65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_003
- Date
- 1947
- Place
- Tacoma / Maury Island, Washington, and the Washington-wide field-office network, United States
- Record
- Pentagon file
- Assessment
- Not assessed
- Evidence strength
What was reported
The section's central content is the FBI's own investigation of the Maury Island incident (Tacoma, WA, June-August 1947): Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman's story of disc fragments falling on Dahl's boat, told to Kenneth Arnold and to two Army Air Forces intelligence officers who died in a B-25 crash hours after taking custody of the fragments. The file records that an Associated Press wireman found Dahl's own wife pushing him to admit 'the entire story was a plain fantasy' and that a Boise reporter independently called it 'a complete fabrication.' The section also carries the formal FBI-AAF correspondence on cooperation terms, including an Air Defense Command memo limiting the Bureau's role to discs found on the ground, and a Bureau memo dated near the end of the section recording that the FBI discontinued its flying-disc investigative activity effective immediately per Bureau Bulletin No. 42, referring all future reports to the Air Forces.
What officials concluded
Resolved
Maury Island was a hoax; Dahl's wife told a reporter the story was fantasy, and multiple journalists independently refused to run it as fact.
- Agency
- FBI
- Released in
- 123456
Evidence profile
- Yes: Visual
- No: Infrared
- No: Radar
- No: Video
- No: Photo
- No: Film
- No: Audio
- No: Night vision
- No: Other sensor
- No: Civilian
- Yes: Military aircrew
- No: Military ground
- No: Airline crew
- No: Sensor operator
- No: Law enforcement
- No: Scientist
- No: Astronaut
- Yes: Intelligence official
- No: Other
- No: Light only
- No: Orb or sphere
- Yes: Disc
- No: Triangle
- No: Cylinder
- No: Cube
- No: Other shape
- No: Physiological
- No: Physical trace
- No: Electromagnetic
- No: Sound
- No: Silent
Why this rating The section's central case, Maury Island, is documented within the same file as a self-admitted hoax; the rest is inter-agency policy correspondence rather than sighting evidence, so nothing here rises above weak on the evidence ladder.
As described in the file
- Witnesses
- Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman (principals), Kenneth Arnold (relayed the story), two unnamed Army Air Forces intelligence officers (Davidson and Brown, both killed in the subsequent B-25 crash); several journalists and FBI agents documenting after the fact
- Sensors
- Visual
- Shape
- Disc(s), per Dahl and Crisman's account
- Motion
- One disc reportedly fluttered toward the ground and disintegrated, showering fragments
- Effects
- Fragments allegedly damaged Dahl's boat and killed his dog, per his own account
Pentagon files
65_HS1-834228961_62-HQ-83894_Section_003
Open the original on war.gov
What the file claims
- Unverified
Dahl and Crisman told Kenneth Arnold and two Army intelligence officers that disc fragments had fallen on Dahl's boat near Maury Island.
- Unverified
Dahl's wife told him, in front of a reporter, to admit the Maury Island story was invented, and he did.
- Unverified
A Tacoma Times reporter independently described the disc-fragment story as a complete fabrication before Kenneth Arnold even arrived to investigate it.
- Unverified
The Air Defense Command told its Air Force intelligence units that the FBI's role was limited to discs 'found on the ground,' not those seen in flight, and used language the San Francisco field office called insulting.
- Unverified
The FBI discontinued its flying-disc investigative activity effective immediately and directed that all future reports be referred to the Air Forces instead.
On the map
47.40° N, 120.70° W, plotted at the centre of the region named in the record
Show on the map