A conspiracy is a secret agreement among a group of people attempting to conceal something. The two biggest conspiracies in our lifetimes, if true, are the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the cover-up of the presence of extraterrestrial beings on earth.

Kenn Thomas, author of a book titled MAURY ISLAND UFO: THE CRISMAN CONSPIRACY, points out a remarkable string of coincidences that may actually tie the two conspiracies together. According to Thomas, a man named Fred Crisman played a central role in these seemingly unrelated events. On June 21, 1947, an airplane pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted what he described as "flying saucers" over Mt. Rainier in the State of Washington, launching the modern UFO era. The term "flying saucer" soon became part of the UFO lexicon. There were many UFO sightings later in 1947, including the famous Roswell crash incident. Four people, including Harold Dahl and his son, witnessed the event from a salvage boat in a nearby bay. They reported seeing six doughnut-shaped craft, approximately 20 feet in diameter, hovering high above. Five of the craft formed a circle surrounding a craft in the middle that was wobbling badly. The seemingly damaged craft suddenly dropped down about 700 feet, then spewed two substances -- one was a paper-like metal that floated in the bay and the other was a hot, steaming, black sludge that rained down, striking Dahl's son and killing his dog.

Dahl reported these events to Fred Crisman, a man he believed to have some connections in the intelligence community. Crisman subsequently went to Maury Island to investigate the incident. He found a great deal of both materials on the shore and recovered some for himself.

Soon thereafter, Crisman shared his experience with Ray Palmer, a magazine publisher, who then hired Kenneth Arnold (the original pilot) to investigate further. Three days later, Arnold had more sightings, culminating with a woman recovering some unusual material in the same vicinity, who then turned the material over to FBI agent Guy Banister.

Capt. Lee Davidson and Lt. Frank Brown, Air Force investigators under the command of Gen. Nathan Twining, soon joined Arnold in retrieving debris on Maury Island. Ultimately, Crisman was compelled to turn over his samples to the two Air Force investigators. Classified documents, recently discovered under the freedom of information act, also indicate that Crisman turned additional samples he had held back over to CIA agent Clay Shaw.

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Many people believe it was part of a larger conspiracy, far beyond a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.

In his 1968 investigation of the assassination, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison claimed that Guy Banister and Claw Shaw were involved in the plot to kill JFK, and that Fred Crisman may have been one of the gunmen.

Some interesting coincidences occurred between the JFK assassination and the 1947 UFO cover-up. In 1943-1952, Guy Banister was FBI "Special Agent in Charge" in the Pacific Northwest, later transferred to Chicago. Upon retirement he opened a private investigative office in New Orleans where he occasionally hired Lee Harvey Oswald in a variety of capacities. In 1963, former CIA agent Clay Shaw was the director of the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, a CIA front organization. He later went to trial as one of the co-conspirators in JFK's death but was found not guilty by a jury. Key evidence linking Shaw to the assassination was not permitted by the trial judge.

According to many JFK assassination researchers, Fred Crisman was one of the three so-called "hobos" who were picked up in the railroad yard immediately following the JFK shooting, then released shortly thereafter. The world is full of strange coincidences and possible conspiracies in high places. In September of 1964, the Warren Commission Report declared that Kennedy was killed by a lone-gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald. Fifteen years later, the House Selection Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy "was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy" but "was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy."

Based on the information detailed in CROSSFIRE by Jim Marrs and FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE by Robert D. Morrow, it seems likely that the conspiracy involved organized crime.

Carlos Marcello was the mob boss of New Orleans. In the spring of 1961, the new U.S. Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, had Marcello handcuffed and put onto a plane to Guatemala City with no luggage and very little cash. Marcello was eventually flown back to the USA by his personal pilot David Ferrie, vowing to get even with the Kennedys.

Allegedly, Marcello and Ferrie devised a plan that included placing blame on a "nut" for the assassination of the President, Robert Kennedy's brother. Ferrie had been Lee Harvey Oswald's Civil Air Patrol leader.

The thrust of the plan was to make it look as though Fidel Castro was behind the killing of the American President, thereby inciting the U.S. government to attack Cuba, eliminating Castro who had forced the mob casinos in Havana to close.

Santos Trafficante, the south Florida mob boss, was a close associate of Marcello who had been in the casino business in Cuba and even jailed by Castro for a period of time. Mobsters Johnny Roselli of Miami and Sam Giancana of Chicago were also involved. Trafficante set up two men who thought they were working for the CIA to assassinate Castro and had them sent to Cuba. Through Roselli, Castro was tipped off that the CIA was sending these two men to kill him. The two men were then captured in Cuba and forced to reveal they were CIA operatives.

On September 7, 1963, Castro told associated press reporters he was being targeted for assassination by U.S. government leaders who "could find their own lives in jeopardy." During this entire period, Lee Harvey Oswald was being manipulated by associates of Ferrie in New Orleans to appear to be a pro-Castro wacko.

The trap had been set. A patsy, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been created to shift the blame to Castro. Plus, Castro had recently made statements to the press that he was being targeted by the Kennedy Administration, further fanning the flames. Thus, when JFK was killed, Castro, through Oswald, would be targeted for invasion by the USA whereupon the mob would get their Cuban casinos back and get the Justice Department (headed by Robert Kennedy) off their backs.

When JFK was assassinated in Dallas several things went awry.

Oswald was to have been killed in the confusion but managed to escape. He was later killed by Jack Ruby to silence him and close the case.

The FBI and the CIA both wanted the case closed as quickly as possible to avoid embarrassing entanglements. The new President, Lyndon Johnson, wanted it closed quickly to avoid a possible catastrophic confrontation with Cuba and their cold war ally, the USSR.

Thus, the lone gunman nutcase became the quick official remedy. Jack Ruby, the Dallas mob connection, was the key lynchpin to the conspiracy. He made more long distance phone calls to known mobsters (Trafficante, Marcello, etc.) during the two months prior to the assassination than he had made the entire previous year.

Roselli met with Ruby twice just prior to the assassination. When the Dallas police chief was answering questions at a press conference shortly after Oswald was arrested, Ruby (from the back of the room) loudly corrected him (captured on audio and video) as to which Cuba freedom organization Oswald had belonged. It was imperative that Oswald be portrayed as Pro-Castro, thereby placing ultimate blame on Castro as being behind the assassination. Ruby then killed Oswald to end any further investigation. Scheduled to testify before Congress, Roselli was found dead in an oil drum floating in Biscayne Bay.

Giancana had helped JFK get elected President, later to be subjected to Robert Kennedy's organized crime taskforce. The evening before Giancana was to testify before a senate committee on CIA-mob assassination plots, he was shot in the back of the head. A few days before David Ferrie was scheduled to meet with the New Orleans district attorney to discuss the JFK assassination, he was found dead (unsolved murder) in his apartment. Less than 12 hours later, Eladio del Valle, a known Ferrie collaborator, was brutally murdered in Miami.

Dead men tell no tales.

A coincidence is the occurrence of supposedly unrelated events that seem to have a connection. When you have dozens of coincidences all relating to the same event, the concept of everything being unrelated no longer passes the smell test.

Dead skunk in the middle of the road.

And it stinks to high heaven.