by Mark Frost
Soon after the Lemurian stories appeared, about a year before the Maury Island incident, Ray Palmer published a letter in Amazing Stories from Fred Lee Crisman. In it, Crisman claimed that during his service in World War II, while on a top-secret mission, he stumbled across one of these so-called “Lemurian caves” in Burma, and barely escaped with his life.
*** CRISMAN’S LETTER TO AMAZING STORIES
I have been able to verify that Fred Crisman served in the OSS--the precursor U.S. intelligence organization to the CIA--during the war in various locations and flew scores of combat missions in the Far East. At the time of the Maury Island incident Crisman was still an active officer in the U.S. Army Air Force Reserve and, in addition to his marine salvage business, was working for the Department of Veterans Affairs.2
So, as result of this letter, Crisman and Palmer became acquainted. When Crisman told Palmer about the metallic fragments from Dahl’s ship, Palmer asked Crisman to mail him some of the artifacts they’d recovered from the wreckage, which Crisman did that same day. Palmer also suggested they fly in pilot and businessman Kenneth Arnold--who had just been in the news because of his UFO experience at Mt. Rainier--to consult with them about it.
What follows is Kenneth Arnold’s account of their meeting, subsequently published in the premier issue of Fate, a new Ray Palmer magazine that appeared in Spring 1948:
KENNETH ARNOLD IN TACOMA
I received a call from Ray Palmer in Chicago, who I did not know, asking if I’d be willing to investigate a recent incident in Tacoma and write a story about it for Palmer’s magazine. I accepted his offer of $200 for the assignment. Without telling anyone other than my wife, I flew to Tacoma late on Wednesday afternoon, July 30th, and checked into Room 502 at the Winthrop Hotel. A reservation was waiting in my name, although I had not called ahead to make one.
I immediately called Fred Crisman and I met with Crisman and Harold Dahl in my hotel room that evening, and after hearing their story, and viewing the rocks and white metallic fragments they had retrieved from the site, I suggested we share the story with someone else who was used to investigating such things. They agreed and I contacted an experienced United Airlines pilot friend of mine named Emil J. Smith, who had recently had an in-flight disk sighting of his own, to share the information with him.3
I also thought it best to contact the investigators from Military Intelligence and the FBI—Milford and Nathan—who had recently questioned me at my home in Boise about my experience near Mt. Rainier a few days earlier.
The next morning I flew to Seattle to pick up Captain Smith and bring him back to Tacoma. By the time we returned, two other Military Intelligence investigators, who had been contacted by Milford and Nathan and had flown up from their base in San Francisco—Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown—had arrived and were waiting for us in the lobby. That night we all met with Fred Crisman in my room at the Winthrop and he shared the story again with the four of us. Harold Dahl declined to join us for this meeting, but the reason why was not immediately relayed to us.
After Crisman left, we were discussing the strange events of the day when I received a phone call at 12:30 AM from a man who identified himself as “Paul Lantz from the Tacoma Times.”4
Lantz said he was calling to warn me that an anonymous informant had just contacted him at the newspaper to say that a meeting regarding the disk fragments from Maury Island was taking place in Room 502 at the Winthrop. He went on to describe everything we had discussed with Crisman in the room that evening, as well as what Davidson, Brown, Smith and I had just been discussing after Crisman’s departure. Lantz’s information was eerily accurate, as to the content of our discussions, and we were grateful for the warning. After we hung up, alarmed, Davidson and Brown suggested we move into the hall, as they suspected our room was under electronic surveillance.
I’ll never go into the air again without a camera!” declares Kenneth Arnold standing beside his plane the day after observing a train of nine mysterious flying disks.
Davidson and Brown, sufficiently alarmed, suggested that we give them the 25 to 30 metallic fragments for safekeeping. They told us that they planned to immediately launch a full investigation into the matter, but needed to fly back to their home base of Hamilton Field in California, north of San Francisco, that night in order to be present for ceremonies the next day, August 1st, which marked the official transfer of the U.S. Army Air Forces into a new and independent military branch, the U.S. Air Force.
After giving them the corn flakes box with the metallic fragments, we said our goodbyes and Davidson and Brown immediately left for nearby McChord Field, where they planned to take off for California in a B-25 at approximately 1:00 AM.
I was woken in my hotel room early the next morning by a call from a distraught Fred Crisman. He tells me he’d just heard on the radio that the B-25 carrying Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown had caught fire within half an hour of take-off. At an altitude of 10,000 feet the only two other people on board—one the crew chief, the other a sergeant on leave catching a ride home—had parachuted to safety, but the plane had shortly thereafter gone down near Kelso, Washington, with both Davidson and Brown on board. Deeply troubled, I told Captain Smith what had happened, and we decided to wait at the hotel for Crisman to join us. This news came to us a full 12 hours before the Air Force made the names of the victims publicly available.5
When he arrived Crisman told us that he had spoken again to reporter Paul Lantz of the Tacoma Times, who told him he had received another anonymous call early that morning, informing him that the B-25 which had gone down that night had been sabotaged or shot down. The informant also claimed that the Marine transport plane that had crashed on Mt. Rainier the previous December—the one I had been looking for when I first spotted the flying disks days earlier—had also been shot down. Crisman called Lantz and he immediately came to the Winthrop to discuss this news with me and Captain Smith. Lantz had already written an article about the anonymous call and the crash, to be published later that day, which he then shared with us. He also told us that during both times he’d spoken with him the caller would not stay on the line for longer than 30 seconds, apparently worried that the call was being traced. He also said that the military had already sealed off the B-25 crash site as well as the surrounding 150 acres, allowing no civilians, not even the Civil Air Patrol, into the area.
Kenneth and Mrs. Arnold beside the Callair, three place plane used on his historic “saucer” flight.
Crisman also recounted to us startling information he had received from Harold Dahl the night before, which explained his absence from last night’s meeting:
Dahl said that the morning after his initial meeting with us, a man in a black suit had shown up at his door. Claiming to be some kind of government official who was investigating the Maury Island incident—Dahl seemed to think FBI, although no credentials were offered—the man persuaded Dahl to accompany him to a nearby coffee shop. Dahl described the man as of average height and average appearance. They drove there in the man’s brand-new black Buick sedan.6
Over coffee the man told Dahl in such detail about the experience he’d had on the boat that it was as if he’d been there to witness it. “You were not supposed to see this,” Dahl said the man told him. He went on to say that if Dahl “loved his family and didn’t want anything to happen to his or their general welfare then he would not discuss his experience.” And if anyone in the future were to ask him about it, he should admit that he had “made the whole story up.” After the man drove him home Dahl discovered his son Charles was missing from the house.
The local United Press stringer, Ted Morello, also called in during this meeting, to verify information about the crash and our meeting with Brown and Davidson, and to tell us he had also received an anonymous call early that morning telling him the B-25 had been shot down. The caller went on to tell him to warn “Arnold and Smith that the same thing could happen to them.” At this point, looking frightened
, Fred Crisman quickly left the hotel.
ARCHIVIST’S NOTE
Young Charles Dahl would remain missing for five days until he allegedly called his father, collect, from a motel in Missoula, Montana. After safely returning to Tacoma, Charles said that he’d been in Missoula a few days and “had no idea how he’d gotten there.”7
About an hour after Crisman left, Arnold and Smith received a notice from the hotel, slipped under the door of Room 502, that the Cooks, Waitresses and Bartenders Union, Local 61, American Federation of Labor, had declared a strike and that hotel services, including the elevators and switchboard, would be suspended indefinitely. Picket lines soon appeared outside the front entrance, prohibiting traffic in and out. Aside from a few remaining guests, the hotel was virtually empty.
From this point on, certain they were under surveillance--and perhaps in physical danger--Arnold and Smith locked the doors to Room 502, turned on all the faucets, turned the radio to maximum volume and spoke only in low voices. Arnold left the hotel only once that day, to buy a copy of the afternoon paper. As he had told them it would, Paul Lantz’s article appeared on the front page of the evening edition of the Tacoma Times, under the headline shown on the opposite page.
At 5:30 that afternoon, Arnold and Smith received another call from reporter Ted Morello, who said he had just gotten off another call from the same anonymous informant. Arnold and Smith requested to meet Morello in person to discuss it, as they no longer trusted holding conversations on the phone or in their room. They checked out of the Winthrop Hotel and traveled to meet Morello in a back room at local radio station KMO, where Morello also worked part-time.
Taking them aside, Morello told them his informant had called to tell him he’d learned that Fred Crisman had been taken into custody by military personnel that afternoon and had “just been put on an Air Force transport headed for Alaska.”
Smith immediately called a contact at McChord Field and learned that an Air Force transport had taken off for Alaska within the hour, but he was unable to obtain a passenger list. They were also unable to reach Crisman at home. They called Harold Dahl, who said he had not heard from Crisman. Then, in extreme distress, Dahl hung up after telling them he didn’t want to hear from them anymore, said he was sick of the whole business and if authorities ever asked him about it again he would deny having seen anything in the harbor, and claim it had been a hoax all along.
Morello then told Arnold and Smith the following: “You’re involved in something beyond our power to find out anything about. I’m giving you some sound advice. Get out of this town until whatever it is blows over.
I think you’re nice fellas and I don’t want anything to happen to you if I can prevent it.”
After leaving the station, Smith and Arnold drove to Harold Dahl’s address to question him one last time. When they arrived they were shocked to find the house at the address he’d given them earlier in the week deserted and vacant, unlocked and covered with cobwebs; it was clear no one had lived there for months. Deeply shaken, the two men drove directly to McChord Field. During this trip, Arnold noticed that they were being followed by a black Buick sedan.
Before leaving town, they had arranged one last meeting with an Army Intelligence major at McChord. Treating the whole matter casually, the smiling officer nonetheless took all of the remaining pieces of rock Fred Crisman had given them, saying he would be sure to have them analyzed “for the sake of being thorough.” Arnold still had a piece in his hand and was about to pocket it, when the officer held out his hand: “We don’t want to overlook even one piece.”
“I handed him my piece,” said Arnold. “This major was a smooth guy, but not smooth enough to convince me that these fragments weren’t important in some way. I suddenly felt that no one had played a hoax on anybody.”
They then drove directly to the civilian airfield. Arnold flew Smith up to Seattle, dropped him off, then took off again and flew east, headed back home to Boise. This is his account of what happened next:
1 Given that he exhibited classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, it’s not surprising to learn that Richard Shaver spent a fair portion of his adult life in and out of mental institutions. Which doesn’t, necessarily, discount his stories, but encourages a distinct lean toward the skeptical. Shaver died in 1975, at the age of 68—TP
2 I can confirm that Fred Crisman was in fact an OSS officer serving in Europe and Asia during the war, and a licensed pilot in the Army Air Force Reserve at the time of the Maury Island incident—TP
3 Verified. Smith’s sighting was mentioned in the Air Force report cited earlier—TP
4 See earlier reference to Paul Lantz, as the reporter who broke Dahl’s story locally—TP
5 I have verified these details of the B-25 crash. As the crash occurred after midnight on the day that the Air Force became a separate service branch, Davidson and Brown entered history as the first official casualties suffered by the USAF. Why they weren’t able to follow the others and parachute to safety from the damaged plane remains unclear—TP
6 The reader will recall the purchase of a black Buick prior to this by Douglas Milford. The physical description of the man, however generalized, could also pass for one of Milford at the time—TP
7 If I read this correctly, in the timeline of UFO history, this is the first recorded appearance of one of the so-called “men in black,” mysterious individuals who, allegedly, appear to UFO witnesses after sightings and intimidate them with veiled threats about what might happen if they reveal what they’ve seen. The clear implication here is that the man in black engineered the disappearance of Dahl’s son to coerce Dahl into silence.
And, if so, one also has to ask: Is it possible this first “man in black” was Douglas Milford?—TP
*6* KENNETH ARNOLD’S FLIGHT HOME
THE COMING OF THE SAUCERS
I started my airplane, warmed it up good, checked both my magnetos at full throttle, checked my gas lines, fuel valves and so on. Everything seemed to be in perfect order. Although it was rather late in the day it was only about a four-hour flight to Boise. When I got the weather sequence on my radio I knew I would have a twenty-to-thirty-mile-per-hour tail wind at the higher altitudes.
I was anxious to get going! I shoved the throttle clear to the instrument panel and took off, feeling a little unsteady about everything but glad I was going home at last. As I circled the airport, I could still see Captain Smith looking up at me. I headed for home.
I climbed to an altitude of eight thousand feet. I felt a lot better after crossing the Cascades and started to let down over the Columbia River with the intention of landing at Pendleton, Oregon, to get gasoline. Everything was running smoothly.
I landed at Pendleton and the boys there gassed up my airplane. I got out of the cockpit to stretch my legs but stayed close to my plane. I signed my credit slip and with a full gas tank was ready to take off again for home. I wasn’t tarrying as the hours of daylight were numbered. I had navigation lights but didn’t have a battery in my ship to operate them so had to make it home before dark.
I recall flipping my controls to indicate to the tower operator I was going to take off. The tower operator knew me and knew I had a receiver. He always came over the receiver to me if for some reason I should hold. Everything seemed fine. My plane was running well. Again I shoved the throttle clear to the stop. My engine roared and I was off the ground.
I reached an altitude which I would judge was around fifty feet. My engine stopped cold. It was as if every piston had been frozen solid. It never even gave a dying bark.
To take off and have an engine stop at that low altitude is probably the most dangerous thing that can happen in an airplane. You don’t have enough speed to sustain you for a normal landing. Your only choice for putting her down is straight ahead, with no power and little or no lift from your wings.
Instinctively I dove the plane straight at the ground until I must have been within ten feet of the runway, then came ba
ck on the stick as fast as I dared in an attempt to level off without causing an abrupt stall. My little airplane came through. I was sinking fast but I set it down on all three points.
The shock was pretty hard. My left landing gear was badly bent and my left spar was broken in two. At the moment I didn’t know what had happened. I thought the engine had frozen. I was unhurt. I jumped out of the cockpit, ran around to the front of the plane and turned the propeller. It was loose and easy. People came running out to see what was the matter.
I was curious to see if my engine would start again. I scooted around the wing and back into the cockpit. There I discovered what had caused my engine to stop. Until this writing, I have kept this a secret to myself. My fuel valve was shut off. I knew instantly there was only one person who could have shut that fuel valve off—and that was myself.
I turned the valve back on. One of the fellows swung the propeller. My engine started immediately and ran smoothly. I taxied my plane rather limpingly into the hangar. I was scared stiff.
I didn’t tell anyone what had happened for the simple reason that no one would believe me. I was in no respect accustomed to turning my fuel valve off. I only did so when my plane was either leaking gas through the carburetor float or when I put it away in storage. I elected not to say anything to anyone until I had some logical reason within my mind to explain how I could do such a ridiculous thing. The care and precautions I had always exercised before taking off and which had become an established habit with me for over three years had somehow failed.
