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Did this strange object reappear over fifty years later? Because it was seen again in 1947, and this sighting led to the popular use of the term “flying saucer.” The phrase owes its existence to a newspaperman’s misquote of a pilot named Kenneth Arnold regarding a strange experience he had on June 24, 1947 – one similar to the St. Johns’ experience in 1896. Kenneth Arnold lived in Boise, Idaho, where he owned a business that made and installed fire control systems. Business must have been slow in the summer of 1947, because Arnold spent June 24 in his airplane, flying over the Washington Cascades. He was looking for a missing Marine airplane, hoping for a ten thousand dollar reward. At 2:50 p.m. he was flying east over the mountains toward Mount Adams, when he saw nine large metallic objects flying objects. These flying objects were about twenty-five miles away, at an elevation of ten thousand feet, traveling very, very fast. He noticed that they did not fly like ordinary aircraft (in straight lines), or make wide turns. Instead, they dipped and swerved, seeming to follow the mountain peaks from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams. Arnold started the stopwatch on his airplane control panel. Based on the distance between the two mountains (forty-five miles), and the time it took them to travel it, he estimated they were traveling at twelve hundred miles an hour. At first Arnold thought they were jet aircraft, even though their speed was far faster than that of the early jets in 1947. Once the strange aircraft vanished in the distance, Arnold continued his search, until he landed in Yakima, Washington. He reported the incident to the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and the next day flew to Pendleton, Oregon, where the press mobbed him. He gave several newspaper and radio interviews, describing the encounter. Before Arnold’s sighting, there had been earlier reports of similar objects (see Maury Island), and the press and U.S. Government always referred to these objects as Flying Disks – as did Arnold. |
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A few days after that, on July 8, another flying saucer was reported to have crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Newspapers contacted military officials, who denied that they were testing experimental jet aircraft in the Washington Cascades. The military in turn interviewed Kenneth Arnold as part of their own investigation. Their questions centered on other natural phenomena that could have been responsible for the objects. Someone suggested water drops on the airplane window. Arnold replied that he had wondered the same, but that when he rolled down his window, the objects were still there. Others suggested that he got the time wrong, or the distance, which would have given him the wrong speed. Skeptics believed that Arnold could have been fooled by mirages created by air inversions, or even reflections of his own airplane off the atmosphere. Later, someone suggested that he’d seen a swarm of meteors that flashed and burned out quickly. Despite these suggestions, the Air Force could not prove Arnold was mistaken. This investigation led them to form special investigation teams that eventually turned into Project Blue Book, a formalized government investigation of UFOs undertaken from 1952 to 1970. Eventually, Kenneth Arnold came to the attention of publisher Ray Palmer. Palmer published a variety of magazines on science and science fiction. He interviewed Arnold and published an article titled “The Truth about Flying Saucers” in the first edition of Fate magazine. Palmer also paid Arnold two hundred dollars to investigate the Maury Island Incident, which became another article in Fate. In 1952, Arnold and Palmer published a book about Arnold’s experiences entitled The Coming of the Saucers. The issue of whether UFOs are really flying craft from outer space is full of controversy, and much of this controversy (and even its central term!) has its beginnings in our home state. It is interesting to note that although skeptics do not believe that Kenneth Arnold saw flying machines from other worlds, none of them accuse him of deliberate fraud. Arnold’s honesty and openness led the way to open discussion of the phenomena. |