Arnold arrived at the hotel that night and found Harold A. Dahl in the phone book. After some determined prodding by Arnold, Dahl visited Arnold that night, then took Arnold to his “secretary’s” home to see some fragments, one of which served as an ashtray. Arnold said it looked like simple lava rock. No, said Dahl, this was the stuff that hit his boat, and Crisman had a box of it in his garage. The next morning, Arnold met with Dahl and Crisman, who claimed to have had an independent flying saucer sighting. Arnold asked Dahl for the photographs and Crisman for the fragments. Feeling that something was wrong but distrusting his ability to evaluate the situation, Arnold then called his friend, pilot E. J. Smith (“Smithy”) who had also witnessed a flying saucer. Smith arrived that day, cross-examined Dahl and Crisman, but could not trip them up. The two investigators then decided that Smith would stay in Arnold’s room, and that they would see everything the next morning, including Maury Island.
That evening, Arnold received a telephone call from Ted Morello of United Press, who informed him that some “crackpot” had been calling his office, telling him everything that had happened in Arnold’s hotel room the entire day. Arnold was stunned. He initially suspected Dahl or Crisman of leaking information, until Morello quoted conversations Arnold had had with Smith when they were alone. The two spent the next hour looking for a microphone in their room.
On the morning of Thursday, July 31, Crisman and Dahl brought heavy fragments and some white metal. The lava-like pieces were unusually heavy, smooth on one side, and slightly curved. On the other side they looked as though they had been subjected to extreme heat. The white metal had square rivets as opposed to the standard round ones, but seemed normal otherwise. It did not match Dahl’s original description. Regarding the photographs, Dahl said he had given the camera with its film to Crisman, who now could not find it, but would try in the afternoon.
Although Arnold smelled a hoax, he decided to call his acquaintances Brown and Davidson from Hamilton Air Force Base. Perhaps the Communists were involved, he thought. It struck Arnold as odd that Brown refused to take his call on base, and called back from an off-base phone. The two officers quickly left for Tacoma. Before their arrival, Ted Morello phoned again. His informant had been calling from a pay telephone, for about fifteen to twenty seconds each time, with the latest news that Brown and Davidson were on their way in a B-25. Dahl and Crisman were both present at the time of this call, and Morello said the voice had not changed. That would seem to rule them out as the caller. By now, Arnold and Smith were “at a point of nervous tension.” Brown and Davidson arrived in the late afternoon, and the five men (Dahl had left) talked until 11 P.M., at which time Crisman offered to go home and retrieve another box of fragments. No thanks, said the officers, they were no longer interested. Anyway, they had to return for Air Force Day the next morning. Every plane on the base, including their newly overhauled B-25, had to be ready for maneuvers. Crisman, undeterred, still left to get his fragments.
One might wonder why on earth Crisman left to get more fragments when many pieces of both types were lying on the hotel room floor. He returned just in time with his new fragments, stuffed into a large cereal box, and put them into the army vehicle. Arnold thought they appeared rockier and less metallic than the other fragments, but he no longer cared. He had gotten the matter to the competent military authorities and wanted out. After Brown and Davidson left, Ted Morello called again, revealing everything that had taken place in Arnold’s room, courtesy of the informant.
At 1:30 A.M., Brown and Davidson’s plane exploded and crashed, some twenty minutes after taking off. Also aboard were an army hitchhiker and engineer who survived. According to their account, the two officers had loaded a heavy cardboard box. Shortly after takeoff, the left engine caught fire, the emergency fire-fighting system failed, and Brown ordered the two men to parachute. For the next ten minutes, they watched the burning plane continue to fly. The army blamed the crash on the loss of an exhaust collector ring on the left engine, but could not answer why Brown and Davidson failed to signal distress or bail out.
Arnold and Smith learned the news the next morning. Arnold called Palmer (speaking to him for the first time), and offered to refund his money. Keep the money, said Palmer, but mail me some fragments. After a visit to Morello, who warned them to leave town, the pilot-investigators took a trip to see Dahl’s damaged boat and talk again with Crisman, who said “I don’t know what could have happened to those pictures.”
