Kenneth Arnold Sighting
"Arnold, a recreational private pilot, was returning home from a flight in Wyoming
when he received a radio signal requesting assistance in the Yakima, Washington area. It
seems there was a missing troop transport and a aerial search party was being assembled.
At 3:00 p.m., flying at 9,000 feet, a bright flash of light caught Arnold's attention.
Turning to look our of the side window of his airplane, Arnold was amazed to see 9 saucer
shaped objects flying in formation. Thinking they were some sort of military aircraft, he
watched them intently as they bobbed, weaved, and darted about flying at an amazingly high
rate of speed. What fascinated Arnold the most was the fact that the flying objects had no
tail, but rather were round, saucer shaped, metallic and highly polished.
Infamous News Conference
Arnold radioed in his sighting and the uproar began. When he landed he was surprised to
find a news conference scheduled at the Pendleton field in Oregon. It was at this news
conference that Arnold gave the world the first description of a saucer shaped object. The
term 'flying saucers' was coined and the UFO craze began.The beginning of the modern UFO era is often traced back to June 24, 1947, when
businessman Kenneth Arnold sighted "a formation of very bright objects" while
flying over the Cascade mountains of Washington State.
The June 25, 1947 issue of the Pendleton (Oregon) East Oregonian carried the very first
report of Arnold's sighting at the bottom of page 1:
Impossible! Maybe, But Seein'Is Believin', Says Flier
Kenneth Arnold, with the fire control at Boise and who was flying in southern Washington
yesterday afternoon in search of a missing marine plane, stopped here en route to Boise
today with an unusual story -- which he doesn't expect people to believe but which he
declared was true.
He said he sighted nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation at 3. p.m. yesterday,
extremely bright -- as if they were nickel plated -- and flying at an immense rate of
speed. He estimated they were at an altitude between 9,500 and 10,000 feet and clocked
them from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams, arriving at the amazing speed of about 1200 miles an
hour. "It seemed impossible," he said, "but there it is -- I must believe
my eyes."
He landed at Yakima somewhat later and inquired there, but learned nothing. Talking about
it to a man from Ukiah in Pendleton this morning whose name he did not get, he was amazed
to learn that the man had sighted the same aerial objects yesterday afternoon from the
mountains in the Ukiah section!He said that in flight they appeared to weave in an (sic) out in formation.
The June 26 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune quoted Arnold in a page one story:
"The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a mirror was
reflecting sunlight at me... I saw the flashes were coming from a series of objects that
were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed to be shaped like a
pie plate . . . What startled me most at this point was . . . that I could not find any
tails on them.
I counted nine of them as they disappeared behind the peak of Mount Rainier. Their speed
was apparently so great I decided to clock them. I took out my watch and checked off one
minutes and 42 seconds from the time they passed Mount Rainier until they reached the peak
of Mount Adams . . . All told the objects remained in view slightly less than two minutes
from the time I first noticed them."
Arnold described the objects as moving "like a saucer would if you skipped it
across the water.". Bill Bequette, a reporter with the East Oregonian
newspaper, recalled Arnold's description when he later placed his story on the AP wire.
His use of the phrase "saucer-like" gave the phenomenon a name: "flying
saucers"
The military's initial reaction to Arnold's June 24 sighting was muted, but as 'saucer'
reports continued to stream in it was obvious some action needed to be taken. On the 7th
of July a meeting was held at the Pentagon in the office of General Schulgen, Chief of the
Army Air Forces' Air Intelligence Requirements Division. It was decided that 'saucer'
reports from "more 'Qualified' observers of flying discs" should be selected for
follow-up investigation.On the 10th of July, a cable from ConAC (Continental Air Command) arrived at 4th Air Force
Headquarters, Hamilton Air Force Base, California, requesting that Kenneth Arnold be
interviewed.
Kenneth Arnold's sighting was one of the first of over 850 UFO reports to appear in the US
media by the end of July, 1947. Approximately 150 reports made their way into the files of
Technical Intelligence, T-2, at Wright Field. Today these files are part of the USAF
Project Blue Book files located at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.
See document of letter from Arnold with a drawing and hand-written notes
about his sighting above.
Even this classic case has been attacked by the UFO debunkers, one even suggesting that
KenArnold saw a formation flight of pelicans! For this reason, such detractors are also known
as
pelicanists.
Filmmakers James Fox, Tim Coleman and Boris Zubov take an explosive look at the UFO
phenomenon in this award-winning, feature-length documentary. Top military and government
personnel, including Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell and former U.S. Presidents Gerald
Ford and Jimmy Carter, reveal their involvement with UFOs. Winner of the Best UFO
Documentary Award as well as the People's Choice Award by the International UFO Congress.
SCI FI is airing this acclaimed special on the 56th anniversary, to the day, of the famed
Kenneth Arnold sightings that ushered in the age of UFOs. On June 24, 1947, Boise
businessman Arnold, while helping search near Mt. Rainier for a downed military aircraft,
spotted nine silvery, crescent-shaped objects that looked "like saucers skipping over
a pond." For the next two weeks, "flying saucers" —
the newly coined term — made the front pages of newspapers nationwide."
Email from Bill Hamilton
Executive Director
Skywatch International, Inc.
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