65 HS1-834228961 62-HQ-83894 Section 003

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August 14, 1947
FLYING DISCS
The 11 Tacoma News Tribune" and through them the United Press put out
a story that an anny plane which was allegedly carrying parts of a disc which
had struck a boat owned by Harold Dahl and Fred Chrisman had crashed on August
1, 1947, killing two Air Force Intelligence officers who were interviewing
persons who were alleged to have seen flying discs .
Harold A. Dahl and Fred Chrisman, when interviewed by Bureau Agents,
advised in a signed statement on August 7, 1947, that in the early part of June,
1947, they picked up some strange rock formations from a gravel pit on Hauri
Island, Washington. They sent a cigar box of these formations to one Ray Palmer,
editor of the Venture magazine in Evanston, Illinois and also editor of the
Fantasy magazine in Chicago, Illinois . According to them they requested Pal'!ler
to make only a chemical analysis of the rock formations . Palmer then wrote
asking for additional samples stating he had been unable to analyze the material.
Dahl and Chrisman rem~rked that a few days after the flying disc stories appeared
during the latter part of June1 Pa.lmer contacted them by telephone saying he would
pay for an exclusive story if the materials they had sent him were fragments of
a flying disc . Dahl said he wrote Palmer a letter in which he represented the
material as being a part of a flying disc, and both Dahl and Chrisman admitted
that this statement was entirely false.
Dahl and Chrisman then received a call from one Kenneth Arnold of
Poise, Idaho who requested them to meet him at the Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma on
July 31, 1947. According to them Arnold called in ar:ny intelligence officers
from Hamilton Field, California and one Captain Emil H. Smith of United Airlines
of Seattle , Washington to attend this meeting. Dahl and Chrisman maintained
they told the intelligence officers Captain Davidson, Lieutenant Brown, Kenneth
Arnold and Emil H. Smith exactly how they got the rock formati ons and that they
had no connection with any flying discs . Dahl and Chrisman stated that they then
furnished some of the rock formation to the intelligence officers as samples .
Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown left Tacoma, Washineton in a B-25
to return to Hamilton Field, California about 2: 30 A.M. August 1 , 1947 , and were
killed when t heir plane crashed at Kelso, Washington, after the l eft engine
burqed out an exhaust stack which in turn caught the left wing on fire which caused
it to break off. The crew chief and each officer parachuted to safety.
Ernie Vogel, an Associated Press wire.man at Tacoma advised that two or
three days after the flying disc story started he contacted Dahl to check the story
COPIES DESTROYED
270 NOV 18 1964