Overlook Park I - Setting the Stage for Harold Dahl's UFO Sighting

Time to move from artistic impression to some real-life investigation. Stop #2 is one block west (toward the water), you'll find Outlook Park 1, a tiny park with a very big view. Just below Outlook Park is the Des Moines Marina, which opened May 1, 1970.

Looking out over Puget Sound, Outlook Park 1 provides the perfect spot to consider where the Maury Island Incident events occurred on that fateful day in 1947. 

On the morning of June 21, 1947, Harold Dahl, his son Charles, and the family dog Sparky picked up two crewman off the docks in Tacoma. They travelled approximately three miles north in Harold's boat, a pre-WW II trawler that had been converted to scavenge logs off the Sound. According to FBI interviews of Harold Dahl, it was around 2 p.m. when they reached the waters off Maury Island's East Bay where they encountered six flying discs overhead, hollow, shaped like donuts.

Why didn't everyone see them? Consider that Des Moines, with over 30,000 residents today, had a population under 2,000 in the 1940s. 

Your next stop is in sight - the far, far end of the marina crown jewel - the Des Moines Fishing Pier. Walk down Cliff Avenue South, and turn left (west) into the marina.