The Maury Island Mystery: UFO Debris, Hanford Waste, or Hoax?

Just days before Roswell (the most famous UFO sighting in history), an incident occurred in Puget Sound off Maury Island, Washington.

Dubbed the Maury Island incident, it is one of the most mysterious UFO sightings ever reported. On June 21, 1947, a harbor patrolman named Harold Dahl was on his boat along with his son, two crew members, and a dog when they reportedly saw six circular flying objects, described as doughnut-like.

Something clearly fell from the sky over Maury Island in 1947—but its origin and nature remain a mystery.

One of the flying objects appeared to be in distress and began to dump debris, some of it landing on the boat, killing the dog and injuring Dahl’s son. The next day, Dahl filed a report with local officials about the incident and claimed to have strange metallic debris in his possession.

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Dahl would later reveal that he was visited by a man dressed in black who drove a military vehicle (the Maury Island incident inspired the 1997 movie, Men in Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones).

The man dressed in black gave Dahl a strong warning not to speak of the event ever. Soon after, Dahl was visited by two official military intelligence officers, Captain William Davidson and Lieutenant Frank Brown, who allegedly collected the debris as evidence. Strangely, both intelligence officers were killed in an airplane crash near Kelso, Washington, on August 1, 1947 – adding more mystery to the story. Was this a cover-up? What happened to the debris they allegedly collected?

READ MORE: Bomb Strike on Grand Coulee Dam Would Destroy Hanford Site

The FBI took over the case and concluded it was a hoax concocted by Dahl. Dahl later stated that he only said it was a hoax to avoid being harassed and threatened by the officials. The FBI reported the debris was scrap metal.

How does the Hanford Facility fit into the Maury Island Incident?

The Hanford Site, located near Richland, Washington, produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project and the Cold War, generating large amounts of radioactive waste that is still stored and managed on-site. Some conspiracy theorists claim the Maury Island UFO incident was a government hoax designed to distract from allegations that the debris Harold Dahl reported falling from the sky was, in fact, radioactive waste from Hanford. However, there is no credible documentation or scientific evidence indicating that hazardous waste from Hanford was ever dumped on Maury Island—either intentionally or accidentally.