Kenneth A. Arnold (March 29, 1915 in
SebekaSebeka is a city in Wadena County, Minnesota, United States. Its population was 710 at the 2000 census. The name comes from an Ojibwe word meaning "town by the water".U.S. Highway 71 and State Highway 227 are two of the main routes in the community....
,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
– January 16, 1984 in
BellevueBellevue is a rapidly growing city in King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 109,569 at the 2000 census, but by 2007 had grown to an...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
) was an American businessman and pilot.
He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported
unidentified flying objectUnidentified flying object is the popular term for any aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately identified...
sighting in the United States, after claiming to see nine unusual objects flying in a chain near
Mount RainierMount Rainier is an activestratovolcano in Pierce County, Washington, located southeast of Seattle. It towers over the Cascade Range as the most prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and Cascade Volcanic Arc at .The mountain and the surrounding area are protected within Mount...
,
WashingtonWashington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory which had been ceded by Britain in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty as settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. It was admitted to the Union as the...
on June 24, 1947. Arnold described the objects' shape as resembling a flat
saucerA saucer is a small type of dishware, a plate that is specifically used with and for supporting a cup – a cylindrical cup intended for coffee or a half-sphere teacup for tea. Additionally, the saucer is a distant cousin to the plate. The saucer has a raised center with a depression sized to fit a...
or disc (see quotes below), and also described their erratic motion as resembling a saucer skipped across water; from this, the press quickly coined the new terms "
flying saucerFlying saucer is the name given to a type of unidentified flying object with a disc- or saucer-shaped body, usually described as silver or metallic, occasionally reported as covered with running lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly either alone or in tight...
" and "flying disc" to describe such objects, many of which were reported within days after Arnold's sighting. Later Arnold would add that the objects resembled a
crescentIn art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points .In astronomy, a crescent is...
or
flying wingA flying wing is a fixed-wing aircraft which has no definite fuselage, with most of the crew, payload and equipment being housed inside the main wing structure....
(image at right).
The U.S. Air Force formally listed the Arnold case as a
mirageA mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to...
; this is one of many explanations that have been rebutted by critics, and researchers
Jerome ClarkJerome Clark is an American researcher and writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena; he is also a songwriter of some note....
and Ronald Story both argue that there has never been an entirely persuasive conventional explanation of the Arnold sighting.
Biography
Arnold was born in
Sebeka, MinnesotaSebeka is a city in Wadena County, Minnesota, United States. Its population was 710 at the 2000 census. The name comes from an Ojibwe word meaning "town by the water".U.S. Highway 71 and State Highway 227 are two of the main routes in the community....
, but grew up in
Scobey, MontanaScobey is a city in and the county seat of Daniels County, Montana, United States. The population was 1,082 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Scobey is located at ....
. He attended the
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States...
. Arnold began Great Western Fire Control Supply in
Boise, IdahoBoise is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Idaho. Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho as well as the county seat of Ada County...
in 1940, a company that sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the
Pacific NorthwestThe Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America, bound by the Pacific Ocean to the west. There are several partially overlapping definitions of the region, but they generally include the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, and...
.
Arnold was regarded as a skilled and experienced pilot, with over 9,000 total flying hours, almost half of which were devoted to
Search and RescueSearch and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.-Definitions of Search and Rescue:There are many different definitions of search and rescue, depending on the agency involved....
Mercy Flyer efforts.
He was an avid swimmer and
diverDiving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
-- and good enough at the latter to try out for the
U.S. Diving teamDiving was first introduced in the official programme of the Summer Olympic Games at the 1904 Games of St. Louis and has been an Olympic sport since. It was known as "fancy diving" for the acrobatic stunts performed by divers during the dive...
. Arnold and his wife Doris had four daughters.
On June 24, 1947, while flying near Mt. Rainer, Arnold claimed to have seen nine unusual objects flying in the skies; this event is discussed in more detail below. He claimed to have seen UFOs on several other occasions afterwards, as well.
After the 1947 UFO sighting, Arnold became a minor celebrity, and for about a decade thereafter, he was somewhat involved in interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees (notably, he investigated the claims of
Samuel Eaton ThompsonSamuel Eaton Thompson was an American contactee who claimed to have been in contact with extraterrestrials. Though his claims earned little publicity during his life, Thompson might have been the first North American contactee....
, one of the first contactees). Arnold wrote a book and several magazine articles about his UFO sighting and his subsequent research.
By the 1960s, Arnold had little to do with UFOs. He appearead at a 1977 convention currated by
Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the "birth" of the modern UFO age. He ran unsuccessfully for
Lieutenant Governor of IdahoLieutenant Governor of Idaho is a constitutional statewide elected office in the State of Idaho. According to the Idaho Constitution, the lieutenant governor is elected to a four-year term....
in 1962.
Arnold died in 1984.
June 24, 1947 UFO sighting
On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying from
Chehalis, WashingtonChehalis is a city in Lewis County, Washington, United States. The population was 7,057 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lewis County.-History:...
to
Yakima, WashingtonYakima is a city southeast of Mount Rainier National Park and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 71,845 and a metropolitan population of 229,094. According to the Washington State Office of Financial Management's...
in a CallAir A-2 on a business trip. He made a brief detour after learning of a $5000 reward for the discovery of a U.S. Marine Corps C-46 transport airplane that had crashed near Mt. Rainer. The skies were completely clear and there was a mild wind.
A few minutes before 3:00 p.m. at about in altitude and near
Mineral, WashingtonMineral is a small town in Lewis County, Washington just off State Route 7 near the Pierce/Lewis county line. Mineral originally began as a logging camp, then became a full-fledged town...
, he gave up his search and started heading eastward towards Yakima. He saw a bright flashing light, similar to sunlight reflecting from a
mirrorA mirror is an object with at least one polished and therefore specularly reflective surface. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface...
. Afraid he might be dangerously close to another aircraft, Arnold scanned the skies around him, but all he could see was a DC-4 to his left and back of him, about away.
About 30 seconds after seeing the first flash of light, Arnold saw a series of bright flashes in the distance off to his left, or north of Mt. Rainier, which was then 20 to away. He thought they might be reflections on his airplane's windows, but a few quick tests (rocking his airplane from side to side, removing his eyeglasses, later rolling down his side window) ruled this out. The reflections came from flying objects.
They flew in a long chain, and Arnold for a moment considered they might be a flock of geese, but quickly ruled this out for a number of reasons, including the altitude, bright glint, and obviously very fast speed. He then thought they might be a new type of jet and started looking intently for a tail and was surprised that he couldn't find any.
They quickly approached Rainier and then passed in front, usually appearing dark in profile against the bright white snowfield covering Rainier, but occasionally still giving off bright light flashes as they flipped around erratically. Sometimes he said he could see them on edge, when they seemed so thin and flat they were practically invisible. According to Clark Arnold said that one of the objects was rather
crescentIn art and symbolism, a crescent is generally the shape produced when a circular disk has a segment of another circle removed from its edge, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs of different diameters which intersect at two points .In astronomy, a crescent is...
shaped, while the other eight objects were more circular, but initially Arnold's descriptions were only of the latter disk-like shape.
At one point Arnold said they flew behind a subpeak of Rainier and briefly disappeared. Knowing his position and the position of the (unspecified) subpeak, Arnold placed their distance as they flew past Rainier at about .
Using a
dzusDzus is a proprietary name for a type of quarter-turn fastener often used to secure skin panels on aircraft. It was invented by William Dzus in the early 1930s. Quarter-turn fasteners are used to secure panels in equipment, airplanes and racing cars that must be removed often and/or quickly. In...
cowlingA cowling is the covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles and aircraft.A cowling may be used:* for drag reduction* for engine cooling by directing airflow* as an air intake for jet engines* for decorative purposes...
fastener as a gauge to compare the nine objects to the distant DC-4, Arnold estimated their angular size as slightly smaller than the DC-4, about the width between the outer engines (about 60 feet). Arnold also said he realized that the objects would have to be quite large to see any details at that distance and later, after comparing notes with a United Airlines crew that had a similar sighting 10 days later (see below), placed the absolute size as larger than a DC-4 airliner (or greater than in length). Army Air Force analysts would later estimate 140 to , based on analysis of human
visual acuityVisual acuity is acuteness or clearness of vision, especially form vision, which is dependent on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye and the sensitivity of the interpretative faculty of the brain....
and other sighting details (such as estimated distance).
Arnold said the objects were grouped together, as
Ted BloecherTed Bloecher is an American ufologist. Researcher Jerome Clark described him as "highly regarded" for his scientific rigor, his detailed research, his efforts at balance and neutrality, and his reluctance to speculate beyond what is supported by given data.-Biography:Born in Summit, New Jersey in...
writes, "in a diagonally stepped-down,
echelon formationAn echelon formation is a military formation in which members are arranged diagonally. Each member is stationed behind and to the right , or behind and to the left , of the member ahead...
, stretched out over a distance that he later calculated to be five miles". Though moving on a more or less level horizontal plane, Arnold said the objects weaved from side to side ("like the tail of a Chinese kite" as he later stated), darting through the valleys and around the smaller mountain peaks. They would occasionally flip or bank on their edges in unison as they turned or maneuvered causing almost blindingly bright or mirror-like flashes of light. The encounter gave him an "eerie feeling", but Arnold suspected he had seen test flights of a new U.S. military aircraft.
As the objects passed Mt Rainer, Arnold turned his plane southward on a more or less parallel course. It was at this point that he opened his side window and began observing the objects unobstructed by any glass that might have produced reflections. The objects did not disappear and continued to move very rapidly southward, continuously moving forward of his position. Curious about their speed, he began to time their rate of passage: he said they moved from Mt. Rainer to Mt. Adams where they faded from view, a distance of about , in one minute and forty-two seconds, according to the clock on his instrument panel. When he later had time to do the calculation, the speed was over . This was about three times faster than any manned aircraft in 1947. Not knowing exactly the distance where the objects faded from view, Arnold conservatively and arbitrarily rounded this down to an hour, still faster than any known aircraft, which had yet to break the
sound barrierIn aerodynamics, the sound barrier usually refers to the point at which an aircraft moves from transonic to supersonic speed. The term came into use during World War II when a number of aircraft started to encounter the effects of compressibility, a collection of several unrelated aerodynamic effects...
. It was this
supersonicThe term supersonic is used to define a speed that is over the speed of sound . In dry air at 20 °C , the threshold value required for an object to be traveling at a supersonic speed is approximately 343 m/s, . Speeds greater than 5 times the speed of sound are often referred to as hypersonic...
speed in addition to the unusual saucer or disk description that seemed to capture people's attention.
Arnold shares the story
Arnold landed in Yakima at about 4.00 p.m., and quickly told friend and airport general manager Al Baxter the amazing story, and before long, the entire airport staff knew of Arnold's claims. He discussed the story with the staff, and later wrote that Baxter didn't believe him.
Arnold flew on to an air show
Pendleton, OregonPendleton is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. Pendleton was named in 1868 by the county commissioners for George H. Pendleton, Democratic candidate for Vice-President in the 1864 presidential campaign. The population was 16,354 at the 2000 census. The 2006 estimate is 17,310...
, not knowing that somebody in Yakima had phoned in ahead to say that Arnold had seen some strange new aircraft. It was at this time that Arnold studied his maps, determined the distance between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, and calculated the rather astonishing speed. He told a number of pilot friends, and wrote in his account to AAF intelligence that they did not scoff or laugh. Instead they suggested that maybe he had seen guided missiles or something new, though Arnold felt this explanation to be inadequate. He also wrote that some former Army pilots told him that they had been briefed before going into combat "that they might see objects of similar shape and design as I described and assured me that I wasn't dreaming or going crazy." (See
Foo fighterThe term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over both the European and Pacific Theater of Operations....
.)
Arnold wasn't interviewed by reporters until the next day (June 25) when he went to the office of the
East Oregonian in Pendleton. Any skepticism the reporters might have harbored evaporated when they interviewed Arnold at length; as historian
Mike DashMike Dash is a Welsh writer, historian and researcher. He is best known for his books and articles looking at unusual historical events, anomalous phenomena, and strange beliefs.-Biography:...
records:
- Arnold had the makings of a reliable witness. He was a respected businessman and experienced pilot ... and seemed to be neither exaggerating what he had seen, nor adding sensational details to his report. He also gave the impression of being a careful observer ... These details impressed the newspapermen who interviewed him and lent credibility to his report.
Arnold would soon complain about the effects of the publicity on his life. On June 28 he was reported saying, "I haven't had a moment of peace since I first told the story." He then said a preacher had called and told him that the objects he saw were "harbingers of doomsday" and that the preacher was preparing his congregation "for the end of the world." But that wasn't half as bad as an encounter he had with a woman in a Pendleton cafe who looked at him and dashed out shrieking, "There's the man who saw the men from Mars." She ran out "sobbing she would have to do something for the children" Arnold was reported saying "with a shudder".
He then added that, "This whole thing has gotten out of hand. I want to talk to the FBI or someone. Half the people look at me as a combination of Einstein,
Flash GordonSteven "Flash" Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond, which was first published on January 7, 1934. The strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were...
and screwball. I wonder what my wife back in Idaho thinks."
Corroboration
Arnold's sighting was partly corroborated by a prospector named Fred Johnson on Mt. Adams, who wrote AAF intelligence that he saw six of the objects on June 24 at about the same time as Arnold, which he viewed through a small telescope. He said they were "round" and tapered "sharply to a point in the head and in an oval shape." He also noted that the objects seemed to disturb his compass. An evaluation of the witness by AAF intelligence found him to be credible. Ironically, Johnson's report was listed as the first unexplained UFO report in Air Force files, while Arnold's was dismissed as a mirage, yet Johnson seemed to be describing a continuation of the same event as Arnold.
The
PortlandPortland is a city located in the Northwestern United States, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the state of Oregon. As of July 2008, it has an estimated population of 575,930, making it the 29th most populous in the United States. It has been referred to as the most...
Oregon Journal reported on July 4 receiving a letter from an L. G. Bernier of
Richland, WashingtonRichland is a city in Benton County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Washington, at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 38,708. April 1, 2007 estimates from the Washington State Office of Financial Management put the...
(about east of Mt. Adams and southeast of Mt. Rainier). Bernier wrote that he saw three of the strange objects over Richland flying "almost edgewise" toward Mt. Rainier about one half hour before Arnold. Bernier thought the three were part of a larger formation. He indicated they were traveling at high speed: "I have seen a P-38 appear seemingly on one horizon and then gone to the opposite horizon in no time at all, but these disks certainly were traveling faster than any P-38. [Maximum speed of a P-38 was about 440 miles an hour.] No doubt Mr. Arnold saw them just a few minutes or seconds later, according to their speed." The previous day, Bernier had also spoken to his local newspaper, the Richland Washington
Villager, and was among the first witnesses to suggest extraterrestrial origins: "I believe it may be a visitor from another planet."
About west-northwest of Richland in
Yakima, WashingtonYakima is a city southeast of Mount Rainier National Park and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 71,845 and a metropolitan population of 229,094. According to the Washington State Office of Financial Management's...
, Mrs. Ethel Wheelhouse likewise reported sighting several flying discs moving at fantastic speeds at around the same time as Arnold's sighting.
When military intelligence began investigating Arnold's sighting in early July (see below), they found yet another witness from the area. A member of the Washington State forest service, who had been on fire watch at a tower in Diamond Gap, about south of Yakima, reported seeing "flashes" at 3:00 p.m. on the 24th over Mount Rainier (or the exact same time as Arnold's sighting), that appeared to move in a straight line. Similarly, at 3:00 p.m. Sidney B. Gallagher in Washington state (exact position unspecified) reported seeing nine shiny discs flash by to the north.
A Seattle newspaper also mentioned a woman near Tacoma who said she saw a chain of nine, bright objects flying at high speed near Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately this short news item wasn't precise as to time or date, but indicated it was around the same date as Arnold's sighting.
However, a pilot of a
DC-4The Douglas DC-4 is a four-engined propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960s in a military role...
some 10 to north of Arnold en route to Seattle reported seeing nothing unusual. (This was the same DC-4 seen by Arnold and which he used for size comparison.)
Other Seattle area newspapers also reported other sightings of flashing, rapidly moving unknown objects on the same day, but not the same time, as Arnold's sighting. Most of these sightings were over Seattle or west of Seattle in the town of
BremertonBremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. The population was 37,259 at the 2000 census. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap...
, either that morning or at night. Altogether, there were at least 16 other reported UFO sightings the same day as Arnold's in the Washington state area.
maptable of Washington state sightings
The primary corroborative sighting, however, occurred ten days later (July 4) when a United Airlines crew over Idaho en route to Seattle also spotted five to nine disk-like objects that paced their plane for 10 to 15 minutes before suddenly disappearing. The next day in Seattle, Arnold met with the pilot, Cpt. E. J. Smith, and copilot and compared sighting details. The main difference in shape was that the United crew thought the objects appeared rough on top. This was one of the few sightings that Arnold felt was reliable, most of the rest he thought were the public seeing other things and letting their imaginations run wild. Arnold and Cpt. Smith became friends, met again with Army Air Force intelligence officers on July 12 and filed sighting reports, then teamed up again at the end of July in investigating the strange
Maury Island incidentThe Maury Island Incident is said to be an early modern UFO encounter incident, which allegedly took place in June 1947, three days before the famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold, widely considered the original encounter with flying saucers. It is also one of the earliest reported instances of an...
.
A similar sighting of eight objects also occurred over
Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 45th-largest in the United States. With an estimated population of 385,635 in 2008, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 916,079 residents projected to reach one million between 2010...
on July 12, 1947. In this instance, a photo was taken and published in the Tulsa
Daily World the following day (photo at right). Interestingly, the photographer, Enlo Gilmore, said that in blowups of the photo, the objects resembled baseball
catcher's mittsA baseball glove or mitt is a large leather glove that baseball players on the defending team are allowed to wear to assist them in catching and fielding balls hit by a batter, or thrown by a teammate.-History:...
or flying wings. He was of the opinion that the military had a secret fleet of
flying wingA flying wing is a fixed-wing aircraft which has no definite fuselage, with most of the crew, payload and equipment being housed inside the main wing structure....
airplanes. He had been a gunnery officer in the Navy during the war, and using information from another witness, also a veteran, he performed a
triangulationIn trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly...
and arrived at an estimation of speed of , or essentially the same estimate as Arnold's. One of the objects, he said, seemed to have a hole in the middle.
http://www.roswellproof.com/Texas_UFO_Reports.html#anchor_3733
Two or three photos of a similar, solitary object were taken by William Rhodes over
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populous city in the United States...
on July 7, 1947, and appeared in a local Phoenix newspaper and some other newspapers. The object was rounded in front with a crescent back. These photos also seem to show something resembling a hole in the middle, though Rhodes thought it was a canopy.
http://www.roswellproof.com/Rhodes_Phoenix.html Rhodes's negatives and prints were later confiscated by the FBI and military. However, the photos show up in later Air Force intelligence reports.
http://www.kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
Arnold was soon shown the Rhodes photos when he met with two AAF intelligence officers. He commented, "It was a disk almost identical to the one peculiar flying saucer that had been worrying me since my original observation—the one that looked different from the rest and that I had never mentioned to anyone." As a result, Arnold felt that the Rhodes photos were genuine.
Publicity and origins of term "flying saucer"
Arnold's account was first featured in a few late newspaper editions on June 25, appeared in numerous U.S. and Canadian papers (and some foreign newspapers) on June 26 and thereafter, often on the front page. Without exception, according to Bloecher, the Arnold story was initially related with a serious, even-handed tone. The first reporters to interview Arnold were Nolan Skiff and Bill Bequette of the
East Oregonian in Pendleton, Ore. on June 25, and the first story on the Arnold sighting, written by Bequette, appeared in the newspaper the same day.
Starting June 27, newspapers first began using the terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" to describe the sighted objects. Thus the Arnold sighting is credited with giving rise to these popular terms. The actual origin of the terms is somewhat controversial and complicated. Jerome Clark cites a 1970 study by Herbert Strentz, who reviewed U.S. newspaper accounts of the Arnold UFO sighting, and concluded that the term was probably due to an editor or headline writer: the body of the early Arnold news stories did not use the term "flying saucer" or "flying disc." However, earlier stories did in fact credit Arnold with using terms such as "saucer", "disk", and "pie-pan" in describing the shape. (see quotes further below)
Years later, Arnold claimed he told Bill Bequette that "they flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water." Arnold felt that he had been misquoted since the description referred to the objects' motion rather than their shape. Thus Bequette has often been credited with first using "flying saucer" and supposedly misquoting Arnold, but the term does not appear in Bequette's early articles. Instead, his first article of June 25 says only, "He said he sighted nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation..."
The next day in a much more detailed article, Bequette wrote, "He clung to his story of shiny, flat objects racing over the Cascade mountains with a peculiar weaving motion ‘like the tail of a Chinese kite.' ...He also described the objects as 'saucer-like' and their motion 'like fish flipping in the sun.' ...[Arnold] described the objects as 'flat like a pie-pan and somewhat bat-shaped'." It wasn't until June 28 that Bequette first used the term "flying disc" (but not "flying saucer").
A review of early newspaper stories indicates that immediately after his sighting, Arnold generally described the objects’ shape as thin and flat, rounded in the front but chopped in the back and coming to a point, i.e., more or less saucer- or disk-like. He also specifically used terms like "saucer" or "saucer-like", "disk", and "pie pan" or "pie plate" in describing the shape. The motion he generally described as weaving like the tail of a kite and erratic flipping.
For example, in a surviving recorded radio interview from June 25, Arnold described them as looking "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." His motion descriptions were: "I noticed to the left of me a chain which looked to me like the tail of a Chinese kite, kind of weaving... they seemed to flip and flash in the sun, just like a mirror... they seemed to kind of weave in and out right above the mountaintops..."
http://www.konsulting.com/audio_clips.htm
The following day (June 26) were the following quotes attributed to Arnold:
http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1999/mar/m17-009.shtml
- United Press: "They were shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them..."
- Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
: "He said they were bright, saucer-like objects--he called them 'aircraft'. ...He also described the objects as ‘saucer-like’ and their motion 'like a fish flipping in the sun.’ ...Arnold described the objects as 'flat like a pie pan'."
- Associated Press: "They flew with a peculiar dipping motion, 'like a fish flipping in the sun,' he said. ... He said they appeared to fly almost as if fastened together -- if one dipped, the others did, too."
- Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company...
: "They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a pie plate.... I am sure they were separate units because they weaved in flight like the tail of a kite."
On June 27 was the following quote:
- Portland Oregon Journal: "'They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ...There were no bulges or cowlings; they looked like a big flat disk.’ ...Arnold said that the objects weaved 'like the tail of a Chinese kite'."
Two weeks later, Arnold was still referring to the shape of the objects as "saucers" or "saucer-like." In the
Portland Oregonian on July 11, he was quoted saying, "I actually saw a type of aircraft slightly longer than it was wide, with a thickness about one twentieth as great as its width. ...I reckoned the saucers were 23 miles away."
In a written statement to Army Air Forces (AAF) intelligence the following day(July 12), Arnold several times referred to the objects as "saucer-like." At the end of the report he drew a picture of what the objects appeared to look like at their closest approach to Mt. Rainier. He wrote, "They seemed longer than wide, their thickness was about 1/20th their width." (document with Arnold's drawing at right) As to motion, Arnold wrote, "They flew like many times I have observed geese to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks." He also spoke of how they would "flip and flash in the sun."
text of written report
To complicate the shape descriptions further, a month after his sighting, Arnold was to become involved in the bizarre
Maury Island incidentThe Maury Island Incident is said to be an early modern UFO encounter incident, which allegedly took place in June 1947, three days before the famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold, widely considered the original encounter with flying saucers. It is also one of the earliest reported instances of an...
. Arnold was dispatched by a magazine publisher to
TacomaTacoma is a mid-sized urban port city in and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park...
to investigate it, although he eventually turned the investigation over to the AAF. In a meeting with two AAF intelligence officers (the same ones who interviewed him on July 12 and for whom he wrote his report), Arnold first revealed one of the nine objects was different, being larger and shaped more like a crescent coming to a point in the back (see picture at article top). It was at this time that Arnold was also shown the Rhodes photos of a crescent-shaped object over Phoenix, which Arnold deemed authentic because of the unusual shape.
Some note the object in the drawing bears an uncanny similarity to the WW2 German design, the
Horten Ho 229The Horten Ho IX was a late-World War II prototype flying wing fighter/bomber, designed by Reimar and Walter Horten and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik...
, sometimes further claiming it was captured German technology being tested. But there is no historical evidence of any kind supporting this.
Widespread UFO reports after Arnold sighting
In the weeks that followed Arnold's June, 1947 story, at least several hundred reports of similar sightings flooded in from the U.S. and around the world — most of which described saucer-shaped objects. A sighting by a United Airlines crew of another nine, disk-like objects over Idaho on July 4 probably garnered more newspaper coverage than Arnold's original sighting, and opened the floodgates of media coverage in the days to follow.
Bloecher collected reports of 853 flying disc sightings that year from 140 newspapers from Canada, Washington D.C, and every U.S. state save Montana. This was more UFO reports for 1947 than most researchers ever suspected. Some of these stories were poorly documented or fragmentary, but Bloecher argued that about 250 of the more detailed reports (such as those made by pilots or scientists, multiple eyewitnesses, or backed by photos) made a persuasive case for a genuine mystery.
Adding intrigue to Arnold's story, the U.S. military denied having any planes at all in the area of Mount Rainier at the time of his sighting. Likewise, on July 6, speculation arose in newspaper articles that the objects being sighted were due to either the "
flying wingA flying wing is a fixed-wing aircraft which has no definite fuselage, with most of the crew, payload and equipment being housed inside the main wing structure....
" or "flying flapjack," a disc-shaped aircraft, both experimental planes under development by the U.S. military at the time (see
military flying saucersThe development of disc shaped aircraft — or military "flying saucers" — apparently dates back to World War II. Since most of the information is highly classified, many details are uncertain....
). The military repeated that neither aircraft could account for the sightings, which is also born out by historical records.
The most famous UFO event during this period was the
Roswell UFO incidentThe Roswell UFO Incident was the alleged recovery of extra-terrestrial debris, including corpses, from an object which crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, USA, on or about July 8, 1947. Since the late 1970s the incident has been the subject of intense controversy and the subject of conspiracy...
, the alleged military recovery of a crashed flying disk, the story of which broke on July 8, 1947. To calm rising public concern, this and other cases were debunked by the military in succeeding days as mistaken sightings of
weather balloonA weather or sounding balloon is a balloon which carries instruments aloft to send back information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity by means of a small, expendable measuring device called a radiosonde...
s.
http://www.roswellproof.com/militarydebunk.html
Military investigation of Arnold story
The first investigation of Arnold's claims came from Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. William Davidson of
Hamilton FieldHamilton Field may refer to:* Hamilton Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force Base located on San Francisco Bay, California, United States.* Hamilton Field , an airport located in Derby, Kansas, United States....
in
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, who interviewed Arnold on July 12. Arnold also submitted a written report at that time. Regarding the reliability of Arnold's sighting, they concluded:
- "It is the present opinion of the interviewer that Mr. Arnold actually saw what he stated he saw. It is difficult to believe that a man of [his] character and apparent integrity would state that he saw objects and write up a report to the extent that he did if he did not see them."
Despite this, the Army Air Force's formal public conclusion was that Arnold had seen a mirage.
In addition, on July 9 AAF intelligence, with help from the FBI, secretly began an investigation of the best sightings, mostly from pilots and military personnel. Arnold's sighting, as well as that of the United Airline's crew, were included in the list of best sightings. Three weeks later they came to the conclusion that the saucer reports were not imaginary or adequately explained by natural phenomena; something real was flying around. This laid the groundwork for another intelligence estimate in September 1947 by Gen. Nathan Twining, commanding officer of the Air Materiel Command, which likewise concluded the saucers were real and urged a formal investigation by multiple government agencies. This in turn resulted in the formation of
Project SignProject Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948....
at the end of 1947, the first publicly acknowledged USAF UFO investigation. Project Sign eventually evolved into
Project GrudgeProject Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate unidentified flying objects . Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but actually continued on in a very minimal capacity...
, and then the better known
Project Blue BookProject Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force . Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
.
The personnel of the U.S. Air Force's
Project SignProject Sign was an official U.S. government study of unidentified flying objects undertaken by the United States Air Force in late 1947 and dissolved in late 1948....
(1947 - 1949) also later studied Arnold's story. According to Major
Edward J. RuppeltEdward J. Ruppelt was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects...
,
- I found that there was a lot of speculation on this report [amongst Sign personnel]. Two factions ... joined up behind two lines of reasoning. One side said that Arnold had seen plain, everyday jet airplanes flying in formation ... The other side didn't buy this idea at all. They based their argument on the fact that Arnold knew where the objects were when he timed them ...
- There was an old theory that maybe Arnold had seen wind whipping snow along the mountain ridges, so I asked [Air Force investigators] about this. I got a flat "Impossible."
Skeptical explanations
One skeptical objection raised is that Arnold was suspiciously precise in his descriptions (for example, "approaching Mt. Rainier at about 107 degrees" and "passed almost directly in front of me, but at a distance of about 23 miles"), perhaps calling into question Arnold's reliability as a witness. However, Arnold's "
about 107 degrees" was clearly not meant to be exact but an estimate, based on judging flight bearings from thousands of hours of flying experience. Arnold was also explicit from the beginning that his distance figure was based on seeing the objects momentarily disappear behind a sub-peak of Rainier of a known distance.
Skeptic
Steuart CampbellSteuart Campbell is an Edinburgh-based sceptic and investigative science writer born in Birmingham. Campbell trained as an architect and worked as one until the mid-1970s...
has argued that the objects Arnold reported could have been mirages of several snow-capped peaks in Cascade Range. Campbell's calculation of the objects' speed determined that they were travelling at roughly the same speed as Arnold's plane, indicating that the objects were in fact stationary. Mirages could have been caused by temperature inversions over several deep valleys in the line of sight.
It is true that when Arnold had turned the plane so as to fly parallel to the apparent N-S course of the objects the relative bearing to very distant mountains would change at a much slower angular rate than the bearings to nearby peaks, i.e. as nearby landmarks fell aft of the left wing parallax would cause distant landmarks to be relatively displaced in the opposite direction. Because mirage affects visual elevation but preserves visual bearing, detached mirage images of distant peaks could appear to pace the plane. However, Arnold said that he first saw the objects crossing the nose of the plane at speed from N - S before he turned S in order to watch them through the open side canopy. Parallax does not explain this. He also said he saw the objects fly in front of Mt. Rainier; they could be seen in profile and also flashing brightly against the snowfields of Rainier. That would be impossible for mirages of mountain peaks dozens of miles away to the south.
UFO skeptic
Philip J. KlassPhilip Julian Klass was an American journalist and UFO researcher with a background in electrical engineering. Klass was born in Des Moines, Iowa and died in Merritt Island, Florida....
cited an article by Keay Davidson of the
San Francisco Examiner in arguing that Arnold might have misidentified
meteorMETEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
s on June 24, 1947. In rebuttal, optical physicist
Bruce MaccabeeBruce Maccabee is an American optical physicist formerly employed by the U.S. Navy, and a leading ufologist.- Biography :Maccabee received a B.S. in physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and then at American University, Washington, DC,...
pointed out a meteor theory would require impossibly slow speeds and durations for brightly glowing meteors on a horizontal trajectory.
James Easton was the first of several skeptics to suggest that Arnold may have misidentified
pelicanA pelican is a large water bird with a distinctive pouch under the beak, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae.Along with the darters, cormorants, gannets, boobies, frigatebirds, and tropicbirds, pelicans make up the order Pelecaniformes. Modern pelicans are found on all continents except...
s: the birds live in the Washington region, are rather large (wingspans of over three meters are not uncommon), have a pale underside that can reflect light, can fly at rather high altitudes, and can appear to have a somewhat crescent-shaped profile when flying.
Similarly,
Richard CarrierRichard Cevantis Carrier M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D in Ancient History, is a published historian and atheist philosopher, best known for his writings on Internet Infidels , where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years. He is a noted advocate of metaphysical naturalism...
recently claimed to have seen the same UFOs as Arnold described, "ovoid objects flying in formation" "rotating along their axis of motion, like footballs, with one side black and one bright white, so they alternated in color while they spun." Then he realized it was an optical illusion and a flock of seagulls of which he misgauged the speed. He further claimed that Arnold's account showed that Arnold was incorrectly estimating his height, believing himself level to mountains four thousand feet below him giving him erroneous estimates of the level, distance, and speed of the objects. Birds unable to meet these erroneous estimates are ruled out by the minds eye as a possible explanations for the object and aren't recognized.
Rebutting the various bird explanations, Maccabee, argues it is physically impossible for a bird to be blindingly bright as reported by Arnold—the objects; brilliant brightness being what initially attracted Arnold's attention. Further, Arnold was flying at roughly an hour on a parallel course to the objects. Arnold reported the objects rapidly moving forward of his position as he observed them flying southward on a parallel course between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams. However, no bird could possibly fly faster than Arnold's plane; instead birds would have steadily moved backward, not forwards, relative to his position.
Donald Menzel's explanations
Donald Menzel was a Harvard astronomer and one of the earliest UFO
debunkerA debunker is an individual who discredits and exposes claims as being false, exaggerated or pretentious. The term is closely associated with skeptical investigation of topics such as U.F.O.s, claimed paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, alternative medicine, religion, research outside...
s. Over the years, he offered several mutually exclusive explanations for the Arnold's 1947 UFO sighting.
Bruce MaccabeeBruce Maccabee is an American optical physicist formerly employed by the U.S. Navy, and a leading ufologist.- Biography :Maccabee received a B.S. in physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., and then at American University, Washington, DC,...
rebutted Menzel's explanations in a 1986 monograph, arguing that Menzel often left out data that conflicted with a given 'explanation'.
- In 1953, Menzel argued that Arnold had seen clouds of snow blown from the mountains south of Mt. Rainier. Maccabee noted that such snow clouds have hazy light, not the mirror-like brilliance reported by Arnold. Further, such clouds could not be in the rapid motion reported by Arnold, nor would they account for Arnold first seeing the bright objects north of Rainier.
- In 1963, Menzel argued that Arnold had seen orographic clouds or wave cloud
-Formation:A wave cloud is a cloud form created by atmospheric standing waves. These waves are created as stable air flows over a mountain range, and can either form above or in the lee of the range. As an air mass travels through the wave, it undergoes repeated uplift and descent. If there is...
s; Maccabee noted that this conflicted with testimony from Arnold and others that the sky was clear, and again can't account for the brightness of the objects or their rapid motion over a very large angular region.
- In 1971, Menzel argued that Arnold had merely seen spots of water on his airplane's windows; Maccabee notes that this contradicts Arnold's testiomony that he had specifically ruled out water spots or reflections shortly after seeing the nine UFOs. For example, the early Bill Bequette article of June 26 in the Pendleton East Oregonian has Arnold saying he at first thought that maybe he was seeing reflections off his window, but "he still saw the objects after rolling it down."
Other sightings by Arnold and his opinion
In a 1950 interview with journalist
Edward R. MurrowEdward R. Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss and Alex Kendrick considered...
, Arnold reported seeing similar objects on three other occasions, and said other pilots flying in the northwestern U.S. had sighted such objects as many as eight times. The pilots initially felt a duty reporting the objects despite the ridicule, he said, because they thought the U.S. government didn't know what they were. Arnold did not assert that the objects were alien spacecraft, although he did say: "being a natural-born American, if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extraterrestrial origin." Then he added that he thought everybody should be concerned, but "I don't think it's anything for people to get hysterical about."
The first issue of
Fate (1948) featured the article
The Truth About The Flying Saucers by Arnold. In 1952 he described his experiences in the book
The Coming of the Saucers, which he and a publisher friend named
Raymond A. PalmerRaymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to form his own company, which published Fate Magazine...
published themselves.
New Evidence
Recently in news, a team from the Northrop Grumman defense-contracting corporation used original Nazi blueprints (see re-created blueprints of Hitler's stealth fighter) and the only surviving Ho 2-29, which has been stored in a U.S. government facility for more than 50 years. This plane looks similar to the drawing made by Arnold. Its possible what Arnold actually saw was this secret German prototype which the US Army recovered after world War II.
The all-wing Ho 2-29 looked more like todays U.S. B-2 bomber (B-2 bomber picture)—or something from a Star Wars prequel—than like any other World War II aircraft. Made primarily of wood and powered by jet engines, the plane was designed for speeds of up to 600 miles an hour (970 kilometers an hour).
Armed with four 30mm cannons and two 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bombs, the planned production model was also meant to pack a punch.
A Ho 2-29 prototype made a successful test flight just before Christmas 1944. But by then time was running out for the Nazis, and they were never able to perfect the design or produce more than a handful of prototype planes.
Determining the Horten's stealth capabilities could help reveal what might have happened if the Ho 2-29 had been unleashed in force.
External links