Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting 61 Years Old
Almost forgot to remind everyone of this reasonably important date in UFO history, although Nick did. Â It was the reason that the term “flying saucer” was coined, although not by Arnold. That honor belongs most likely to an anonymous newspaper editor or copywriter.
Lazy searching brings up the Wikipedia entry:
On June 24, 1947, Arnold was flying from Chehalis, Washington to Yakima, Washington 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 9,200 feet in altitude and near Mineral, Washington, he gave up his search and started heading eastward towards Yakima. He saw a bright flashing light, similar to sunlight reflecting from a mirror. 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 15 miles 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 25 miles 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.
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 crescent 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 23 miles.
I have a suspicion that mere invention of the term “flying saucer” has negatively affected the UFO field ever since, because it forces us into a preconcieved idea about the phenomenon, or at least the majority of UFO shapes witnessed in the last 61 years.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 1:11 am and is filed under Eyewitness Accounts, UFO Sightings, UFOlogy, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit BlinkList Google Ma.gnolia StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Help
- Related News Stories:
- The BBC on UFOs »
- John Keel Interview From 1992 »
- The Weirdest Day? »
- UFO Audio »
- The Guam UFO at 60 »
- Maury Island UFO Returns »
- UFOs: Strange Company »
- An Early Contactee? »
- Ufology’s Changing Face »
- WWII UFOs »
|
Jun 25 2008 
June 25th, 2008 at 1:28 am
Reporter Bill Bequette called Arnold’s chevrons “saucer-like” and headline writers around the country turned that into “flying saucers”. But three days earlier Harold Dahl saw saucers over Maury Island.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Kenn,
I don’t know if that’s the definitive account (it’s what I used to think), but the wiki entry on that issue brings up various scenarios about exactly who came up with the term. They do of course mention the Bequette story.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Shame on you for doing wikipedia research! And double shame for confessing that in public!
As I recall someone did a PhD dissertation about the term that I referred into in the MI book, and my newspaper research demonstrated that many people saw saucers just before Arnold had his sighting. One woman actually photographed one on the 18th. I do remember a little frustration trying to find the original newspaper account of Arnold. I couldn’t really tell if any of these people who claimed earlier sightings had made that claim before Arnold’s account appeared.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Kenn, I’ll take the bait on this one. As there’s no agreed upon scientific or historic reference material for the study of unidentified aerial phenomena aka “UFO”S”, Wikipedia is about as good any internet source for historical reference material concerning UFO’s. No disrespect intended. If ancient reports of UFO’s are true, Arnold’s UFO sighting should listed as a rediscovery of UFO after you totally discredit Axis and Allied combat pilots reports of them. Arnold’s sighting has a social significance in the US but hardly a historical one.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
We were discussiing the term “flying saucers” not “UFOs”. The Wikipedia article on the term is way inadequate. Although certainly people have been seeing saucers throughout history, the term has an identifiable history in US newspapers and was the subject of that dissertation I mentioned.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
up in the sky there are only few alien flying saucer, the rest are just different tye of space life.
http://ufo-spacelife.blogspot.com/
June 25th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Kenn,
I can’t locate the dissertation you referred to in your Maury Island UFO, mainly because there is no index.
Perhaps you mean the research paper by Herbert Strentz, from which I quote:
“A study of news clippings of June 25, and June 26, 1947, suggested that the name ‘flying saucers’ was not created by any particular reporter but rather was the product of headline writers. Reporters then, it seemed, incorporated that descriptive title in their stories.”
Bequette wrote about “saucerlike objects” in his original article, which may be where the term was derived, as you said in your original comment.
Thanks for making me get a couple of books off the shelf, but the original source for the term is still shrouded in mystery. My shame is diminished by an actual confirmation that the wikipedia article is accurate, if incomplete.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Well Kenn works at a University and since I’m at one as well I just did a “Digital Dissertation” database general search under “flying saucer” and here’s the results:
1.
Angels and extraterrestrials in contemporary dramatic and filmic literature
by Donovan, Derek Michael, M.A., Stephen F. Austin State University, 1995, 147 pages; AAT 1375411
2.
Brothers from the sky: Myth and reality in a flying saucer group
by Tumminia, Diana Jean, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1995, 193 pages; AAT 9524407
3.
Flying saucers and the new angelology: Mythic projection of the Cold War and the convergence of opposites
by Flaherty, Robert Pearson, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1990, 726 pages; AAT 9033923
4.
THE BOUNDARIES OF ORTHODOXY: A FOLKLORIC LOOK AT THE “UFO PHENOMENON”
by ROJCEWICZ, PETER MICHAEL, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1984, 738 pages; AAT 8417353
5.
SYNTHESIS AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LARGE NICKEL - CARBONYL - PHOSPHINIDENE AND ARSINIDENE CLUSTERS AND A NOVEL PLATINUM-24 CARBONYL CLUSTER
by MONTAG, RUTH ANN, Ph.D., The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1982, 466 pages; AAT 8301879
6.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND SUPPORT-SEEKING BEHAVIOR: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN THE UFO (FLYING SAUCER) FIELD
by SCHUTZ, MICHAEL KELLY, Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1973, 448 pages; AAT 7330717
June 26th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I saw a piece at either the new MAGONIA
site, or Project 47, that went a long
way toward demonstrating that the term
“Flying Saucer” owes its origin to
the art of Skeet shooting…Just sayin’
June 28th, 2008 at 8:57 am
oh yeah, skeet shooting and arguments in the kitchen…
June 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Kenn: If you want an easy way to research newspaper archive, visit the online website http://www.newspaperarchive.com
It has billions of scanned in and searchable newspaper pages. It’s allowed a Bigfoot researcher, Scott McClean, to find hundreds of unknown old-time Bigfoot reports. (He’s put them on a CD, “Big News Prints.”)
It’s a pay site, costing about $75 a year. But I think they have a free one-week trial membership.