After his alleged sighting, Arnold began investigating reports of UFOs, writing and speaking about the topic for several years afterward.
In 1962, Arnold won the Republican Party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Idaho, losing the election of the same year.
[5] On July 29, Arnold interviewed a harborman who claimed that one of the objects "began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center.
The harborman claimed the craft emitted a substance resembling lava rocks that fell onto his boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog.
[5][6] Arnold interviewed Fred Crisman, an associate of the harborman, who reported having recovered debris from Maury Island in Puget Sound and having witnessed an unusual craft.
[5] Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with the harborman's description.
While returning to their base in California, during the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the B-25 Mitchell airplane they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington.
[7] Writing in 1956, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt would conclude "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax.
[15][16] In January 1951, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article titled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", which accused Arnold of "[igniting] a chain reaction of mass hypnotism and fraud that has taken on the guise of a prolonged 'Martian Invasion' broadcast by that bizarre hambone Orson Welles".
[24] He appeared at a 1977 convention curated by the magazine Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern UFO age.