MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

If we were to look at conventional mainstream news stories in the paper, we would undoubtedly see stories dealing with weird objects that many people were seeing in the sky. Believe it or not, these stories were first published 72 years ago.

On February 24th and 25th 1942, a huge orange light was seen in the sky. Many people on the ground reported that what they saw was large flying saucer and several smaller ones flying alongside it. In what is now known as the Battle of Los Angeles, 1,430 rounds were fired at the flying disc, as many as 25 smaller aircraft accompanied it.

In the beach communities of Southern California, the threat of an enemy invasion was always a possibility for that reason, the whole area of Santa Monica Bay, from Malibu to Palos Verdes, was protected with anti-aircraft batteries and searchlight brigades. The guns were known to fire at unknown or unauthorized aircraft almost every night. They also were known to do some “target practice” shooting at targets that were towed across the sky over the ocean by specially designed planes.

This time however a UFO that was 800 feet in diameter and elliptical moving across the sky. When fired upon, the ship did not veer off course and continued on its journey across the sky.

There were many people on the ground that were killed or wounded by unexploded anti–aircraft shells. There actually was a picture of the saucer that wound up in the Los Angeles Times. It showed the aircraft being fired upon and searchlights were zeroing in on the intruders.

There is much dispute over what had happened that night. The news programs that were broadcasting the event had described the strange craft as a blimp. However, a blimp would have been brought down by the anti-aircraft fire. It seemed that the unexplained aircraft over Los Angeles was impenetrable.

The attack on the United States was first assumed to be from Japan. In order to keep calm after the event, then-Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox concluded it was a false alarm. General George C. Marshal had concluded that it was “psychological warfare” and that it was carried out to generate panic.

In 1983, the Office of Air Force History concluded that an analysis of the evidence pointed to meteorological balloons as the cause of the initial alarm. However, today this story seems like a cover–up in order to censor the idea that the United States was unable to bring down a strange warship from the sky.

The case of the great Los Angeles Air Raid of 1942 has visual proof that something large was in the sky. It was tracked and spotted by air raid lights and photographed. The shape of the aircraft caught in lights and in the crossfire appears to look like a classic flying saucer.

Keep in mind that the Los Angeles UFO case, or “The Battle of Los Angeles”, is the single most heavily documented UFO case in the history of UFOs. Yet, many people are unaware that it happened.

The entire incident lasted 20 minutes and in the aftermath more damage was done on the ground and there were people injured and killed. There was even a story about a downed plane that crashed on 180th and Vermont Street. The news did not say if the plane was brought down by friendly fire or if it was brought down by the UFO.

This incident, even though it had several witnesses really did not thrust the United States into talking openly about strange aircraft being seen in the skies. However there were several incidents that were reported. While history will say there were about a dozen reports the reality is that there were hundreds of thousands of these aircraft seen during World War II.

However, the real moment that pushed the UFO’s or the unidentified discs happened over a two week period 70 years ago this month.

In the summer of 1947, the UFO problem was laid in confusing disorder before the American public by means of banner headlines and wire-stories in excess. In retrospect, it seems clear that the visible record of 1947 emergence of the UFO problem is primarily a journalistic record.

Although scientists, the military, and a few governmental spokesmen took minor parts in the dramatic entry of UFOs onto the modern scene, newspapermen wrote and delivered the key lines that made the journalist’s role in the drama preeminent.

The flying saucer, of course, was a word coined by the media as was the term UFO, so from the 1940’s on, it has been the media which has had a hand in shaping the public view of what was seen in the sky.

In the first two weeks after Kenneth Arnoldundefineds Mt. Rainier report of June 24, 1947, press reports of other American sightings of highly unconventional aerial objects numbered not in the dozens but many hundreds.

In the seven decades that have passed since 1947, there has been distressingly little progress made towards expound upon the true nature of the unidentified flying objects. The reality is that they have refused to go away and many of the original reports of UFO sightings before the Roswell incident have been cases of unfinished business.

On June 21, 1947, the beginnings of the cold war UFO era began when it was reported that six unidentified flying objects were seen in the skies over Maury Island, situated near Tacoma in Puget Sound area of Washington State. The recorded eyewitnesses to the incident were harbor patrolman, Harold A. Dahl, who was piloting a boat in the bay, his two crewmen, his teenage son and a dog.

The UFO’s were doughnut-shaped and were seen hovering over the boat. They were reported to be about 2000 miles up and one of the six craft looked like it was in trouble. It began losing altitude and was being circled by the other five. Each of the objects were estimated to be about one hundred feet in diameter.

The disc that was having trouble suffered an explosion and spewed hot metal in to the air. Some of the hot metal or “slag” hit the boat, killing the Dahl’s dog, damaging the boat and injuring the teenage son. Dahl began taking pictures of the objects, which soon took off. He claimed that the craft were heading towards Canada. Dahl radioed for help but the radio was having trouble getting any message out to anyone.

He decided to head to land back to the city of Tacoma. He rushed his son to the hospital to have his burns treated.

He decided to speak to his boss about the incident. He grabbed the slag samples and his camera and spoke to Fred Lee Crisman. It turns out that Crisman was a very interesting man and for years his name would be spoken of by conspiracy theorists for some time.

Crisman had wanted to investigate Dahl’s claims but Dahl apparently had been warned off by what could be described as a Man in Black or G-man. No one except Dahl or Crisman knew that the incident had happened and so it was rather odd that this strange man showed up and warned to avoid the incident and to forget it ever took place.

Undaunted, Crisman finally returned to Maury Island only to find some broken glass and what appeared to be thin metal. He also claimed seeing another flying machine but the case was only a small town incident and really didn’t gain any momentum, as authorities had hoped that it would be forgotten.

Then comes the big news story of pilot Kenneth Arnold and his sighting of strange craft flying over Mount Rainier. This begins to kick the flying saucer story full-throttle and the United States begins to see these flying saucers everywhere.

Kenneth Arnold arranges to meet Harold Dahl in Tacoma, Washington at the request of Raymond Palmer, who is a pulp fiction writer and friend of Fred Crisman. Palmer is well remembered as the man responsible for the magazines, “Amazing Stories,” and “FATE” and wants to give a 200 dollar advance on the story of the Northwest UFO’s.

Arnold goes to Tacoma to meet with Dahl but finds out that all of the hotels there are booked. He then finds out that there is a hotel room booked in his name at a fancy hotel in town. The room is booked by someone anonymously.

He finally meets up with Dahl. However, Dahl becomes a bit paranoid because he claims that the Man in Black frightened him and told him not to speak with anyone. Arnold is motivated by the cash advance and wants the story so he presses Dahl for more information on the incident.

Dahl had no evidence of the encounter, didn’t have photos or anything else, just a piece of rock that he claimed fell from the flying donut object.

It turned out the Crisman was part of the OSS, the group that existed prior to the CIA and was also involved with Operation Paperclip, where German scientists were filtered in after World War II to work on secret space programs, bombs and some people believe, secret saucer technology.

Crisman knew too much, however, at the time he seemed to be the observer watching every part of the UFO lore fall into place.

Kenneth Arnold was debriefed by the military and did an interview with Ted Smith on radio station KWRC in Pendleton. He decided that he would turn over some of the evidence form Maury Island to Lieutenant Brown and Captain Davidson. They agreed to fly out to Tacoma immediately to see what Arnold had. It was rumored that someone had already tipped them off that the event was a hoax; however, they flew out anyway.

At the airport, Crisman, the man the intelligence officers seemed to think was lying, turned up and gave the men a box which he said was filled with the slag from the damaged UFO. Arnold thought that all that was in the box was rocks. The men stowed the box in the trunk of their car and left for the airport, catching their flight.

They were killed in route as their B-25 plane crashed somewhere in Kelso, Washington. What was really in that box?

It was a week later the Roswell Crash happened and the world was awakened to the possibility of a flying disc crash and the rest is history.

On July 11th, 1947 another flying disc crash was reported from Fort Douglas Utah, the disc crash was in Idaho and was investigated by known FBI asset, William Guy Bannister. Bannister was a resident of Idaho and worked out the FBI office in Montana.

He was the man in charge of investigating all UFO cases in the west and northwest.

Declassified FBI files from 1947 show a number of telexes initialed WGB , all pertained to UFO phenomena, they had the designation ‘Security Matter -X’ or simply ‘SM-X,’ – could it be that the FBI did have an X-files and that they were being headed up by Banister? Was he the Man in Black that warned off Dahl and did he know Crisman?

Coincidentally, both men were implicated in the JFK assassination.

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Banister and one of his investigators, Jack Martin, were drinking together at the Katzenjammer Bar, located next door to 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. On their return to Banister’s office, the two men got into a dispute. Banister believed that Martin had stolen some files and drew his .357 magnum revolver, striking Martin with it several times. During the altercation, Martin yelled: “What are you going to do — kill me like you all did Kennedy?” Martin was badly injured and treated at Charity Hospital.

Over the next few days, Martin told authorities and reporters that Banister and anti-Castro activist David Ferrie had been involved in the assassination. He claimed that Ferrie knew Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air patrol, and that Ferrie might have taught Oswald how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight. Martin also claimed that Banister had often been in the company of Ferrie, and that Ferrie drove to Texas on the day of Kennedy’s assassination, to serve as a getaway pilot for the assassins.

Now in a great coincidence Fred Crisman was one of the three tramps arrested in Dallas immediately after JFK’s assassination. Many people believe that Crisman was the gunman on the Grassy Knoll.

Crisman is also named in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s 1968 investigation into the Kennedy assassination, in which Garrison maintained that Crisman may have been an assassin working on behalf of aerospace concerns to kill Kennedy.

The loose ends of this whole case have been tied together by Investigator Kenn Thomas, who is the noted authority on the connections of the UFO’s of the Northwest, the Man In Black, Banister and the go-between, alleged CIA asset Crisman.

Thomas has said that most of his evidence comes from declassified documents. One of the recently surfaced MJ12 documents suggests that Crisman turned samples of the debris over to Clay Shaw, one of the three people that Garrison attempted to indict in the alleged conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

Shaw was acquitted of any wrong doing but he also was a CIA operative.

In his autobiographical memoir, Murder of a City, written under the pseudonym Jon Gold, Crisman details his relationship with Marshall Riconoscuito, the father of Michael Riconoscuito, the infamous informer to conspiracy researcher Danny Casolaro.

But before Danny Casolaro, before Dealy Plaza, before Roswell, there was Maury Island.