The Maury Island UFO Incident: The Story behind the Air Force’s first military plane crash (13 page)

The photo suddenly made
the incident
seem
even
more real - more so than
any other document could
describe
and
gave
a
weighted impact
to
the
deaths of Capt. Davidson
and 1st Lt. Frank Brown.
Kenneth
Arnold
stated
the
military
authorities
had
roped
off
the
surrounding
150
acres
around the crashed plane
and nobody was allowed
within
that
area.
According
to
Kenneth
Arnold not even the Civil

At the heart of the Maury Island UFO Incident was the main
“evidence” – the black lava like rock or metal remnants called slag.
Was the slag simply cast offs from the nearby Tacoma smeltering
plants or dumpings from Central Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Plant
doing secret atomic projects?

Tacoma Times, Aug.5, 1947, pg3.
It didn’t take long Tuesday for Dr. Robert Sprenger (above), College of
Puget Sound chemistry professor, to identify specimens of “queer,
black rock” found in a Maury island gravel pit.
The stuff which a student at University of Chicago failed to identify
was common, ordinary smelter slag, Sprenger said.
A Chicago news association heard of the specimens and tied them up
with flying discs. But Capt. E.H. Smith and Kenneth Arnold did not
bother to take any of the samples when they were in Tacoma last week.
Material being flown to California aboard the ill-fated B-25 bomber
which crashed at Kelso, is believe by The Times to have come from
another source, being kept a close secret by military intelligence. (Read
story starting on page one.)
"The actual saucer fragments, and the Tacoma slag, were analyzed by
the same agencies. One was found to be slag, the other cannot be
explained by any metallurgist.
Like the pure tin found in South
America, it does not exist naturally on the Earth, nor can it be
duplicated.
The mystery ingredient is calcium; its purpose is for
protection against radioactive material; it is an absolute necessity at
heights of 600 miles or more.
Morello was reported to be the one that sent the slag to be analyzed by
Sprenger.
They were identified as slag from the Ruston copper
smelter. Sprenger said that Maury Island residents often brought them
from the smelter dump to use for bulkheads and retaining walls.

CHICAGO, July 8, 1947. A piece of rock-like metal, alleged to have
dropped from one of the "Flying Saucers" which have been reported
sighted from 38 American States, arrived here today for analysis by
metallurgists of Chicago University. The sample was accompanied by
one of the most detailed accounts reported of the "Airborne Discs."

The sender, Mr. Harold Dahl, of Tacoma (Washington State), said that
the substance was dropped in heavy rain on June 25 over Puget Sound,
near the Canadian Border, from a huge circular flying machine.

From Ray Palmer’s book “The Real UFO Invasion,” The analysis
of the original initial fragments sent to Palmer from Dahl is as
follows:
High Constituents: - Calcium, Iron, Zinc, Titanium.
Middle Constituents – Aluminum, Manganese, Copper,
Magnesium, Silicon.

Low
Constituents:
-
Nickel,
Lead,
Strontium,
Chromium
Traces – Silver, Tin, Cadmium.
“Nothing of an unusual nature exists in this combination of metals
except the unusually high quantity of calcium and titanium. It is
interesting to note that titanium, one of the high constituent metals,
is now believed to be the key metal in constructing missiles or ships
capable of space travel. Also, calcium has an affinity for particles
of
radium, and the ability to
capture them
and prevent
contamination of surrounding areas.
Analysis of Tacoma Slag Fragments pointed out by Maj. Sanders

1
. The crude sample is magnetic. This indicates the presence of the
mineral magnetite (iron oxide, FE3O4), free iron or both. Both
appear to be present in this sample.

2
. About 21% of the sample is soluble in hydrochloric acid. This is
the iron-iron oxide fraction.
The acid insoluble residue is nonmagnetic.
Since the acid soluble and insoluble fractions are
obviously different
chemical
individuals, both
fractions were
analyzed separately.

3.
The acid soluble fraction is 49.7% Fe (iron). Qualitative tests
showed a small amount of Zn (zinc), a trace of Cd (cadmium) and
Mo (molybdenum). No nickel, cobalt, or copper are found in this
fraction. The remainder of this sample is largely oxygen.

%SIO2
49.2
% FE2O3
30.2
%FE
21.2
% C2O BaO
13.1
% Ca & Ba
9.35
% MaO
1.1
%Ma
0.87

_____
93.6
The remainder of the material is aluminum, titanium, magnesium,
and alkali oxides together with small amounts of other metals. No
cobalt or nickel were found in this fraction.

5.
A mineralogical analysis under the petrographic microscope
shows that the sample is a very complex mixture of silicates and
oxides, typical of an artificial slag.
On the basis of the above five points, the material is slag from the
production of steel. The presence of appreciable amounts of iron
in the slag suggests that it is slag from an open-hearth furnace.
Palmer with the comparison of the initial slag and the later Tacoma
samples states Crisman and Dahl’s slag was neither slag nor natural
rock.
–Palmer, Ray, “The Real UFO Invasion” Greenleaf Classics Pub. 1966.
Notes: Arnold’s article in Fate 1948 did not mention titanium in
construction
of
missiles
and ships
capable of
Arnold, Kenneth, Fate, “I Did See the Flying Disks!”
Palmer, “The Real UFO invasion”

He said that he and two companions on board a small boat saw
what appeared to be huge silver doughnuts coming down between
the clouds.

"I anchored the boat and went ashore and watched the objects
through binoculars," Mr. Dahl said.
"I saw five objects rotating
around a sixth. They were about 200 feet in diameter with a center
hole, surrounded by what appeared to be a row of portholes."

The "ships" as Mr. Dahl described them, hung level about 1,500
feet, and then rose rapidly to a height of nearly a mile. At this
point, according to Mr. Dahl, the central ship began raining a
substance that rained down upon the water and along the shore.
Pieces of the "metal rain" smashed a hole in the wheelhouse of his
boat and broke a searchlight lens on deck. Some of the substance
which, he said, was picked up on the beach was sent along to back
up his story. -- Reuter.

We did not take any samples of the smelter slag….I was thinking that it
was odd how Major Sander knew just the right side of the road to take
out at the smelter and he stopped only where there were pieces of slag
that closely resembled the pieces we had
COS p.79

From Seattle FBI Files: “Palmer wrote them saying that he had been
unable to analyze the rocks and ordered additional samples. ... A few
days after the flying disk stories started in the latter part of June,
Palmer contacted them saying he would pay for an exclusive story if
the parts were fragments of a disk.”
Reporter Vogel would state he visited Dahl “Sunday evening” a few
days after disks started appearing in papers in the early part of June.
(The date would have likely been Sun. June 1, 8
^th
or 15
^th
).

Note:
Vogel’s time frame clearly indicates the slag or black lava type
“rock” was in possession of Crisman and Dahl weeks before any UFO
sighting and indicates a monetary reason for salvaging the rocks,
perhaps in the same manner as salvaging logs.
The slag in the above photo does appear to have a thickness of about
an inch with rough liquid flow lines on one side.

In 2010 a gentleman by the name of
Elmer Frombach
donated to
the
Northwest Museum of Legends and
Lore a piece of metal, he had picked
up on the beach of Maury Island in

1965. Assay records prove his family
owned a farm just North of Pembroke cove and the gravel pits.
Frombach recalls how his dad had found a meteor and he also wanted
a piece of something unusual so one day when his father was in
conversation with a friend on the beach he came across this piece of
metal looking “rock”.
He would keep this metal in his bedroom
forgetting about it for years until he read an account of the Maury
Island mystery.
Although yet to be analyzed, the metal fragment is not radioactive and
does bear marking of flow lines similar to the slag analyzed by Sprenger
in 1947.
Today the area on Maury Island has greatly changed. Maury Island in
the area of Pembroke cove, the area most likely where Dahl would
claim to have his sighting has been a public park since 2010 called
Dockton Forest and Glacier Park, stewarded by Vashon Maury Island
Land Trust.

Vashon Island’s park Paradise Ridge confirms the area’s history with
the military as it was the site of a Nike missile -now a 43-acre
equestrian park located in the center of Vashon Island.

According to a letter dated Aug. 7, 1947 Robert Grafton T. Sgt, Sq.
“A” 314th AAF McChord Field that the pilot Capt. Davidson arrived
at McChord from Hamilton on July 31st 1947 at 19:29. The pilot was
granted two hundred gallons of gasoline by the Operations Officer and
put into the plane.
The crew chief was checking over the exhaust stacks and the pilot and
co-pilot were changing into civilian clothes. “We asked what time they
wished to take off and were told between 22:00 and 23:00.
They later
called and said takeoff time would be near 24:00. However, the time of
takeoff was near 2:00 am Aug. 1st 1947.
“We couldn’t see anything wrong with the plane. It landed here in
what seemed to be a good condition.
It appears Capt. Davidson stayed with the plane until the very end and
1st Lieutenant Frank Brown very likely was thrown from the wreckage.
With close to 200 gallons of fuel on fire at impact, the crash scene was
likely a small inferno.

The statements from Hamilton Field appeared to one of the few
indications of the officer’s mission from the Air Force.
Statement from Maj. George B. Felton:
A statement letter labeled “Restricted” from HQ Fourth Air Force
Hamilton Field Subject: Operations Order to Officers Concerned
stating Capt. William L. Davidson and 1st Lt. Frank M. Brown “will
proceed o/a 31 July 1947 via military aircraft to McChord Field,
Washington on business pertaining to investigating duties for A-2
Section, Headquarters Fourth Air Force. Upon completion of mission,
officers will return to proper station.
By command of Major General Hale: Signed George B. Felton Major.
Air Corps
Asst Chief Opn & Tng”