As the infamous story that kicked off “The Summer of the Saucers” goes, Harold Dahl took a boat out near Maury Island in Puget Sound with his son, their dog and two deckhands. He was later contacted by none other than Arnold, the pilot and writer, to talk about his account in a magazine: On June 21, 1947, six round, circular flying objects appeared above the boat, Dahl said. They were about 100 feet across and in the center of each was a 25-foot hole, according to an FBI report of Dahl’s account. One of the objects poured hot metal from its center, hurting his son and killing their dog. Dahl claimed he retrieved fragments that fell from the flying disc and later showed them to Arnold (whose own Mount Rainier UFO sighting took place a few days later).
The next day, a man — reportedly dressed in black — contacted him and said “I know what you saw at Maury Island and I’m telling you in a nice way to forget about it and keep your mouth shut,” according to the FBI report. This purported confrontation is possibly the first interaction with the “men in black,” strange characters who would appear through the decades in conspiracy theories and popular media about aliens, usually as people trying to muffle the news that extraterrestrials exist, including the “Men in Black” movies starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.
When Dahl met with Arnold for an interview, he claimed he wanted to forget about the proclaimed sighting, saying his son later went missing and his wife became ill. He wanted to avoid further troubles, but he contended his story wasn’t false. Two Army Air Corps Intelligence officers, Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. William Davidson, met with Dahl to confirm his account and collected the disc fragments. The next day, Brown and Davidson were killed in a plane crash outside Kelso. Some reports state the plane was shot down. And Dahl later claimed his story was a hoax.
Edmiston, a founder of The Men in Black Birthday Bash, won’t say whether he believes Dahl’s story, but he said he does believe in what the federal agent documented, including the statement that “(Dahl) was sick and tired of the entire business and that if he was ever contacted by the Army or the authorities he was going to deny ever having seen anything and claim to be ‘the biggest liar that ever lived.’”
