Maury Island

This is probably the only case on record of a Hoax indirectly leading to the death of UFO Investigators.

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.

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 (thier first lie). Crisman reported that they had seen a doughnut-shaped craft dump piles of slaglike material on the beach of Maury Island in Pugent 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 beleive.'.

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

The 2 Air Force officers immediatley recognised the material as ordinary aluminum but did not say so in front of Arnold due to the fact that he would feel embarrassed. While flying back to Hamiltion, 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.

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