The Maury Island Incident
A man in a boat said six doughnut-shaped craft dropped hot metal over Puget Sound, three days before the first 'flying saucers'.
What was reported
Harold Dahl said that on 21 June 1947 he was in a boat off Maury Island, in Puget Sound, when six large, doughnut-shaped craft appeared overhead. One seemed to be in trouble and showered the water and shore with hot, slag-like metal that damaged his boat.
He also said a man in a dark suit visited him the next morning and warned him not to talk, an early version of the 'Men in Black' story. Two Army Air Forces intelligence officers flew to Tacoma to look into it.
Explanations offered
The officers concluded the slag was ordinary industrial waste and the story a hoax, and Dahl later told the FBI he'd made it up, though his accounts changed over the years. The case is remembered partly because the plane carrying the officers home crashed, which fed rumours for decades.
- When
- 21 June 1947
- Where
- Maury Island, Washington, USA
- Witnesses
- Harold Dahl, by his own account
- Status
- Hoax
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.