Fate Intertwined: The Maury Island UFO
By Kenn Thomas
FATE :: September 2006

After his famous encounter with flying saucers at Mount Rainer on June 24, 1947, the pilot Kenneth Arnold went on to experience several more sightings, one of them while en route to investigating a UFO event that happened three days before his, on Maury Island in Washington state. Later he discussed all of his UFO experiences from the lectern at UFO conferences, but he said little about the Maury Island case. Arnold gained as much notoriety as a lecturer and writer on the topic of UFOs as he did from his status as a mere witness, but his role as an investigator at Maury Island remains to this day in history’s shadow.

In alliance with publisher Ray Palmer, who founded FATE magazine, Arnold produced a classic in the UFO literature, The Coming of the Saucers, which told his Mount Rainier story but also recorded everything he had to say about Maury Island. Palmer had sent him to investigate this tale of harbor patrollers who witnessed several saucers over Puget Sound. Two Air Force officers later would die while attempting to investigate it. The story became a sticky wicket that lasted 20 years. One of the Maury Island witnesses, a man named Fred Crisman, was subpoenaed in 1968 for his role in the JFK assassination.

How did the pilot Kenneth Arnold and FATE publisher Ray Palmer get wrapped up in such intrigue? . . .