Why do we look up at the stars? Maybe we just love to watch them twinkle. Or perhaps we are looking for the meaning of life or the answer to some unknowable question. Or possibly, we just find it hard to believe that in the vastness of space, we’re alone in the universe.
There are those in the South Sound and beyond who believe and allege that we are not alone. They may even assert to have seen an unexplained aerial phenomenon — or UFO, in more colloquial terms.
The Washington-based and -founded National UFO Reporting Center, or NUFORC as it is known by UFO enthusiasts, exists to “receive, record, and to the greatest degree possible, corroborate and document reports from individuals who have been witness to unusual, possibly UFO-related events.”
Since the center began posting its reports online around 1995, it has accumulated more than 170,000 accounts of contact with UFOs. Washington state ranks third for the most reports (7,284) behind California (16,399), and Florida (8,382).
In fact, between the beginning of 2024 and press time, the online database already has seen close to 50 sightings. Many of these seem to have been spotted in Yakima and Spokane; however, there are several sightings over the South Sound.
A March 20 observation in Centralia revealed a low-flying black cylinder with an orange light and a yellow center. On May 11, a reflective craft of undetermined shape was seen hovering stationary over Tacoma at a very high altitude for several minutes before disappearing. In Tumwater on May 22, a report alleges at least half a dozen yellow and white “dots traversing east to west” in loose formation across the night sky. On June 1, a disc shape moving slowly across the sky with multiple blue and white lights was spotted in Tacoma.
Accounts even come in from pilots who spot anomalous activity in flight. A pilot of a January flight from Denver to Pasco reported curious activity over Yakima. The anonymous pilot said they and their first officer spotted two lights moving in a usual pattern.
“After watching for 10-15 minutes, I asked air-traffic control if there were some fighter aircraft practicing dog fights at our 11 o’clock high,” the pilot wrote in their account. “ATC said there was nothing in that direction. We were at 34,000 feet, so the object(s) must have been 40,000 to 50,000 feet or higher. The movements seemed too abrupt and aggressive to be tanker practice. The controller said he had no such activity in that direction.”
Thanks to the advent of the internet and smartphones, accounts of these types certainly have become more prevalent, but it isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, documented sightings of these curiosities date back to at least the late 1940s and have roots right here in the Pacific Northwest.
Cue a mental wavy flashback transition and old-timey mid-century music.
The year 1947 was known as the “Summer of Saucers,” or the “Flying-Disc Craze.” From late June through early August, reports of flying saucer sightings flooded in from across the country and were reported wide by the Associated Press.
One of the earliest of these purported encounters happened on June 21 on the Puget Sound. It is known as the “Maury Island Incident,” named for the small South Sound landmass off the larger Vashon Island where the event took place.
Local lawyer and screenwriter Steve Edmiston has spent countless hours researching what transpired that day on the Puget Sound, combing through unclassified government documents and other accounts after he learned of the event from a well-meaning stranger in a coffee shop. The findings of his research became a 30-minute, award-winning eponymous film about the event, written by Edmiston, directed by Scott Schaefer, and produced by John White.
“A man named Harold Dahl lives in Tacoma, and he takes this boat — the North Queen, it’s like a 50-foot working trawler — and he brings his son, Charles, and he brings the family dog, Sparky. They pick up two unidentified dockworkers in Tacoma and they head north about three miles until they’re just off Maury Island,” Edmiston said, adding that Dahl was scavenging for errant logs that had fallen off ships heading to local sawmills.
It was there that Dahl allegedly encountered six donut-like discs approximately 100 feet wide hovering above his boat. One of the discs was lower than the others and it appeared to be failing, according to Dahl’s accounts. There is then an explosion and hot debris and “slag” — as it is later referred to in government documents — rained down on the boat, injuring Dahl’s son and killing the dog.
“They take that really big boat — that 50-foot working trawler — and run it aground on Maury Island, get off the boat, and hide in what was then kind of gravel mines and cliffs there so that they’re not getting hit by what’s happening above them,” Edmiston said. “And then the discs leave, all of them, even the one that appeared to be failing.”
The next day, Dahl is reportedly visited by a man dressed all in black and driving a black 1947 Buick. The mysterious man takes Dahl to a diner where he supposedly tries to quiet Dahl through intimidation. This is the first instance, to Edmiston’s knowledge, of a man in black.
The man in black and the following events involving a local FBI agent, a downed U.S. Air Force B-25 and the deaths of both pilots, and the influence of famed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover himself are pieced together and dramatized in Edmiston’s “The Maury Island Incident” film.
“On June 24, just a couple days later, the famous Ken Arnold sighting around Mount Rainier happens,” Edmiston said. “Ten days later, Roswell, New Mexico — you probably heard about that one — that happens. And really, there are just thousands of reports over the summer.”
In fact, it was Arnold’s Mount Rainier sighting that first coined the term “flying saucer,” according to history.com.
“The civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects, glowing bright blue-white, flying in a ‘V’ formation over Washington’s Mount Rainier. He estimated the objects’ flight speed at 1,700 mph and compared their motion to ‘a saucer if you skip it across water,’” the account reads, noting that Arnold seemed a credible witness as an experienced pilot and respected businessman.
Though a prospector on nearby Mount Adams asserted Arnold’s story, U.S. Air Force investigators concluded that both men witnessed a phenomenon known as mountain-top mirages.
In the case of Dahl’s sighting, the Tacoma resident later admitted his story was a hoax, however, the FBI records Edmiston located that had been unclassified after 50 years purportedly showed that Dahl insisted in private that he only recanted his story because he no longer wanted to be mocked.
“The evidence in those sealed records was that the hoax was fabricated, that Harold Dahl never backed down when he was interviewed by the FBI,” Edmiston said. “(He) always said he saw what he saw, but that he was going to inject and fabricate that it was a hoax. … His quote is actually, ‘I’d rather be known as the biggest liar that ever lived, than to be ridiculed.’”
In the years since, Dahl’s and Arnold’s experiences have been referenced in innumerable pop-culture references across myriad media. And, in 2017, in time for the 70th anniversary of the Summer of Saucers, the Washington State Senate passed and adopted Resolution 8648.
“On the 70th anniversary of the seminal UFO sightings events, the Washington state sightings should be recognized for both their prominence and primacy in the modern era of UFO popular culture,” the resolution reads, adding specific recognition of the events that transpired in Washington state that summer.
For believers, the local lore is celebrated each summer during the Burien UFO festival, where a screening of Edmiston and company’s “The Maury Island Incident” is shown. The film also can be rented or purchased on Vimeo.
Edmiston also created an event to commemorate June 22 as the birthday of the men in black. The annual event is held in Des Moines.
More information can be found here.
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