Fred Crisman

In 2022, an animated film titled "Fred Crisman and the Cave of the Space Nazis!" won Best Comedy at Gen Con Film Festival.

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that forensic anthropologists had analyzed and compared the photographs of the "three tramps" with those of Crisman, as well as with photographs of Watergate figures E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, and two other men. According to the Committee, only Crisman resembled any of the tramps; but the same Committee determined that he was not in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination.

In 1973, Crisman resigned from the Tacoma Library Board of Directors. Crisman unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Tacoma city council.In September 1974, Crisman was hospitalized for kidney failure. On April 12, 1975, Crisman married Mary Frances Borden.

In May 1975, True Magazine published a photo of Crisman, speculating he was one of the "three hobos" of JFK conspiracy lore. The November 1975 issue of Crawdaddy Magazine repeated this claim and further claimed, without evidence, that "Olympia police suspected [Crisman] of narcotics activity in connection with a group called "Servants of Awareness".

In 1970, Crisman was elected Vice-President of the Tacoma library board.

Beginning in 1970, a photocopied document called the "Torbitt Document" circulated among Kennedy assassination buffs claimed that Crisman was one of the "three tramps" allegedly employed by a secret government agency.

In 1968, Crisman authored a pamphlet denouncing sensitivity training as "Communist-oriented" brainwashing. Crisman's pamphlet called for widespread infiltration and disruption of civic organizations like Parent-Teacher Associations. Wrote Crisman:

On October 31, 1968, a grand jury in New Orleans issued a subpoena for Fred Lee Crisman in connection with the investigation into the John F. Kennedy assassination. District attorney Jim Garrison issued a press release writing:

On November 21, 1968, Crisman was deposed in the case against Clay Shaw. Controversial district attorney Jim Garrison claimed that Crisman was one of the "Three Tramps" arrested by Dallas police as well as being a Bishop of the Universal Life Church. Garrison theorized:

Starting on August 1, 1968, Crisman hosted a radio talk show under the pseudonym "Jon Gold" on station KAYE. Crisman authored a book, The Murder of a City, Tacoma published in 1970 through Transistor Publishing Company. The book was described by reviewer Michael Sullivan as a "weird, politically slanted rant" that manages to "tie corruption in Tacoma to everything from communist infiltrators to the Kennedy assassination".

On July 22, 1967, Crisman spoke at a UFO convention in Seattle about the Maury Island incident.

In 1964, Crisman began teaching in the Turner school district, and it was reported his book on "Industrial Recruiting" had been accepted for publication. In April 1965, his post was listed as journalism teacher. On February 21, 1966, Crisman was suspended and later dismissed from his teaching position at Cascade High on a charge of insubordination and "creating a secret society". The board added that "the organization is of such a nature that should not be condoned or authorized to exist in this district." District officials said the society had been limited to five students, and officials declined to disclose the nature of the organization.

In 1966, an FBI informant claimed that Crisman had transported $100,000 in cash to California, was doing business as a psychologist, and was suspected of operating a diploma mill.

In 1953, he returned to teaching in Elgin, Oregon. He worked as a teacher and administrator in high schools in Washington and Oregon.

In December 1953, Crisman served as director of the high school drama club. In 1955, Crisman accepted a job as superintendent at Huntington.

Amid the Korean war, in April 1951, it was reported that Crisman had been ordered to Active Duty. That conflict ended in July 1953.

In the January 1950 issue of Fate Magazine, Crisman insisted the incident was not a hoax. Wrote Crisman: "Why, if we were such blackguards and deliberately caused the deaths of two Air Force Pilots and the loss of a $150,000 airplane did not the government or some agency there attempt to seek justice through the courts of the state and federal government".

In September 1950, Crisman was a Willamette university student. In October 1950, he wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the inability of local barbers of giving a military trim. In 1951, while studying at Willamette University, Crisman received a teaching assignment at Salem High.

In 1947, Crisman was involved with Harold Dahl in the Maury Island incident, an early UFO incident widely considered to be a hoax, even within Ufology. Dahl believed the 1960s TV series, The Invaders was based on Crisman's life.

In Fall 1947, Crisman participated in college community theater in La Grande. In April 1949, Crisman was listed as acting public relations officer of Oregon's first chapter of AMVETS. In summer 1949, Crisman gave talk on "The Far East" to a Kiwanis Club. In February 1950, a letter by Crisman was entered into the congressional record. Crisman "China has fallen to the Reds [...] Indo-china is on the verge and will go soon." Crisman continued "It makes me md to see it all go, while people I though were in the 'know' grovel and back up before a gang of international brigands whose only difference from the Nazis is the cut of their uniforms. I no longer think the people guiding our state department know just what they are doing...".

In 1946, Crisman claimed to have battled with non-humans in caves during the second World War. The following year, he attempted to convince two early flying saucer witnesses that lava rocks were in fact debris dropped from a flying saucer. In 1968, Crisman was subpoenaed by a New Orleans grand jury in the prosecution of a local man for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—a prosecution that would later be dramatized in 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK.

In 1946–47, pulp magazine Amazing Stories was an outlet for fantasy, science-fiction, and fringe claims. The May 1946 issue, for example, included purportedly-true fringe adventures by Richard Sharpe Shaver, the fiction of Dorothy & John de Courcy written in the style of Shaver, a defense of the religions of Tibet by Millen Cooke, the fiction of Robert Moore Williams, an allegedly-true eyewitness account of unidentified objects in the skies by Dirk Wylie, and other genre-blurring texts.

In June 1946, Amazing Story published a pseudonymous letter by Crisman in which he claimed to have battled "mysterious and evil" underground creatures to free himself from a cave in Burma during World War II. Wrote Crisman:

The letter was quoted in the September 1946 issue of Harper's Magazine as an example of a crackpot letter. In May 1947, Amazing Stories published a second Crisman letter, this time identifying him by name. In this letter, Crisman claimed to have traveled to Alaska with his friend Dick, who was killed there.

On May 26, 1942, Crisman enlisted in the army, serving as a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater. Crisman reportedly flew 211 combat missions. He was wounded twice, and he was shot down on two occasions. Crisman left the Army Air Force on February 19, 1946.

Conspiracy authors consider Crisman "a nexus point for a number of conspiracies and cover-ups from the late 1940s until [his] death in 1975".

Fred Lee Crisman (July 22, 1919 – December 10, 1975) was a fighter pilot and later educator from Tacoma, Washington known for claims of paranormal events and ties to 20th century conspiracies.

Crisman was born on July 22, 1919, the only child of Fred Crisman and Eva Pitchers, both of Iowa. In 1933, he and his family moved to Vale, Oregon; His father ran a hotel there. In 1939, Crisman graduated from Vale Union High School. After briefly attending Eastern Oregon College for a time during 1939–40, Crisman left to work as a brakeman for the Union Pacific Railroad.