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The Maury Island Incident was a reported encounter with a UFO off the southeast shore of Maury Island in 1947.

Time & Again: 75th Anniversary of The Maury Island Incident Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 22, 2022 By Bruce Haulman For The Beachcomber 1/2 Swipe or click to see more 2/2 Swipe or click to see more (Elizabeth Shepherd Photo) In the 2013 Strawberry Festival, Tom Hughes and Isaac Hughes played the parts of Harold Dahl and his son, spotting a UFO in the waters off Maury Island in 1947. June 21 is the 75th anniversary of the Maury Island Incident (MII), Maury Island’s very unusual introduction to the world. The Maury Island Incident was a reported encounter with a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) off the southeast shore of Maury Island that played an early part in the UFO craze that still fuels our imaginations, our media reporting and recently has been renamed a UAP – Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. On June 21, 1947, Harold Dahl encountered six large circular flying objects that appeared over his boat just off Maury Island near Sandy Shores and Summerhurst. One of the craft descended to lower elevation over Dahl’s boat, appeared to be unstable in the air, and began to eject “lava-like” hot debris, some of which landed on Dahl’s boat. Dahl described the damage to the boat, the burn injuries to his son’s arm and the debris that hit and killed their dog. As the one craft struggled, another came down and touched it, and the struggling craft stopped dropping hot debris, regained its stability, and they all rose together and headed off at incredibly high speed. Dahl and Fred Crisman had a contract with the Port of Tacoma to round up logs that had broken loose from log-rafts being towed into lumber plants in Tacoma. When Dahl returned to Tacoma, the story got out and spread quickly. Crisman said he went out the next morning and saw another UFO in the same area as Dahl had reported. He also gathered some debris that might have fallen from the struggling UFO the day before. There have been reports of sightings of extraordinary flying objects for centuries. During World War II, there were thousands of reports by pilots, but they were largely kept secret. Then, on June 24, 1947, UFOs became a public phenomenon when American aviator Kenneth Arnold startled the world with his account of sighting nine UFOs near Mt. Rainier, traveling in formation in excess of 1,200 miles per hour. Because Arnold was an experienced pilot and a credible businessman, the story went viral, setting loose an avalanche of stories and musings about UFO sightings and space aliens, and the dangers they might pose to America and human civilization. As UFO stories multiplied and spread, the summer of 1947 became known as “The Summer of the Saucers” because of a number of other compelling UFO incidents that included the Roswell Incident, where a flying saucer crash was supposedly covered up by the government. All of this took place two years after the end of World War II. The Cold War was beginning, and there was widespread concern and anxiety about the Soviet Union. Americans worried whether Russia also had developed an atomic bomb and other advanced weapons developed by captured German scientists. The United States had captured the German scientist Wernher Von Braun, who helped America develop its rocket program that would culminate in the 1969 landing on the Moon. Among those drawn to Arnold’s story was Ray Palmer, a publisher whose magazine, Amazing Stories, specialized in fantastic tales of other-worldly alien civilizations, their highly advanced technologies, and their visits to Earth. Stories like these tapped into deeper human fears and imaginations of attacks both from Russia and from outer space aliens. The American military also responded to the growing number of UFO accounts. The concerns were that these incidents could pose a real danger to the United States, that they could be Russian experimental aircraft, or that they could be aliens from outer space. The U.S. Air Force, which was newly formed in 1947, began investigating the UFO phenomenon. That effort was pursued by a series of top-secret projects: Project Sign in 1947, Project Grudge in 1948, and in 1952, Project Bluebook, which lasted until 1968 and investigated almost 20,000 incidents of UFO sightings and alien encounters. Most sightings and encounters were explained as mass hysteria, presumably seeded by the Russians, mistaken identity, or hoaxes. But some remain unexplained. The effort to investigate UFOs continues today in both private and government circles. The stories also captured the attention of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. Hoover took a direct interest in the Maury Island Incident and had a definitive report on it prepared. Although Hoover pulled the FBI back from the UFO investigations, because of a military intelligence document that seemed to relegate the FBI to investigating incidents that “turned out to be ash can covers, toilet seats, and whatnot.” However, Hoover maintained an active interest and was kept apprised of developments including the famous Ros...

Time & Again: 75th Anniversary of The Maury Island Incident - Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber