Famous UFO Sightings: The Kenneth Arnold Case
One famous UFO story involves a private pilot named, Kenneth Arnold. This story is one that most ufologists agree is one that really heightened the public awareness of UFOs in the skies. This report of “flying saucers” will go down in infamy and change forever, the life of Kenneth Arnold.
On a clear, bright sunny day on July 24th 1947, Kenneth Arnold was enjoying a leisurely flight near the mountain of Mt Rainer. There was soon some news that had come off the airwaves that there was a crashed U.S Marine Corps plane near Mt Rainer. There was a reward offered for the one who was able to find it and help. Well, with that he changed his planes to a search and rescue operation around the mountain.
After a couple, of hours searching the area he decided that the mountain had either swallowed the plane or it was not in this location. So, he turned the plane around to head back towards his destination of Yakima, Washington. All of a sudden while looking out the front pilot’s window he noticed a streak of light pass in front of his plane really quickly. He assumed it was another airplane searching for the U.S Marine Corps Flight that had just crashed. He was unable to locate the other airplane out the windows of the front of his plane.
Right then, about 30 seconds after noticing the first flash of light, Kenneth Arnold noticed a tremendous amount of flashes coming from the north side of the mountain. The reflections were coming from something in the skies that was flying with him. He noticed the objects and was greatly impressed by their size and metallic appearance. He was witnessing a total of 9 metallic saucers like shapes he Kenneth Arnold described them as “saucers skipping on water”. One of the ships that were leading the pack had a completely different appearance; it was more of a crescent moon shape. When the newspapers would get a hold of the story later they would coin the term “flying saucers.”
The object according to Mr. Arnold was estimated to be extremely large in diameter. Almost 100 ft across and the nine objects were stretched out over a v-shape pattern approximately 6 miles wide. They were demonstrating for Arnold an impressive speed that he knew no aircraft could achieve in his time.
Upon landing at his destination in Washington, Kenneth Arnold told his story. Of course, the story is pretty incredible, so it was thought that he was seeing things. A few days later a couple of military men had run into Arnold and were excited to tell him their story. They had been briefed that they”may see similar objects” as the ones being reported by Kenneth Arnold. The pilots had agreed, with Kenneth in also seeing these very real objects.
Soon that UFO report made news headlines around the world, and Kenneth Arnold becomes instantly famous with being the first person to see a UFO in human history. He made a promise to always carry a camera with him while flying anywhere in the future.
A few days after Arnold reported his sighting a similar sighting occurred in the same region. This only intensified the UFO reports. So what really happened in that plane on that sunny day in 1947? Was it a new military aircraft? A spaceship from a different world? Either way it will ignite the imaginations and infuse into popular culture the reality of the human race being visited by these strange aerial objects.
