The Maury Island UFO Incident: The Story behind the Air Force’s first military plane crash

by Charlette LeFevre

  According to political ads, he enlisted into army service on May 26, 1942 and he flew 211 combat missions, was wounded twice, and was shot down twice. He separated from the Army Air Force on February 19, 1946 and went to work for the State Department of Veterans Affairs.

  In Crisman’s own words, in his book “Murder of a City… Tacoma” he would state: “in 1946-1947, as a recently released fighter pilot, I had been appointed a Special Investigator and assigned to a now defunct department of the state government, The State Department of Veteran Affairs. My job – take a look at the variety of rackets, con jobs and out right cheating of newly discharged veterans from our Washington located camps of the armed forces. My job brought me into contact with many of the local men and most of the political leaders of the day.” Crisman would also relate he had a close working relationship with most of the police officers of Tacoma and Seattle and most of the judges and a great many lawyers.

  It is highly likely that Crisman met Harold Dahl at this time and established what would appear to be a mutually beneficial relationship that often seemed strained.

  According to an FBI report on Crisman of September 13, 1947 after working for the Department of Veteran’s Affairs up until March 31, 1947, he “went to work for Harold Dahl piloting Dahl’s personal plane.”

  Note: This is the only reference we have seen that Dahl owned a personal plane. Crisman worked for the State Veterans Rehabilitation Council from March 20, 1946 to March 31, 1947 handling Veteran problems “Particularly those in trouble with the law.” Crisman was terminated following a reduction in force and is stated to have then worked for Harold Dahl. An unknown person interviewed by the FBI stated they thought Dahl “was rumored to be a black market operative.” Crisman told an informant that he had developed an idea for a log patrol and beach patrol, which would involve the recovery of unmarked logs from Puget Sound and the patrolling of summer beach cottages for private owners. Crisman said that Dahl stole this idea from him.

  A few days after the Kelso crash Crisman was ordered by the Army to Alaska. There is no evidence of Crisman actually going. A statement given to the FBI on August 8th led the Fourth Air Force headquarters to revoke his Air Force Reserve Commission as “undesirable and unreliable officer.”

  In The January, 1950 issue of Fate Magazine, Crisman denied that the Maury Island UFO Incident was a hoax. “Why, if we were such blackguards and deliberately caused the deaths of two Air Force Pilots and the loss of a $150,000 airplane did not the government or some agency there attempt to seek justice through the courts of the state and federal government” Fate, January,1950

  Crisman was recalled to active duty during the Korean War in 1950. He served as a fighter pilot for the next two and a half years and he moved to Japan with his family. In 1953, he returned to teaching in Elgin, OR. At one point Crisman in the 1950’s underwent psychiatric treatment in Ft. Steilacoom, Washington.

  He later was a teacher and school administrator in a number of high schools in Washington and Oregon, and he worked for the Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle for two years in the early 1960s.

  According to Joan Mellen,”Some thought the entire brouhaha was a scam to cover up a Boeing aircraft accident involving radioactive material. Boeing refused to supply Garrison with Crisman’s employment records.” Mellen, Joan. A Farewell to Justice.

  For years, he was a freelance writer, especially writing books, speeches, and campaign materials for many political figures, including state governors and members of the U.S. Congress.

  In the late 1960s, Fred Crisman moved back to his native Tacoma, Washington, and became involved in a highly charged political struggle in which he and friends and colleagues sought to end the CityManagement form of government. As part of this struggle, Crisman became well known and controversial as the host of a radio talk show using the pseudonym Jon Gold, and he wrote a book about the period called Murder of a City that was published in 1970.

  On July 22, 1967, Fred Crisman spoke at the Northwest UFO Space Convention at Seattle Center sponsored by Understanding Inc. concerning Maury Island. He claimed to still have prints of the Maury Island photographs. This began his correspondence with Gary Lesley who wanted to get copies of the Maury Island photographs. He provided an address for Harold Dahl in Tenino, WA who he said had the photographs. Gary Lesley contacted Dahl and asked about damage to the boat because of the slag. Dahl told Lesley that it was their policy not to answer letters that wanted to discuss Maury Island, because of how it was treated by the press. Dahl said he had left the matter up to Crisman to discuss Maury Island.

  In September of 1967, Crisman wrote to Lesley that he did not approve of his correspondence with Dahl. Crisman said he wanted no publicity and did not want to get involved in any way.

  Thomas Beckham aka Mark Evans, photo from A Farewell to Justice

  Crisman and his JFK Connection

  Regardless of the publicity Crisman would receive during the Maury Island incident; it is his history later in life and with the JFK assassination investigation by Jim Garrison where he would achieve the most notoriety during his life. Crisman would become the first person Clay Shaw would contact after his

  arrest by Jim Garrison for conspiring in the assassination of Pres. John Kennedy. – Mellen, Joan, A Farewell to Justice, 2005. strongly that Crisman and Shaw were CIA somehow Crisman was his supervisor or could somehow get him out of this situation.

  This contact implies

  Operatives and that Crisman himself would be later subpoenaed by the Orleans Grand Jury in Jan. of 1968 and asked what his relationship was to Thomas Beckham – a suspect in the JFK assassination. At the time, Crisman was conducting a talk program on Puyallup radio station KAYE under the name of Jon Gold. Crisman in his statement to the Jury said he met Beckham through Harold Dahl in 1966 – that Harold Dahl who was operating a small second hand store had introduced Thomas Beckham to Crisman. The facts are that Crisman met Beckham years earlier in the summer of 1963. Mellen, Joan, A Farewell to Justice, 2005.

  Thomas Beckham would relate he first met Crisman talking to Newbrough at a restaurant named Holsum. Joseph is asking Crisman about federal fraud charges. Crisman states to Newbrough “Didn’t it scare you when you read “U.S. of America vs. Joseph Newbrough? How did that hit you?”

  Thomas Beckham occasionally went by the name of Mark Evans as a recording artist. Crisman oddly helped finance a trip for his new friend Beckham to New Orleans to promote Beckham’s record. Beckham would later make an LP called “Material Witness” in which he mentioned Crisman.

  In late 1966, Crisman and Thomas E Beckham incorporated seven businesses. Among these companies were the Northwest Relief Society, Associated Discount Services, TAB Productions, Professional Research Bureau, and The National Institute of Criminology.-Jeffords, Edd “Jury orders Crisman to Testify November 21st in Garrison’s JFK Probe Tacoma News Tribune, November 1, 1968

  Crisman’s relationship with Beckham would later become strained. Beckham would state Crisman sent him a message through Bob Lavender that “If I am subpoenaed as a result of anything he [Beckham] says to that grand jury, I’ll kill him!” Mellen, Joan A Farewell to Justice, pg. 286.

  Beckham would later confess in his book “Remnants of Truth” that he lied to the Orleans Grand Jury about Crisman. Beckham would write in his book, “By no means is this memoir a statement or confession” but written to clear up questions. He states Jim Garrison went to his grave “knowing the truth” and that he gained the trust of officials as well as the mob.

  Beckham said that later he officials, and did his job well. acquaintances he had including ”There was not only the death of the President, “my friend Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Martin, Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby.

  Beckham believed he was used in some type of a plot. He said if he knew then, he would have run. “But as far as I ran, someone always managed to find me (like my CIA buddies Jack Martin and Fred Crisman).” Beckham relates in his book how right after his brother contacted him
about the newspaper’s announcement of his subpoena that “Within ten minutes or even less, Jack Martin and Fred Crisman called me about the same thing.” Crisman and Martin told Beckham not to worry, “.everything was being taken care of.”

  became a courier for government Beckham would talk of the many

  Beckham wrote a whole chapter entitled “Fred Crisman” in his book and would write “He always seemed to be there for me, and always knew where I was, no matter what state I lived in. “ One time Fred and I were sent to a small town in California to get someone out of trouble.” Beckham hid in a closet at the hall of justice and ransacked the office until they got what they were looking for. On another occasion, Beckham relates how Fred sprung him from a small town jail in Louisiana. “I knew that I had it in this rat hole of a town, but I called Fred and told him I needed help. Within a few hours, I was told by the jailer to pack up because I was going. It was the best news I had heard since I had been there, until he said the FBI was there to get me. I got sick inside, thinking Fred had let me down. But when I walked out, the first thing I saw was Fred dressed in a gray suit. He handcuffed me, signed some paper and took me out to a car and put me in the back seat. We drove a few blocks down before Fred took the cuffs off.”

  Crisman would drive Beckham to his home in Mississippi and would later see Beckham again a couple of years later when Beckham moved to Washington State before moving to Nebraska.

  Beckham would also state, “Fred had an auto with a phone that was hid under the dash.” – Beckham, Thomas, Remnants of Truth, 2008.

  Crisman would be called Beckham’s “mentor and supervisor” with “an operative at a deep cover level in a long-range clandestine intelligence mission…an operative at a supervisory level, a Fagin to the Artful Dodger.”

  (Fred Crisman, Murder of a City, 1970)

  An indication of Crisman’s involvement with Garrison is reflected in Ray Palmer’s letter to Gray Barker in 1976.

  “Dear Gray: The Fred Crisman summoned to testify in the Clay Shaw trial was the same Crisman who was involved in the Tacoma-Maury Island Affair, and the same Fred Crisman who claimed to have shot his way out of a cave in Burma, receiving a hole the size of a dime in his arm from a “ray gun” wielded, (he said) by the dero. His exact words to me: “For God’s sake drop the Shaver cave stories! You don’t know what you are dealing with here! He is the same Fred Crisman who offered to go into a cave in Texas and bring out some of the ancient machinery if I would send him $500 expense money.

  It was not Clay Shaw who was ruined financially, personally and physically, it was Jim Garrison who was ruined. He was (as I told him in a letter) subjected to IRS audit, finally won the case in court but at tremendous financial cost – which was the IRS goal in the first place. He was also libeled, framed in a drug ring, and hounded from office, finally losing out in a re-election run.

  I have Garrison’s letter stating that they were one and the same man. I also have my answer to Garrison, predicting that Crisman could not be subpoenaed, that he was CIA, and tremendously powerful.

  There is a definite link between flying saucers, The Shaver Mystery, The Kennedy’s assassinations, Watergate and Fred Crisman. There is one common denominator for everything that is happening in the world today. That common denominator is right where Shaver said it was – no matter whether you prefer caverns or the lower astral or another dimension. Rap (Ray Palmer, Rt. 2, Box 36, Amherst, Wisconsin 54406)

  - Gray Barker’s Newsletter #5, March 1976, Letters to Editor, pg 15. Interestingly, another figure in the JFK assassination Guy Banister himself researched a UFO sighting case July 11, 1947 when what appeared to be 30 inch diameter “flying disks” had been found at Twin Falls Idaho.

  “In a lengthy handwritten memo to Jonathan Blackmer, an investigator for the House select committee that re-investigated Kennedy's assassination in the late 1970s and had a keen interest in Crisman, Garrison spelled out what he had concluded about Crisman:

  " . . . I suggest the only reasonable conclusion is that he was (and probably is, if still around), an operative at a deep cover level in a longrange, clandestine, intelligence mission directly (in terms of our national intelligence paranoia) related to maintaining national security . . . Crisman emerges as an operative at a supervisory level . . . acquired by the apparatus to carry out the menial jobs that are needed to push a current mission forward, a middle man--in the final analysis--between the mechanics who eliminate, and the handy men, who otherwise support a termination mission, on one hand, and the distant, far removed, deeply submerged command level, on the other."

  http://greyfalcon.us/restored/Fred%20Crisman.ht During the Assassination Hearings of JFK in 1978 Robert Groden was asked to identify pictures of the tramps on the grassy knoll and stated that one of the men was Fred Lee Crisman “who is another ultra-right winger - a member of the Minutemen. He has become a prime suspect for critics of the report as a candidate to be the short tramp.” The Investigation Of The Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy, Hearings Before The Select Committee on Assassinations Of The United States House Of Representatives, 95th Congress, 2nd Session. .1978

  Crisman says that he was teaching school in Rainier, OR when the President was killed. School officials in Rainier confirmed that Crisman was a high school teacher in November, 1963 .Shomshak, Vern “True Magazine Less Than True-Crisman Says of Article on JFK’s Death, Tacoma News Tribune May 22, 1975

  In 1973 Palmer commented on Crisman “Fact: Fred Crisman is always present; in The Shaver Mystery, in the flying saucer mystery…in the Bay of Pigs, in the assassination of Diem ,in the John Kennedy case, and quite often causing Ray Palmer all kinds of hell.” - Palmer, Ray Forum, November, 1973 p.12

  On April 13, 1975, he married Mary Frances Borden, whom he had met when he was a member of the Tacoma Library Board of Trustees. He had been appointed to the board in 1970 by the outgoing mayor of Tacoma, A.L. Slim Rasmussen, and a compatriot in the local political wars. Fred Lee Crisman died at the age of fifty-six of kidney failure in the Seattle Veterans Hospital on December 10, 1975. The official cause of death on his death certificate was Cardiac Arrhythmia and Severe Coronary atherosclerosis.

  Notes: Crisman led a very covert secretive life with a pattern of creating discrediting reports at Boeing, misleading statement, and running cover church businesses.

  Were psychiatric units convenient hideouts? It was common for CIA operatives to check themselves into psychiatric hospitals to perhaps hide for a period of time or “lay low.” Because of privacy of medical records, they would have been perfect sanctuaries. It is interesting that Beckham was established with a second hand shop perhaps similar to Harold Dahl’s second hand shop.

  An autopsy was performed on Crisman. Autopsies are not performed normally unless there is a reason. This autopsy would have either been prior requested by Crisman himself or his wife.

  Of interest also is in the FBI reports on Crisman in Sept. of 1947 filed by Guy Hottel SAC, the character of case is listed as “Atomic Energy Act Applicant. Crisman had requested an application and the FBI was more than interested in doing a complete security check on Crisman.

  Raymond A. Palmer

  Ray Palmer would continue over the years to adamantly question the military on the Maury Island Sighting. Palmer perhaps wanted to assert his innocence in the whole affair or deflect his involvement in the death of Capt. Davidson and 1st Lt. Brown.

  Raymond Palmer, the person who assigned Kenneth Arnold to the case claimed that he had “Photostats of [Charles Dahl’s] hospital record” Palmer, Raymond. The Truth about Ruppelt’s Book Flying Saucers, December, 1958 p.37

  Background The “Father of Science Fiction,” Raymond Palmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 1, 1910. A healthy baby he was even featured as a healthy toddler in advertisements. In 1917 at the age of seven, his foot got caught in the spokes of a wheel on a passing milk truck and his spine was so severely damaged that it would affect him the rest of his life.

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bsp; Palmer spent the next five years until age 13 in the hospital. He educated himself. A voracious reader, Raymond read as many as fifteen volumes a day brought by the Milwaukee Library and became a fan of Jules Verne, HG Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1930, he edited the first fanzine, “The Comet.” In 1938, he became the editor of Amazing Stories. In 1948, along with Curtis Fuller, he founded Fate Magazine. Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of “flying saucers” and the Maury Island incident were featured in the first issue of Fate Magazine. In 1957, he started Flying Saucers Magazine, which also featured a serialization of “Coming of The Saucers” and other articles on the Maury Island UFO incident.

  Kenneth Arnold first heard from Palmer on June 15, 1947. He was interested in an article on his sighting of “flying discs.”

  Ray Palmer in one of his last interviews in 1977, Guy Baskin. Kenneth Arnold would later write of his reaction...from Palmer when he sent him a letter dated June 26, 1947

  “At the time had I known who he was, I probably wouldn’t have answered his letter... It wouldn’t have been because he wasn’t a sincere or a good man, but later I found he was connected with the type of publications that I not only never read but had always thought a gross waste of time for anyone to read.”

  Arnold received a second letter from Palmer inviting him to write an article. Arnold declined but sent Palmer a copy of the detailed report and biography he had mailed earlier to the Air Force at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio.

  On July 22th, Palmer sent Arnold $200 to investigate the Maury Island Case.

  Palmer later made a statement about the fragments

  “How important was the original cigar-box of fragments sent to the Chicago publisher by Dahl? Bear in mind that McChord intelligence knew the exact pile of slag they had come from. Yet when an intelligence agent visited the Chicago publisher (asking questions about the Shaver mystery primarily, and only casually mentioning saucers, and being remarkably uninterested in the box of fragments which were shown him, and certainly not recognizing the fragment being used as an ashtray on the Chicago publisher’s desk), the box and its contents were promptly stolen from the file cabinet in which the intelligence agent watched the Chicago place it, the theft occurring that very night. At least, the box was gone in the morning as the Chicago publisher had expected, because he deliberately planted the whole thing to find out if the fragments were worth taking. Why a midnight visit to steal fragments intelligence knew was only slag.” - Palmer, Ray “The Truth about Ruppelt’s Book” Flying Saucers, December 1958