Steve Edmiston was sipping coffee with his neighbor Terry Donahue at Cutter’s Point in Des Moines in 2011 when a stranger leaned over with a question that would change the conversation – and, eventually, Edmiston’s life.

“You ever hear about the Maury Island Incident?” he asked.

Neither had — despite living in the area and gazing across the East Passage to Maury Island every day. But that unsolicited tip from a coffee shop eavesdropper sent Edmiston down a rabbit hole of FBI files, plane crashes and Cold War paranoia surrounding a 1947 UFO sighting long buried in Pacific Northwest folklore.

“I wish I knew who he was,” Edmiston said of the stranger. “My life changed and I don’t even know who told me about it.”

Edmiston later turned the story into a 2014 short film titled “The Maury Isla

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