Maury Island Incident -- The Winthrop Hotel Meeting: July 31, 1947
Maury Island Incident -- The Winthrop Hotel Meeting: July 31, 1947
Setting
On July 31, 1947, a formal investigative meeting took place at the Winthrop Hotel in downtown Tacoma, Washington. This was the central event in the public investigation of the Maury Island Incident -- the point at which civilian investigators, military intelligence officers, and the claimants all came together.
Attendees
| Person | Role |
|---|---|
| Kenneth Arnold | Civilian investigator hired by Ray Palmer; famous for June 24 Mount Rainier sighting |
| Captain E.J. Smith | United Airlines pilot; had his own July 4, 1947 UFO sighting near Boise, Idaho; recruited by Arnold for his aviation credibility |
| Lt. Frank Brown | Military Intelligence officer; Army Air Forces; Hamilton Field, California; had previously investigated Arnold's Mount Rainier sighting |
| Capt. William L. Davidson | Military Intelligence; Brown's commanding officer; Hamilton Field, California |
| Harold Dahl | Primary claimant; gave his account; reportedly reluctant and evasive |
| Fred Crisman | Secondary claimant; the more active participant; produced the debris sample at the end of the meeting |
| Major Sanders | Mentioned in some subsequent accounts by Arnold as having been present; his specific role unclear |
What Happened at the Meeting
The meeting involved extended interviews with Dahl and Crisman by the assembled group. The atmosphere was described as tense and uncertain:
- Dahl and Crisman gave their accounts but said they had received so much grief and trouble over the story that they simply wanted out
- They reportedly said they would claim it was all a hoax -- a statement the Army Air Forces officers noted and recorded
- They signed statements for the Air Force investigators saying the debris Crisman had gathered was not from a UFO
Privately -- in conversations with Arnold and others outside the formal meeting -- they maintained the story was true. This double position (public hoax claim, private authenticity claim) became characteristic of both men for years afterward.
The Debris Handover
At the end of the meeting, as Brown and Davidson were preparing to leave, Crisman produced samples of the "rock formation" from his automobile and gave them to the investigators to take back to California for examination. This was a last-minute production -- the debris had not been central to the meeting itself. The fact that the debris went aboard the plane with Brown and Davidson gave the subsequent crash its conspiratorial weight.
The Leaking Telephone Calls
During the meeting, Arnold became aware that someone was telephoning the local media and at least one other party with details of what was happening in the hotel room. Someone with access to the meeting's content was leaking it in real time. This detail was never explained and contributed significantly to the atmosphere of mystery surrounding the case.
The identity of the caller was never definitively established. Crisman was the primary suspect -- deliberately creating a media trail that would complicate any subsequent government dismissal of the story.
The Aftermath of the Meeting
Brown and Davidson departed from McChord Army Air Force Base (now Joint Base Lewis-McChord) at approximately 2:30 AM on August 1, flying a B-25 Mitchell back to Hamilton Field in California. They were accompanied by their flight crew. Brown and Davidson were killed when the aircraft crashed approximately two hours later.
