Skip to main content

1947-The Kenneth Arnold Sighting

Summary: There have been UFO sightings ever since man roamed the Earth. There exist many paintings of centuries past that depict unusual flying objects in the sky. Folklore of many early peoples are filled with stories of strange objects flying through the skies. However, most Ufologists credit pilot Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting of 1947 as the beginning of the modern UFO age.

Search for Missing Plane: On June 24, 1947, businessman Arnold was using his plane to help search for a missing aircraft. He was flying over the Cascade mountains. As he scanned the landscape below him, he would notice some flashes in his eyes, like reflecting sunlight. He told the Chicago Daily Tribune, "The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a mirror was reflecting sunlight at me... "

No Tails on Object: Arnold soon found the source of the flashes-a series of fast moving objects. He described them as silvery and shiny. The most startling aspect of the object was a lack of a tail. The objects appeared to be shaped like a pie plate. This description almost certainly meant that the objects had a raised top, or cupola on them. This description very closely fit that of the large UFO photographed during The Battle of Los Angeles

"I Must Believe My Eyes.": The stunned pilot was seeing something that he had never seen before in his many years of flying. He estimated the objects' altitude as between 9,500 and 10,000 feet. He began to clock their flight from Mt. Ranier to Mt. Adams. This information would be used to estimate the objects' speed at 1,200 mph, an unbelievable speed for the era.

"It seemed impossible," he said, "but there it is... I must believe my eyes."

The Term, "Flying Saucer": Although the term saucer was used in a 1930 UFO report in Texas, it was meant to show the relative size of the object from arm's length. Arnold told a newspaper reporter that the objects moved "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." Arnold was indicating how the objects bounced across the atmosphere, not the shape of the object, Yet, newspaper reporter Bill Bequette's report on the AP news wire used the term "flying saucer" to describe the objects' shape. A phrase was coined.

Military Takes Action: As was the custom of the day, the U.S. military, though aware of the Arnold report, at first tried to simply ignore the matter. But, the story broke big across the nation, and the military had to make some statement on the sighting. On July 7, a meeting was held to determine how to respond to the report. This conference could also have been prompted by the [link url=http://ufos.about.com/od/bestufocrashcases/p/roswell.htm] Roswell Crash[/link] which was also making headlines.

Arnold Called for Interview: Chief of the Army Air Force Air Intelligence Requirements Division, General Schulgen would head the group. Under pressure to give the public some reassurance, the decision was made to hear from "qualified" reporters of UFO sightings. In a couple of days, Arnold was called in for an interview. The results of this interview would earn a place in Project Blue Book

Place in History: Although there had already occurred several excellent UFO cases before the Arnold sighting, his account will always have a place in UFO history. Over 800 hundred reports would make U.S. media by the end of July, 1947 alone, and Arnold's was one of the most important.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

UFO sightings from 1953 to 1954

1953 • Canada, Sherbrook: Mrs. Orfei heard a knock at the door in the middle of the night and obtained no answer when she asked who it was. When more furious knocks were heard, her Alsatian dog jumped toward the door, but suddenly retreated, trembling as if terrified and retired to a corner. Mrs. Orfei went to an upper door and saw two "indescribable" shadows go away from the house. A while later a big, round object took off 100 m away with a blue-green lightning. The police found broken bushes as evidence of an enormous weight. • Denmark, Brovst: Brovst was the scene of an attempted abduction of a girl by two humanoids emitting a golden light. Their hands were rugged and cold like a fish. | • France, Tours: Claude Pasquier saw two disks flying very low, quite slowly, along a straight course, with a "hard" sound. • France, Tonnerre: A woman saw two objects on the ground and three 1.5-m-tall men running toward the craft. They had oversized heads and wore h

UFO sightings 1964 to 1975

1964 • Argentina, Cofico: Chafredo Dagota observed a circular object that came to the ground briefly. It stood on a sort of pillar and emitted a blinding light. He caught sight of two figures moving near it. • Argentina, Pajas Blancas: A 42-year-old doctor and his wife were 30 km away from the airport when an intensely bright object appeared on the road ahead. They drove very close to it and saw three men dressed in gray, one of whom told him in Spanish that "they had a mission on Earth. " "A doctor and his wife were driving in the same area where a previous case occurred (April 1957) when the car's engine failed and they were confronted by a huge machine blocking the road. The object's powerful light went out, leaving a violet colored light. After about 20 mins, a figure approached the car and asked what was wrong. When told what had happened, the man suggested that the engine should be tried again. The engine now started and the headlights came on so t

Police Officer Herbert Schirmer Abduction

Date December 3, 1967 Location Ashland, Nebraska, United States 1967 Alien Abduction Case of a Nebraska Police Officer On December 3, 1967, around 2:30 a.m., in the vicinity of Ashland, Nebraska, police sergeant Herbert Schirmer, 22, noticed some red lights along Highway 63. Thinking that it was a stopped truck he approached and shown his high beams on it. Soon he realized it was no truck. Instead it was a disc-shaped object with a shiny, polished aluminum looking surface, and a catwalk that went around it. The red lights, which were blinking, were shining out from windows in the object. The UFO appeared to be a mere 6 to 8 feet above the road, and was hovering in the air with a slight tilt. Then the object began to slowly ascend, making a siren kind of noise, and issuing a flame-like display from the underside. Sticking his head out the window, Sgt. Schirmer watched the UFO pass nearly overhead. Then suddenly it shot up and out of sight. Schirmer then got out of the