September 28, 2025 • 13 mins
Guest host Connie Willis moderates a debate between Team Roswell's Paul Semones and Team Washington's Steve Edmiston regarding the overall significance of two famed UFO incidents.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So let's get back at it. I think we closed out.
I think we closed out with Steve, So Paul from
Team Roswell, We're going to let you go ahead and
start it from there. If that's okay, Steve, you good
with that? You okay letting Paul go Yes, Paul.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Was very accommodating to let me drone on it. Absolutely,
Paul's turned drone on.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, that's Steve Edmondson with Sheean Washington. We've got Paul
Simonis now with Team Rosswell, well.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Steve, I'm a little bit used to that because you're
a lawyer. Well, I spent sixteen years as a forensic
engineer doing the investigation and being called to give, you know, testimony,
So you know, I'm the forensic engineer who investigated the
crashes and collected the evidence and marshalled the testing data,
and then and then you know, lawyers like yourself would
(00:55):
play all the games of the legal rules and coming
up with ways to exclude my great evidence because it
was inadmissible or you know, hearsay or whatever like that.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
So I'm kind of used to it.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
But you know the reality is your Maury Island case.
I think we both have to admit we are like
living walking X files posters.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
I want to believe.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I want the Maury Island case to be true. I
want the Roswell case to be true. I want Kenneth
Arnold to have truly seen nine non human objects flying
through the sky. I'd love for that to be the case.
I do have some problems though, in contrasting the Roswell
case with the Maury Island case. The Maury Island case
(01:45):
ought to be able to have ironclad documentary proof from
the time that helps us assess the credibility of.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
The case that one should have it. We should not
be surprised that Roswell is not, because here's the difference.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Roswell has military officers from the world's only at the
time atomic capable Strike Group as the first ones documenting
the crash site and documenting the material and transporting It's
no surprise that whatever reports and photographs that they generated,
they are still classified and lost to us today. Maury Island,
(02:24):
on the other hand, is an incident where you have
a boat that's in the water that suffers an event
that damages the boat that injures a child and kills
a dog.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
And that boat eventually is going to come back into
the dock. You know, there shouldn't there have been an
insurance claim filed for the damage to the boat.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Shouldn't we have documents from an insurance adjuster examining and
photographing what happened to the boat, so that we have
some sort of surviving forensic evidence today. Shouldn't the boy
have been taken to the doctor and there should be
some medical records that the family of mister Dahl had
for his son. Shouldn't there be some evidence somewhere of
(03:03):
of of the dog, how he was killed, and you know,
where was he buried? Did they you know, did they
have a little graveside service in their backyard, a little
a little cross for the doggie in their backyard? Did
the the Maury Island case is a case where existing
forensic evidence, documentation from the time should still exist. I
(03:25):
would love to find out from you if I'm just wrong,
if maybe some of it does. But you know, and
in my career investigating crashes, this is the frustrating thing
about the Roswell case. In my career investigating automotive crashes.
As a as a forensic engineer, you'd always start with
the document created at the time at the place, frequently
(03:47):
created at the scene of the accident by a certified
law enforcement professional, and that document exists. And then in
the modern age, photographs are taken of the vehicles at
their point of rest, and then later on a forensic
in engineer can go and lay hands on those vehicles
and can go to the scene and compare the surviving
tire marks and gouge marks with the map that was
(04:08):
drawn by the police officer at the time, and then
we can collect we can we can do the science
to what happened. In the frustrating case about Roswell's we
don't have any of that. The only thing we have
that survives from from from from from an investigative path
is basically the testimony, the testimony of the witnesses after
(04:28):
the fact, which we get in modern car crash cases, right,
you know, it's the depositions that are taken of the witnesses.
But we can compare their testimony to physical evidence generated
or documents generated at the scene, and we don't have
that in the Roswell case in Maury Island. You should
that stuff should exist, and I'm I'm just curious, is
(04:49):
there is there any of that around that can help
us assess, you know, the Maury Island incident from the
time that it occurred, or is all we're left with
is the testimony of the people who claim they were
involved in the days and weeks out.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
So that'd be my question.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I'd love to hear.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I'd love to be wrong, you know, I'd love to
be the.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, I'm glad you. I'm glad you'd love to be
wrong because I think you're wrong. And I'll let me
tell you why. You know, you just made my case
by explaining that what you want to have is a
law enforcement officer investigating an incident at the time and
(05:35):
at the place and creating reports. I mean, there is
no other UFO sighting I believe in history where the
FBI came in and conducted an investigation that is as robust.
I mean, we're talking nineteen forties and we had a
robust investigation where detailed reports of all of the investigation
(05:57):
was being you know, the interviews with Harold, all the
interviews with Fred Christmin, the interviews with Ken Arnold, everybody
involved that they could find they interviewed and they documented.
So when I tell the story and rush through and
tell the story, I'm not speculating once. I'm telling you
(06:21):
the story that is revealed by Agent Jack Wilcox's basic
X files reporting. And I can tell you and I
know it's fun to make lawyers. I love to make
fun of lawyers, right, I love it. But the reason
we have these rules of evidence is because we're trying
to come up with a way to make sure it's trustworthy. Right,
(06:41):
because if someone comes in and says, well, I didn't
say anything, but now forty years later, I want to
tell you my story, that's inherently problematic from a trust standpoint,
what you want is a law enforcement officer investigating at
the time like Jack Wilcox did. Jack Wilcox was reporting
directly to j Edgar Hoover. If you look at those
(07:03):
documents and j Goar Hoover was responding, I mean, it's
an incredible treasure troll of evidence. And I will tell
you that because those documents were created by a government
official at THEI agent acting in the scope of their authority,
making those records at the time the interviews were being conducted,
(07:24):
they are in fact admissible in court if we had
a loss.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Let's say, let's says, what's that I have to ask?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Did this FBI agent take a look at the boat
and take a look at the wounds on the on
on on Fred Dahl's son.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
He did not, not that I'm aware of. He interviewed,
he made his Yeah. So I mean, let's you know
what I love. I love poking holes in this because
that's those are the right questions that we would like
to ask. Is you know the point that the challenge
we have, I think with Maury Island now attack my
own case, is that after these investigations were conducted, you know,
(08:06):
you say it was hard to be roswell, which I
find a little rich. Hard to be roswell because of
the challenges, the FBI and Harold Dall all wanted this
to go away, and they closed the case, and they
sealed all those records I've been talking about for fifty
years as top secret. They weren't released until after nineteen
(08:26):
ninety seven. So the notion of anyone asking me a
one additional question was off the table never happened. That's
why nobody ever heard of Maury Island. It disappeared it's
the ultimate government cover up. They just erased it so
nobody could get interested a guy like Steve Edminston or
Vincent Zusa or Jason Mason that comes across the story.
(08:49):
The problem is it would never come across the story
it was gone. So I think the issue with Maury
Island is one of we we have a great treasure
trove of actual evidence and we need to do more work.
And I don't think it's a good idea to suggest.
I wouldn't suggest that you shouldn't be doing more work
for Roswell, and I don't think you're suggesting that we
(09:11):
shouldn't be doing more work for Moray Islands. I think
it's worthy of it. I think the challenge I have,
the real challenge I have is, you know, one of
the jokes we have we have the the Roswell one
phrases the Roswell monoculture, and the other is the Roswell
Industrial Complex, is that it's a black hole. You know,
(09:35):
it's everybody wants to find a scrap of evidence about
Roswell because they know there's a market if they can
write that book, and we don't. We just don't have
any energy around any other UFO stories, and certainly in
nineteen forty seven, we don't have any energy around scholarship
relating it to Moury Island or Momornaire. And we should
be doing that. We should all be promoting that because
(09:57):
I think if we had, you know, not four books
about more I think that's the number on Amazon, but
we had one hundred, I'm guessing we'd have found a
lot more evidence as people come to the investigative practice,
just like you're doing with Rogers.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
I do find it interesting, though, that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
An FBI agent was reporting directly to j Edgar Hoover.
He's tell me if I'm wrong. He's not doing much
more than any other UFO researcher would do today, which
is go talk to the people, take down what they
had to say, compile it all together. But he didn't
(10:37):
go look at the physical evidence. I mean, that is
astonishing to me. What and I guess the question is
what does that say? More broadly, what does that say
about how the FBI was treating this whole phenomenon.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
I don't know. I don't know, but you might have
an insight on this, Steve, Yeah, is THEBI?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I mean the FBI?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
No, Well, I was I was just gonna say, is
the FBI doing this investigation simply because it's garnering a
lot of news attention. There's some pressure coming down from
the top that this thing needs to be shut down.
You know, go, you know, put your fig leaf on,
you know, go do your investigation, file a report done.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Okay, We'll try to make the whole thing go away.
You know that could put that could pose.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
That becomes an interesting data point or an important data
point to to confirm this overall idea that there's an
effort to shut the story down by the government. Why
are they trying to shut down something that if it's
not real, and of course it's it's after Marie Island,
after Roswell that the Air Force, Well, now that they've
got the story shut down in the national press, the
(11:41):
Air Force puts out that famous memorandum and says the
flying saucerge are something real, not visionary or fictitious, when
we need to start researching. I'm wondering, I'm just I'm
kind of throwing you a bone here, Steve. I'm wondering,
you know what, what does the FBI investigation of the
Marie Island density It seems to me as a friendsic
(12:02):
engineer interested in physical evidence seems to me to be
a little bit lacking.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
What does that tell.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Us about kind of the seriousness with which the government
was taking this and trying to shut it all down.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Well, thanks for throwing me a bone. I like that phrase.
I'll take it. You have to remember the subtext of
this investigation. This wasn't one of the hundreds of investigations
being conducted in the summer of nineteen forty seven by
FBI agents and Army intelligence officers because they're worried about
(12:33):
Soviet overflights. This was an investigation that had a lot
of heightened scrutiny because a B twenty five bomber had
crashed allegedly carrying top secret cargo which was flagged from
the Moray Island incident. That's all in the Army's final
mission report. There's no disputed as to that.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Listen to More Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern and go to Coast to Coast most
am dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
So let's get back at it. I think we closed out.
I think we closed out with Steve, So Paul from
Team Roswell, We're going to let you go ahead and
start it from there. If that's okay, Steve, you good
with that? You okay letting Paul go Yes, Paul.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Was very accommodating to let me drone on it. Absolutely,
Paul's turned drone on.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Okay, that's Steve Edmondson with Sheean Washington. We've got Paul
Simonis now with Team Rosswell, well.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Steve, I'm a little bit used to that because you're
a lawyer. Well, I spent sixteen years as a forensic
engineer doing the investigation and being called to give, you know, testimony,
So you know, I'm the forensic engineer who investigated the
crashes and collected the evidence and marshalled the testing data,
and then and then you know, lawyers like yourself would
(00:55):
play all the games of the legal rules and coming
up with ways to exclude my great evidence because it
was inadmissible or you know, hearsay or whatever like that.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
So I'm kind of used to it.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
But you know the reality is your Maury Island case.
I think we both have to admit we are like
living walking X files posters.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
I want to believe.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
I want the Maury Island case to be true. I
want the Roswell case to be true. I want Kenneth
Arnold to have truly seen nine non human objects flying
through the sky. I'd love for that to be the case.
I do have some problems though, in contrasting the Roswell
case with the Maury Island case. The Maury Island case
(01:45):
ought to be able to have ironclad documentary proof from
the time that helps us assess the credibility of.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
The case that one should have it. We should not
be surprised that Roswell is not, because here's the difference.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Roswell has military officers from the world's only at the
time atomic capable Strike Group as the first ones documenting
the crash site and documenting the material and transporting It's
no surprise that whatever reports and photographs that they generated,
they are still classified and lost to us today. Maury Island,
(02:24):
on the other hand, is an incident where you have
a boat that's in the water that suffers an event
that damages the boat that injures a child and kills
a dog.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
And that boat eventually is going to come back into
the dock. You know, there shouldn't there have been an
insurance claim filed for the damage to the boat.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Shouldn't we have documents from an insurance adjuster examining and
photographing what happened to the boat, so that we have
some sort of surviving forensic evidence today. Shouldn't the boy
have been taken to the doctor and there should be
some medical records that the family of mister Dahl had
for his son. Shouldn't there be some evidence somewhere of
(03:03):
of of the dog, how he was killed, and you know,
where was he buried? Did they you know, did they
have a little graveside service in their backyard, a little
a little cross for the doggie in their backyard? Did
the the Maury Island case is a case where existing
forensic evidence, documentation from the time should still exist. I
(03:25):
would love to find out from you if I'm just wrong,
if maybe some of it does. But you know, and
in my career investigating crashes, this is the frustrating thing
about the Roswell case. In my career investigating automotive crashes.
As a as a forensic engineer, you'd always start with
the document created at the time at the place, frequently
(03:47):
created at the scene of the accident by a certified
law enforcement professional, and that document exists. And then in
the modern age, photographs are taken of the vehicles at
their point of rest, and then later on a forensic
in engineer can go and lay hands on those vehicles
and can go to the scene and compare the surviving
tire marks and gouge marks with the map that was
(04:08):
drawn by the police officer at the time, and then
we can collect we can we can do the science
to what happened. In the frustrating case about Roswell's we
don't have any of that. The only thing we have
that survives from from from from from an investigative path
is basically the testimony, the testimony of the witnesses after
(04:28):
the fact, which we get in modern car crash cases, right,
you know, it's the depositions that are taken of the witnesses.
But we can compare their testimony to physical evidence generated
or documents generated at the scene, and we don't have
that in the Roswell case in Maury Island. You should
that stuff should exist, and I'm I'm just curious, is
(04:49):
there is there any of that around that can help
us assess, you know, the Maury Island incident from the
time that it occurred, or is all we're left with
is the testimony of the people who claim they were
involved in the days and weeks out.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
So that'd be my question.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I'd love to hear.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
I'd love to be wrong, you know, I'd love to
be the.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Well, I'm glad you. I'm glad you'd love to be
wrong because I think you're wrong. And I'll let me
tell you why. You know, you just made my case
by explaining that what you want to have is a
law enforcement officer investigating an incident at the time and
(05:35):
at the place and creating reports. I mean, there is
no other UFO sighting I believe in history where the
FBI came in and conducted an investigation that is as robust.
I mean, we're talking nineteen forties and we had a
robust investigation where detailed reports of all of the investigation
(05:57):
was being you know, the interviews with Harold, all the
interviews with Fred Christmin, the interviews with Ken Arnold, everybody
involved that they could find they interviewed and they documented.
So when I tell the story and rush through and
tell the story, I'm not speculating once. I'm telling you
(06:21):
the story that is revealed by Agent Jack Wilcox's basic
X files reporting. And I can tell you and I
know it's fun to make lawyers. I love to make
fun of lawyers, right, I love it. But the reason
we have these rules of evidence is because we're trying
to come up with a way to make sure it's trustworthy. Right,
(06:41):
because if someone comes in and says, well, I didn't
say anything, but now forty years later, I want to
tell you my story, that's inherently problematic from a trust standpoint,
what you want is a law enforcement officer investigating at
the time like Jack Wilcox did. Jack Wilcox was reporting
directly to j Edgar Hoover. If you look at those
(07:03):
documents and j Goar Hoover was responding, I mean, it's
an incredible treasure troll of evidence. And I will tell
you that because those documents were created by a government
official at THEI agent acting in the scope of their authority,
making those records at the time the interviews were being conducted,
(07:24):
they are in fact admissible in court if we had
a loss.
Speaker 5 (07:28):
Let's say, let's says, what's that I have to ask?
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Did this FBI agent take a look at the boat
and take a look at the wounds on the on
on on Fred Dahl's son.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
He did not, not that I'm aware of. He interviewed,
he made his Yeah. So I mean, let's you know
what I love. I love poking holes in this because
that's those are the right questions that we would like
to ask. Is you know the point that the challenge
we have, I think with Maury Island now attack my
own case, is that after these investigations were conducted, you know,
(08:06):
you say it was hard to be roswell, which I
find a little rich. Hard to be roswell because of
the challenges, the FBI and Harold Dall all wanted this
to go away, and they closed the case, and they
sealed all those records I've been talking about for fifty
years as top secret. They weren't released until after nineteen
(08:26):
ninety seven. So the notion of anyone asking me a
one additional question was off the table never happened. That's
why nobody ever heard of Maury Island. It disappeared it's
the ultimate government cover up. They just erased it so
nobody could get interested a guy like Steve Edminston or
Vincent Zusa or Jason Mason that comes across the story.
(08:49):
The problem is it would never come across the story
it was gone. So I think the issue with Maury
Island is one of we we have a great treasure
trove of actual evidence and we need to do more work.
And I don't think it's a good idea to suggest.
I wouldn't suggest that you shouldn't be doing more work
for Roswell, and I don't think you're suggesting that we
(09:11):
shouldn't be doing more work for Moray Islands. I think
it's worthy of it. I think the challenge I have,
the real challenge I have is, you know, one of
the jokes we have we have the the Roswell one
phrases the Roswell monoculture, and the other is the Roswell
Industrial Complex, is that it's a black hole. You know,
(09:35):
it's everybody wants to find a scrap of evidence about
Roswell because they know there's a market if they can
write that book, and we don't. We just don't have
any energy around any other UFO stories, and certainly in
nineteen forty seven, we don't have any energy around scholarship
relating it to Moury Island or Momornaire. And we should
be doing that. We should all be promoting that because
(09:57):
I think if we had, you know, not four books
about more I think that's the number on Amazon, but
we had one hundred, I'm guessing we'd have found a
lot more evidence as people come to the investigative practice,
just like you're doing with Rogers.
Speaker 5 (10:12):
I do find it interesting, though, that.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
An FBI agent was reporting directly to j Edgar Hoover.
He's tell me if I'm wrong. He's not doing much
more than any other UFO researcher would do today, which
is go talk to the people, take down what they
had to say, compile it all together. But he didn't
(10:37):
go look at the physical evidence. I mean, that is
astonishing to me. What and I guess the question is
what does that say? More broadly, what does that say
about how the FBI was treating this whole phenomenon.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
I don't know. I don't know, but you might have
an insight on this, Steve, Yeah, is THEBI?
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I mean the FBI?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
No, Well, I was I was just gonna say, is
the FBI doing this investigation simply because it's garnering a
lot of news attention. There's some pressure coming down from
the top that this thing needs to be shut down.
You know, go, you know, put your fig leaf on,
you know, go do your investigation, file a report done.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Okay, We'll try to make the whole thing go away.
You know that could put that could pose.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
That becomes an interesting data point or an important data
point to to confirm this overall idea that there's an
effort to shut the story down by the government. Why
are they trying to shut down something that if it's
not real, and of course it's it's after Marie Island,
after Roswell that the Air Force, Well, now that they've
got the story shut down in the national press, the
(11:41):
Air Force puts out that famous memorandum and says the
flying saucerge are something real, not visionary or fictitious, when
we need to start researching. I'm wondering, I'm just I'm
kind of throwing you a bone here, Steve. I'm wondering,
you know what, what does the FBI investigation of the
Marie Island density It seems to me as a friendsic
(12:02):
engineer interested in physical evidence seems to me to be
a little bit lacking.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
What does that tell.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Us about kind of the seriousness with which the government
was taking this and trying to shut it all down.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Well, thanks for throwing me a bone. I like that phrase.
I'll take it. You have to remember the subtext of
this investigation. This wasn't one of the hundreds of investigations
being conducted in the summer of nineteen forty seven by
FBI agents and Army intelligence officers because they're worried about
(12:33):
Soviet overflights. This was an investigation that had a lot
of heightened scrutiny because a B twenty five bomber had
crashed allegedly carrying top secret cargo which was flagged from
the Moray Island incident. That's all in the Army's final
mission report. There's no disputed as to that.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Listen to More Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern and go to Coast to Coast most
am dot com for more
The Best of Coast to Coast AM News
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George Noory
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