About this Episode

On this episode Steve Dunkelberger rejoins the guys for another history lesson. Steve Dunkleberg has been a working journalist for more than 20 years at various publications around the Pugent Sound. In addition to being a journalist, he is also a judge for the Society of Professional Journalists National Sigma Delta Chi Journalism Awards. He has also has given lectures in the area on issues facing journalists, is a member of the Knights of the Pythias, and offers Drunken History tours of Tacoma. Steve has written two history books on the city of Lakewood and is working on one about McNeil Island as well as had several of his historical articles published on Historylink.org and in Columbia magazine. His past GCP episodes are Episode 10, a Best Of on Jake Bird, and Episode 17 where the guys get to tour The Knights of Pythias’s Commencement Lodge #7.

1:45 – Steve gives the guys on update on where he’s been since the last episode, what’s been going on with the Drunken History, and a recent UFO person that attended his history tour. Steve then dives into the Maury Island Incident that happened on June 21st, 1947. He explains how Harold Dahl was out on his boat gathering wayward wood at Commencement Bay and the collection of donut shaped UFO’s Harold saw.

12:58 – Steve continues the story, talking of the molten debris from the space ship that hit Harold’s boat which killed his dog, and hit his kid on the shoulder. He explains how Harold called his boss, Fred Crisman, and told him about the damage to his boat. Fred then deciding to go out to Maury Island where he saw 20 tons of debris on the beach, also seeing space ships, and how Fred and Harold then reached out to Ray Palmer from Fate Magazine to tell the story. He then talks about the other person, Kenneth Arnold, a business man from Idaho who also spotted the UFO’s and how everything we know from UFO’s theories and conspiracies came from the Maury Island Incident.

25:59 – Steve talks about how to the military in WWI didn’t use the term UFO, instead they used the term FOU and how the phrase UFO happened in Tacoma because the term FOU didn’t apply to what had been reported. Jeff then explains how one theory of Maury Island was that the incident was setup by the government to find moles, the other version of how Harold may not have been who he said he was, and when Kenneth Arnold was actually involved with this incident.

31:12 – Steve’s story comes to an end with discussion of the State’s Legislature celebration of Mauri Incident Day on June 27th, the Mauri Island Incident movie on YouTube, and how three short weeks later, The Roswell incident happened. Steve explains that 46% of people believe that aliens have visited the US, 86-89% of people believe that aliens exist in the universe, what he has coming up, nd how people can find him online.

Thanks Steve for joining the guys for another great PNW history lesson, we’re looking forward to having you on again soon!

In the meantime, don't forget to pick up a copy of Steve's Books on Amazon!