From: Gary <galevy@pipeline.com>
Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 02:27:11 -0400
Fwd Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 13:18:42 -0400
Subject: UFOSearch # 5 part 2 of 3 - Premonitions of The
UFOSearch
Val Germann
Columbia, Missouri 65203
Premonitions Of The Future,
Support For "New Revelations" In Early UFO Material:
The Arnold Case
part 2 of 3
Dahl, two crewmen, his son and their dog were on board Dahl's
boat near Maury Island, Tacoma, when SIX flying discs came near.
One of them appeared in trouble and ejected material out of a
hole in its bottom. Part of this material was like "newspaper, a
very light-weight, white-type metal." There were "thousands" of
pieces of this and most of it fell in the bay. Also falling was a
heavier, lava-like rock. This material fell into the bay, onto
the beach and onto the boat. It was hot and steam rose from the
water where this material fell. Some of this heavier material hit
Dahl's son on the arm, burning him. Other pieces hit the dog,
killing it. Photos were taken of this material and of the discs.
July 30 - The men picked up some of both types of material.
They attempted to radio what they had seen but the radio did not
work. The boat had been damaged by the fall of the heavier
material. Dahl had to tell his immediate superior, Fred Crisman,
what happened. He gave the camera and the recovered material to
Crisman, who did not seem to believe Dahl. There was considerable
damage to the boat. Dahl's son was treated and released at a
local hospital.
The next day Dahl got a visit from a gentleman who wanted to
talk to him right away. The man looked like "an insurance agent,"
not a logger. He appeared about 40 years of age. Dahl followed
the man and his 1947 Buick sedan to a cafe in the uptown part of
Tacoma. After they had entered a small diner and ordered their
food the man began to tell Dahl exactly what had happened the day
before. Every detail was correct. Dahl sat there, astounded.
The man said, "I know more about your experience than you will
want to believe." The man said that he, Dahl, should not have
seen what he had seen and should never discuss this ever again.
Dahl said he was very upset but thought the man was some sort
of crackpot, a nut. Dahl said he did not put much stock in what
the man had said. When Dahl got to work he found that Crisman had
gone out in a boat alone--to Maury Island. Dahl then discussed
his experience with several seamen on the docks while he waited
for Crisman to return. Early in the afternoon Crisman came back.
He did not criticise Dahl and began procedures to repair the
boat.
At this point Dahl stopped telling his story and invited Arnold
to go out to where his secretary lived and where some of the
material still remained. Arnold was now totally out of his depth
and he admits it. He had never been an "investigator" before.
Dahl took him to a small house on a corner in one of the rundown
sections of town. The house was in need of paint and looked about
"1912 vintage." There was a woman there working with papers and
the place was furnished in an old and poor sort of way. Dahl
showed Arnold a piece of rock they had been using as an ash tray.
He claimed it was from the disc. By now Arnold's head was
spinning; it was almost too much to take in.
Dahl said that he had gotten an anonymous letter several days
after his story had become known. It said that the flying discs
were manned by beings like us, only "less dense." The discs were
there to protect the earth from outside dark influences. It was
the Atomic Bomb and its radiation had caused them to become
visible. The letter went on to say that the beings flying the
discs were under attack by other beings who were enemies of their
people and life on this planet. Dahl was quite upset by this.
Dahl said that the "white metal" was all over at Crisman's
house and offered to take Arnold there. But Arnold was tired, it
had been a long and incredible day. "Tomorrow," he said. Arnold
returns to his hotel and goes to bed.
July 31 - At 9:30 am Crisman and Dahl wake Arnold up by banging
on his door. Crisman can not wait to tell Arnold about what has
happened. He says that the boat looked like someone had tried to
sink it from the top down with a sledgehammer. Crisman says that
he went out to the island and there was a lot of debris there. As
he was inspecting it he said that an object like Dahl had seen
came out of a cloud and circled his boat. Crisman is a ball of
fire, says he was a fighter pilot during World War II, in Burma.
(Crisman was much, much more than that!)
Crisman has now taken over the story. Dahl is saying nothing.
Arnold remembers a clipping in his pocket about metal falling out
of flying discs near Mountain Home, Idaho, on July 12. Arnold now
wants to see the metal, all of it. He also wants some help. So,
he calls Captain Smith in Seattle, who happens to have the
afternoon off. Arnold then flies up to get Smith and they arrive
back at Tacoma about 3 pm.
Crisman and Dahl show up soon after this and Smith talks to
them for about an hour and a half--gives them the business. Then
Smith says he will stay for a couple of days and help Arnold.
Smith asks Crisman to drive him back to Seattle to get his car
and some things. He and Crisman leave together. Dahl then leaves
to go home to his sick wife. It is now about 5 pm.
At 7:30 Smith comes back and takes Arnold out to dinner, at a
secluded cafe on the edge of Tacoma that he, Smith, seems to know
very well. There they discuss the events of the day.
At 8:30 all four men, Arnold and Smith, Dahl and Crisman, are
back in the hotel room. Smith wants the following from the men:
1) Samples of both types of material. 2) The photographs. 3) To
meet the crew of Dahl's boat. 4) A trip to Maury Island to see
what remains.
Dahl and Crisman promise that everything will be provided and
leave, to return the next morning. Smith discovers that Arnold is
carrying a .32 pistol, a present from his friend, Colonel
Weiland, who lives in Provo, Utah. Arnold says that at this time
he and Smight were very nervous and had the feeling that they
were being watched, that there was something dangerous about
Crisman and Dahl. There might be Russian agents about, they felt.
Arnold says that at this time he still did not dream that the
objects he had seen might have been "from another world."
July 31 - Just as the two men are going to bed the phone rings.
It is a man named Ted Morello of United Press. He tells them that
he has been getting calls from someone claiming to know exactly
what has been going on their hotel room. To prove this Morello
tells Arnold what he has done that day, precisely. Since neither
Smith nor Arnold have been talking to the press Arnold assumes
that Crisman or Dahl have been leaking. But Morello knows things
that had been said in the room when neither Crisman or Dahl were
present. The two men spend an hour tearing the room apart,
looking for a hidden microphone. They are five stories up in a
corner room. They find nothing but they do not change rooms.
Aug 1 - The next morning Crisman and Dahl arrive early with
fragments of both kinds of metal. They also say that the other
crew members are downstairs waiting. Everyone then has breakfast
and then goes upstairs to the room to talk. The dark metal is
very, very heavy. A piece the size of a hand and only an inch
thick is very hard to pick up. The dark fragments are perfectly
smooth on one side and burned on the other. The light metal that
Crisman hands them seems like aluminum and Arnold knows it is no
lighter or thinner that ordinary aircraft metal. This did not
correspond to Dahl's description at all. But it does have strange
square rivets in it.
Crisman does not have Dahl's photos with him but says he will
show them later in the day. Smith and Arnold decide to call in
the boys from Air Force intelligence, sure that just saying this
would smoke out Dahl and Crisman. But Crisman is enthusiastic.
Dahl says he will have nothing to do with intelligence, that the
whole business will end up in bad luck for everybody.
Arnold then calls Lt. Brown but he refuses to take the call in
his office. Instead he calls back later from an OFF BASE pay
phone. Arnold tells Brown what has been happening. Brown says to
sit tight and that he and Davidson will be there as soon as
possible. Everybody sits down to wait. Two telephone calls come
in, one of them from Ted Morello who said his mysterious informer
has been calling, staying on the line for no more than 20 seconds
at a time.
Then Paul Lance, reporter for the Tacoma Times, calls. They
refuse to talk to him so he comes to the room. Smith frisks him
and then throws him out. They all know that the Air Force
intelligence officers will be there soon.
Dahl says he is going to a movie and leaves. Smith and Crisman
leave, for a private conversation, Arnold says. This is the
second time the two of them have a "private conversation."
Aug 1 - At 4:30 pm the officers arrive. Davidson and Brown come
up to the room. Davidson shows Arnold a drawing of an object, an
object that looks like the one Arnold had never talked about.
Brown says that this type of object is "authentic" and they had
just received several photographs of this object at Hamilton
Field. The original negatives had been flown to Washington, D.C.,
Davidson says. Arnold tells the two officers about the "other
object" he saw on the 24th of June, the one with the double
curve.
Crisman now tells the officers his and Dahl's story, taking
over two hours to do it. Then there is general discussion as the
officers handle the material. Crisman says he will get the box of
material from his home and give it to the officers. It is
midnight. Suddenly the two airmen decide to leave, to fly back to
Hamilton Field that very night. The B-25 they were flying had to
be back the next morning for Air Force day, they say. It had just
been overhauled. The two officers have been flying all over the
area interviewing people in their investigation.
Arnold is feeling bad. He feels the two men think Crisman and
Dahl's story is a hoax. They are not interested in the material.
Arnold thinks about telling them about the letter that Dahl had
received about the flying discs but decides not to do that. Just
as the officers are ready to leave Crisman pulls up with his box
of fragments, putting them into their car. Arnold gets a quick
look at the fragments. They are not the same as those up in the
hotel room. Arnold says he was mixed up and that this was "the
screwiest situation he could imagine."
Arnold never finds out much about Crisman, where he lives,
whether he is married or not. When Smith and Arnold get back to
the hotel room the phone rings. It is Ted Morello telling them
everything that has just happened. Obviously there is a bug but
the two men still do not change rooms, perhaps because they
can't. They go to bed. Questions: What happened to the crewmen of
Dahl's boat? The reader never finds out. Nor do we ever hear of
Dahl's son or the dog. Arnold is doing his best but he is not,
and never will be, a detective.
Aug 2 - This is to be the last day of the "investigation."
Smith and Arnold are to meet Crisman and Dahl at 10 o'clock and
go out to Maury Island on Dahl's boat. At 9:20 the phone rings.
It is Chrisman telling Arnold that the B-25 carrying Davidson and
Brown had "blown up and crashed" at about 1:30 that morning.
Arnold says he was too weak to stand up, was white as a sheet.
The same for Captain Smith. Smith calls McChord field and learns
that two men did parachute out of the plane but neither one was
Brown or Davidson. Soon Crisman is at the hotel room, very
excited. Arnold calls Palmer in Chicago and says he is through
with the whole business, that two men have been killed and a
bomber lost because of it and he, Arnold, has had enough.
Aug 2 - Crisman interrupts this conversation from time to time.
Palmer says that maybe enough is enough. He warns Arnold not to
carry any of the fragments in his plane. Palmer then says that if
he or Smith want to keep any of the metal they should mail
fragments of it to themselves or to him. Palmer advises Arnold
not to let Smith take any fragments, if possible.
Then Crisman talks to Palmer and verifies that the plane has
gone down. Palmer later tells Arnold that he recognized Crisman's
voice as one he had heard several times before on mysterious long
distance calls. Crisman had sent Palmer a letter saying he had
been "rayed" by the "underground men." He had also warned Palmer
to "lay off" the Shaver Mysteries. Arnold was very suspicious of
Crisman by now. Crisman had told Arnold that he knew of Palmer
through "Venture Magazine." But Arnold knew there was no such
magazine but Palmer's company was called "Venture Publishing."
The United Press building was right across the street from the
hotel. That's where Ted Morello worked. Morello had an interview
with one of the two men who had jumped from the B-25, a soldier
"hitching" a ride. About 25 minutes after take-off the left
engine caught fire. Lt. Brown came back and ordered the soldier
to jump, all but throwing him out of the plane. The bomber then
continued to the south, on fire, all the while the soldier
floated down on his parachute. Only one other parachute was seen.
Later that morning Smith and Arnold go down to the docks with
Crisman to look at the boat. It is not the same boat, nothing
about it is right. The engine does not start. Arnold is by now
totally disgusted with the whole affair. He and Smith go back to
the hotel not knowing what to think. The phone soon rings. It is
Ted Morello who says his mysterious informer is predicting
things.
The mystery voice says that Captain Smith will be called to
Wright Field on the fifth of August, 1947, that Kenneth Arnold's
plane has been shot at on numerous occasions, that Captain
Smith's airliner has been shot at on several occasions, that the
B-25 bomber had been shot down by a 20mm cannon, that a recent
crash at La Guardia had been caused by the gust locks being left
on to sabotage it and that the crash in Denmarck that had killed
singer Grace Moore had been sabotaged also. Arnold later found
out that the gust lock cause for the La Guardia crash was true.
Captain Smith was never called to Wright Field, or so he said.
Arnold later learned that there was no distress call from the
B-25 and that no one could figure out why Brown and Davidson did
not bail out of the plane. The bomber fell near Kelso,
Washington.
Arnold, in distress, calls his brother long distance and asks
him to take their mother out into her yard and tell her that he,
Arnold, felt in extreme danger. Arnold could not explain why he
had done this and is ashamed to have done it. It seems senseless.
But Arnold indicates he needed some help and knew that his mother
would pray for him. He makes a similiar call to his wife and she
becomes very worried as well. Arnold fears phone, room bugs.
Tacoma Times, August 2, 1947, headline: "Sabotage Hinted In
Crash Of Army Bomber At Kelso." Written by Paul Lance. Stated
that a mysterious informer had told The Times that the plane had
been shot down or sabotaged to prevent "flying disc" material
from being transported to Hamilton Field. Two enlisted men,
Sergeant Elmer L. Taff and Technician Fourth Grade Woodrow D.
Mathews parachuted. Plane was carrying "classified material."
Paul Lance would die quite mysteriously soon after this affair
ended.
Arnold takes this paper upstairs, shows it to Smith. He now
says he is even more scared. They try to call Crisman and Dahl.
No answer from either. They finally find Dahl in a movie theatre
where they knew he spent a lot of his time. Dahl says Crisman had
called him earlier and said he was leaving town.
Just then Morello calls and tells Arnold that the mysterious
voice had just told him that Crisman had boarded an Army bomber
for Alaska that very afternoon. Arnold becomes worried about
Dahl, whom he still thinks of as a more or less "innocent"
bystander. Arnold knows that he and Smith were almost the last
people to see Davidson and Brown alive and that the police or
military intelligence would be on the scene any minute. Dahl
seems to be resigned and goes back to his movie, saying he would
be at the theater in case he is needed.
Arnold and Smith go to see Ted Morello at his office. He tells
the two men that the B-25 of Davidson and Brown was under armed
guard every minute it was in Tacoma. He says, "You are involved
in something it is beyond our power here to find anything about.
Get out of town until this blows over. I don't want to see
anything happen to you fellows if I can help it." Morello tells
them of a UPI story concerning Dick Rankin, the famous pilot.
Rankin had said that Davidson and Brown were hot on the trail of
something and that he (Rankin) thought was endangering their
lives. The press release was made by Rankin with the intention of
warning Brown and Davidson, Morello said.
Dick Rankin was a world famous pilot reputed to have
"extrasensory perception." He had once had a dream that there was
something wrong with the tail of his plane. He refused to fly
until it was checked. When the fabric was removed several control
wires were in fact damaged. Arnold says that he had a lot of
respect for any opinion of Rankin due to his skill as a pilot.
Smith and Arnold go back to their hotel room and wait for the
police or whomever. The phone rings several times and they talk
to David Johnson in Idaho and to The Chicago Tribune.
Aug 3 - The waiting continues. Nothing happens. They now have
nothing but several dozen "fragments" still scattered around
their hotel room. Crisman is gone. Davidson and Brown are dead.
Morello is telling them to get out of town. Their room is bugged.
Dahl comes by early in the afternoon and does not say much.
Arnold calls the airport and inquires after his plane. They still
expect the military to contact them. Smith says he has to get
back to his airline soon or lose his position. Morale has fallen
to an all-time low. Arnold says that, yes, all of this did
happen.
Aug 4 - Bright and Clear. Arnold photographs Maury Island which
is now visible out of his hotel window. At 9 o'clock Smith and
Arnold meet Dahl and his secretary at a cafe for breakfast. Smith
makes a phone call, comes back and says he will be gone for an
hour. Tells Arnold to go back to the hotel and wait. Arnold very
upset to be left alone. Waits hours. At 2 o'clock Smith brings a
Major Sander of A-2, Army Intelligence, McChord Field. Arnold
tells him the whole story. The major says this could be a hoax.
He says that the B-25 crash was just what it appeared to be, an
accident. Arnold disagrees but is relieved to have the Major take
the case. They could all go home now.
Major Sander picks up the fragments in the hotel room,
including one Arnold had put in his pocket as a souvenier. Sander
says he doesn't want to leave any fragments behind even though
they are fake. He asks for and gets Arnold's fragment. He wraps
them up in a hotel towel and puts them into his car. It is a
civilian car. Sander then takes Arnold and Smith out to a
smelting company. There are piles of stuff that look similiar to
what Crisman and Dahl have shown Smith and Arnold.
But when they get close Arnold realizes that the stuff in the
piles looks like what Crisman had given Brown and Davidson, not
like what had just been taken from the hotel room. Sander will
not let Smith and Arnold compare the stuff in his car to the slag
on the ground. Sander drives the two men back to their hotel and
leaves. Arnold realizes on the way back that the smelter was a
long way off the beaten track and had many piles of metal. Sander
had driven right to the one that had metal similiar to that in
question. Something is screwy. But Arnold is by now glad to be
out of it.
Smith and Arnold check out of the hotel. Arnold wants to say
goodbye to Dahl, who said he would be working at his secretary's
house that day. The two men drive over there. The house is empty,
the screen door ajar and there are cobwebs across the main
entrance. The windows and door knobs were the same as Arnold
remembers but the house looked as though it had not been lived in
for months. Arnold feels as if a bucket of cold ice-water has
been dumped on him. He gets panicky. He thought things like this
only happened in dreams. Could he have had a visit to Dreamland?
The house was empty, with dirt, dust and cobwebs everywhere.
There was a severe housing shortage in Tacoma at this time and
neither Smith nor Arnold could imagine how any house could stay
vacant three months in that area. Harold Dahl has disappeared.
Even the phone company would not admit his existence to Arnold
even though he (Arnold) had looked the man's number up in the
phone book the day he got to his hotel.
Smith drives Arnold to the airport where they inspect his
plane. It is OK. It was going to be a four-hour flight to Boise
and he would get there about dark. At Pendleton, Oregon, Arnold
stops and gets gas, never straying far from his plane. After
filling up he rolls out to the runway, checks the tower and then
begins to take off. At fifty feet his engine stops cold. By a
miracle he gets the plane down, breaking a wing and one landing
gear but not injuring himself. His fuel switch had been turned
off, how Arnold has no idea.
Thus comes to an end the strage saga of Kenneth Arnold and the
Maury Island mystery. As you can see, it was a lot more than met
the eye. The situation is one of extreme wierdness and many
questions remain unanswered:
1) How did the hotel room get reserved for Arnold, at the
most expensive place in town? This took some money,
something those with unaccountable funding seem to have
in quantity. And it struck Arnold funny that he got so
famous so fast.
2) Notice the reference to "newspaper-thick" metal, as at
Roswell. Last summer (1994) the Air Force released a
report on the Roswell business. In that report it was
stated that General Vandenberg was NOT investigating
the Roswell business at the beginning of July, 1947.
No, he was investigating a UFO event that took him to
Washington state! Most interesting.
3) Arnold never did find out about about the injured boy
or the dog that was killed. Most disappointing.
4) The business with the house of the "secretary" is most
strange. Whomever to set that place up had some money
and once again, who has all sorts of money for all
sorts of odd things?
5) And what about the strange actions of Captain Smith,
who seemed to know Crisman and kept disappearing with
him for long periods? Crisman now known with certainty
to have been some sort of agent for someone, military
intelligence or OSS/CIG/CIA/FBI.
6) Why did Lt. Brown refuse to take Arnold's call on base?
This is most strange and hints at competing military
investigations of the Maury Island affair and of UFOs
in general. Why else would he be worried about a bug on
HIS phone or being overheard. Could it have been that
he and Davidson were investigating something they were
not supposed to be investigating?
7) Why didn't the two officers bail out of the plane when
they had every chance to do so? What could they have
been carrying that was so important they would risk
their lives to get that plane down intact? Could it
have been something not known to their nominal
superiors, something they had found or been given in
Tacoma? And why did those looking into the crash never
get in touch with Arnold or Smith? All of this is most
suspicious.
8) Who was Ted Morello, whose office just happened to be
across the street from Arnold's mysterious hotel room?
We know now that many "journalists" work for
intelligence agencies. For instance, Richard Helms
worked for UPI in Europe in the 1930s and a UPI bureau
chief in Chile helped IT&T get rid of Allende in the
early 1970s. Morello looks to us like an agent of some
sort.
9) Who was this "Major Sander?" He seemed to know a lot
about slag heaps in the Seattle/Tacoma area and have a
real interest in hoax material. Was Smith gone so much
of the time with Crisman and Sander because they were
together cooking up the cover story that would be used
to discredit Arnold? We think it's possible.
There is no doubt, the UFO business was very, very strange in
several ways right from the very beginning. There was strong
military and intelligence community interest right from the start
and the implication is that these entities were in competition
for the same scarce information. There were also bizarre psychic
or paranormal elements to the UFO business right from day one.
The Maury Island affair and the original Arnold sighting were
much, much more than just a nuts-and-bolts apparition. In its own
way these two incidents were just as out and out strange as
anything occuring today.
Plus ca change. . .
In the final analysis a lot of people people were interested in
what Kenneth Arnold was doing in the summer of 1947--and they had
a lot of money at their disposal. On top of that two men died
taking part. And swirling around these incidents were rumors of
aliens interacting with mankind, rumors that have "resonances"
for those of us interested in "UFOs" today.
This theme will be developed further in later segments of this
series.
UFOSearch # 5: part 2 of 3, continues in part 3
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