Editor's Note: Kenn Thomas publishes Steamshovel Press, the conspiracy theory magazine. Four issue subscription: $23; single issue: $6, from POB 23715, St. Louis, MO 63121. Maury Island UFO: The Crissman Conspiracy (IllumiNet Press, 1999), is also available.

In 1947 a man named Fred Crisman said he witnessed a UFO at Maury Island, near Seattle. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Crisman in 1968 as part of his investigation of the JFK assassination. The infamous Torbitt Document named Crisman as one of the three tramps in the railyard behind Dealey Plaza. In between, Crisman became a known figure on talk radio in Tacoma, a precursor to the likes of Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy, and a known figure in the ufological community.

Crisman started at KAYE radio in Puyallup, Washington, on August 1, 1968, under the on-air ame of John Gold. According to his 1970 autobiographical book, Murder of a City, published under the Gold pseudonym, he had been attracted to the radio station because he felt it was a way to express his concern over the Gypsy minority and that it would be useful in his political cause: the elimination of the city management style of government in Tacoma, Washington. According to one source, Crisman's zeal in this matter stemmed from orders given to him in 1968, "but there is no reason given as to why it is felt by the East section of the CIA that this form of government is wrong for this area." [1] Crisman's reasons, as well as his general philosophy, described by Crisman as "Liberal Democrat" but seen by moist as anything but, although he had run for office as a Democrat, and a detailed look athis political and business associations, provided the basis for his book. Murder of a City reviews the struggles between Tacoma's city manager, Dave Rowlands, and its mayor, A. L. "Slim" Rasmussen-a struggle that Crisman viewed as having lost.

In March 1969, Fred Crisman helped create non-profit corporation to pursue this ambition of eliminating city management government in Tacoma. It failed, of course, and by January of the following year Mayor Rasmussen was administering his final session, having lost the previous November election. One of his final acts was to appoint Fred Crisman to Tacoma's library board. The move received criticism for all that Crisman had done in local politics and his infamy as a right-wing radio commentator, but he assured his critics that "I respect the library and use it frequently for my own studies as well as for background . . . and would not think of attempting to influence [the library director] in his choice of books." [2]

Crisman's change of fortunes continued when a defamation lawsuit against KAYE involving him was dismissed. [3] He got involved with cable-TV franchising to no success, however, and lost his bid for election to the Civil Service Board of Pierce county by 1559 votes [4] in September 1971. Shortly thereafter, charges of mismanagement began to circulate about the library manager, apparently emanating from Crisman, who believed that his opposition to city manager government kept him from being made the board president of the Tacoma Public Library. [5]

Petty bickering about library politics continued in the Tacoma press until Crisman resigned in October 1973 [6] As early as 1967, however, he began to again turn his attention to the events at Maury Island of 1947. On July 22 of that year he lectured on the topic at the annual Northwest UFO Conference in Seattle. [7] lectured the group about the seriousness of the subject, apparently a bit disgruntled at some of the carnival-like atmosphere that attends UFO gatherings (then as now). He made the claim that he had been the first person to photograph the UFOs and that he still had prints of the Maury Island photographs. He discussed the flying saucer slag that supposedly had spewed forth from the saucers he witnessed and insisted that it was quite different from the discarded product of the local smelter works. He talked at length about the press distortion of the subject and how he hoped the true facts would someday emerge. If Crisman was making a bid to become a UFO celebrity like Kenneth Arnold, he did little after that to further the cause.

When Crisman finished lecturing in Seattle, a young UFO researcher named Gary Leslie approached him anxiously to get copies of the Maury Island photographs. Crisman declined to offer his own address due to his distaste for publicity (a claim contradicted by his soon-to-come career as a shock jock, if not by the lecture itself), but he did provide an address for Harold Dahl. Dahl, after all, had the photos in his possession, according to Crisman.

Leslie found Dahl to be an amicable correspondent. He offered to provide copies of the photos and a written statement about his experiences at Maury Island, plus one from his son. He forwarded Leslie's inquiries to Crisman's New Orleans address, [8] and reported that he had photographs of the North Queen boat taken at the time of the incident. Dahl also spoke very glowingly of Crisman, comparing him, in fact, to the character played by Roy Thinnes in the then current TV show The Invaders, a character hunted for his secret knowledge of flying saucers-and explained that nothing could be done without his partner's approval.

A few days later, Leslie received an angry response from Crisman. "I do not want this matter in public print!" he declared and expressed his anger that Dahl was so forthcoming. "He will not correspond with you again." [9] Leslie had the ambition of collecting information from the pair and publishing an unvarnished version of the Maury Island story. He was quite disappointed in Crisman's hostility and tried through several letters to both Dahl and Crisman to ameliorate the controversy, if indeed it was "Dahl." Some researchers suggest that the letters from Harold Dahl, the Easy Papers, and much of the other written documentation of this story may have actually been written by Crisman, even though the address was in Tenino, Washington, not New Orleans. [1O]

In any event, "Dahl" caved in to Crisman's concerns immediately, but he kept in contact with Leslie for other purposes. He had an interest in promoting the work of Dr. Frank E. Stranges of Van Nuys, California. "Dahl" sought the help of Leslie's UAPRO group to organize a showing a film by Stranges. Leslie obliged and continued to pursue the photographs and written statements from "Dahl." In a last letter from Crisman/Dahl ("I am irrevocably tied to Hal in any questions that arise on the Maury island incident"), he claims that he has only shared his views and research materials on Maury Island with small business and academic groups "that have extra and advanced knowledge" about UFOS. "I travel widely and this allows me to be in areas that do have certain of the extra 'attentions' of the UFOS. It has always been a type of precise 'high-wire' balance act to keep up an investigative and reporting interest and at the same time deal with the areas of a business world that has no interest in such matters."