Documents / Document

FBI file 62-HQ-83894 Flying Discs, section 3

Department of War · 2026-05-08 · 190 pages · text from the file's own layer

This section of FBI file 62-HQ-83894 on flying discs collects 1947 FBI memoranda, teletypes and Army Air Forces intelligence papers. It includes F. M. Johnson's report of discs near Mt. Adams on June 24, 1947, the Maury Island claims of Harold Dahl and Fred Crisman, the fatal B-25 crash at Kelso, Washington that killed investigators Davidson and Brown, MIT findings that New Hampshire fragments were ordinary cast iron, and A. C. Urie's Twin Falls sighting. It ends with the Bureau discontinuing its disc investigations.

  • p. 33 …They sent a cigar box of these formations to one Ray Palmer, editor of the Venture…
  • p. 34 …Relative to Arnold, Dahl and Chrisman stated that he was paid by Ray Palmer of the…
  • p. 51 …Just after our phone conversati on HAROLD DAHL wrote a l etter to RAY PALMER setting…
STATE OF ASHlNG'l'ON )
~ ss
COUNTY OF JU?G
J.E. SMITH, being firs~ duly sworn, on oath, deposes
aiid says:
Thi·s ls a narrative statement as to what took place 1A
Tacoma i'rom Thursday, July 31 until Sunday, August J .
Thursday I received a telephone call trom Tacoma trom a
Ke.nn.eth Arnold. The gist ot this conversation was that he thought
it wou1d be a good idea tor me to come to Tacom14 and listen to the
story of t.wo 11e.n. whose names were Fred Crismon and Harold Dahl .
This Ke.nneth Arnold I had met two times previous - o~oe on Juiy 5
a t the ottlc e ot the P . I . in Seattl.e tor a very brief time and the
second time in Boise, Idaho Y&en I was passing through on one ot
my trips.
In this conversation with Arnold on tb.e phone , I made the
s t atement that it v1ould be impossible tor me to go over to Tacoma
due to 11J3 going out to Salt Lake City the next morning. He said
that he would tly over trom Tacoma and pick me up at Boeing Field.
I agreed to this proposition trom Arnold. At 4 o•olock I met
Arnold at the Boei.ng Field and we tlew back and landed at Barry•s
Airport. e were picked up at the airport by lrred Crismon, who
drove the two ot us into the inthrop Hotel . e went up to Room
502 -- Crismon,. Arnold and myself' .
!'red Crismon put a telepbo_ne call into Harold Dah.l and
asked him would be come up to the room. A half hour later Harold
Dahl made his appearanoe. At tb.is t .ime there were tour men in the
room - Crismon, Dahl, Arnold, and myselt. Ur. Arnold asked Mr.
Dahl to relate his story as to hat took place on June 24. Ur.
Dahl was very hesitant about telling the story to me. Arnold and
llr. Crismon were already aware ot the statements that Dahl had made
previous. Mr. Dahl made the statement to me tha t it any statements
he ~ould make rela tive to h1.s story. it I oold keep it confident1a1
for two weeks, that he felt definitely that I ~ould want to forget
the whole thl.ng. I made the statement to Mr. Dahl that as tar as I
was concerned. I woold keep any statements he made to me oonfldential
tor at least two weeks.
Here is Dahl ' s story: On June 24 (this date to be checked
later) he was ln a boat owned by Fred Crismon, who owns the Harbor
Patrol in Tacoma . They - - Ltr. Dahl, a Kr. Knight, and Hr. Dahl's
son age 16, were cruising around Maury Island looking for logs that
had broken away trom booms. They were tairly close to shore of
Maury Island when they saw four or five obj ects 1n the sky a t an
altitude ot approximately 1500 feet . He said tb.ese objects were

Cases discussed

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 190 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.