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guided our religions and philosophies, and watched us crawl out of the cares and build rockets to the moon. They may have watched other civilizations come and go. They may have sincerely helped us to preserve the memories of those lost ages and those past mistakes. Or it all may be rubbish, and we may be nothing more than the pawns with which they play their mis* chievous games. Theologians and philosophers have always been troubled by the nearly impossible task of sorting the real from the unreal, the truth from the false. Perhaps the only workable criterion is the ancient one of judging them by their works. There is no truth to the rumours that the flying saucers are from Spain, or that they are piloted by Spaniards,’ Gen. Carl Spaatz, Air Force Chief of Staff, told a press conference in 1948. This was an astonishing statement since a review of all the UFO literature and the fan magazines of the period has failed to uncover such a rumour. It suggests that .people must have been reporting slight, dark-complexioned pilots to the Air Force back in 1948, long before the UFO buffs started taking flying saucer occupant sightings seriously. In his detailed report on the Maury Island UFO ‘hoax' of 1947, Kenneth Arnold also describes meeting a small, dark foreign-looking man who was tinkering with the motor on a beat-up boat in Tacoma harbour. Ray Palmer, editor of Amazing Stories in Chicago, had commissioned Arnold to investigate the puzzling Maury Island affair, which began when a 'doughnut-shaped object’ had rained 'slag' on to a boat near Maury Island. Pieces of that slag had killed a dog aboard the boat and slightly injured a boy, the son of Harold Dahl, who was piloting it. Early the next morning, according to DaH's story, a 1947 Bulck drove up to his home and a black-suited man of medium height visited him. This man, Dahl said, recited in detail everything that had happened the day before as if he had been there. Then he warned Dahl not to discuss his sighting with anyone, hinting that if he did there might be unpleasant repercussions which would affect him and his family. Since Dahl and the others had not yet told anyone of their sighting, and since UFOs were still publicly unknown {Arnold's sighting over Mount Rainer and the attendant publicity did not occur until three days later), Dahlwasnaturallynon-plussed by his strange visitor. This was the first modern MIB report. Dahl's boss, Fred L. Crisman (he also owned the boat), became a central figure in the mystery. Dahl himself vanished soon after his interview with Arnold, and efforts by later investigators {such as Harold Wilkins, a British author) have failed to locate him. Crisman had been a flier in World War II, and he was suddenly recalkd into the service in 1947, flown to Alaska, and later stationed in Greenland, In recent years the amateur sleuths engaged in investigating the alleged conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy have tried to implicate Crisman. District Attorney James Garrison of New Orleans subpoenaed one Fred Lee Crisman of Tracoma, Washington, to testify before the Grand Jury listening to Garrison's evidence against Clay Shaw, according to wire service stories in November, 1963. Crisman was identified as a CHAPTER NINE MEN-IN-BLACK LORE AND THE CIA