Editing UFO conspiracy theories (section)

====Kenneth Arnold ignites flying disc craze====
{{main|1947 flying disc craze}}
[[File:Ramey-dubose-debris.jpg|thumb|right|Army officials pose with balloon debris from Roswell.]]

The flying disc craze began on June 24, when media nationwide reported civilian pilot [[Kenneth Arnold|Kenneth Arnold's]] [[Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting|story of witnessing disc-shaped objects]] which headline writers dubbed "[[Flying Saucers]]".<ref name="Peebles"/>{{rp|ch.2}}<ref name="G_Arnold">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8GBVEAAAQBAJ|title=Flying Saucers Over America: The UFO Craze of 1947|first=Gordon|last=Arnold|date=December 17, 2021|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9781476646527 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Such reports quickly spread throughout the United States; historians would later chronicle at least 800 "copycat" reports in subsequent weeks, while other sources estimate the reports may have numbered in the thousands.<ref name="jkHK1"/><ref name="Bullard"/>{{rp|53}}

On July 8, 1947, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that they had recovered a "flying disc". The Army quickly retracted the statement and clarified that the crashed object was a conventional [[weather balloon]].<ref name="olmsted184">{{cite book|first=Kathryn S.|last=Olmsted|title=Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&pg=PA173|chapter=Chapter 6: Trust No One: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories from the 1970s to the 1990s|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-975395-6|pages=173–204|access-date=2016-03-16}}{{rp|184}}
</ref> The Roswell incident did not surface again until 1978, when  [[Ufology|ufologist]] [[Stanton Friedman]] interviewed [[Jesse Marcel]].<ref>{{cite magazine |date=June 23, 1997 |title=The Roswell Files |url=https://time.com/vault/issue/1997-06-23/spread/120/ |magazine=Time |volume=149 |ref={{harvid|"The Roswell Files"|1997}} |number=25}}</ref>{{rp|69}}

In late July, Palmer contacted Kenneth Arnold and asked him to investigate a "flying disc" report from Fred Crisman near Maury Island, Washington.<ref name="Gulyas2015"/>{{rp|30-31|quote="Even before the Maury Island Incident (as it became known), Crisman’s life intersected the paranormal and parapolitical worlds throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Before spotting the flying saucer in Washington, he wrote to Amazing Stories magazine, claiming that he had fought his way out of a cave in Burma during World War II, battling mysterious and evil underground creatures. In the 1960s, Jim Garrison would subpoena him in his case
against Clay Shaw as part of the John F. Kennedy assassination."}}   In June 1946 and again in May 1947, Palmer had published fantastical letters from Crisman, who claimed to have battled inhuman underground monsters in Burma.<ref name="Gulyas2015"/>{{rp|30–31}} Arnold agreed and Palmer wired him $200 to fund the investigation."<ref name="Peebles"/>{{rp|13|quote=Palmer received a letter from two Tacoma harbor patrolmen—Fred Lee Crisman and Harold A. Dahl. The letter said they had seen a group of flying saucers and had fragments from one of them. Crisman was known to Palmer. A year before, Crisman had written a letter claiming he had had an underground battle with the Deros. Palmer asked Kenneth Arnold, to whom he had written earlier, to investigate the story. Arnold agreed."}}  Arriving in Tacoma, Arnold interviewed Crisman, who told a tale of a flying disc that emitted rock-like debris and a visitation from mysterious black-clad stranger who gave ominous instructions not to speak of the disc.<ref name="Peebles"/>{{rp|13–15}}

Arnold summoned two Air Force investigators who took possession of the supposed debris, described as lava rocks, from Crisman.<ref name="Peebles"/>{{rp|13–15}} As the investigators returned to base, their B-25 caught fire and crashed. A local paper ran a story suggesting the plane had been sabotaged or shot down to prevent the shipping of the flying disc fragments. Though Crisman later confessed to a hoax, Peebles argues the story was the "first to give a sinister air" or "conspiratorial atmosphere" to the flying saucer myth.<ref name="Peebles"/>{{rp|13-15|quote="In retrospect, the newspaper publicity about the B-25 crash was the first to give a sinister air to the flying saucer myth. The talk of "sabotage," "mysterious stranger," and "classified material" gave it a "conspiratorial" atmosphere. The Army Air Force knew it was a hoax and why the plane crashed, but the public had only the contradictory newspaper accounts.}}