JFK & UFO: Military-Industrial Conspiracy and Cover-Up from Maury Island to Dallas

by Kenn Thomas

In 1947 six flying saucers circled above a harbor boat in Puget Sound near Tacoma, Washington, one wobbling and spewing slag. The falling junk killed a dog and burned a boy's arm. His father, Harold Dahl, witnessed it all and brought his partner, Fred Crisman, down the next day to see yet another UFO. The Maury Island incident became the first UFO event of the modern era. In 1968 New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Fred Crisman as part of his investigation into the JFK assassination, which became the subject of Oliver Stone's 1992 movie JFK . Garrison believed that Crisman was the infamous grassy knoll shooter. He's also the central figure in the "Mystery Tramp" photo of the Dallas rail yard hobos. Illustrated with rare images, JFK & UFO interconnects the lingering mysteries of America's most notorious assassination and its weird ufological subculture. It examines the denizens of the bizarre, semi-spook underground reflecting a stranger and more true history than offered by the mainstream. Kenn Thomas works as a conspiracy investigator, university library archivist, and editor and publisher of the conspiracy magazine Steamshovel Press . For Feral House he has written The Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro , which helped expose the Inslaw scandal of the Reagan years. Thomas also co-edited (with Adam Parfrey) Secret and Suppressed Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century .

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2011

About the author

Kenn Thomas works as a conspiracy investigator, university library archivist, and editor and publisher of the conspiracy magazine Steamshovel Press. For Feral House he has written The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, which helped expose the Inslaw scandal of the Reagan years. Thomas also co-edited (with Adam Parfrey) Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century. His latest work is JFK & UFO: Military-Industrial Conspiracy and Cover-Up from Maury Island to Dallas.

Reviews

[jv poore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have always heard of "conspiracy theories" and have been intrigued, yet I had not read anything on the subject, so I was thrilled to receive this First-Reads Book. Now that I've finished, I must say this is challenging for me to review, as the wrap-up, the finish, the grand-finale, is very important to how I view a book. To that end, I expected the author to sum up with his interpretation of the possible conspiracies to conceal information about Unidentified Flying Objects, or Disks and those same people being behind Kennedy's assisination. Not so. Mr. Thomas presents the facts, as he knows them. He draws no conclusions, offers no tidy wrap-up.

Here's what I liked:
* The presentation of information allows the reader to form his own opinions
* It intrigued me how the same people seem to keep appearing in apparently unrelated events, but the author provided the behind the scenes connections
* Even bearing in mind that the Flying Disk portion was in 1947, the lack of (what seem to me)
obvious questions, during the investigation is interesting.

I had some trouble with:
* At one point, it seemed that there were too many characters to keep straight and connected. I made a "family tree" type of chart---would have been groovy if something like this was included in the book.
* I felt like there were quite a few typos in the book, although it sometimes difficult to tell if the mistakes (that were not marked "sic")were actually in the writing of the book or in the records presented.

All in all, I feel that the this book would be an awesome first book for anyone slightly curious about these conspiracy theories. As I read, I became frustrated with what seemed to be bungled and lackadaisical "investigations", so I now know that I am interested enough to read more on this topic.

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had known as a teenager that Disruptive Agent was an actual career option, my life would be very different now.

[Gretchen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very strange book. It purports to tell of a UFO sighting in 1947 at Maury Island by this man Crisman who then was involved with the CIA and potentially JFK's assassination. The first half of the book (about 115 pages) tells this story though it is mostly focused on the Maury Island incident. The second half of the book are a series of appendixes that raise more questions. Basically everything is innuendo and suppositions. Crisman may have known of strange characters and may have been involved with the CIA, but it is really hard to connect the dots. There are so many stories and Crisman told so many different versions of the Maury Island incident, including saying it was a hoax, that it is really hard to believe him on what happened. Evidence like photos never materialized, etc. So while the theories are interesting to read about, I find it a bit too much of a leap expecially to JFK's assassination. I received this copy of the book in a Good reads giveaway so I am not sure if I received an advance copy or not, but there were a lot of typos and grammatical errors (like missing periods, etc) that really ended up detracting from the book as a whole also.

[Kelly Head · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meticulously researched book on the Maury Island UFO incident. Thomas documents everything from the newspaper articles in the Tacoma Times and Boise Statesmen, to FOIA requests concerning the FBI's knowledge of the UFO cases in Washington. Thomas makes hypothesizes that Fred Crisman, one of the people who obtained pieces of UFO debris at Maury Island, used this as leverage to get involved in covert operations within the United States government. He traces Crisman's career all the way through the JFK assassination and places him with two other "hobos" arrested in the train yard behind the site of the shooting. Crisman's part in the story is less well-documented, and interesting for that matter, but Thomas does make a decent argument.

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must say that UFOs, JFK, and conspiracies are great reading. Thomas has tied together multiple people and events into a fascinating theory. He has obviously researched his material thoroughly and fans of conspiracy theories will love this book.

Thanks for the Goodreads giveaway!

[William Fuentes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weak writing, weak sources.