. Smith informed the FBI the switchboard operator at the Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma was not a male. The anonymous caller also said he was not interested in providing a scoop to any certain media outlet but wanted the news "to get back to New Jersey."

Asked to produce the photographs he had made of the UFOs over Maury Island, Dahl and the group left the hotel and went to Dahl's automobile parked outside. Dahl then claimed the photographs had disappeared from his glove compartment. Initially he had said the photographs didn't turn out and were marred by white spots that appeared on them. He didn't change his story and the group knew the photographs were of poor quality. Later UFOlogists revisited the issue of the photographs with Crisman, prompting the claim some copies had survived, but UFOlogists were unable to acquire this piece of evidence.

The ad hoc group in Tacoma in 1947 also decided to sail to Maury Island. This plan failed when the boat failed to start. Asked where the UFO had damaged the boats, Crisman pointed to the windshield, the klaaxon and a light. Smith told the FBI there were signs of recent repair to these parts.

Alarmed by the deaths, Dahl disappeared, although the FBI report mentions his son, allegedly injured by the slag from the malfunctioning UFO, had run away from home to Montana for some reason. The anonymous caller informed the press that one of the two witnesses would shortly be sent to Alaska. Crisman, a WWII veteran, was recalled to service hastily and sent to Alaska (A UFO was spotted northwest of Bethel, Alaska on August 4 by Captain Jack Peck and copilot Vince Daly from a Douglas DC-3 they operated for Al Jones flying service and was reported to the headquarters of the Fourth Air Force in Hamilton, California and the Air Defense Command commander at Mitchell Field in New York.), then posted to Greenland (Thule Air Force Base figures in Milton William Cooper's "Behold a Pale Horse" as a Majestic 12/Operation Majority control terminus). Arnold found himself unable to complete the story for Palmer. Samples of the slag provided to Arnold and Palmer also allegedly went missing. Arnold was allegedly advised by Ted Morello of the United Press: "You're involved in something that is beyond our power here to find out anything about... Get out of this town until whatever it is blows over.".

Arnold decided to fly home. He stopped for fuel in Pendleton, Oregon, and shortly after taking off again, his engine froze in mid-air. He managed to land the plane safely despite the emergency.

Paul Lance of the Tacoma Times died within two weeks of undetermined causes. United Press stringer Ted Morello moved to New York and until his death due to a stroke on September 15, 2007, at the age of 88, was a well-respected newspaper correspondent to the United Nations.

Some believe that the famous case of another allegedly disabled UFO, the Roswell UFO incident, took place about 12 days after Dahl's sighting, although various dates circulate among Roswell investigators and the chronology is less certain than that for the Maury Island Incident.

The story of the mysterious crash of the B-25 and the death of the two men investigating the "disk case" who allegedly had a "top-secret cargo" or even "saucer parts" was carried by the wire services and published by newspapers locally and nationally.

Albert K. Bender later seized on Dahl's story, and printed it in his newsletter. In 1953, Bender claimed three men in black visited him, and warned him to stop his UFO research, which he did for a decade, closing down his International Flying Saucer Bureau. In 1963 Bender published his story, *Flying Saucers and the Three Men*, placing him beyond the pale of even the UFO research community because of his claims about men in black.

Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, chief of Project Blue Book in the early 1950s, wrote that he was convinced that the entire sighting story was a hoax. The initial FBI field report concluded the story was a hoax as well.

In the FBI report the anonymous caller mentioned an incident involving a United Airlines pilot and his co-pilot flying over Montana and coming under fire.

United Airlines pilot E. H. Smith, the likely identity of the main informant in the FBI report and a key figure in the meetings at the Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma, was named as witnessing a UFO event over Boise several weeks prior (on July 4, according to the FBI report) to the crash of the B-25 near Kelso, Washington, according to an Associated Press dispatch with the dateline of San Francisco, August 2, "2 Flyers died in Crash on 'Disc' Mission" (see Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Is strange rock from UFO or just a piece of poppycock?", April 25, 2007, under External links below). In the FBI report on the Maury Island Incident, Mr. Smith reports he made contact with people he knew inside military intelligence during the meetings with Arnold, Dahl, Crisman and others in Tacoma. Smith reported a meeting between Arnold, him and an unnamed military intelligence figure without Dahl or Crisman present. In subsequent accounts by Arnold a Major Sanders is mentioned as present at the hotel with Crisman. Mr. Smith reported he, his contact from military intelligence and Arnold went to an unidentified Tacoma slag mill to compare the "rock formation" Dahl had collected and provided with generic slag from a smelter, and found they were very alike.

Aftermath

This event took place at the very beginning of the modern phase of UFO sightings, usually connected with Kenneth Arnold's report from Mount Rainier and the Roswell incident. It contains elements that became embedded in UFOlogy until now, including men in black, what appeared to be a government cover up, mysterious disappearance of physical evidence, mysterious disappearances of eyewitnesses (Dahl and Crisman), mysterious deaths and inexplicable situations. Dahl claimed the mysterious dark man driving the black 1947 Buick who visited him retold the events on the boat as if he had been there, although Dahl himself hadn't related the story publicly at that point. Dahl began denying the story only after the two Army Air intelligence officers died in the B-25 crash. Dahl and Crisman told the FBI investigator they had concocted the story at the urging of Ray Palmer who wanted the mysterious rock formation to have originated on an alien saucer. They claimed to be playing along with Palmer who wanted a story to publish, and yet the FBI agent also notes that Dahl and Crisman were "obviously" not telling all they knew and were attempting to cover something up.

Because Crisman was named in the Garrison case on the Kennedy assassination as a friend of the main suspect, Clay Shaw, he has become a useful figure for UFOlogists arguing in favor of the Majestic 12 conspiracy, which also involves military intelligence, UFOs and the Kennedy assassination. Crisman's automobile was allegedly strafed with bullets less than two weeks before he was subpoenaed to testify by Garrison in 1968. Crisman was accused of being one of the "three tramps" at Dealy Plaza the day Kennedy was assassinated at the Select Committee on Assassinations of the 95th Congress  although he was reportedly at his post as a school teacher in Tacoma at the time of the shooting. When in December 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations summoned Stanley Peerboom, the principal at Rainer High School, to produce Crisman's employment records from the time, Peerboom confirmed Crisman's presence that day and provided documentation demonstrating no substitute teacher had been called in. Crisman eventually became a popular radio talk show personality known as John Gold on KAYE radio in Puyallup, Washington, before running for public office in Tacoma, inspired as he said to fight for the right of Gypsies. When his political faction was forced out of city government, the departing mayor named him to a post on the Tacoma Library Board and he died without fanfare in 1975.

Ray Palmer did publish the story of Kenneth Arnold's sighting on Mount Rainier, and is considered the father of modern UFOs because of this and other stories and cover artwork he featured in the publications he edited. Palmer has a prior connection with at least one person involved in the Maury Island Incident: he published a series of stories known as the Shaver mysteries, to which Fred Crisman began contributing in the mid-1940s, before the flying saucer sightings. Later Palmer and Arnold co-authored the book "The Coming of the Saucers."

The Maury Island Incident and Kenneth Arnold's sighting ushered in an era or epidemic of flying saucer sightings that gained major momentum during the early 1950s. Edward R. Murrow interviewed Arnold for national radio in 1947. Radio, the major medium of the day, took to the reports of flying saucers with enthusiasm, primed back in 1938 by The War of the Worlds on Orson Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air. Hollywood Star Playhouse dramatized a saucer encounter in the story "The Tenth Planet," alien invasions and abductions became common fare and even hosts of mainstream programs such as Superman began cracking jokes about them ("I don't believe this flying saucer business at all. Why I just read a report that 20 percent of commercial pilots have never even seen them!" one host quipped).

While the radio drama shows went wild with Venusian embassies and Martian invasions, WOR radio's late-night talk show host Long John Nebel popularized the real-life theme on his program "Partyline" in New York, which was heard as far west as Chicago and across the Eastern seaboard into Canada, with guests such as George Adamski, the first "contactee", a term Nebel coined, and numerous other guests, including Ray Palmer, Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. Nebel's show featured the gamut of positions on flying saucers, hosting the most obvious frauds as well as the most ironclad skeptics.

The flying saucer craze quickly broke out of the late night time slot and went mainstream in a host of Hollywood treatments and on the radio serials. Entertaining Comics treated the topic in both its pulp and scientific aspects, publishing an entire issue of Weird Science-Fantasy (issue 26, carried over from the "Flying Saucer Report" comprising most of issue 25) dedicated to factual accounts of sightings around the country and especially over Washington, D.C., and called on Congress to undertake hearings into the "flying saucer invasion." The new medium of television was accompanied from its very birth by the extraterrestrial flying disc stories.

Confronted on the one side with credible testimony by reliable witnesses and even military personnel with top secret security clearances on the one side and clamor in the public media on the other side, some U.S. military organizations undertook studies to determine the nature of and possible threat posed by the UFOs. Many wondered whether the UFOs were extraterrestrial or whether they were a new Soviet espionage method, and the public and intelligence communities noted the tendency of UFOs to appear over military bases during the early years of the Cold War. One of the earliest investigations was Project Twinkle associated with sightings of green fireballs by scientists and staff with the post-WWII Manhattan Project and at Sandia National Laboratories in the American Southwest. Project Grudge soon followed, which in turn was replaced by Project Bluebook.

Maury Island Incident From Wikipedia

[zorgon]

Fred Crisman
Maury Island Incident Connection

Fred Lee Crisman (July 22, 1919 - December 10, 1975) was a writer, educator, broadcaster and self-described "disruption agent" from Tacoma, Washington known for claims of paranormal events and 20th century conspiracies.

Early life

Crisman was born 1919 in Washington, the only child of Fred Crisman and his wife Eva Pitchers, both from Iowa. His father was a salesman.

Shaver Mystery

In the mid-1940s, his name appears in the pages of pulp magazines, reporting on his own Shaver Mystery experiences via letters to the editors, warning of a threat from subterranean-dwelling "Deros," or "detrimental robots." Crisman wrote to Ray Palmer, then editor of the science fiction magazine 'Amazing Stories' with details of the incident. Crisman had previously written to Palmer and had a letter published in the June 1946 issue detailing his encounters with his outlandish ideas of 'deros' (detrimental robots) who ran an underground super-civilisation. He claimed to have encountered the beings while fighting as a commando in Burma during World War II, and wrote that he sustained injuries from a futuristic laser weapon.

Maury Island incident


Artist's conception of UFO attack on Puget Sound - Courtesy Walt Crowley

Dahl and Crissman report a June 21, 1947, explosion of a flying saucer over Maury Island on or after June 26, 1947.

His name next appears in relation to the Maury Island incident, an early UFO encounter. The UFO story began with Harold A Dahl who worked for Crisman. Crisman claimed to later see the object reported by his employee and to have collected slag debris dropped on his boat. Many UFO researchers have dismissed this incident as an outright hoax, most likely perpetrated by Crisman, but others still believe the incident to be a genuine paranormal event.

Murder of a City, Tacoma

Crisman next appears in Tacoma in the late 1960s, railing against the city's form of government (i.e. City Manager). He hosted a radio talk show under the pseudonym "Jon Gold," and wrote a book, The Murder of a City, Tacoma,[5] which he published in 1970 through Transistor Publishing Company. "This weird, politically slanted rant about Tacoma in the late 1960s is a window into the chaos and bitterness that led to the 1971 recall of a majority of the City Council and of the fall of Mayor R.L. Slim Rasmussen. The author, Fred Crisman, was a talk radio personality who managed in the book to tie corruption in Tacoma to everything from communist infiltrators to the Kennedy assassination. The paranoid tone of the writing, shameless personal attacks, and naming of names seems like something out of the mid-50s but as a historical artifact is much more than just a novelty." Crisman was appointed by the mayor to serve on the Tacoma Public Library board.

John F. Kennedy Assassination


Was Fred Crisman one of the shooters?

JFK - Was There a UFO Connection to His Murder?

During this period, Crisman was subpoenaed by Jim Garrison to testify in the case against Clay Shaw in the John F. Kennedy assassination.[6] When Shaw was arrested, apparently Crisman was the first person Shaw called.[7] Various conspiracy theories place Crisman on the grassy knoll, possibly as a radio operator, or as one of the "three tramps" taken into custody near Dealey Plaza. The origin of this repeated claim appears to be the Torbitt Document. "William Torbitt" is the pseudonym for a 1969 Texas lawyer-author-Kennedy Assassination-researcher who spells Crisman "Chrismon". However, a log from Rainier High School where Crisman taught shows no substitute was required for Crisman on the day of the assassination, thus supporting Crisman's claim that Crisman was teaching at the time of the assassination.[8] Crisman's Grand Jury testimony is now public; and in Murder of a City, Tacoma, Crisman claimed no knowledge of a conspiracy, nor was he called as a witness in the Clay Shaw trial.

Inslaw and The Octopus

Crisman died in 1975, but his name continues to resonate in the world of conspiracy theories. Michael Riconosciuto, a witness who testified before the House Judiciary Committee investigating the Inslaw Affair, has been described as a young electronics whiz from Tacoma who was a close acquaintance of Crisman's, and who helped Crisman sweep (and possibly plant) electronic eavesdropping devices during the years Crisman wrote Murder Of A City, Tacoma

.

Fred Crisman From Wikipedia



JFK & UFO: Military-Industrial Conspiracy and Cover-Up from Maury Island to Dallas
Kenn Thomas

The Maury Island UFO Mystery

The story surfaced from Ray Palmer (editor of Amazing Stories), regarding a man called Fred Crisman who claimed to have actual physical evidence of a flying saucer, July 31, 1947.

Palmer passed the story onto Kenneth Arnold, who was investigating UFO reports in the Northwest. Arnold interviewed Crisman an his associate Harold Dahl who claimed they were harbour patrolmen (their first lie).


Kenneth Arnold

Crisman reported that they had seen a doughnut-shaped craft dump piles of slaglike material on the beach of Maury Island in Puget Sound. The next morning a mysterious man in black had threatened Dahl, who claimed the man said 'I know a great deal more about this experience of yours that you will want to believe.'.

The 2 men showed Arnold the material who in turn contacted an Army Air Force intelligence officer, Lieutenant Frank Brown, who flew up from Hamilton Field in California in the company of another Air Force officer.

The 2 Air Force officers immediately recognised the material as ordinary aluminium but did not say so in front of Arnold due to the fact that he would feel embarrassed. While flying back to Hamilton, their B-25 caught fire and crashed, killing both officers.

Crisman and Dahl later confessed to investigators that they had made up the story. Before his death Crisman changed the Maury Incident story to that of an American Plane dropping radioactive waste instead of a UFO dropping unknown substances.

A sceptic association investigated the case, which they date to 21 June 1947, instead of 31 July 1947 (?), and gives the explanation "foundry slag, unrelated plane crash." Note that Ed Ruppelt was involved in the investigation and classifies the event as "admitted hoax."

sources: http://ufologie.net/indexe.htm

UFO Casebook

[zorgon]

June 21, 1947 - Pre-Arnold/Pre-Roswell UFO Fleet Encounter

It was approximately 2pm when Harold A. Dahl, the captain of a coastguard patrol based on Tacoma, Washington, had his amazing UFO sighting.

Dahl and his crew of U.S. coastguards were patrolling the southern end of Puget Sound, Washington - a place abundant with islands and fjords - when they put the launch into an eastern bay off Maury Island, a small, thinly populated island some three miles from the mainland.

At the time there were two members of Dahl's crew, his son and a dog on board. As they entered the bay, Dahl looked up from the wheel and was startled to see "six very large doughnut-shaped machines" in the air. He judged them to be approximately 2000 feet up, virtually overhead, stationary and silent.

Intelligent Balloons?

Initially he thought they were balloons until one decided to descend, followed by the other five. This lone machine seemed to be in trouble, Dahl thought - although the others closely followed it at a range of approximately 200 feet above.

It continued on a downwards movement until it was directly overhead, about 500 feet above the water. They remained totally silent and Dahl couldn't see any visible means of propulsion - they didn't appear to have any engines.

Metallic Craft

Dahl reckoned they were each about 100 feet in diameter and each had a hole in its center, about 25 feet in diameter. The clouds were low and thundery, but when the sunlight broke through, Dahl noted that it reflected from the metallic surfaces of the strange craft. However, there was not one brilliance, but many.

In addition, the craft appeared to have what appeared to be 'portholes' equally spaced around the outside of their hulls. Dahl also reported what looked like dark and circular windows on the inside and bottoms of them.

Dahl later said, "Fearing that the central and lowermost machine was going to crash in the bay, we pulled our boat over to the beach and got out our harbor patrol camera. I took four photos of these balloons, as I still thought they were. All the time, the five were circling around the one which was stationery. Five minutes passed, and then one of the circling machines detached itself from the formation and came right down to the stationery one. It seemed to touch it, and stayed motionless for about four minutes.Then we heard a dull thud, and the central craft spewed out what looked like thousands of newspapers from the inside of its center. But these falling fragments turned out to be a white type of very light metal that fluttered to earth, and also fell into the bay. The machine then seemed to hail on us in the bay, and over the beach, black and darker type metals, which hit the beach and the bay. All these latter fragments seemed molten. Steam rose when they hit the water. We ran for shelter under a cliff and got behind logs. My son's arm was hit by a falling fragment of metal, and our dog was killed. Then the rain of metal stopped. The strange craft silently lifted and went westward towards the Pacific. All the time, the center one remained in the formation. We found the fallen metal too hot to touch, for some time. But when it cooled, we loaded a large number of pieces into our launch."

Electrical Malfunctions

When he climbed back towards the launch, Dahl found that his radio refused to work.

"When I started out on patrol, my radio had been in perfect order. But now, the static was so great, I could not make contact with our shore station! Yet the weather could not have caused all that interference. Our wheel-house had been hit by the rain of metal, and damaged. I started up the engines and returned to Tacoma, where my boy had to be attended in hospital. I reported the adventure to my superior officer, Mr Fred L. Chrisman; but I could see he did not believe me! I gave him the camera and the films and also the metal fragments we had collected in the island. Later, Chrisman went out to the island to look for the 20 tones of metal which I judged had been spewed from the strange machine. When my films were developed, they showed the strange aircraft, but the negatives were covered with white spots, as though they had been exposed to some radiation."

Apparently specimens of the strange metal were taken to Chicago University for analysis, who described them as "metal that had fallen from a great height in the sky and landed in sand."

Strange Geology!

Some skeptics have said that Maury Island is rich in this type of metal as geological and natural deposits. Further analysis reported that the metal was an alloy of calcium, iron, zinc, and titanium. Also present were aluminum, manganese, copper, magnesium, silicon, nickel, lead, strontium and chromium together with traces of silver, tin and cadmium. This seems a very remarkable alloy to be found in a natural state all over Maury Island.

One odd note added, was that the content of calcium was unusually high and that it had not been oxidized, as it does when heated - in terrestrial conditions.

Cosmic Protection

One theory which was put forward at the time was that the calcium had been cast into the hull of the strange machines to absorb the lethal cosmic rays out in space beyond our earth's orbit.

Enter the Men in Black

Not only is this story extremely fascinating, if only by pre-dating similar events - the metal seems similar to that allegedly recovered the following month at the Roswell crash site. However, the following day Dahl was interrogated by what could be one of the first incidents involving MIB (Men in Black):

According to Dahl, the following morning a strange man drove to his house and got out of a black Buick car of sedan type. He was dressed in a dark suit, was around 40 years old and in Dahl's words, looked like "an insurance agent".

Dahl got out his own car and drove downtown - with the stranger following him. Why he didn't use the stranger's car for a lift is not recorded.

Threatening Warnings

Over breakfast in a hotel, Dahl was asked some curious 'personal' questions;

Stranger: "Are you happy at your job, and in your family?"
Dahl: "What the blazes are you getting at?"

At this point, the stranger merely gave a peculiar smile and proceeded to tell Dahl of the previous events on Maury Island. This conversation puzzled Dahl as, so far, he had not told anyone about his experience and there had been no one on the island apart from his crew - and he did not think they had been talking.

"Mr Dahl," said the stranger, still smiling, "you had better forget what you have seen, and stop talking. Silence is the best thing for you and your family. You have seen what you ought not to have seen!" The stranger then abruptly got up and left the hotel.

Further Verifications

Kenneth Arnold later arrived on the scene after being asked to investigate the strange story. Arnold later interviewed Dahl's superior officer, Chrisman, who told his own fantastic story:

" Two days after Dahl had reported to me about these strange machines over Maury Island, I went out in the patrol launch. It was on the morning of June 23rd. I looked at some of the tons of metal on the beach. As I did so, one of the strange aircraft suddenly appeared from nowhere! It circled the bay, banked at an angle of 10 degrees, and shot up into the center of a cumulus cloud, high in the sky. I have never seen any aircraft before go into the center of such a cloud. It is very rough in there. The strange thing looked like a large inner tube to me. It was not squashed as Dahl had said. It had large portholes round the whole hull, and its brassy, golden surface seemed burled. I noticed, too, an observation window in it. When the sun shone on it, it was unusually brilliant. I picked up a load of the fragments of fallen metal and went back with them in the launch to Tacoma."

Military Investigations

Arnold then spoke to Lieutenant Frank Brown of the U.S. military intelligence, who had also seen the fragments of metal when he flew over the location in a B.29 bomber.

He sketched, for Arnold, photos that had come to intelligence. One of the sketches showed a photograph taken some three weeks previously by Wm. A. Rhodes over Phoenix, Arizona. It showed a strange vessel, looking like the heel of a shoe, ie. parabolic in shape, with a hole near one of the curves.
Rhodes had said that there were two tails of vapor trailing from the edges of the 'heel'. One even more remarkable picture shown to Arnold looked exactly like Arnold's own (famous) sighting of nine strange machines flying in formation on June 24th 1947.

The startling thing was that this picture was taken by a Captain F.W. Banner of the British barque, 'Lady of the Lake', in mid-ocean off the coast of Liberia on March 22nd, 1870 - 77 years BEFORE Arnold's sighting.

It looked like a half moon with a tail in it, or like a half-peak in the center of the disc. The object was flying against the wind and was visible for half an hour.

This account seems to have all the hallmarks of a classic sighting; strange metallic craft, fragments of strange metal recovered and even being followed by a MIB encounter.

Credit: http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/enigma/issue5/ufo.html
Images: Sightings.com
Source: http://www.sightings.com/1.reports2010/mauryisland.html




June 21, 1947 - Pre-Arnold/Pre-Roswell UFO Fleet Encounter - Sightings

[zorgon]

Weird Hum Haunts Vashon Island WA Residents



April 22nd, 2010 by RK | Filed under UFOs, Western Washington

Residents of Vashon Island in the Puget Sound of Washington State have been reporting a strange unidentified hum for years and no one seems to know what it is.

Scientists and the local utility company don't know the cause.

Could it be connected to the June 1947 'Maury Island incident', when Harold A. Dahl and his son saw several "doughnut-shaped objects" while on a boat off the shore of Maury Island, near Vashon Island? Dahl's story is that one of the ships appeared to be flying erratically and possibly crashed into the Puget Sound near Vashon Island.

The hum is described as a very low persistent low-frequency pure tone that people have heard all across the Island.

Weird Hum Haunts Vashon Island WA Residents

[zorgon]

Kenneth Arnold

While flying near Mount Rainier in Washington state on June 24 1947, Kenneth Arnold saw nine extremely fast moving disks skipping across the sky. An AP wire reporter described them as flying saucers" — a name which stuck. Due to the publicity surrounding his report, and because he was a professional pilot who seemed reasonably sane, Arnold became known worldwide as a respectable UFO figure.

At the urging of , Arnold was briefly involved with the . He suspected that it was all a huge con by Fred Crisman or that it was some sort of intelligence operation.

Letter and drawing by Arnold regarding his sighting:

Kenneth Arnold

NOTE: Kenneth Arnold will have his own thread. Just included here in context with the Maury Island Incident Connection



The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers By John A. Keel

[zorgon]

Maury Island What Really Happened

Deep in the summer of 1947, something happened in an east bay off Maury Island, Washington. It had all the ear marks of a trace UFO case, years before any other trace case and was in the same time frame of the most famous case of all. Roswell. Many UFO researchers have looked into it and most think it was a hoax, mainly for money and fame. At a time when I had a lot of time to investigate, and I live in the same area, I decided to tried to cover all the bases, to find out the truth.
    As with most history,  the truth lies buried between the lines.

    To start off right on this case we must start at the beginning.  The original story. So here it is word for word from Arnolds book "The Coming of the Saucers."

The stories
The Coming of the Saucers


Kenneth Arnold coined the term "flying saucer."

    "On June 21, 1947 in the afternoon about two o'clock  I was patrolling the East Bay of Maury Island close in to the shore. This practically uninhabited island lies directly opposite Tacoma about three miles from mainland. This day the sea was rather rough and there were numerous low hanging clouds. 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. I would judge they were at about 2,000 feet the water and almost directly overhead. At first glance I thought them to be balloons as they seemed to be stationary. However, upon further observance, five of these strange aircraft were circling very slowly around the sixth one which was stationary in the center of the formation. 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.

    All on board our boat were watching these aircraft with a great deal of interest as they apparently had no motors, propellers , or any visible signs of propulsion, and to the best of our hearing they made no sound. In describing the aircraft I would say they were at least one hundred feet in diameter. Each had a hole in the center, approximately twenty-five feet in diameter. They were all a sort shell-like gold and silver color. Their surface seemed of metal and appeared to be burled because when the light shone on them through the clouds they were brilliant, not all one brilliance, but many brilliance's, something like a Buick dashboard. All of the aircraft seemed to have large portholes equally spaced around the outside of their doughnut exterior. These portholes were from five to six feet in diameter and were round. They also appeared to have a dark, circular, continuous window on the inside and bottom of their doughnut shape as though it were an observation window.

    All of us aboard the boat were afraid this center balloon was going to crash in the bay, and just a little while before it stopped lowering, we had pulled our boat over to the beach and got out with our harbor patrol camera. I took three or four photographs of these balloons.

    The center balloon-like aircraft remained stationary at about five hundred feet from the water while the other five aircraft kept circling over it. After about five or six minutes  one of the aircraft from the circling formation left its place in the formation and lowered itself down right next to the stationary aircraft. In fact, it appeared to touch it and stayed stationary next to the center aircraft as if it were giving some kind of assistance for about three or four minutes.

    It was then we heard a dull thud, like an underground explosion or a thud similar to a man stamping his heel on damp ground. Immediately following this sound the center aircraft 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 metal, fluttered to earth, most of them lighting in the bay. Then it seemed to hail on us, in the bay and over the beach, black or darker type of metal which looked similar to lava rock. We did not know if this metal was coming from the aircraft but assumed it was, as it fell at the same time the white type metal was falling. However, since these fragments were of a darker color, we did not observe them until they started hitting the beach and the bay. All of these latter fragments seemed hot, almost molten. When they hit the bay, steam rose from the water.

    We ran for shelter under a cliff on the beach and behind logs to protect ourselves from the falling debris. In spite of our protection, my son's arm was injured by one of the falling fragments and our dog was hit and killed. We buried the dog at sea on our return trip to Tacoma.

    After this rain of metal seemed over, all of these strange aircraft lifted slowly and drifted out to the westward, which is out to sea. They rose and disappeared at a tremendous height. The center aircraft, which had spewed the debris, did not seem to be hindered in its flight and still remained in the center of the formation as they all rose and disappeared out to sea.

    We tried to pick up several pieces of the metal or fragments and found them very hot -- in fact, I almost burned my fingers -- but after some of them had cooled we loaded a considerable number of the pieces aboard the boat. We also picked up some of the metal which had looked like falling newspapers.

    My crew and I discussed this observance for awhile and I attempted to radio from my patrol boat back to my base. The static was so great it was impossible for me to reach my radio station. This I attributed to the presence of these aircraft, as my radio had been in perfect operating order and the weather would not have caused this amount of interference.

    The wheelhouse on our boat had been hit by falling debris and damaged. We immediately started our engines and went directly to Tacoma, where my boy was given first aid at the hospital there. Upon reaching the dock I had to tell my superior officer how the boat had been damaged and why the dog had not returned with us. I related our experience to Fred L. Crisman, my superior officer. I could plainly see that he did not believe it and I guess I don't blame him, but we gave him the camera with its film and fragments of metal we had loaded aboard as proof of our story. Fred L. Crisman decided he would at least go and investigate the beach where I judged at least twenty tons of debris had fallen.

    I might add that these strange aircraft appeared completely round, but seemed a little squashed on the top and on the bottom as if you placed a large board on an inner tube and squashed it slightly. The film from our camera, developed showed these strange aircraft, but the negatives were covered with spots similar to a negative that has been close to an X-ray room before it was exposed except that the spots printed white instead of black as in the usual case.

    This was the story that Harold A. Dahl related to me (Arnold) the evening of July 29, 1947 in Room 502 in the Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma, Washington."

    Arnold later said that the above was verbatim as he had and used one of the first portable recorders available. He also took movies of everything as he investigated.

    When "Coming of the Saucers" was published in 1952 Arnold never said it was a hoax. Later in the book, after the crash of the B-25 Arnold  met a Colonel Sanders from McCord AFB that took him to a Tacoma smelter, (must have been Asarco in Ruston) and tried to show him slag like the pieces from Dahl and Crisman. Arnold said they weren't quite the same. They didn't feel alike. This is a small thing but when Arnold tried to keep a piece, for an ashtray Sanders made him give it up. If it was just smelter slag then it should have been no big deal. Sanders wanted every piece, which he got from Arnold and Smith. He put them in the back of his car  which is the last place they saw them. The way Sanders acted made Arnold see the incident and the debris as something important. In some ways it was like Roswell, for the same reasons. If the material is just a weather balloon then Marcels son should still have the small pieces he saved and if it is just slag from a local mill then Arnold and Smith should have their pieces.

    I don't know if the Air Force or other agency got to the lab in Chicago but the book does give a basic analyses of the slag Dahl had and a breakdown of Tacoma slag. They were not the same. The main thing being a lack of iron as used in steel milling.

   
Aug. 1947 Tacoma Times Pictures and sideline on the slag

Smiths story

    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 Dahls boat at the time of the incident. In my copy of the disposition the names are redacted out, so I will try to see if I can get a copy of it from the Seattle government. Although Smith was getting his information from Dahl and Crisman the disposition with all the names should be a help.

FBI files

    The FBI investigated Dahl and Crisman. The reports they sent back had two basic stories, the one above and one in which  Dahl and his son found the strange debris in a gravel pit on Maury Island. The FBI investigated the whole story as told by Arnold including the "mystery phone calls" to the local papers and the crash of the B-25 with the A-2 agents aboard.

 

The final thing in the report that seemed to some to make it being a hoax absolute ,was a stringer for a newspaper and informant for the FBI met with  Dahl at his house. Dahls wife said "quit lying about this" and attacked him with a knife. Later researchers would take this as proof. But if you combine it with Dahls remarks about his family problems ,almost losing his job, lose of their son, his wives sickness, and plain bad luck. You can see how she might feel about the whole thing. I don't think it proves anything as she was not there. If  Dahls son or the crewmen said it never happened it would have been more meaningful.

Keels slant

    John Keel wrote about it in a compilation of reports in the late seventies. He took Dahls story at face value but turned the last section, on the radiation spots on the film into his answer to what the "Aircraft" were. He thought that it was the government dumping nuclear material in the Sound.

The investigations:

    When you investigate anything, to get to the truth you must cover all the ground. Talk to as many people as possible connected with it, even in minor ways, visit the site where the event occurred and just trace down every angle. When people read about it years later they will see the holes.
    In this case we only have a few was to go. Most of the people involved are dead and many people believe it is a hoax.
     
Arnolds

    Arnold was not an investigator, he was a private pilot that had not served in World War II. He seemed to know little of the military or intelligence. This may seem harsh but it will be more meaningful as we get deeper into the incident.

    After tying down his plane Arnold called around Tacoma looking for a place to stay. As a lark he called the best place in town ,the Winthrop Hotel and was surprised to find a room in his name. For an investigator this should have set off alarms and he did try to talk to the clerk he had on the phone but the didn't pursue it beyond that.

    He called Dahl when he was situated in the hotel. Dahl said that he wanted to forget the whole thing, he had been having problems at work, he had almost lost his job, he nearly lost his son, and his wife was sick. Some how through a freak tide he had lost a log boom that meant allot of money to him. He blamed it all on coincidence but it had started after June 21 when the saw the objects. Arnold finally talked him into coming down for an interview, the one above.

    He did get their statements as to what happened, but he failed to talk to the other crewmen or Dahls son. If he had met Dahls son, Charles he could have asked him about the claim of being hit and seen any wound. If there was none then the hoax would have been proven. He could have talked to the nurse or doctor that performed first aid and asked about the state of the people after the incident but he did not. The other crew are not even mentioned by name in anything I can find. If it was a hoax set up by Crisman or Dahl then the others would have known. If you want to find the truth you talk to everyone involved and see if the stories match. Usually they won't be exact as everyone sees things differently. The other evidence could have been as simple as the Roster for who would be aboard the boat on the day of the incident, this was not seen either.

    As Arnold was  a pilot and had a plane at his disposal so he could have shown Dahl a map and asked him where the bay was that it had happened. Dahl should have been able to pinpoint it exactly. With a tide chart Arnold could have found a good time to go and flown out to the site himself. If there were twenty tons of anything it would have shown up on the beach. Arnold didn't do this. He did go down to Dahls workplace but found the boat in disrepair so he didn't go out with them. If you read the newspapers of the time you will find that pilots were actually going out and landing on beaches in the Sound to go claming. It is a puzzle to me why Arnold didn't fly to the beach and check it out for himself.

Maury Island What Really Happened

Continued next post...



MAURY ISLAND NO LONGER A MYSTERY: A UFO HOAX EXPOSED! by Anthony Bragalia



Boise's link to the UFO World
Posted by Andrew Crisp on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 3:49 PM

It was June 24, 1947. Boise businessman and pilot Kenneth Arnold was circling the skies above Washington. He was looking for the downed wreckage of a military plane and perhaps the government's $5,000 reward for finding the site.

"A bright light lit up the surface before his airplane," his daughter Kim Arnold told Boise Weekly. "It was so bright, it was like a welder's arc."

In an interview with a Pendleton, Ore., reporter, Kenneth Arnold described nine bright-blue flying objects. He would describe them as like saucers skipping across water. When the story went to press the next day, the term "flying saucer" was born—creating skeptics and supporters alike.

"They do exist and they are out there, and so many people have validated their existence," she said. "They've been here since mankind has been here. [My father] just happened to be the man to give 'em a name."

Whether you buy the story or not, Arnold launched the "modern UFO movement," according to his daughter, the 57-year-old president of SAUCERS Inc. On Monday, Jan. 16, she will talk about her father's legacy on Coast to Coast with George Noory and at the annual Women's UFO Symposium in Glen Rose, Texas, in May.

There's a short YouTube documentary on Arnold below, complete with Twilight Zone style music.

Boise's link to the UFO World

[zorgon]

The investigations:
My own

    I began looking into this episode when I had some time to spare. At first I thought that the book I was thinking of would be called "The Summer of '47" as most of the incidents I was looking at took place in that time frame. It seems that the people looking into Roswell think that it was the only event in 1947, it wasn't. Along with the Maury Island incident was a crash of something in the Tabacco Root Mountains of Montana. It was quashed the next day, like Roswell, by the pilots superior saying it was just "hanger talk". Though there are reports of the military looking for something in the area the next day. An obscure one I found happened the day after Maury. Archie Eddes and his family saw something crash, with a blue flash, on the Moses Lake to Pasco road in eastern Washington. A month later he and a friend went searching for the crash site from an aircraft  and found nothing. This event did appear in the local paper and got out as a paragraph on the newswire. No one at the time looked for any other witnesses who could have seen it or did a true systematic search for the crash site.

    One of the things that seem to clench the Maury Island incident  as a hoax was the debris themselves. The heavy dark matter looked like lava rock and the white metal appeared to be aluminum. Arnold said that this appeared to be normal aluminum scrap that could be found at any airport but he  saw something somewhat funny , a square rivet. I think that rivet might help solve this mystery. The only pictures we have of the debris are , a picture of someone checking it out in a local paper and a very low res set of pictures from the FBI files on the affair. The newspaper picture looks like a lava rock but he FBI pictures are a bit strange as you can plainly see something that looks like webbing in the sample. This would not have been found in mill slag.

    If twenty tons of whatever fell on the beach in 1947 would it still be there fifty years later. I went looking. I waited for a minus tide on the island and walked the beach for about three miles. From the southeast end to about the middle of the east coast. I found mounds that could have been it but as the exact spot was never really recorded I won't know it I really found it. On the north end is an old light house and I have always wondered if they saw something on that cloudy, rainy day.

    Looking into the incident you must also look into the lives of the people involved. I started in the Tacoma Library. It has a history section that has been added on over the years. Squirreled away in the back are many old phone books and city registers.

     I found that from 1945 till 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. When Fred Lee Crisman came back they fell in together in a log salvage business. In this they helped the local Harbor Patrol Association. They were not true, official Harbor Patrol members but they did work for the Association. This seemed to be a sore point with some debunkers. If they weren't really Harbor Patrol then they couldn't be believed. It is just more misdirection from the skeptics.

An obit:

DAHL, HAROLD A (TRADER) (Died: Saturday, January 30, 1982) - Indexed in: 01 FEB 1982 C-12 - SURPLUS DEALER

Fred Crisman was flying fighters in the Pacific until the end. Somehow he seems to have been connected with the OSS in World War II also, it may have been in his Air Commando group. In a link to Palmer he sent a letter to his magazine saying he was hit by a Ray Gun in a cave in Burma. Somehow this was linked to the "Shaver Mystery" and the underground world of the Deros. This does seem very strange and some would say Fred is a few bricks shy of a load but in my investigations I found the Japanese were working on a Ray Gun in World War II. It was in development for a long time and tested on animals. The microwave energy caused numerous problems for the researchers.  Offically it was never used but offically the A-bomb didn't exist unitil it exploded above Hiroshima. When he got home they made him a liaison for Veteran Affairs. Fred ran for county coroner in 1945 but never won the seat.

   

More on Crisman:
From "Alien Agenda by Jim Marrs"

    "According to CIA files, Crisman too was a member of the OSS during World War II , serving as a liaison officer with the British Royal Air Force. At the end of the war, Crisman, supposedly discharged from the military, entered a special OSS Internal Security School and was quietly transferred to the newly formed CIA (the CIA was chartered   in 1947), where he operated as an "extended agent", primarily as an internal security specialist in "disruption" activities. The files show Crisman was involved in a highly classified subsection of Internal Security known as 1Sece, Easy Section, a disruption planning unit whose very existence was denied by the CIA The CIA documents detailed Crisman's activities over the years---including secret reports to the agency on military officers during the Korean War and company officials while working for Boeing in Seattle--but no mention of the Maury Island affair."
     
    One of the things has bothered people looking into Maury Island is the lack of specifics about the incident.

    1. Where did it happen?

    "On June 21, 1947 in the afternoon about two o'clock I was patrolling the east bay of Maury Island close in to the shore."

    And

    "3. The following summarizes what was related by <redacted> to major Sander as to the substance of the interrogation by Lt. Brown and Capt. Davidson. That on 21 Jun 47 <redacted> was proceeding south of Maury Island in <redacted> boat."

    The east bay of Maury Island? If you look at a map, there is no east bay. The two bays on Maury/Vashon are Quartermaster Harbor and Tramp Harbor. Tramp Harbor is midway up the island(s) and Quartermaster is between them on the south.

    Since Dahl told B&D "south of Maury Island" but still in the east bay, it must be somewhere between Point Robinson and Piner Point. Two gravel pits exist in that area.

    Here is a panoramic shot of the east side of Maury Island from Point Robinson down south to Piner Point. The touches of red in the green of the shoreline are the gravel pits.

    As you can see the whole east side is a wide bay.

Here are a few pictures of the beach where it may have occurred:

   

   

2. What was the name of the boat, and who owned it?

    Thomas thinks he got correct info from another investigator, the boat was the "North Queen" and the Coast Guard made an error as they said it was registered to "Haldor Dahl". I am not sure if Haldor is a relative of Harold but Haldor is a boat-builder and the registration gives his correct address. If it was a typo then the address would have been Harold's.

    In the Springer Report, he touches on it:

    "3. The following summarizes what was related by <redacted> to major Sander as to the substance of the interrogation by Lt. Brown and Capt. Davidson. That on 21 Jun 47 <redacted> was proceeding south of Maury Island in <redacted> boat. Five flying discs came down out of the clouds and circled slowly around the bay, dropping to an estimated elevation of 500 feet. These discs appeared round and flattened similar to a deflated automobile innertube. They were judged by <redacted> to be approximately 100 feet across with a 25 foot opening in the center. The outside edge of the object had round portholes and the inner ring had square windows or portholes. The discs were silent and from his viewpoint he could see no means of propulsion. One of these discs appeared to falter and waver in the air, another of these aforementioned five discs dropped down close to the disc that appeared to waver and bumped it, dumping "tons" of the stuff as pictured in enclosure 6 and 7, on his boat, knocking off the handrail, horn, and generally damaging the boat to the extent of $200.00 and killing <redacted> dog.

    AGENTS NOTE: This officer in the company of Major Sander, boarded the aforementioned boat where it was docked in the Tacoma harbor on 6 Aug 47. A hand rail was missing, but the area where the hand rail previously fastened had been painted over with several coats of paint and was streaked by the weather. The deck and rear of the cabin were of very thin construction and the cabin further had glass on the front and sides. It is this officers opinion that if any of the objects presented by <redacted> as samples of the material dropped by the flying disc had hit this boat, it would have certainly been necessary to replace the foredeck and cabin roof. These two areas were <something> heavily coated with several coats of paint and had deep weather cracks that would take several seasons to acquire.

    <redacted> who owns the boat and operates a <redacted> evidently visited the area at Maury Island to check <redacted> story.

Here is Arnold's story on the boat:

    We felt that Morello meant what he was saying. We thanked him kindly for letting us listen to the recorded interview, go Smithy's car out of the garage across the street from the hotel and drove down to the pier where we were met by Crisman. We all walked out on the pier and down the stairway to Crisman's boat. I took movies of the boat and of Captain Smith looking at the superstructure, then I went aboard the boat, too.

    This was the boat that Crisman said the damage had happened to. It was kind of a grayish color, a very small type of partially enclosed inboard fishing boat. It in no wise looked like the harbor patrol boats that I had seen in pictures. After inspecting the boat we could see where some repairs had taken place, but nothing like the damage as described by either Fred Crisman or Dahl in the hotel room had led us to expect.

    <A dialog on the pictures>

    After inspecting the top surface and cabin of the boat Captain Smith and I went down to the engine room. A rather foreign looking gentleman of slight build was tinkering with something on the motor. He made the remark to Fred Crisman that the engine wouldn't work. I know that I thought it was no wonder the engine wouldn't start. It was a pretty junky looking affair and apparently ill taken care of. While Captain Smith was standing in the doorway, the mechanic took Crisman by the arm, pulled him to one side, and whispered to him.

So we don't know the name of the boat yet. I will keep looking.

3. Who were the other people on the boat?

    One, his son Charles. May be still alive. Had another strange thing happen around the time of the incident. He "went missing" for a week. He was finally found in Lusk, Montana, with no recollection of how he got there or who he was. Arnold and others didn't see this as anything having to do with the incident. It needs to be investigated more.

    Who were the two other crewmen. Arnold may have met them but didn't ask anything about the incident.

    The next morning, July 31, Captain Smith and I were awakened by Crisman and Dahl. Their arms were loaded with the heavy lava rock fragments and Crisman had a number of pieces of the white metal that he said came from the aircraft that Harold Dahl told us about. Captain Smith and I were inspecting the fragments when Crisman broke in, saying that the men from their crews were down at a café waiting for breakfast.

    We hurriedly dressed, locked the fragments in the room, left the hotel, got in our respective cars and drove to the lower section of town where there was a little workingman's café. There, seated at a large round table covered with an oilcloth were two or three brawny looking men. We could tell by the various greetings between these men, Crisman, and Dahl that they were associates in their salvage and harbor patrol work, presumably their crew members. Captain Smith and I were introduced and we took places around the table. We could smell the bacon frying and the hot cakes cooking in the kitchen. I remember it smelled mighty good.

    These men seemed to be very friendly and appeared to have every confidence in their superior officers. We did not ask them to verify the stories of Crisman and Dahl. We felt they would if they had been asked as a number of references were made to the original sighting of Dahl on June 21 on Maury Island. No attempt to settle anything was made at breakfast. We all had healthy appetites and it was more or less a meeting of friendly exchange of words.

    This should be easy to find out, but I have tried and still seem to hit blank walls.

    From Springer Report:

    <Redacted> who owns the boat and operates a <redacted> evidently visited the area at Maury Island to check <redacted> story.

    The above seems to say Crisman owned the business and the boat.

    In the Report, he finds Crisman entered in the City Directory with telephone numbers for home and business.

    A check of the Tacoma city directory was made on <redacted> which indicated his home was at <redacted>, telephone <redacted>, business address listed as <redacted>, telephone <redacted>

    Here is what I found.

   

    This is from the 1947 Tacoma City Directory. Fred L. Crisman has no business phone. Neither does Dahl. Where was Springer looking for this info? There is only one type of directory in the Tacoma Library now, maybe there were more then?

    In looking for anything that might help, I just looked for lumber/logging companies in 1947. In the Aug 19, 1947 FBI report a (?)illwater Ave. was mentioned. As far as I can tell there is no (?)illwater Ave. in Tacoma. The closest I came to anything that looks like what Crisman and Dahl were doing is a company named the "Tidewater Log Patrol" on Marineview Drive owned by the Scott Family. Other logging companies kept there log pools there too. Were they working there?

    From the Tacoma Public Library:

   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.

    Complaints about piracy declined after the log patrol hit the water. Some observers attributed the drop to the plunge in log prices during the 1930s Depression.

    With World War II, logs became valuable again, but manpower was short and wages were high. Log larceny continued to languish. The Patrol spent most of its time retrieving floaters or beached logs. With peace, demobilization and log prices still high, the Patrol activity increased.

    Then someone noticed that Chapter 154 did not give mill owners exclusive rights to log patrol work. 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.

    Here is something more on log patrolling and log poaching:

    Log patroling and log poaching

Conclusions:

    Trying to reach conclusions about an incident that occurred 50 years ago is hard. You can look at the facts and try to make up you own mind. But new evidence or something that comes out of left field can wake it up too.

    Dahl said in his accounting of the incident that he thought they  were balloons. He said it four times. He only mentioned the "doughnut shape" twice. Other people discussing the event seem to only mention the "doughnut" or "inner-tube" and never seem to say anything about the "balloons." If  he was right and they were balloons what would it mean?

    ETs don't use balloons. So ETs are out. Why the mystery if they  were just balloons? Thereby hangs a tale.

    If you look at the other pages on my site you will see the Fugos or Japanese Balloon Bombs. They existed and were kept secret till almost the end of the War.

Reports:

    The Reports below are from the Maury Island FBI/AAF Files. I will try to put the rest on when I have them scanned. I am also trying to track more info on Crisman and Dahl.

    The B-25 Crash Report

    The B-25 Crash Report pdf format

    The Springer Report

    FBI file 8/19/47

Books:

The main source about it:



The Coming of the Saucers
Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer: Palmer 1952



Maury Island UFO : The Crisman Conspiracy
Kenn Thomas: Illuminet Press 1999

Another book has a little about the reporters involved:



Flying Saucers Over Los Angeles: DeWayne B. Johnson & Kenn Thomas:
Adventures Unlimited Press 1998

[zorgon]

The Maury Island Incident

The plane carrying the two investigators and the slag crashed near Kelso, Washington, shortly after leaving Tacoma, killing both men. In April 2007 it was reported that the crash site had been rediscovered and some material recovered, although the initial military investigation did recover exhibits and remove the bodies. The FBI report notes that investigators from McChord Field near Tacoma had investigated the wreckage and were convinced there was no sabotage involved. The FBI report further mentions that two other people on board the airplane survived by parachuting from the airplane after it lost its left wing and the tail section due to a fire in the left engine. One of the survivors was named as a member of the flight crew and the other was referred to as "a hitch-hiker." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer identified them as Sergeant Elmer L. Taft and Technical Sergeant Woodrow D. Matthews. Initially the Air Force denied the men had been carrying a secret cargo, but in later years admitted that they had been officially investigating the Dahl report.

Crisman alerted Arnold of the crash early the next morning and Dahl and Crisman returned to the hotel to discuss the situation with Arnold. Arnold had invited another person, accidentally identified in the FOI copy of the FBI report as a Mr. Smith of Seattle (probably Captain E. H. Smith (elsewhere E. J. Smith) of United Airlines, identified in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article under External links below), to Tacoma to attend the UFO conference, and this informant related to the FBI field agent that a Mr. Lantz (elsewhere identified as Paul Lance) of the Tacoma Times contacted Arnold at the hotel and informed him of the leaks, including information that the Army intelligence officers had been shot down in the B-25 airplane over Kelso by 20 mm cannon, and that a Marine airplane whose wreck that had allegedly been found earlier at Mt. Rainier had also been shot down with the same weapon. The anonymous caller claimed knowledge of on-going investigations by military intelligence.

Asked to produce the photographs he had made of the UFOs over Maury Island, Dahl and the group left the hotel and went to Dahl's automobile parked outside. Dahl then claimed the photographs had disappeared from his glove compartment. Initially he had said the photographs didn't turn out and were marred by white spots that appeared on them.

Alarmed by the deaths, Dahl disappeared, although the FBI report mentions his son, allegedly injured by the slag from the malfunctioning UFO, had run away from home to Montana for some reason. The anonymous caller informed the press that one of the two witnesses would shortly be sent to Alaska. Crisman, a WWII veteran, was recalled to service hastily and sent to Alaska (A UFO was spotted northwest of Bethel, Alaska on August 4 by Captain Jack Peck and copilot Vince Daly from a Douglas DC-3 they operated for Al Jones flying service and was reported to the headquarters of the Fourth Air Force in Hamilton, California and the Air Defense Command commander at Mitchell Field in New York.), then posted to Greenland (Thule Air Force Base figures in Milton William Cooper's "Behold a Pale Horse" as a Majestic 12/Operation Majority control terminus). Arnold found himself unable to complete the story for Palmer. Arnold decided to fly home. He stopped for fuel in Pendleton, Oregon, and shortly after taking off again, his engine froze in mid-air. He managed to land the plane safely despite the emergency.

This event took place at the very beginning of the modern phase of UFO sightings, usually connected with Kenneth Arnold's report from Mount Rainier and the Roswell incident. It contains elements that became embedded in UFOlogy until now, including men in black, what appeared to be a government cover up, mysterious disappearance of physical evidence, mysterious disappearances of eye witnisses (Dahl and Crisman), mysterious deaths and inexplicable situations. Was it a hoax? If so, whose? Dahl claimed the mysterious dark man driving the black 1947 Buick who visited him retold the events on the boat as if he had been there, although Dahl himself hadn't related the story publicly at that point. Dahl began denying the story only after the two Army Air intelligence officers died in the B-25 crash. Dahl and Crisman told the FBI investigator they had concocted the story at the urging of Ray Palmer who wanted the mysterious rock formation to have originated on an alien saucer. They claimed to be playing along with Palmer who wanted a story to publish, and yet the FBI agent also notes that Dahl and Crisman were "obviously" not telling all they knew and were attempting to cover something up.

The Maury Island Incident

[zorgon]

Security Camera Captures 'Men In Black' After UFO Sighting
Submitted by Javier Ortega on April 19, 2012 – 9:52 AM

From the Aerial Phenomen Investigations Team in Maryland comes this unique case with an exceptionally unique footage. According to the API Team, a recent UFO investigation case in Maryland received some attention from two strange looking men dressed in all black and looking so alike, that employees thought that they might be twins. They wore the exact same clothing, hats, and even had the same facial features. The men were captured on a hotel's security camera entering the lobby in a straight strut.

According to those employees who talked to the men, they described them as tall, with extremely pale skin and no visible facial hair. Including no eyebrows and no eyelashes. Their eyes were described as being "so big and so blue, that they almost hypnotized.."

The original source of this video is from the Aerial Phenomen Investigations Team in MD. For complete details about this incident contact them. I have no further details about this incident Quote from video source: "I work with the Aerial Phenomenon Investigations Team based in MD. One recent UFO investigation yielded actual footage of MIB on a hotel lobby camera. This video has a voice over of the person these MIB came for". –M. Barnharrt

Yes, this is a strange video and a strange story from the employees of the hotel. Could this be the first proof of the fabled MIB? Or just some guys looking for some laughs?

Security Camera Captures 'Men In Black' After UFO Sighting

Original Source: Arial Phenomenon Investigations Team.....

[zorgon]

A Canadian MIB Report
Monday, October 5, 1981

Here is an interesting case of Canadian Men in Black from the February 1997 issue of the Canadian UFO Research Network (CUFORA Canadian MIB Report )

    A young man spotted a UFO over Victoria, British Columbia on Friday, October 2, 1981 and contacted a CUFORN consultant and set up a meeting for the following Monday.

    Before the meeting, the young man went into a local mall. On stepping out of a phone booth, he saw two odd looking men waiting to talk with him. They were standing stiff as if standing at attention.

    The men were dressed in dark clothes. Their shirts were buttoned to the collar but they wore no ties. They had dark tan skin and dark, dull, expressionless eyes. They had short, black hair, no eyebrows and were missing fingernails.

    With a monotonous, robot-like voice, one of the MIBs asked him "What is your name?" The young man replied "I'm not going to tell you that!" The other MIB asked him "What is your number?." He thought it was an unusual question, as he did not say phone number. He did not answer the question.

    The two MIBs continued to stare at him in silence for a while. Then they turned in unison, like robots and marched outside. It was raining heavily and the two MIBs walked past the parking lot and into a nearby, muddy field. As they approached a fence on the far side they disappeared into thin air. The young man went into the field and found they had not even left footprints. At this point, he ran to the nearest bus stop to take him home.

A Canadian MIB Report