Friedman and Jerome Clark. "Seventy years on, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting remains a mystery with the profoundest implications. Everything followed from it, and the answers remain as intriguingly out of reach today as they did on that memorable Tuesday afternoon in June 1947. The case deserves a full-length treatment, and nobody is more qualified to deliver it than Dr. Maccabee, whose searching, deeply informed treatment will be an essential contribution to serious UFO study."—Jerome Clark, author of The UFO Encyclopedia. "Having had a serious interest in flying saucers since 1958, I can safely say that almost everybody with such an interest has been aware of pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of 9 unusual high speed flying objects on June 24, 1947, near Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington. Thus it seems strange indeed that not until optical physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee wrote this book have we even come close to learning the entire story. This book tops them all. He has gathered and carefully evaluated every scrap of solid information about the Arnold case from books, interviews, Arnold’s statements, newspapers and broadcasts and concluded that the Arnold case clearly established that Earth is being visited by aliens and that we are not alone."—Stanton T. Friedman, Nuclear physicist, lecturer, ufologist

You will not find any conventional history book that even so much as mentions that on this  date the human race first became aware of a phenomenon that could well be the most important  discovery of the last century, or even in the history of mankind: the presence of "Other  Intelligences" (Non-Human Intelligence).  The important event of that date was the sighting, by  Kenneth Arnold, of a group of strange flying objects which eventually became known throughout  the world as flying saucers, Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs (English, German, Japanese,  etc.),  OVNIs (Spanish, French) or NLOs (Russian).

Since Kenneth Arnold’s story was publicized around the world over fifty years ago,  sightings of UFOs/OVNIs/saucers have affected the lives of thousands of people the world over.   So, why haven’t history books mentioned this very important event?   Because the subject of  flying saucers has been considered to be largely nonsense.  Even though no one has yet offered a  credible yet prosaic explanation for Arnold’s sighting, it has been tacitly assumed by the the  majority of the academic community, the community most likely to write history books, that  Arnold’s sighting, and the tens of thousands of others since his, have been explained in many  ways.

 This assumption by conventional historians is based on the fact that proposed explanations  for Arnold’s sighting, and for the other sightings, were widely publicized by the press,  skeptical scientists and the U.S. Air Force.  Historians, not having the necessary training in  physical and perceptual sciences, could not properly evaluate these explanations and therefore  assumed they were correct.  Basically, they simply quoted "authorities" and didn't attempt to  determine whether or not the authorities were accurate.  The failure of the Air Force or any  other government agency or group of people to provide for public evaluation some absolutely  conclusive proof such as “hard evidence” (pieces of a saucer, aliens, dead or alive) meant that  there was no compelling reason to question the explanations and so the explanations carried the  day.... and the day after that.... and the day after that.... More than fifty years later these  bogus explanations prevent June 24, 1947 from taking its rightful place in history.   It is my  intent in this paper to show how the explanations have failed.  In doing so I hope to justify  the inclusion of this day in future history books.

The newspaper reports compiled by Ted  Bloecher (reference 8) are known to be an underestimate of the true number of sightings, but at  least they give us an idea of what happened so long ago.  According to Bloecher there was  approximately one sighting every other day for the first half of the June.  These were scattered  over the midwest and western United States.   Then the sighting rate doubled to about 2 per day  until June 20.  Bloecher found 3 sightings for June 20, two for June 21, three on June 22, six  on June 23..... and then the explosion:   Bloecher found 20 reports on June 24!  These were  mostly in the far northwestern states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho.   Sightings were  scattered throughout the day from morning to night.  After the 24th the sighting rate stayed at  about 10 per day or higher, with sightings occurring not just in the west but throughout the  country.  In early July the sighting rate climbed beyond 20 per day to 88 sightings on July 4,  76 on July 5, 156 on July 6, 159 on July 7, and a whopping 189 on July 8.  After that it dropped  quickly back to 20 per day and then only a few per day.  By the end of July the sighting rate  was about one per day and by August it was down to several per week.  (Newspapers reported a few  sightings in other countries as well.)   

     What had happened?   Had the American people undergone a summertime “silly season?”   Was  there something in the air that made people see things that were not there?  If you looked at  the major national press for that period you would get the impression that the citizens of the  United States had been spooked by some odd phenomenon which had burst upon the country with  great speed and fury and had departed just as suddenly.  After the 1947 flap was over there was  no hard evidence - at least none available to the general public - to prove that any of the  reported objects were real, i.e., solid, metallic objects.  There were only stories and a few  disputed photos.  During the flap and afterward the U.S. government vehemently denied  responsibility for any sightings and furthermore the Army Air Force claimed that a search for  evidence of unusual flying craft had produced nothing.  By early July explanations were running  rampant and by late July the subject was being forgtten by all but the witnesses themselves....  and the Air Force and FBI. (Yes, the FBI did investigate sightings in 1947 and collected flying  saucer information for years afterward.  The “X files” are real! See ref. 12 and also elsewhere at this web siteCLICK HERE.)        During the first two weeks of the 1947 flap the press had a generally positive attitude  toward the sightings.   There was a feeling that something had really been seen and there were  two acceptable theories:  advanced U.S. aircraft or enemy (Soviet) aircraft.  But when the  government denied having any such aircraft, and when it became apparent that the Soviets would  be foolish to fly any advanced aircraft over the United States, the press became hostile to the  idea that saucers were real flying craft.  Instead saucer sightings were explained as delusions,  motes in the eye, reflections off distant aircraft, ice meteors(!), misidentified natural  phenomena and atmospheric effects such as mirages, hoaxes (of which there were a number) or just  plain tall stories by people wanting notoriety.  By the end of this period witnesses had been  embarrassed and worse, ridiculed, by the stories in the press.  New witnesses just decided to  shut up.  Even Mr. Arnold told the press that he would not report anything else he might see.       Of course, the subject of flying saucers did not die with the end of the flap.  It just  “went underground”...to pop up again and again in one form or another as sightings ebbed and  flowed through the years following 1947.  And, as students of the subject well know, the Air  Force did not forget the sightings.   For years there was a publicly known Air Force effort to  analyze sightings (projects called Sign, Grudge and Blue Book).  During Project Grudge the Air Force tackled Kenneth Arnold’s sighting.   The Air Force in December, 1949, publicly claimed to  have explained the sighting....but had not, as you will see.  Nevertheless, the claim was enough  to remove Arnold’s sighting from consideration by historians.  (Even some pro-UFO books have  suggested that Arnold saw a mirage.)  Therefore, the reasoning went something like this: if the  first major occurrence of a what appears to be a new phenomenon turns out to be faulty...then it  is probable that any other similar reports are also faulty.  And, by extending this logic to  many other sightings that the Air Force claimed were explained (but weren't explained!) the  whole subject was rejected by conventional science, the press and the history of the period.       However, as the following discussion shows, what was faulty was not the “first” sighting.    What was faulty was the reasoning which led to various incorrect explanations.    

THE ARNOLD STORY

THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION

      Summaries of Arnold's sighting report have been published in a number of books (references  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) including his own (ref. 10).  Unfortunately these books leave out some of the  details that must be known in order to properly evaluate (and reject!) the explanations that  have been proposed.  I, too, do not have space to reproduce his sighting report (ref. 11)  verbatim.  However, I will present most of the information so that the reader will have a good  understanding of what happened.         The Appendix contains a transcript of what was apparently the first radio interview of Mr.  Arnold.  This presents a very brief overview of the sighting as recalled the day afterward.   Although the information contained therein is not used in the following reconstruction of the  events, I present it here to show that his basic story had not changed over the weeks between  the sighting and his letter to the Air Force, in which he presented his most detailed  recollections of his sighting.

WHAT WAS HE DOING BEFORE THE SIGHTING?

      According to Mr. Arnold, at 2:00 PM, June 24, 1947 he took off from Chehalis, in the state  of Washington, in his small plane after completing a business trip (he sold and installed fire  fighting equipment).  He planned to spend about an hour searching for a lost C-46 Marine  transport plane that had crashed in the mountains west-southwest of Mt. Rainier.  (There was a  $5,000 reward for finding the plane.)  After searching for about an hour and not finding  anything he turned east toward his next destination, Yakima, Washington.  He was near Mineral,  Washington, about 22 miles west-southwest of Mt. Rainier and Yakima was about 80 miles ahead of  him along a flight path that would take him just about 12 miles south of peak of Mt. Rainier.   He levelled out onto his new flight path he was at approximately a 9,200 ft altitude.  His  sighting began within a minute or two of the turn.   Sentences and paragraphs taken from his Air  Force letter (ref. 11) are preceded by (L) and statements from his book (ref. 10) are preceded  by (B).  As you read the following story please keep in mind that this is history.  It actually  happened!

THE SIGHTING BEGINS

(L)"The air was so smooth that day that it was a real pleasure flying and, as most  pilots do, when the air is smooth and they are flying at a higher altitude, I trimmed out my  airplane in the direction of Yakima, which was almost directly east of my position and simply  sat in my plane observing the sky and terrain.  There was a DC-4 to the left and to the rear of  me approximately fifteen miles distance, and I should judge, at 14,000 ft. elevation. The sky  and air was as clear as crystal."

COMMENT:  The time was about 3:00 PM and the sun was just slightly to the southwest of being  directly overhead (azimuth 230 deg, elevation 60 deg.; this was only two days after the summer  solstice).  In what follows it is important to notice how Arnold's attention was first drawn to  the presence of strange flying objects because his initial observation rules out any explanation  that is based on things in the sky which are not shiny (reflective, like a mirror) such as, for  example, birds.  It also rules out atmospheric effects.  Also, keep in mind the general geometry  of this sighting.   The objects traveled almost due south along a path that took them just west  of Mt. Rainier.  Their travel path from about the location of Rainier to several miles south of  Rainier was essentially perpendicular to Arnold's eastward line of sight.  This was at the time  they were closest to Arnold.

(B) "It was during this search and while making a turn of 180 degrees over Mineral,  Washington, at approximately 9,200 ft altitude, that a tremendously bright flash lit up the  surfaces of my aircraft. "  (Note that in his book, written about 4 years after the event, he  puts the initial flash during the turn toward the east, whereas in the letter to the Air Force written several weeks afterward, see below, he indicates that he has completed the turn before  he saw the first flash.)  (L) "  I hadn't flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash of  light reflected on my airplane.  It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other  aircraft."    (B) "I spent the next twenty to thirty seconds urgently searching the sky all around - to  the sides and above and below me - in an attempt to determine where the flash of light had come  from.  The only actual plane I saw was a DC-4 far to my left and rear, apparently on its San  Francisco to Seattle run.  My momentary explanation to myself was that some lieutenant in a P-51  had given me a buzz job across my nose and that it was sun reflecting off his wings as he passed  that had caused the flash.  Before I had time to collect my thoughts or to find a close  aircraft, the flash happened again.  This time I caught the direction from which it had come.  I  observed, far to my left and to the north, a formation of very bright objects coming from the  vinicity of Mt. Baker, flying very close to the mountain tops and traveling at tremendous speed.    (L)  I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at  approximately 9,500 ft elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170  degrees.  

COMMENT:  Mt. Baker (altitude, 10,000 ft) is about 130 miles north of Mt. Rainier.  Arnold  indicates that they appeared to be "in the vicinity" of Mt. Baker.  However, it is more likely that they were in the approximate direction of Mt. Baker, but much closer than Mt. Baker. Even if the objects were not as far away as Mt. Baker the flashes must have been very bright to  be visible over a great distance.   (If the path of the objects as estimated by Arnold, 170  degrees azimuth, is projected northward from Mt. Rainier, his sighting line to Mt. Baker crosses  the projected path about 50 miles from his plane, which is a more likely distance for his  initial observation of the flashes.)  This suggests that the flashes were reflections of  sunlight from mirror-like (specular) surfaces, i.e., a polished metal surfaces.  Sunlight  flashes could be visible over distances as great as a hundred miles under clear atmospheric  conditions.  Anything less would be invisible over such a distance in the bright sky.  Since the  sun was at an elevation of about 60 deg, some portion of the object's surface must have been  momentarily at an angle of about 60 deg. to the horizontal in order to cause a reflected sun ray  to travel nearly horizontally in the atmosphere from the object to Arnold's plane.  Appendix 2  contains an analysis of the brightness of reflective objects seen under the daylight conditions  reported by Arnold.

DESCRIPTION AND TIMING THE FLIGHT BETWEEN POINTS

(B) "At first I couldn't make out their shapes as they were still at a distance of over a  hundred miles.  (Note: this was probably more like 50 miles.) I could see that the  formation was going to fly in front of me, as it was flying at approximately 170 degrees.  I  watched as these objects approached the snow border of Mt. Rainier, all the time thinking to  myself that I was observing a whole formation of jets.  In group count that I have used in  counting cattle and game from the air, they numbered nine.  They were flying diagonally in  echelon formation with a larger gap in their echelon between the first four and last five.  What  startled me most at this point was the fact that I could not find any tails on them.  I felt sure that, being jets, they had tails, but figured they must be camouflaged in some way so that  my eyesight could not perceive them.  I knew that the Air Force was very artful in the knowledge  and use of camouflage.  I observed the objects' outlines plainly as they flipped and flashed against the snow and also against the sky."  (L)"Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or  three of them every few seconds would dip or change course slightly, just enough for the sun to  strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane."  (B)"Since this formation of craft was at almost right angles to me and was traveling north to south I was in an excellent position to clock their speed. I determined to make an  attempt to do so.  (L) I had two definite points I could clock them by. (Note: by this he means  Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, about 47 miles to the south).  The air was so clear that it was very  easy to see the objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles  that day.  I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight day clock, which is  located on the instrument panel, read one minute to 3 PM as the first object of this formation  passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier.  "  "Now, clocking speeds by only your sweep second hand cannot be entirely accurate because several seconds could be lost in breaking your gaze to observer your clock.  I recall that  when the first craft of thie formation jettefd to the southward from the snow-based cleft of Mt.  Rainier my second hand was approaching the top of my hour dial and the time was within a few  seconds of one minute of three."  (L)"I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed airplanes  flying so close to the mountain tops, flying directly south to southeast down the hog's back of  a mountain range.  I would estimate their elevation could have varied a thousand feet one way or  the other up or down, but they were pretty much on the horizon to me which would indicate that  they were near the same elevation as me.  They flew like many times I have observed geese to fly  in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together.  They seemed to hold a  definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks.  I could quite  accurately determine their pathway due to the fact that there were several high peaks a little  this side of them as well as higher peaks on the other side of their pathway."

COMMENT:  These statements about how they flew with respect to the mountain peaks are very  important because they provide information on the distance from Mr. Arnold.  These mountain  peaks lie along a wide north-south line extending southward from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams.   These peaks were about 20 miles east of Arnold at the time.  These statements also provide the  altitude of the objects.  To Arnold they appeared to be approximately at his altitude because  they seemed to be "pretty much on the horizon to me."  Since he was flying at 9,200 ft, this  implies that they were close to that altitude.  (Arnold actually stated his letter that they  were at 9,500 ft.)  However, the mountain peaks south of Rainier generally are 5,000 to 7,000 ft  high, with the higher ones being farther away (more to the east) from Arnold.  Hence his  statement that there were higher peaks on the far side of the pathway indicates that the objects  were definitely lower than about 7,000 ft.  Furthermore, he stated that they went behind some  (or at least one) of the lower, closer peaks.  Geological survey maps show that mountain peaks  which the objects could have disappeared behind have altitudes of 5,000 to 6,000 ft. Hence it  appears that they were lower than 6,000 ft and that Arnold overestimated their altitude.  (There has been an argument that the only peak high enough to  block that path at 9,500 ft altitude is a peak jutting out from the southeast side of Mt. Rainier.  In order for the objects to pass behind this peak they would have had to pass behind the main peak of Rainier.  However, Arnold didn't indicate that they disappeared behind Rainier itself [see above and also a statement below.  Instead, he clearly said he could see then silhouetted against the snow of Mt. Rainier.   Hence Arnold's testimmony indicates that their path was west of Rainier.)       Is it reasonable to assume that he could have made an error of several thousand feet in  estimating their altitude?  The answer to this question lies in the fact that Arnold inferred  the altitude by observing that the objects appeared to be almost exactly on his horizon (i.e.,  level with his altitude).  But it is very difficult to determine the exact horizon from an  airplane.  In this case, the angle (the "depression angle") between exact horizontal and his  downward sighting line to the mountain peaks south of Mt. Rainier was very small.  The  depression angle from Arnold's plane at 9,200 ft altitude to the top of a 5,500 ft high mountain  at a distance of 20 miles (105,600 ft) was about 2 deg.  Such a small angle would be difficult  to detect from an airplane.  So the answer is yes, he could easily have made an error of 4,000  ft in estimating the altitude of the objects.  Perhaps if he had looked up the actual altitudes  of the mountain peaks south of Mt Rainier he would have revised his statement.  On the other  hand, if the objects had been at 9,500 or so feet they would have been clearly above the tops of the mountains south of Mt. Rainier and one wonders why Arnold would have said that they appeared to "swerve(d) in and out of the high mountain peaks." 

FORMATION AND “SKIPPING SAUCER” FLIGHT DYNAMICS

      While Arnold was timing the flight he observed the objects carefully.  According to his  letter, 

(L) "I observed these objects not only through the glass of my airplane but turned my  airplane sideways where I could open my window and observe them with a completely unobstructed  view. (Without sun glasses.)"   (B) "I was fascinated by this formation of aircraft.  They didn't fly like any aircraft I  had ever seen before.  In the first place their echelon formation was backward from that  practiced by our Air Force.  The elevation of the first craft was greater than that of the last.   They flew in a definite formation but erratically.  As I described them at the time their flight  was like speed boats on rough water or similar to the tail of a Chinese kite that I once saw  blowing in the wind.  Or maybe it would be best to describe their flight characteristics as very  similar to a formation of geese, in a rather diagonal chain-like line, as if they were linked  together.  As I put it to newsmen in Pendleton, Oregon, they flew like a saucer would if you  skipped it across the water."    "Another characteristic of these aircraft that made a tremendous impression on me was how  they fluttered and sailed, tipping their wings alternately and emitting those very bright blue- white flashes from their surfaces.  At the time I did not get the impression that the flashes  were emitted by them, but rather that it was the sun's reflection from the extremely highly  polished surface of their wings."  (L)"What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their  path was the fact that I couldn't make out any tail on them, and I am sure that any pilot would  justify more than a second look at such a plane.  The more I observed these objects the more  upset I became, as I am accustomed and familiar with most all objects flying whether I am close  to the ground or at higher altitude.  Even though two minutes seems like a very short time to  one on the ground, in the air in two minutes time a pilot can observe a great many things and  anything within his sight of vision probably as many as fifty or sixty times.  Of course, when  the sun reflected from one or two or three of these units, they appeared to be completely round;  but, I am making a drawing to the best of my ability, which I am including, as to the shape I  observed these objects to be as they passed the snow covered ridges as well as Mt. Rainier.  

(L)"When the objects were flying approximately straight and level, they were just a black  thin line and when they flipped was the only time I could get a judgement as to their size.   These objects were holding an almost constant elevation; they did not seem to be going up or  coming down, such as would be the case of artillery shells.  I am convinced in my own mind that  they were some type of airplane, even though they didn't conform with the many aspects of the  conventional types of planes I know."

 ******* COMMENT:  In his letter Arnold included a sketch which shows the leading edge being nearly a  semicircle, with short parallel sides and with the rear being a wide angle convex (protruding) V  shape that comes to a rounded point at the trailing edge.  (See also his recorded description in  the Appendix: half a pie pan with a convex triangle at the rear.)   He wrote on the sketch that  "they seemed longer than wide, their thickness was about 1/20th of their width."  His suggestion  that their width (or length) was about twenty times greater than their thickness may be an  exaggeration.  The sketch he drew of how they appeared "on edge" has the dimensions 4 mm wide by  45 mm long (approx.) which suggests a ratio closer to 1/11.  Although he did not mention it in  his letter, he later stated (e.g., in his book) that one of the objects had a somewhat different  shape.  His book shows an illustration in which the object has a semi-circular front edge and a  rear edge that consists of two concave edges that join at a rearward pointing cusp at the center  of the rear edge.  See below.

THE ANGULAR SIZE AND SPEED OF THE OBJECTS

(L)"I knew they must be very large to observe their shape at that distance, even on as  clear a day as it was that Tuesday.  In fact I compared a zeus fastener or cowling tool I had in  my pocket - holding it up on them and holding it up on the DC-4 - that I could observe at quite  a distance to my left, and they seemed smaller than the DC-4; but I should judge their span  would have been as wide as the furtherest engines on each side of the DC-4. "  (L)"I observed the chain of these objects passing another snow-covered ridge in between  Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, and as the first one was passing the south crest of this ridge the  last object was entering the northern crest of the ridge.  As I was flying in the direction of  this particular ridge, I measured it and found it to be approximately five miles so I could  safely assume that the chain of these saucer like objects were at least five miles long.  (B)"Even though they held a constant direction they swerved in and out of the high  mountain peaks which are found on the hogback of the Cascade mountains between Mount Rainier and  Mount Adams.  I determined my distance from their pathway to be in the vicinity of 23 miles  because I knew where I was and they revealed their true position by disappearing from my sight  momentarily behind a jagged peak that juts out from the base of Mt. Rainier proper.  Considering  that I was flying all this time in the direction of their formation, the determination can be  only approximate, but it is not too far off."  "Between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams there is a very high plateau with quite definite  north and south edges.  Part of this chain-like formation traveled above this plateau toward  Mount Adams, while part of the formation actually dipped below the near edge.  As the first unit  of these craft cleared the southernmost edge of this background, the last of the formation was  just entering the northern edge.  I later flew over this plateau in my plane and came to a close  approxinmation that this whole formation of craft, whatever they were, formed a chain in the  neighborhood of five miles long.  "As the last of this group of objects sped past and seemed to gather altitude at a point  beyond the southernmost crest of Mount Adams, I glanced at the sweep second hand of my  instrument clock.  As closely as I could determine , this strange formation of aircraft had  covered the distance between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams to the south in one minute and forty- two seconds."  (L)"As the last unit of this formation passed the southern most high snow covered crest of  Mt. Adams, I looked at my sweep second hand and it showed that they traveled the distance in one  minute and forty-two seconds.  Even at the time this timing did not upset me as I felt confident  after I would land there would be some explanation of what I saw.  I might add that my complete  observation of these objects, which I could even follow by their flashes as they passed Mt.  Adams, was around two and one-half or three minutes--although, by the time they reached Mt.  Adams they were out of my range of vision as far as determining shape or form.  "

COMMENT:  Arnold provided an estimate of size in an indirect way: he stated that they appeared  to be comparable to the spacing of the engines on a DC-4 (4 engine propellor driven, 117 ft  wingspan, 94 ft length, 27 ft height) which he had seen at a distance which he estimated as 15  miles.  He estimated the engine spacing to be 45 - 50 ft, although 60 ft would have been a  better estimate.  By this means he was essentially providing an angular size, measured front-to- back, for the objects:  the equivalent of about 50 (or 60) ft at 15 miles.  He reported the size  of the objects as 45 - 50 ft by comparison with the airplane as if the plane had been at the  same distance as the objects.  However, the plane was not at the same distance, so a correction  for the distance difference is necessary.  It is possible to make an estimate of the front-to-back size of the objects assuming his  estimate of the distance to the DC-4, 15 miles, was (approximately) correct.  Using the outer  engine spacing as about 60 ft, the angular size at his estimated distance is 60/(15 x 5280) =   0.00076 radians or about 2.6 minutes of arc (1 degree = 60 minutes = 0.0174 radians).   Projecting this angle to 20 miles, the rough distance of the objects, would yield a size of  about (20 x 5280 x 0.00075  =) 80 ft.  Had he overestimated the distance to the DC-4 (if it had  been less than 15 miles away) the calculated angular size, and hence the calculated object size  would increase.  If he underestimated the distance to the DC-4, then the calculated size of the  objects would decrease.  My own suspicion is that he overestimated the distance and that  therefore the objects were larger than 80 ft in length.  Unfortunately no investigator pursued  this size estimate at the time and with Arnold's death many years ago it is no longer possible  to improve the size estimate.       Using the dashboard clock in his airplane Arnold measured the time from when the first  object passed the side of Mt. Rainier until the last object passed Mt. Adams.  The distance from  the flank of Mt. Rainier to the peak of Mt. Adams is about 45 miles (depending upon where on the  side one picks as the starting point).  Since the length of the "chain" of objects was about 5  miles, the leading object was about 5 miles south of Mt. Adams when the last object passed Mt.  Adams.  Hence the total distance it (and the others) traveled was about 50 miles in 102 seconds.   This corresponds to a speed of about 1,760 mph.  (Arnold intentionally underestimated this  speed, saying that it was 1,200 mph or more, which was still faster than any aircraft of the  day.  Chuck Yaeger was the first person to "break" the "sound barrier" at about 700 mph in  October, 1947.)       Arnold estimated that he had the objects in view for a total of about 2.5 to 3 minutes.   During that time, if their speed was constant, they may have traveled a total of 80 to 90 miles,  starting from a location about 30 or 40 miles north of Mt. Rainier where Arnold first saw them  (not from the 100 mile distance near Mt. Baker, as Arnold had thought) to some distance south of  Mt. Adams, where they disappeared from view.  According to Arnold (B) this strange formation of aircraft seemed to "gather altitude", i.e., rise upward, as they passed Mt. Adams.  If true,  then they were clearly not falling to the earth (see meteor explanation below).         After this sighting Arnold considered continuing the search for the downed C-46, but

(B)"somehow the $5,000 (reward) didn't seem important.  I wanted to get on to Yakima and tell  some of the boys (other pilots) what I had seen."

ARNOLD REPORTS HIS SIGHTING

  When Arnold landed at Yakima, Washington, he told some of the people at the airport about  these amazing high speed aircraft.  

         (L)"When I landed at Yakima, Washington airport I described what I had seen to my very  good friend Al Baxter, who listened patiently and was very courteous but in a joking way didn't  believe me."

COMMENT: He then flew to Pendleton, Oregon on a business trip.  During that flight he did an  initial calculation of the speed of the craft.  He also recalled that one of the objects had  (B)"looked different from the rest, was darker and of a slightly different shape."  This was the   craft with the double crescent rear end illustrated above.  The discussion of his sighting  presumably would have ended in Yakima if it hadn't been for the fact that someone at the airport  contacted the press to report that some new, high speed aircraft had been sighted.  When Arnold  arrived at Pendelton he was surprised to find a number of reporters eager to learn about the new  aircraft.  Arnold told them about the sighting and his (under)estimated speed of 1,200 mph.  He  then described how they flew:  they wobbled and flipped, like saucers skipping on the water. 

  (L)"I did not accurately measure the distance between these two mountains (Note:  Rainier  and Adams) until I landed at Pendleton, Oregon, that same day where I told a number of pilot  friends of mine what I had observed and they did not scoff or laugh but suggested they might be  guided missiles or something new.  In fact several former Army pilots informed me that they had  been briefed before going into combat overseas that they might see objects of similar shape and  design as I described and assured me that I wasn't dreaming or going crazy.  .....A former Army  Air Forces pilot ...(told me)..."What you observed, I am convinced, is some type of jet or  rocket propelled ship that is in the process of being tested by our government or even it could  possibly be by some foreign government."

COMMENT: The reporter, hearing the description, used the description of the way they flew, as  saucers skipping across the water, and after several days the press condensed this into a name  which we have been stuck with ever since: FLYING SAUCERS.  

NOTE ON THE INITIAL PRESS INTEREST AND THE TERM FLYING SAUCER

  In 1988 Pierre Lagrange, a sociologist who lives in France, interviewed Bill Bequette, one  of the first reporters to interview Arnold.  In 1947, Bequette was a 28 year-old journalist,  working for the East Oregonian newspaper in Pendleton, Oregon in 1947.  He wrote the first  Associated Press dispatches and these news stories were the first indicators of the 1947 UFO  sighting flap.  Bequette said he first met Arnold the day after the sighting (i.e., June 25).   Quoting from Lagrange's interview, "Both Nolan Skiff and I were in the office, which was small,  when Mr. Arnold came in. As I remember, we both talked with him, listened to his story, told him  we didn't have a clue to what he had seen but would send the story to the Associated Press in  hopes some editor or newspaper reader might be able to explain the strange objects.  That first  meeting probably lasted no more than five minutes. Nolan jotted down a few notes, then wrote a  short story, which I squeezed into the bottom of page one. Then I punched an even shorter (as I  recall) version into the AP wire. We were only minutes from "putting the paper to bed" so we  didn't have much time to give him. "  It is important to note Bequette's statment that the initial stories on the new wires were  based on this very brief interview and the very brief description of the sightings.   The  brevity can explain why some important details did not make it into the initial published news  stories and why there is some confusion on details in the initial stories.  Of course, the press  rarely gets stories 100% correct weven when including all details.  Later, there was a more extensive interview: "When I returned to the office after lunch,  the receptionist's eyes were as big as saucers - the kind we use under coffee cups! She said  newspapers from all around the country and Canada had been calling. They wanted more details on  the "flying saucers." I spent the next two hours with Mr. Arnold in his hotel room. From that  interview I wrote a story about 40 column inches long. The story was telephoned to the AP Bureau  in Portland. Next morning, almost every newspaper in the country published the story on Page 1.  even after 40 years I feel some embarrassment over the original UFO story. My embarrassment is  because I failed to recognize what a big story Mr. Arnold brought into the office that day.   Bequette does not believe that he invented the term "flying saucer."  He told Lagrange, "I  don't remember whether or not Arnold used the words 'saucer-shaped craft.' I am inclined to  credit his version (that he only spoke of objects moving like a saucer if you skipped it across  the water), knowing the tendency of journalists to rephrase. I'm sure I didn't coin 'Flying  Saucers.' "   Bequette also formed an opinion about Arnold: "Mr. Arnold did not impress me then as a  person who 'saw things.' And Nolan Skiff also believed Mr. Arnold to be an honest and sincere  person who was genuinely puzzled by what he had seen that day. Arnold was most cooperative when  I went to his hotel room for a follow-up story. He seemed eager, as I remember, to answer all my questions as fully as possible. Arnold became the butt of many jokes, some of which were not  good-natured, in the ensuing days and weeks. "

EXPLANATIONS OFFERED FOR KENNETH ARNOLD'S SIGHTING

  The question now arises as whether or not Arnold's sighting could be explained as some  known, natural or man-made phenomenon or if the sighting could not be explained.  If it could  not be explained then did Arnold's sighting prove there were unexplainable objects, possibly  craft of non-human origin, flying around in our atmosphere?  In order to answer these questions  we must study potential explanations for the sighting, explanations based on known, if rare,  phenomena that obey conventional science and physics in particular.  During the summer of 1947, shortly after Arnold's sighting and during the massive wave of  sightings that occurred between late June and the middle of July, numerous explanations for the  sightings of Arnold and other withnesses were proposed.  The first explanation was that proposed  by Arnold himself, namely that saucers were some new secret aircraft of the United States Army  Air Force (the Air Force was still part of the Army).   However, very quickly (within days)  after Arnold's sighting the U.S. government publicly denied having any secret aircraft that  could account for saucer sightings.  This denial was also privately made to J. Edgar Hoover, the  Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by General George Schulgen of the Army Air  Force.  (The denial is in the FBI's file on flying discs, the "real X file." See ref. 12.)  On  the other hand, the Air Force began to be worried over the possibility that the Soviet Union had  developed flying saucers to threaten the United States, but this worry was not conveyed to the  public.  The Air Force also considered the possibility that saucer stories were generated by  Soviet sympathizers to make the American people think that the Air Force could not control the  skies over the USA.   Howard Blakeslee, the Associated Press Science Editor, wrote an article that suggested  "quirks of eyesight" could explain the saucer mystery.  He pointed out that anything looks round  if it is too far away to see details.  "This law covers small things seen nearby and large ones  at great distances."  He described his own sightings of "flying saucers" which were bright  reflections from distant aircraft.  "Planes at great distances tend to look round when light is  reflected from their sides," he wrote.   He rejected the daytime meteor hypothesis (see below)  and the hypothesis that upper altitude ice crystals formed "little round clouds."  According to  Blakeslee, "Nothing published in science or atomic studies gives the slightest clue to flying  saucers unless the objects are aircraft."   Although I cannot now cite the reference, it is this author's recollection that someone  claimed that flying saucers were actually "motes in the eye" which are small particles such as  blood cells which float in the fluid within each person's eyeball.  Motes are only visible when  they move to an area between the lens and the fovea; when they move out of this area they  "disappear."  These particles, when viewed against a bright sky, can appear to be dark objects  far away and thus may be mistaken for large objects at a great distance.  Of course, they move  whenever the eye does and this can impart "unearthly speeds" to the apparently distant, large  objects.  (Note: one can be temporarily fooled by motes, but a simple test is to turn the eye  and stare in another direction.  If the "object" moves with the eye, then it was a mote.)  Dan Nelson, an attorney in Oklahoma City, published his explanation in the "Daily  Oklahoman" newspaper, July 29, 1947.  On July 30 the FBI contacted him to learn more about his  solution to the mystery.  (Yes, the FBI did investigate sightings in 1947, so, in a small sense  the "X" files are real!)  According to Nelson all sightings from inside vehicles, including  airplanes, that had windows were reflections of sunlight from shiny objects onto the windows.   The light reflected from these shiny objects was then re-reflected toward the eye of the  observer who was looking through a window and could thus see the reflection silhouetted against  the background as if there were a shiny object "out there", far outside the vehicle.  Naturally  reflections such as this could do unnatural things such as pace a vehicle or suddenly  accelerate, make fast turns and even suddenly disappear.  According to Nelson, the vibration of  a car, for example, would give the objects "an appearance of rotating" and "reflections (in the  windows) caused them to appear flat or saucer shaped."  Moreover, "...any number of objects  might be seen according to the direction that the car is traveling and the number of bright  objects being reflected onto the window.  He further stated that these objects might be seen in  an ordinary window in a house according to the lighting conditions..."  Mr. Nelson told the FBI  that he had not actually talked to saucer witnesses but "he believed that these reflections plus  the excitement and hysteria caused by other reports has been the basis for most flying saucer  reports."  (Classic armchair theorist!!)  Obviously Nelson's explanation could not apply to  Arnold's sighting, since Arnold viewed the objects through the open window, but Nelson didn't  know that since Arnold's full report was not published until many years later.  Other explanations offered in the press for the numerous sightings reported in June and  July, 1947, included just about anything that could be seen in the sky such as clouds, birds,  kites, balloons, mirages and even "ice meteors."  Several years later the Air Force settled on  "mirage" as the explanation for Arnold's sighting.  Having read the previous material you may  wonder how the Air Force could justify that explanation.  The answer is not straightforward.    The Air Force intelligence officers who investigated the initial saucer reports in the  summer of 1947 and through the summer of 1948 treated all of the sightings, including Arnold's,  seriously.  This was, at least in part, a result of the fact that a number of Air Force pilots  reported seeing flying saucers.  Arnold's sighting was included as unexplained in the Top Secret  intelligence memorandum compiled by Air Force intelligence at the Pentagon during the late fall  of 1948 (ref. 3).  However, in the early fall of 1948 General Hoyt Vandenburg rejected the  conclusion, expressed by Air Force analysts in the "Estimate of the Situation," that saucers  were interplanetary vehicles (See ref. 4).  The analysts, who were the acknowledged experts in  analysis of foreign aerodynamic vehicles, then visited the general to argue their case, but he  told them something like this: "Sorry, wrong answer!" By rejecting the Estimate, Vandenburg  effectively established an Air Force policy that the “interplanetary hypothesis” was not to be  considered as an acceptable explanation for any sighting.  Another alternative, that the  Russians had made immense improvements on German aircraft developed during WWII and were flying  their new aircraft over the United States, was too much for the intelligence analysts to accept.   Therefore they were forced to come up with some conventional explanation for each sighting even  if there was no logical conventional explanation.  The "urge to explain" biased the sighting  analyses done during Projects Sign (1948-1949) Grudge (1949-1951) and Blue Book (1951 - 1969).   This sorry situation is described more fully, with numerous examples, in ref. 12.  [NOTE:  Captain Edward Ruppelt, who was the director of Project Blue Book from late 1951 to  early 1953, wrote that the Estimate was written by expert technical intelligence analysts at  Wright Patterson AFB who had concluded, in August, 1948, that "interplanetary" was the only  logical explanation.  They wrote the Estimate of the Situation and sometime in September sent it  to General Hoyt Vandenburg Chief of Staff of the Air Force.  He rejected the conclusion.]  During the early years of UFO sightings, explanations for Arnold's sighting were proposed  by two scientists with close connections to the Air Force project.  These skeptical scientists  were Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Dr. Donald Menzel.  Dr. Hynek, a professor at Ohio State University  and then at Northwestern University, was the astronomy consultant to the Air Force's UFO  projects starting with Project Sign in 1948 and continuing through the end of Project Blue Book  in 1969.  Although his specialty was astronomy he was asked to suggest explanations for all  types of sightings.  Dr. Menzel was an astrophysicist and director of the Harvard Observatory  during the same time period.  Dr. Hynek, who died in 1986, reversed his skeptical stance toward  UFO reports in the late 1960's and, in 1973, founded the Center for UFO Studies, headquartered  in Chicago, Illinois.  Dr. Menzel, who died in 1976, never retreated from his published opinion  that all sightings by credible observers could be explained, many as meteorological phenomena.   In 1948 Dr. Hynek (who was not aware of the Top Secret Air Intelligence Report (ref. 3))  was hired to analyze sightings and to decide which ones could be catagorized as misidentified  astronomical phenomena.  As a "side benefit" to the Air Force he also gave his opinion on the  other sightings, including Arnold's. (ref. 9)  Hynek began his analysis of the sighting by assuming that at least part of what Arnold  said was true: that Arnold could see the overall shape of the objects, that he could see them  edge-on, and that he thought their width was about twenty times greater than their thickness.   Hynek decided to try to calculate their size based on the basic visual capabilities of the human  eye.  He pointed out that the angular resolution of the human eye is typically about 3 minutes  of arc (1 minute of arc = 1/60 of a degree = 0.00029 radians = 0.29 mr, where mr is the  abbreviation for milliradians; the angular size of the moon is about 1/2 degree or about 30  minutes of arc or about  8.7 mr).  He then claimed that if the vertical angular size, i.e., the  apparent thickness, were substantially less than this, Arnold could not have seen the objects.   Hence, Hynek concluded that the thickness must have been at least 3 minutes of arc (about one  tenth of the apparent size of the moon).  Hynek calculated that this angular size corresponds to  a thickness of about 100 feet at the greatest distance estimated by Arnold, 25 miles.   Therefore, if Arnold's 20:1 ratio of length to thickness were correct, then the objects were  about about 2,000 ft long.  Dr. Hynek could not accept the idea that 2,000 ft long objects were  flying at high speed through the earth's atmosphere.  It was just too ridiculously large.       But, on the other hand, Arnold had not said that the objects were that large.   He had  estimated that the objects were the size of fighter aircraft with typical lengths of 40 to 50  ft.  One may imagine Hynek saying to himself, “Aha, a contradiction!  There must be an error in  Arnold’s estimates.”  Hynek calculated that if, indeed, they had been this short then they would  have been too small for Arnold to see any details.  Furthermore, if the 20:1 ratio were correct,  they would have been too thin to see edge-on if 25 miles away.  Thus Hynek noted an  inconsistency in Arnold's report:  if the objects' size and distance were as estimated by Arnold  he could not have seen any details of their shape because he could not have been seen them at  all!       Hynek decided to resolve the inconsistency by ignoring both Arnold's distance and size  estimates.  Instead, Hynek argued that if the objects were a more reasonable size, say, the size  of the largest known aircraft, roughly 400 ft long and 30 feet high, then they must have been  much closer to Arnold in order for them to be seen "edge on."  Hynek estimated their distance at  6 miles.  At this distance the aircraft could appear (from the position of Arnold's plane) to  travel past Mt. Rainier and then past Mt. Adams in 102 seconds if their speed were only about  400 mph.  Hynek concluded as follows: "in view of the above (calculations) it appears probable"  that Arnold saw "some sort of known aircraft."        As a result of Hynek's discussion of the discrepancy between Arnold's estimates of the  distance and size of the objects, the Air Force officers who wrote the final report of Project  Grudge in the spring of 1949 decided that "the entire report of this incident is replete with  inconsistencies and cannot bear even superficial examination." (ref. 9)       So, what about Hynek's argument that the objects would have been too thin to be visible,  based on his claim that the human eye can't see something smaller than 3 arc minutes in angular  size?  Does it make any sense at all?  The answer to this question is no, and it comes in two  parts.  First, the fact is that many people can "see" objects smaller than 3 arc minutes in  angular size, especially if they are larger than this in one dimension (e.g., like a long  cylinder, such as a long wire, viewed from the side).  The second part of the answer comes  directly from Arnold's report to the Air Force.  Although it would have been "nice" if Arnold  could have taken an eye test to provide Hynek with actual visual acuity data, the fact is that  some information in his report, information that Hynek ignored, provides us with a clue as to  Arnold's visual acuity.  He said he was able to see a DC-4 at 15 miles (estimated distance) and  he compared the spacing of the engines on the plane with the apparent size of the saucers.  With  its visible height of about 23 ft, the vertical angular size of the DC-4 at that distance was  about 0.00034 radians or about 1 arc minute.  (Even if Arnold overestimated the distance and it  was really 10 miles away then the vertical angular size would still have been less then 2 arc  minutes.)  Hence, by Hynek's criterion, Arnold should not have been able to see the DC-4, and  certainly he wouldn't have been able to see the engines and thereby to see the spacing of the  engines.  But Arnold said that he did see the airplane and its engines and Hynek did not dispute  that statement.  Therefore Hynek's objection...the "inconsistency"... must be rejected.         Had Dr. Hynek tested his hypothetical explanation - "known aircraft" -  against the  information in Arnold's report he might have rejected his own explanation.  To test Hynek's  explanation assume that the unknown objects were ordinary large aircraft six miles away and ask  the following question: why wasn't Arnold able to identify them, to see their engines, tails,  wings, etc., even though Arnold was able to identify another aircraft that was about 15 miles  away?  Evidently Hynek did not notice the inconsistency in his own analysis.  Had Hynek done  what skeptics usually fail to do, that is, to thoroughly test his suggested explanation against  the data, he would have seen that his hypothetical solution failed.       It is amusing to imagine what would have happened if Hynek had accepted Arnold's distance  estimate.  Then he would have been forced to accept the high velocity (about 1,700 mph), in  which case it is conceivable that the early history of the UFO subject would be different from  what actually occurred.  But instead, Hynek, for good scientific reasons, I presume, chose to  take the road more traveled by...to reject important parts of Arnold's sighting...and that has  made all the difference (with apologies to poet Robert Frost!).  The handwriting was on the  wall, but Hynek erased it.       Dr. Hynek's work was done secretly for the Air Force and his discussion of Arnold's  sighting was not published, although his conclusion was mentioned in the "Project Saucer" report  published by the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) on  April 27, 1949.  Few civilian scientists had access to Air Force files and so there was no  dispute of Hynek's analysis until Dr. Donald Menzel decided to write about Arnold's sighting in  his first book on UFOs, which was published in 1953 (ref. 5).  This was the first flying saucer  book by a scientist and, because of his stature in the field of astrophysics, it was treated  very seriously.  It received favorable reviews, although there were some atmospheric scientists  who questioned Menzel's use of weather phenomena to explain sightings.  Libraries and scientific  organizations throughout the United States and in other countries ordered the book and it became  an important reference for scientists in the following years.  In retrospect this is unfortunate  since, as I will demonstrate, Menzel did not provide accurate descriptions of some sightings and  he apparently slanted the data as necessary to make his explanations fit, beginning with  Arnold's sighting.         Menzel criticized the Air Force for accepting Hynek's suggestion that Arnold had seen  rather close aircraft.  He gave a brief description of Arnold's sighting and mentioned Arnold's  estimate of distance and total sighting duration (3 minutes).  Menzel wrote, "He clocked the  speed at about 1,200 miles an hour, although this figure seems inconsistent with the length of  time that he estimated them to be in view.  From his previous statement they could scarcely have  traveled more than 25 miles during the three minutes that he watched.  This gives about 500  miles an hour, which is still a figure large enough to be startling.."  Menzel did not tell the  reader that Arnold had timed the flight of the objects between two points.  Instead, Menzel  invented a travel distance of 25 miles, and implied that this distance was covered in 3 minutes  (180 seconds).  Hence he was able to assign a much lower, although "startling," speed of 500  mph.       Menzel went on to "solve" the mystery of Arnold's sighting:  "Although what Arnold saw has  remained a mystery until this day, I simply cannot understand why the simplest and most obvious  explanation of all has been overlooked.... the association of the saucers with the hogback (of  the mountain range south of Mt. Rainier).... serves to fix their distance and approximate size  and roughly confirms Arnold's estimate of the speed."  (Note that Menzel, unlike Hynek, accepted  Arnold's distance estimate).  Menzel then went on to suggest that Arnold saw "billowing blasts  of snow, ballooning up from the tops of the ridges" caused by highly turbulent air along the  mountain range.  According to Menzel, "These rapidly shifting, tilting clouds of snow would  reflect the sun like a mirror...and the rocking surfaces would make the chain sweep along  something like a wave, with only a momentary reflection from crest to crest."       This first explanation by a scientist with the reputation of Dr. Menzel may seem slightly  convincing, but only until one realizes that (a) snow cannot reflect light rays from the sun (60  deg elevation angle) into a horizontal direction toward Arnold's airplane and thereby create the  very bright flashes that Arnold reported in the same way that a polished metal surface or mirror  would, (b) there are no 1,200 mph or even 500 mph winds on the surface of the earth to transport  clouds of snow (fortunately!), (c) there are no winds that would carry clouds of snow all the  way from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams (Arnold saw the objects pass Mt. Adams before they were lost  to his view), (d) Arnold had traveled westward past the southern flank of Mt. Rainier minutes  before his sighting and then after the sighting he flew eastward past the southern flank; surely  his plane would have been strongly buffeted (and perhaps destroyed!) by such high winds, but he  reported, instead, very calm conditions.   Furthermore, even if such amazing atmospheric  phenomena had occurred, it is difficult to imagine how Arnold could have failed to realize that  he was just seeing snow blowing from the mountain tops, especially since he flew over the  mountains about 12 miles south of Mt. Rainier on his way east just a few minutes after the  sighting.       In case the first explanation wasn't sufficiently convincing, Menzel offered "another  possibility:"  he suggested that perhaps there was a thin layer of fog, haze or dust just above  or just below Arnold's altitude which was caused to move violently by air circulation and which  reflected the sunlight.  Menzel claimed that such layers can "reflect the sun in almost mirror  fashion."  Menzel offered no substantiation for this claim.  Perhaps he was thinking in terms of  a "reflection" from an atmospheric layer when the sun is so low on the horizon that the light  rays make a "grazing angle" with the layer.  If so, then that explanation as applied to the  Arnold sighting makes no sense since the sun was at an elevation of 60 degrees and southwest of  Arnold.  An atmospheric oscillation wave can't bend or reflect light over an angle of nearly 60  degrees, which would be necessary to make it appear as if the sun had been reflected by objects  nearly at Arnold's altitude.  Moreover, an atmospheric oscillation wave with a "phase velocity"  of 1,200 mph is unlikely, but in any case, when traveling southward its crests would be oriented  east-west, so if it reflected any sunlight at all (highly unlikely), the reflection would be in  the north-south direction and not westward toward Arnold's plane. Furthermore, layers form under  stable conditions and violent air circulation would tend to break them up so there would be no  "reflections" of sunlight.  Again, one wonders how Arnold could have failed to notice that he  was just seeing the effects of a haze layer.       Ten years after his first book, Dr. Menzel offered his third, fourth and fifth explanations  in his second book (ref. 6, written with Lyle Boyd): mountain top mirages, "orographic clouds"  and "wave clouds in motion".  To support the third explanation he presented a photograph of  mountain top mirages taken by a photographer many years earlier, and proposed by the  photographer, as the explanation for Arnold's sighting.  (This is the explanation which appears  in the files of Project Blue Book, the "official" Air Force explanation.  These files are can be   viewed on microfilm at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.) The mirages appear as  vague images above the tops of the mountains.  (Actually the mirage is an inverted image of the  top of the mountain.)  

These mirages can be seen under proper atmospheric conditions (requiring  a stable atmosphere) when the line of sight from the observer to the mountain top is tilted by  no more than one half of a degree above or below horizontal.  Unintentionally (or  intentionally?) Menzel failed to report in his book the following information in Arnold's  report: as they traveled southward he saw them silhouetted against the side of Mt. Rainier which  is 14,400 ft high, much higher than the altitude of the saucers.  Since mountain top mirages  occur above the mountain peaks these objects were far below any mirage of Mt. Rainier.  Of  course, mountain top mirages stay above the tops of the mountains, so the mirage theory cannot  explain the lateral high speed movement of the objects reported by Arnold.  Nor can a mirage  explain the brght flashes of light from the objects.         Menzel's fourth explanation was that Arnold saw orographic clouds which can assume circular  shapes and often form in the lees (i.e., downwind of) mountain peaks.  The clouds would, of  course, be large but, as Menzel notes in his book, they "appear to stand more or less  motionless."  The lack of motion, as well as the lack of bright reflections, rules them out so,  why did he even mention them?  Also, Arnold would have realized they were just clouds as he flew  past Mt. Rainier only minutes later.       Menzel's fifth explanation, wave clouds, is comparable to his first suggestion of  "billowing blasts" of snow except that this time he proposed clouds of water vapor instead of  snow.  In his second book this explanation was supported by a photograph of such a cloud taken  by a newspaper photographer.  However, this explanation, too, fails to account for the very  bright reflections reported by Arnold, for distinct semi-circular shapes and for the high  lateral speed.  Again, Arnold surely would have recognized a cloud as he flew past Mt. Rainier.       In his third and last UFO book (ref. 7; written with Dr. Ernst Taves in the early 1970's,  just before Menzel died), which is subtitled "The Definitive Explanation of the UFO  Phenomenon," Menzel again discussed Arnold's sighting and offered his sixth (and last)  explanation: Arnold saw water drops on the window of his aircraft.         To support this explanation Menzel described a sighting of his own that turned out to be  water drops that had condensed on the outside of the window of an aircraft in which he was  flying.  They moved slowly backwards from the front of the window.  They were so close to his  eyes as he looked out the window that they were out of focus and he thought they were distant  objects moving at a great speed until, after a few seconds, he refocused his eyes and discovered  what they were.  In comparing his "sighting" with Arnold's, Menzel writes: "I cannot, of course,  say definitely that what Arnold saw were merely raindrops on the window of this plane.  He would  doubtless insist that there was no rain at the altitude at which he was flying.  But many queer  things happen at different levels in the earth's atmosphere."       Although no one would argue with Menzel's claim that "queer things" happen at different  levels of the atmosphere, this fact is irrelevant.  Had Menzel bothered to carefully read  Arnold's letter to the Air Force he would have seen Arnold's statement that he turned his plane  sideways and viewed the objects through an open window to be sure that he was getting no  reflections from window glass.  (Fortunately Menzel did not propose water drops on Arnold's  eyes!)       The “bottom line” is that neither Hynek nor Menzel proposed reasonable explanations for  Arnold’s sighting, but that didn't stop the Air Force from accepting one of them (mirage).  In recent years further explanations have been proposed, most notably meteors and geese or  pelicans.  In June, 1997, just in time for the 50th anniversary of Arnold's sighting, San Francisco  Examiner writer Keay Davidson published the meteor explanation.  The details of the explanation  are given in a small monthly publication by Philip Klass which he calls the Skeptics UFO  Newsletter (SKUFON; issue #46 of July 1997).  (One wonders why it took 50 years for this  explanation to be proposed.  Could it be that previous skeptics considered this to be just too  "outrageous?")   Mr. Klass has been writing articles and books purporting to explain UFO  sightings for at least the last 30 years, yet he has not previously "explained" the Arnold  sighting. (His first book, UFOS IDENTIFIED was published in 1968.)   According to Mr. Klass writing in SKUFON the new explanation was published by Mr. Davidson  after some research that was "sparked by a conversation" with Mr. Klass.   The exact nature of  this conversation was not reported, but one may imagine Klass suggested that Davidson ought to  check on the possibility that Arnold saw meteors.   According to Klass, after some research  Davidson discovered that "the number of meteor falls reaches a peak around 3:00 PM," in June in  the northern hemisphere.  Arnold's sighting occurred at 3:00 PM, June 24, 1947.  Thus, according  to Klass' article, the large number of meteors detected in June lends support to the meteor  hypothesis.  (The astute reader will note the careful, "lawyerly" use of words:  "lends support  to" which is not the same as "proves" or "is evidence for.")  Klass' SKUFON article mentions Arnold's statement that the objects seemed bright and shiny  as if reflecting the sun.  By way of comparison and explanation Klass cites the 6:00 PM, June,  5, 1969 pilot sighting, which he claims turned out to be several meteors, in order to point out  that meteors, when seen in the daytime, can look as if they are shiny metal.  These pilots saw  the bright objects seeming to come toward them (i.e., they were looking along the trajectory of  the objects) and thought they were looking at shiny metallic objects.  The pilots thought the  objects were close, when in fact they were over a hundred miles away.   Klass also pointed out that pilots can make errors (as if we didn't know that!).  The  implication is that if the 1969 pilots could mistake daytime meteors for UFOS, then perhaps  Arnold did, also.  However, the Arnold sighting was quite different from the 1969 sighting.  Arnold reported seeing repeated bright flashes at varying time intervals from nine objects  traveling one after another, along a roughly horizontal trajectory.  Their altitude was  considerably lower than the top of Mt. Rainier, i.e. well under 14,000 ft (they were probably  about at 6,000 ft since they went "in and out" of mountain peaks south of Rainier).   He  realized that the flashes occurred as the objects tilted steeply to the left and right as they  flew along a southward path.   Arnold concluded that the flashes were a result of reflections of  light from the sun which was high in the sky to the west (behind him).  The objects flew  southward past Mt. Rainier and, when they weren't tilted, he saw them as thin dark lines  silhouetted against the snow on the sides of  Mt. Rainier.  When they were tilted but not  aligned with the sun so as to make a bright flash, he saw them as semi-circular at the front  with convex, somewhat pointed rear ends (one seemed to have a double concave crescent shape at  the rear).     By way of contrast, meteors which are traveling fast enough to appear to glow do not dim  to the point of being "not bright" and then brighten again.  This is because, as Klass correctly  points out, what causes the light is the high velocity of the meteor passing through atmosphere.   The meteor is traveling so fast  that it "instantaneously" heats the air as it passes through.    (Note:   Klass gives a meteor speed as 10,000 mph or 2.8 mi/sec.  However, this is lower than  that of any body entering the earths atmosphere from space.   Free fall to the earth from a  great distance would produce a speed of  about 7.4 mi/sec at the earth's surface in the absence  of atmosphere.   Orbital speed, which is lower than meteoric speed but still large enough to  cause a plasma in the upper atmosphere, is about 5 mi/sec.)   This heating is a very rapid  process caused by the meteor compressing the air ahead of it and raising the temperature  (kinetic energy of the air molecules) to the point where the air becomes ionized (a plasma).    In returning to the un-ionized state (free electrons reuniting with the atoms/molecules) the  atoms/molecules give off light which appears to envelop the meteor (one does not see the meteor  itself, but rather the envelope of heated air).   The natural tendency of a meteor is to slow  down as it meets with resistance while forcing itself at high speed through the atmosphere.  If  it slows to a speed low enough so that it no longer creates a plasma it will become dark  (not  giving off light) and will not again appear bright since there is no way for it to regain its  lost speed.   At the high altitudes of meteors (50 miles and up) the atmosphere is quite thin  and easily heated to the plasma state by the speed of the meteor.  Furthermore the air  resistance is quite low, so the meteor can travel a great distance before being slowed to "sub- plasma" speed.  However, as the altitude decreases the atmospheric density increases and it  takes ever more energy from the meteor to maintain a glowing plasma.   It is doubtful that any  meteor would be still glowing at an altitude of 10,000 ft, but if it were, it would be quite  large and eventually slowed to the point of hitting the earth.  The suggestion that one.. or  several... meteors could travel many miles horizontally at a speed high enough to glow while at  an altitude below 10,000 ft is not supported by any known physics of meteors.  Klass points out that Arnold estimated he saw the objects for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes.   This  included about 1/2 minute of time before they passed Mt. Rainier and another nearly 2 minutes  after they passed Rainier.   This would be "extra long" for a meteor (most burn out in a second  or so; large meteors called fireballs can last many seconds).   Hence Klass argues that Arnold's  time estimate was probably wrong.  He points out that  "witnesses are notoriously unreliable in  estimating the time duration of unexpected events" and cites the Mar. 3, 1968 reentry of the  Zond Soviet space rocket as an example in which witness errors resulted in sighting duration  estimates as low as 15 seconds and as high as 5 minutes.     There is an important difference between Klass' example of witness error and the Arnold  sighting:  Arnold used a clock!  Klass acknowledges that Arnold used his dashboard clock to time the passage of the objects  between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams but Klass does not mention the time duration reported by  Arnold.   Instead, he writes as follows:  "SUN questions whether Arnold...who was focusing his  attention on the unusual obejcts while also occupied flying his aircraft... would have taken his  eyes off the objects to carefully observe his cockpit clock."   In other words,  Klass questions  the accuracy of the witness' claims about his own actions.  If the actions seem illogical to  Klass, then the actions are suspect and, of course, any data resulting from the actions are  suspect.  So, why did Arnold do such an "illogical" thing as look at his dashboard clock as the  objects were disappearing?  Even though Klass used Arnold's letter to the Air Force as a  reference, he does not tell his readers that Arnold wrote that he intentionally measured the  speed:  "I had two definite points I could clock them by" (he was referring to Mt. Rainier and  Mt. Adams).  He reported that he could see the objects were flying southward so he looked at his  dashboard clock as the first object passed the south flank of Mt. Rainier.  He then watched the  objects as they continued southward.  During this time the objects passed over a ridge that is  about 5 miles long.  According to Arnold "the first one was passing the south crest of the  ridge" as the last one "was entering the northern crest."   Hence they covered a total distance  of about 5 miles.   By the time they were passing Mt. Adams they were so far away he could only  see their flashes.   At this point there was no reason to continue watching carefully because  they were fading out in the distance.   Therefore he wasn't missing anything by taking his eyes  off the objects to look at the clock.   The second hand on his clock showed that 102 seconds had  passed.   (Note:  he was able to pay attention to the objects even though flying the plane  because, as he reported, the atmosphere was calm and clear and there were no aircraft in his  vicinity; the closest aircraft was roughly 15 miles north and heading away from him.)    The calculated speed based on Arnold's measured time between Rainier and Adams is by  itself sufficient to reject the meteor explanation (is this why Klass did not report the  calculated speed?).  The objects traveled about 50 miles in 102 seconds, corresponding to a  speed of about 1,700 mph, far below any meteoric speed and certainly not enough to make the  atmosphere glow.     By way of comparison, if one were to hypothesize a meteor in a level trajectory traveling  at essentially orbital speed but at an altitude below 14,000 ft, it would have required roughly  9 - 10 seconds to travel from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams.   Even at Klass' underestimated speed of  10,000 mph the flight time between the peaks would be only about 17 seconds.   One would hope  that Arnold, using his dashboard clock, could tell the difference between  102 seconds and 10  (or 17) seconds.  Aside from the difficulty in imagining that Arnold could mistake 10 seconds for 102  seconds, the mere suggestion that a meteor, or nine such meteors, could travel at a meteoric  speed at an altitude of 6,000 ft while glowing brightly is far outside the accepted meteor  phenomenology.   As pointed out above, meteors cool as they penetrate the lower atmosphere, or  rather the speed decreases to the point that they are no longer ionizing the dense air.  Hence  the basic concept that Arnold saw bright meteors traveling past Mt. Rainier must be rejected.  More recently (1998-2000) some skeptics have proposed that Arnold saw a flight of white  geese or white pelicans heading southward at high altitude (about 9,000 ft).  These birds were proposed because they can fly quite rapidly, perhaps up to 50 miles per hour, they fly one after  another (often in a V shaped pattern), they "flutter" when they fly, and their white feathers  can appear bright against the sky (just how bright is never defined).  Of course they would have  had to have been quite close to Arnold for him to see them (80 ft objects at 20 miles subtend  the same angle as 4 ft long objects at 1 mile; this size refers to the length of the bodies of  the birds; the wings would have been seen nearly edge-on and so, although the wingspan might be  as much as 12 ft, this size would not have been seen broadside, but in a foreshortened  perspective).   According to the skeptics there are many reasons to prefer the pelican  explanation over the "otherworld craft" (TRUFO) explanation.  For some skeptics the choice of  pelicans is to be preferred even if that explanation makes no sense in the context of the  sighting.  Of course, these birds would not cause bright mirror-like reflections of the sun but the  skeptics ignored that "minor" detail or tried to imagine that Arnold incorrectly reported the  bright "flashing" of these objects (perhaps assuming that Arnold got it wrong or simply lied  about it).  (Note: the relative brightnesses of snow, birds and shiny, metallic reflectors are  discussed in Appendix 2.)  They also ignored Arnold's claim that he turned his plane, rolled  down his window (to view them without glass in the way) and flew parallel to the flight path of  the objects for a short time.  Because of the type of aircraft he was flying his speed would  definitely have been above a stall speed of 80 mph (Arnold said he was traveling over 100 mph  air speed).  By drawing a map, using a reasonable assumption about Arnold's flight path and and  a reasonable assumption about the path of hypothetical pelicans or geese, one can show that the  birds would never appear to pass Mt. Rainier and then, 100 or so seconds later,  appear to pass  Mt. Adams, from Arnold's (moving) perspective.  

          (Fred Johnson, resident of) First Avenue, Portland (Oregon), reported without  consulting any records that on June 24, 1947, while prospecting at a point in the Cascade  Mountains approximately five thousand feet from sea level, during the afternoon he noticed a  reflection, looked up, and saw a disc proceeding in a southeasterly direction.  Immediately upon  sighting this object he placed his telescope to his eye and observed the disc for approximately  forty-five to sixty seconds.  He remarked that it is possible for him to pick up an object at a  distance of ten miles with his telescope.  At the time the disc was sighted by Johnson it was  banking in the sun, and he observed five or six similar objects but only concentrated on one.   He related that they did not fly in any particular formation and that he would estimate their  height to be about one thousand feet from where he was standing.  He said the object was about  thirty feet in diameter and appeared to have a tail. It made no noise.              According to Johnson he remained in the vicinity of the Cascades for several days and  then returned to Portland and noted an article in the local paper which stated in effect that a  man in Boise, Idaho, had sighted a similar object but that authorities had disclaimed any  knowledge of such an object.  He said he communicated with the Army for the sole purpose of  attempting to add credence to the story furnished by the man in Boise.            Johnson also related that on the occasion of his sighting the objects on June 24, 1947  he had in his possession a combination compass and watch.  He noted particularly that  immediately before he sighted the disc the compass acted very peculiar, the hand waving from one  side to the other, but that this condition corrected itself immediately after the discs had  passed out of sight.            Informant appeared to be a very reliable individual who advised that he had been a  prospector in the states of Montana, Washington and Oregon for the past forty years.

  Mr. Johnson's letter to the Air Force indicates that he was in the right area at the right  time to see the objects which Arnold reported.  Johnson, like Arnold, reported that his  attention was attracted to them by a reflection, possibly a flash of light on the rocks he was  examining.  He reported only five or six, but it is likely that he missed seeing the others as  he concentrated on his telescopic view of a single one.  (Also, he was recalling the event  almost two months after it occurred, so he may well have forgotten some details, such as the  exact number of objects.)  He thought they were only about 1,000 ft above his altitude of about  5,000 ft.  Adding his estimated distance of the objects above him, 1,000 ft, to his estimated  altitude, 5,000 ft, yields an altitude for the UFOs, about 6,000 ft, which is consistent with  the altitude indicated by Arnold's claim that they were traveling "in and out" of the mountain  peaks south of Mt. Rainier.  On the other hand, Arnold also said that, from his point of view, the objects seemed to be climbing as they passed Mt. Adams.  He thought that they might even  have been a bit higher than Mt. Adams which is about 12,000 ft high.  Johnson claimed that he watched one disc for 45 to 60 seconds.  Assuming that they were  traveling at the speed calculated previously, about 1,700 mph, in 45 seconds they would travel  about 20 miles.  Although it may have been possible that Johnson could see the objects over a  distance of 20 miles from his location, it seems more likely that he saw them for less time.   However, even if it were only for 30 seconds with his telescope, we may assume that he was able  to discern many details that Arnold couldn't see, such as the point on the front and the "tail"  waving side to side "like a big magenet" in the rear.  (Here I presume Johnson is comparing it  with the magnetic needle in a compass which swings left and right before reaching equilibrium.)   He claimed that the objects were "round" and also "oval," thus generally agreeing with Arnold's  description of nearly round objects (certainly they they weren't square or triangular or T  shaped) and he estimated that they were 30 ft in diameter, a value that is smaller than Arnold's  estimate and smaller than the previously calculated value, suggesting that Johnson underestimated the size.  (If he underestimated the distance above him he could also be likely  to underestimate the size, since the size estimate is based on the angular size - the visually  "apparent" size - and the estimated distance.)  He also stated that the speed was "greater than  anything I ever saw", which is consistent with the speed calculated from Arnold's sighting.  He  heard no noise.  He observed that while the objects were in sight the needle of his compass  waved from side to side.  The waving stopped after the objects were out of sight.  The last statement in Johnson's letter provides important confirmation of Arnold's claim  that he was able to see flashes of sunlight reflected from the objects.  In the previous  discussion of Arnold's sighting I pointed out that for the objects to reflect sun toward Arnold  it would be necessary for some portion of each shiny object to tilt at least to an angle of  about 60 degrees.  The idea that the objects could tilt that much is supported by Johnson's  claim that when he last saw the objects they were "standing on edge" while "banking in a  cloud."   Aside from the apparent confirmation of Arnold's sighting, Johnson's sighting is unique as  being the first to include a report of a physical effect during sighting (the apparent effect on  the needle of his compass).  This observation has led to calculations of the assumed magnetic field strength needed to affect a compass in this way from a distance of 1,000 ft or more. The resulting field strengths are immense.  Dr. Hynek, in reviewing all the sightings for Project Grudge in 1949, did not offer an  explanation for this sighting.  Dr. Menzel, on the other hand, did claim to have explained it (ref. 5).  Menzel began his review of the sighting by pointing out that it occurred on the same  day as Arnold's.  However, he did not tell his readers that it took place at the same time in  the afternoon, nor did he mention that Johnson was near Mt. Adams at the time and thus in the  area where Arnold last saw the objects (flying past Mt. Adams).  Thus the reader of his book  would not have known, as Menzel probably did (Menzel had access to the Air Force files), that  Johnson said he saw the objects reported by Arnold!  Menzel accepted Johnson's sighting as real (i.e., not a hoax, not a delusion), but  explainable.  After pointing out that Johnson observed the objects through his telescope for  nearly a minute Menzel stated his explanation:  "The behavior of the saucers... is distinctive  enough to label them as probably a true sighting.  Bright reflections from patches of clouds  were the most likely cause."   One wonders how Menzel could seriously suggest that Johnson could fail to realize that the  objects were merely clouds after viewing them for many seconds through a telescope as they  traveled by rapidly and were last seen banking into a cloud.  Menzel also dismissed the wobbling compass effect, arguing that in his excitement Johnson  was not able to hold the compass steady.  This is essentially saying that Johnson, who had about  forty years of prospecting experience at the time, would not realize that the compass would  wobble if he didn't hold it steady.  The bottom line is that Menzel's explanation makes no sense at all.

ESTIMATE OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD OF A SAUCER

  (The following paragraphs outline a calculation of the magnetic field.  It becomes quite  technical and non-experts will probably want to skip it, noting only the final result stated  here: if Fred Johnson's compass was affected by a magnetic field of a "flying saucer" at a  distance of thousands of feet, then the magnetic field was positively huge, being equivalent to  having an electric current of tens of megamp-turns flowing in a loop 10 or more meters in  diameter.  Such large fields could be produced in a reasonable way by using superconducting  wire.)  Fred Johnson's observation of the wobbling compass can be used to estimate the strength of  the source of the magnetic field that would be needed to cause the wobbling, assuming that the wobbling was indeed a result of a magnetic field from the saucers being superimposed upon the natural field of the earth.  One can estimate the source strength in the following way.  Before  the saucers arrived the compass needle was being oriented by the earth's magnetic field of about  1/2 Gauss or 5E-5 Tesla (50,000 nT).  Assume that a time-varying magnetic field with a strength  roughly 1/5 of the earth's field, 1E-5 T, when superimposed on the earth's field but pointing in  a different direction (i.e., not pointing north) would cause the compass needle to wobble or  oscillate in direction. For simplicity also assume that the source of the magnetic field of a  "flying saucer" can be represented as an electric current of some strength (amperes) flowing in  a circle of some diameter, i.e., as a current dipole (a circular electric current or "current  loop").  In the following calculation we assume the diameter of the current loop was 9 m (30 ft;  Johnson's estimated size; this could be increased by a factor of 3, however, based on the size  estimate from the Arnold sighting of over 80 ft; see above).  The magnetic field was effectively  measured by Johnson's compass at some distance from the current loop.  Again for simplicity we  assume that at some time during the sighting a saucer location and orientation was such that the  compass was on the axis of the loop and at a distance of about 300 m (1,000 ft; Johnson's  estimated distance; this could have been several thousand feet if, as Arnold thought, the  objects were about as high as the top of Mt. Adams when they passed Mt. Adams).  Since 300 m is  much greater than the radius, R = 4.5 m, the equation for the field of a circular current loop,   as measured at a distance z along the axis of the loop (z = 0 at the center of the loop), B(z) =  2Bo/(z^2 + R^2)^(3/2), can be approximated as B(z) = 2 Bo/z^3, where Bo is the characteristic  strength of the field at the center of the loop.  Inverting this equation and solving Bo = (1/2) B(z)z^3 with B(z = 300) = 1E-5T and z = 300 m yields Bo = 135 T-m^3.  Bo is the product of the  current times the loop area time 1E-7: Bo = 1E-7IA, where, for R = 4.5 m,  A = 63.6 m^2.  Hence  the needed current is 135 x 1E7/63.6 = 2.1E7 amperes or 21 megamps (the source strength is  1.35E9 amp-m^2).  The field strength at the center of the loop (z = 0, R = 4.5 m) would be about  3 T.    There are considerable engineering consequences of having this size magnetic field.  The  loop current required does not have to come from a single "turn" of the current around the  saucer.   Since the magnetic field depends upon the summation of fields from currents  circulating around the loop, one can reduce the needed current by increasing the number of times  it passes around the loop.  For example, a 21 megamp single loop current is equivalent to 21  amperes if it makes 1 million passes around the loop.  That is, an electric coil with a million  turns of wire and 21 amperes flowing through it should be equivalent, magnetically, to a single  turn carrying 21 megamps. Of course, a million turns around a 9 m diameter loop is a length of  about 28 megameters.  Using silver wire 1 mm in diameter with a resistance of about 0.02  ohms/meter would result in a coil resistance of about 2E4 ohms and require a voltage of 2E4 ohms  x 21 amps = 420,000 volts.  The power dissipated would be 21 x 420,000 = 8.8 megawatts.  This  would require a considerable cooling mechanism to keep the wires from melting and to radiate the   thermal power away from the saucer.  A much better way to explain the large field calculated  above (other than the to assume the presence of monopolar magnetic sources on the saucer) is to  assume that superconducting (zero or near zero resistance) wire is used to wind the current  loops.      If the saucers were 3 times larger (30 m or about 100 ft in diameter) and 3 times farther  (at a distance of 1,000 m or about 3,000 ft), Bo would be 27 times larger (for the same field  strength at the compass, because of the cubic variation with distance) but the current would be  only 3 times larger (because the loop area varies as R^2).   Of course, these very simplified  calculations probably do not provide us with the actual effective source strength of the  saucers, but they do demonstrate that the fields would have been extremely large to have  affected Johnson's compass from a distance of 300 m or more.   ........................................................................................  Fred Johnson's sighting holds a unique place in the history of the Air Force  investigation.  Although, as I have stated, after the early fall of 1948 the Air Force investigators were  under pressure to provide conventional explanations for all sightings because "interplanetary"  was not an option, the fact is that some sightings resisted explanation.   By the time Project  Blue Book closed in 1969 the Air Force analysts at the Air Technical Intelligence Center at  Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, had collected a total of about 13,000 sightings  (1947-1969).  Of these about 700 were left unexplained.  Fred Johnson's unique place in history  is based on the fact that his sighting is the first unexplained sighting!  But, you may ask, why isn't Arnold's sighting first, if Johnson saw the same things  minutes (or less) after Arnold, and Johnson's sighting is unexplained?  The answer is that due  to sloppy record keeping and analysis (or by intent?) these two sightings were effectively  separated (recall that Hynek did not know that Johnson's sighting occurred immediately after  Arnold's) and hence one could not support the other.   Then, when Arnold's sighting was  determined by Hynek to be "replete with inconsistencies" it lost its credibility and was  therefore explainable (as a mirage).       (Note: the Air Force has explained its failure to identify the 700 or so unexplained  sightings as follows:  there was not enough information to allow a positive identification.  In  other words, the Air Force says, "If we had had more information we could have identified these,  too."    Although this may seem like a reasonable explanation, the fact is that the unidentified  sightings were the ones with TOO MUCH information, information that contradicted all known  explanations.  Johnson's sighting is a good example of this.   If he had just said "I saw some  strange objects fly over.   I don’t know what they were," and left it at that, any reasonable  explanation would be acceptable.  Instead, he provided specific details.  He described high  speed, large angle tilting during flight, unusual semi-circular shape, tail wobbling back and  forth, lack of noise and the apparent magnetic effect on his compass.  What conventional  aircraft or phenomenon had these characteristics in June, 1947?  Answer: none.  To explain this  sighting one has to reject almost the complete description.  No wonder it was left unexplained.) ___________________________________________________________

CONCLUSION

  Fifty years later it is clear that Kenneth Arnold’s (and Fred Johnson's) sighting  contained sufficient information to demonstrate that strange objects, which were not man-made  aircraft, were flying around in the atmosphere.  Therefore it is a tribute to the effectiveness  of the (yes, I’ll say it) propaganda put forth by the government and military, and widely  promulgated by the press, the propaganda that all sightings have been or could be explained,  that society in general has not accepted the idea that at least some reported UFOs/saucers are  real, physical "hardware" objects of odd, non-aerodynamic shape and extreme dynamical  capabilities.   It is resoundingly not a tribute to science that Dr. Menzel's reputation such weight with  the scientific community that scarcely anyone analyzed his atmospheric explanations to see if  they made any sense.  (I am aware of only one review of his book that criticized Menzel's appeal to various rare atmospheric phenomena to explain all the sightings.)  Instead his book  was complemented for bringing a measure of sanity to the field of flying saucer research.  Hynek’s and Menzel’s “explanations”  helped to establish the TRADITION which we live under  today, that flying saucers/ufos, are all mistakes or hoaxes or delusions and certainly nothing  to worry about.  This TRADITION has a very important impact on present society... (so important  that you could write a song about it, and have portly gentleman dancing around singing TRA-DI- TION....!)  However, careful analyses of sightings such as these by Kenneth Arnold and Fred Johnson  show that this tradition is like a house of cards built on sand... .... and it is crumbling.   

Arnold's 'second sighting' is detailed in his 1952 book, 'The Coming of the Saucers' and so far as I'm aware - I would be interested to know otherwise - it was Arnold's first public disclosure of the incident. Arnold wrote: 

It was on the morning of July 29, 1947 that I took off from a private cow pasture near my home. [...]

It was a perfect day to fly. The air was sharp, moist, clear as crystal and smooth as silk. There is something of a real thrill in flying on a day like that. [...]

Within an hour I was over Baker, Oregon. [...] I began to let down over North Powder, Oregon in preparation to land at La Grande when I noticed above me and about ten miles to the right the Empire Airline's old Boeing, also coming in to land at La Grande. There is something about having company in the air that always seems pleasant and friendly. I rocked my wings at him in a gesture of hello and continued my let down until I was directly over Union, Oregon at 5,000 feet. I recall looking at my instrument clock which read about five minutes to seven. As I looked up from my instrument panel and straight ahead over the La Grande valley, I saw a cluster of about twenty to twenty-five brass coloured objects that looked like ducks. They were coming at me head on and at what seemed a terrific rate of speed. I grabbed my camera and started rolling out film.

Even though I thought they were ducks when I first saw them, I wasn't taking any chances. The sun was at my back and to my right. These objects were coming into the sun. I wasn't sighting through the viewfinder on my camera but was sighting along the side of it. As the group of objects came within 400 yards of me they veered sharply away from me and to their right, gaining altitude as they did so and fluttering and flashing a dull amber color. I was a little bit shocked and exited when I realized they had the same flight characteristics of the large objects that I had observed on June 24. These appeared to be round, rather rough on top, and to have a dark or a light spot on top of each one. I couldn't be absolutely positive of this because it all happened so suddenly. I attempted to make a turn and follow them but they disappeared to the east at a speed far in excess of my airplane. I knew they were not ducks because ducks don't fly that fast. [...]

I heard later that several farmers in the vicinity of Union had observed what they thought a peculiar cluster of birds that same morning. I did not know of this until much later. Actually, they flew in a cluster more like blackbirds than ducks but each one was larger than a duck. I should judge some twenty-four to thirty inches in diameter. They rather wheeled on edge, flipping as they went as efficiently as when they were flat in reference to the surface of the ground. That morning I was pretty disappointed that no one around the airfield had seen them, to my knowledge.

[END OF EXTRACT]

Oregon UFO distorts air crossing property at four feet

An Oregon witness at Lebanon reported watching a fast-moving object crossing his property just four feet off of the ground that created a water-like distortion in the air, according to testimony in Case 77679 from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.

The witness hesitated to report the event

“I have been reluctant to report this because of my own core beliefs, however, one of my friends encouraged me to do so anyway. I have a home observatory (a Meade 12-inch LX200) and do a lot of observing and hunting for NEOs. I have yet to see anything unexplainable either here or on top of Mauna Kea. Having said that, the event my wife and I witnessed not only frightened us, but left us with profound curiosity as to its origin. The distortion in the air between us looked as if we were looking through water. The noise was subtle, but unlike anything we have ever heard. I own guns and know a ricochet when I hear one. Am I alone in this?”

I guess this will send faster than I thought since my image-browser program (Photo Mechanic) automatically converted it to a JPG, so it’s only 1.9 MBs. No big deal. If you want the original RAW image, it’s more like 21 MBs or something (closer to the email-size limit for many programs, after which, a file transfer service maybe could be used).

Photo was taken from 46.959051, -121.680257 (about 7 miles NNE of Mount Rainier) looking SSW at the mountain. This high elevation meadow is at about 5,400 feet elevation or so. Again, the photo was taken at 2:34 AM on June 1st (early morning of Wed morning, June 1st). I used a 13-second exposure, 24 mm lens with the aperture at 1.6.

So the situation was that I hiked up here Tuesday for the sole purpose (mainly) to capture a Milky Way time lapse shot over Rainier. The plan was to be there Tues, Wed, Thur (3 days, 2 nights), but sour weather made me leave Wed night.

(I am using rough times and approximate events just to sketch out what happened without looking up every last minutia of detail to give you an idea, but precise details of earlier shots could be provided though probably not important.)

I started my first best-attempt at the time lapse sometime earlier in the night and drifted off to sleep. I awoke to see the camera still clicking away, showing blurred images in its LCD display (whatever you call it). Bummer. I was caused from dew. I brought the camera and tripod in the tent and wiped the down to remove the moisture from all the hardware. Now, sometime after 2 AM (after my failed-time-lapse-which-became-blurred attempt due to dew), I pondered restarting with, perhaps, the camera and tripod setting just inside the tent to thwart further dew. But I was tired and not committed. Then I remembered a couple of the mountain climbers I had seen and chatted with them at the Rainier permit office on Tue morning. They told me the route they would be taking up and I could see headlamps from climbers making the ascent so I thought should make another effort in case we hook up later (by some off chance, even though I had no name or contact info.) and see if I could make a time lapse of their headlamps crawling up the mountain. However, the camera, on “manual focus”, obviously got moved out of focus a bit as I had earlier dried off the dew. These late night focus attempts require (for me), my reading glasses plus, possibly, a magnifying glass all of which I had, but I was tired and not motivated. So I just risked that it was still in focus. From the image, you can see it is not super crisp as it should be. But it was not terrible. You can get the idea.

The image taken before the one being sent to you was taken about 21 minutes earlier and it was super fogged from dew. Mars and a few stars are visible. There was nothing interesting. It was a terrible shot. That was around 2:13 AM. Then I dried off the lens and started a new time lapse and the shot being sent is the first shot of the next pseudo time lapse effort taking about 57 shots. I kept interrupting and readjusting levelness of camera, etc. and gave up at about 2:56 AM and went to sleep. But it was only the first shot of those 57 shots that had anything.

So, to discuss the weirdness of the shot: You see Mars over Rainier. To the right of Mars, from the right edge of the photo, looks like a blip of light, followed by a short-line trail to a second blip of light, followed by a long straight trail going just past Mars and then doing a sharp 90-degree turn or something to Mars and ending in a blip of light at Mars. (I am just guessing it traveled from right to left, but have no way of knowing since I didn’t see it when it happened. I wasn’t paying attention.)

So that’s weird. Is it well behind the mountain? Maybe. Planes usually have red and white lights that blink at 1-second intervals (for a 13-second shot, would leave 13 red-white-dot patterns across the line). A military jet? Maybe. At 2:34 AM? Maybe. I didn’t hear or pay attention to any noise. Come to think of it, and this might be a very good explanation: The Joint Base Lewis McChord military airfield is around 47.142318, -122.485446 (about 40 miles west of me). And it might be reasonable for them to have something flying around there (without the normal red-white blinking lights at 1-sec. intervals).

Anyway, a curiosity. Sounds like the previous poster was looking straight up (and not due north towards Rainier, or south, or whatever). His/her description is obviously a bit different. There was no red or orange dot in my photos.

Note: The photo was taken with a 13 second exposure. This means that the streak noted in the photo occurred in 13 seconds. The photo was confusing to interpret until the contrast was adjusted. The streaking near the planet Mars gave the object a meteor or comet like appearance. Given the streaking and change in direction I don’t have an identification for this sighting. The witness presents a good argument that the light was not a standard aircraft flashing light. As stated you should see 13 dots if this was the case. The witness is comparing his sighting to a sighting of Reddish Orange dots on May 30, 2016 in Vancouver, Washington.

Aliens, Anomalies, and Absurdity at Mt. Adams

"Hey," yelled James Gilliland, pointing at the horizon. "There's something hovering there, just above the mountain."

There was a flurry of excitement and several UFO watchers hurried over to look. Gilliland pointed at a small prick of light.

"And it's flashing us!" he yelled.

About thirty of us were gathered at Gilliland's "Sattva Sanctuary," at the foot of Mt. Adams, in hopes of seeing something out there. We'd come to Trout Lake, high in the mountains of Southwest Washington, from Portland, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Canada to look for some sign that maybe we're not alone, and that our little blue-green planet might be worth a visit after all.

Many of those gathered at the Sanctuary were already convinced and only needed evidence. Others were less sure, but couldn't resist Gilliland's claims of seeing UFOs night after night--thousands of them over the past seven years.

Before we came outside for the sky watch, Gilliland had primed us with videos: A collage of jerking, grainy white dots against a dark screen, allegedly zigzagging across the sky, landing, morphing, and so on. The dots trailed across the black background, while Gilliland and his friends yelled like kids at the racetrack.

"Holy shit, man!"

"Boy, he really turned on the afterburners!"

Like frat boys at a strip club.

"Whoa, check it out, man!"

"Aw, yeah baby!"

The audience was impressed.

"That's the cheapest camera you can buy," Gilliland told us, bragging, "and we've totally outgunned NASA and SETI (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Totally outgunned them!"

The standards for peer review in ufology aren't as high as, say, astrophysics, but the videos were proof enough for most people at the sky watch. I could feel myself getting caught up in the excitement because in spite of myself--and in of spite the lack of actual evidence--I've always liked the idea of UFOs, the idea that our planet isn't the only spot in the universe where matter can look at itself and laugh and make art. The idea that we're not alone is so alluring and ridiculous and terrifying that my heart jumped when Gilliland said something was hovering over the mountain.

Squinting, I watched for the small white light to flash us. Every once in a while, it seemed to get brighter, then darker, and the colors changed a little. But on the whole it appeared to be doing what most scientists call "twinkling."

Still, everyone was enthusiastic. Mt. Adams was descending into darkness, and the night air was cold. So far there had been a few satellites and airplanes, but this "flashing" was our best prospect yet. We waited for it to power up and shoot across the sky at 11,000 mph. But it kept moving slowly, like a little star.

I went over to look through a ten-inch telescope that had been set up. Through it, the object looked like a slightly bigger star.

"That is not a star," said David, a big man with a wild mane of hair and some wild ideas about spontaneous human combustion. "That is a UFO masquerading as a star. It looks like a star, but I assure you, that's a UFO."

THE NUTTY NORTHWEST

The Pacific Northwest has long been a place of extraterrestrial interest and has been the locale for some seminal events in UFO history. One of the first and (allegedly) most authentic UFO photos was taken by a farmer in McMinnville. In the 1970s, Marshall Applewhite, the future leader of "Heaven's Gate," passed through Waldport, Oregon and convinced 20 people to sell all their possessions and follow him into space. They went to Colorado instead.

But the most famous of these events took place on June 24, 1947, when Pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying over the Cascades and saw a chain of nine "peculiar looking aircraft" flying "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water." He timed them going between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams in 102 seconds--more than twice the speed of sound and faster than any known aircraft. That same day there were a rash of sightings over Oregon and Washington. And just 10 days earlier, a man in New Mexico had stumbled across some odd wreckage on his ranch outside Roswell.

Arnold's sighting inaugurated the era of the flying saucer and, since then, UFOs have sunk deep roots into our culture. Despite the best scientific efforts to dismiss them as swamp gas, ball lightning, mass hallucinations, or wishful thinking, the idea is too powerful. According to the Mutual UFO Network, over 70,000 sightings are reported worldwide every year. (China alone has 400,000 subscribers to the Journal of UFO Research.)

What's more interesting is that not all those interested in alien crafts are flaming nutcases. In 1998, Peter Sturrock, a professor of space science and astrophysics at Stanford University, led a panel of international scientists that concluded UFOs needed further official study. In 1999, the French Government commissioned a study called "UFOs and Defense: What must we be prepared for?" which said the physical reality of unknown aircraft under the control of intelligent beings is "quasi-certain." And most recently, a group led by ufologist Steven Greer (called "The Disclosure Project") claimed to have 450 ex-military and industrial officials hankering to tell Congress about their covert dealings with UFOs and the little gray men who drive them.

A MIGRANE, OR ALIENS?

Outside at the Sanctuary, it was getting colder and getting late. A few people had gotten excited by what was clearly a satellite. But otherwise it had been quiet, and we'd seen nothing but a sky full of endless suns.

A guy named Mike came over and introduced himself. He looked around and confided that he thought James Gilliland's twinkling light was Venus.

"Yeah," I said, "and James says ETs from the Pleiades have a base under the mountain."

"That's true," said Mike, and after a furtive pause, he went on. "The only other person in contact with the Pleiadians is this guy named Billy Meier." He started telling me about Meier, a one-armed Swiss guy who rode his moped out to take photos of the Pleiadian ships. But Mike's rambling got more frantic as he talked about ancient cuneiform references to UFOs, and how Venus wasn't an original planet, but had come into orbit around 8,000 B.C., and how it caused all kinds of havoc on earth, just when Moses was crossing the Red Sea.

"and this crap about Moses banging his stick and parting the sea, that's bullshit, because all hell was breaking loose everywhere. It's been fully documented"

Mike was so excited by these revelations he sputtered out of control. After about ten minutes, getting abducted started to look pretty good.

This must have registered because, as abruptly as he started, Mike stopped and said, "Well, I'm just a guest here," and walked off.

The night was getting long and the end of Mike's speech seemed like a good cue to leave. But just then, Gilliland pointed straight up. He was getting the pressure in his head that meant the aliens were near.

He pointed at a stationary light flashing at odd intervals. It was as bright as the stars around it, but would disappear completely and reappear in the same place.

An unidentified flashing object.

That would be the closest encounter of any kind for the night.

THE INTERDIMESIONAL MIND

James Gilliland was once a successful California real estate salesman, deep in the material world, with few mystical inclinations. But that changed one day when he went body surfing and got swallowed by a sneaker wave.

In the time before he woke up puking on the beach, Gilliland says he shot through a dark tunnel to meet what he calls, "the source." It gave him a choice: go on or come back. He chose the latter, but when he returned he found he had changed. He didn't really care about real estate any more; he'd become a spiritual seeker.

"It blew me wide open," Gilliland says of his near-death experience. "It shifted me up into what I call the inter-dimensional mind."

It also shifted him up to Santa Cruz, where he opened a meditation center and lived for six years until he started to have visions of a place surrounded by mountains. In 1986, he happened to come to Trout Lake, Washington. When he saw Mt. Adams he knew instantly that it was the place of his dreams.

Gilliland bought some land and started the Sattva Sanctuary, which he thought was going to be a retreat for spiritual healing. For eight years that's what it was, until one day while meditating in his home, he heard a voice in his head that said it was coming "from a ship."

When Gilliland quit his meditation, his sister ran inside shouting about a UFO hovering over the house.

INTERSTELLAR ENVIRO-MARXISTS

The theories Gilliland's developed since then are intricate and hard to follow--a blend of science fiction and new age, but with a message underneath that is deeply humanistic.

"It's real simple," Gilliland says with an air of nonchalance. "Basically, their message is to stop warring on each other and to stop warring on the planet to be kind to each other and the planet, because we're headed for major environmental collapse.

"And they've also expressed deep concern about the leadership of the planet. They've made it very clear: You're being led by the oil industry and the war industry."

Who exactly are these interstellar enviro-Marxists? According to Gilliland, the base under Mt. Adams is used by a consortium of benevolent ETs. The ones he's been in touch with come from the Pleiades. Others come from Andromeda, Orion, Sirius, and Arcturus. The more malevolent ETs (like the "grays" and "reptoids") use a porthole near Mt. Hood.

For many years, as Gilliland tells it, the earth was under quarantine as a hostile, backward place. But since we started poking our nose into space and detonating nuclear weapons, there's been increasing interstellar concern over what we might do to ourselves and others. You see, he explains, Earth was colonized a long time ago by beings from the Vega system and then abandoned after a war between Atlantis and Lemuria. We are the descendents of the survivors.

There comes a point when talking to Gilliland--usually early on--that a part of one's brain hits a wall. It might be when he mentions the light beings, or the hollow earth, or the chem-trails streaming out behind airplanes to poison us. Wherever it is, it's the point at which the plausible ends, while his theories go on, becoming ever more elaborate and inter-linked, like pieces of an intricate puzzle.

This is the self-enclosed labyrinth of UFO subculture.

To enter it you have to step over a certain line, then another and another until the pieces start falling into place. It's a place where there is no boundary between the possible, the probable, and the true, and no attempt to sort out which is which.

Most of the aliens around Mt. Adams may be illegal Mexican farm workers, but there is something odd about the mountain. Because on the Yakima Reservation just north of the mountain, people have been reporting strange lights in the sky for at least a hundred years. And since 1972, electrical engineer Dave Akers has been conducting a more hard-nosed investigation into the "nocturnal lights." That was the year Fire Control supervisor Bill Vogel asked the scientifically-minded Center for UFO Studies to look into the lights. Akers has been doing the field work ever since.

"It's a complicated problem," says Akers from his Seattle home, "and there are lots of theories. The only thing that I'm convinced of is that they're there, whatever they are." The lights, he says, could be the results of fault line activity or of changes in the water table.

"About 5% of the observation reports are what we would call 'good reports,'" he says. Of those, about 80% are what Akers calls Anomalous Luminous Phenomena (or ALPs; he doesn't use "UFO" because of its alien implications). Another 20% are daylight sightings and a very few are "critter reports" of humanoids and other things.

As for what any of these are, Akers reserves judgement. I asked him about the ET theory.

"I think it's a little too pat, really. I'm not convinced of anything at this point, other than the fact that these things are quite real, and that on occasion they seem to exhibit what you would interpret as intelligent behavior. But extraterrestrials is a bit too much of a leap for me at this time."

In the end, whether you see the UFOs or ALPs comes down to a question of belief. Because even when you see a light in the sky you have to ask what you believe is possible, what you believe is probable and what you believe is true. And most importantly, you have to ask what you want to believe.

That, more than anything, will determine what you will see.

ET PHONE THE COYOTES

Me? I wanted to see UFOs lots of them. Big pulsing red ones. Little darting white ones. Shiny silver disks. Giant black triangles. I wanted to see them shoot us with pulse lasers. I wanted to see Star Wars. I wanted an intergalactic air show. I wanted to see them zoom in, pick up James and zoom off, like he said they had. I wanted to see ET. I wanted to see pasty little grays, glowing white Pleiadians, and lizard-skin reptoids.

I wanted to see V.

I had to go back.

A few weeks after the first sky watch, I went back to the Sanctuary. When I arrived in the late afternoon, it was nearly empty. James was watering some trees and Paul, who works with James, was chopping wood to heavy metal music. A Canadian couple was cooking dinner near their tent. I introduced myself to them and asked what they'd seen. They said they'd come down for the week and had seen UFOs every night. The day before, they'd watched a white-gray ship circle a small airplane.

I walked around the Sanctuary while the Canadians ate dinner and James and Paul finished their yard work. After a while James came and joined me on the viewing platform and filled in the holes in his theories. The talk meandered through the shapes and sizes of the different ships, the agendas of various ET groups, and how humans are destined to join the rest of the universe.

When it finally started to get dark, Paul and the Canadians joined us. The air was warm and full of the sound of crickets and wind in the trees. The sky was clear.

For an hour or so, there wasn't much activity, but at 10:05 (as predicted by James) several lights came from the north and seemed to converge. These looked suspiciously like some of the 8,300 satellites in orbit, but James had the pressure in his head that told him they were UFOs masquerading as satellites.

For an hour or so, we watched similar lights going across the sky. Some flared up in places. Others were steady, but dim, and some a little brighter. A few stayed in one place, flashed intermittently, then disappeared. Some seemed to be going really, really fast (20,000 mph, according to James).

James had his cheap video camera out and recorded a few of these, but they were all a little boring.

"Okay," he said, looking up. "We just need one big zinger so I can go to bed."

We sat quietly in the dim light of the night sky. The Milky Way was as bright as I'd ever seen it--a thick white band of billions of stars.

Then, just before 11 pm, the Canadian woman spotted something. Almost directly above us, two lights were flying south in tandem, with a third, out front. James homed in on the triangle and tracked it across the sky.

"That's one of those Andromedan ships!" said James. "Look how you can see through the middle. That's because it's inter-dimensional."

It might have been that, or it might have been a set of satellites called the NOSS Triplet that fly in formation. Above us, the three lights turned east, then disappeared behind some trees. As soon as they were gone, coyotes started barking all around us.

"You hear that?" asked James. "The coyotes are going crazy. They always do that when the big ships fly over!" He looked at the camera. "No one's got the triangles on tape. This'll really freak the Greer folks out!"

It wasn't going to get any better than that. This was a real coup for the Sanctuary. James decided to call it a night and went back to the house to bed, and soon Paul and the Canadians followed. I went to my car and got a sleeping bag, brought it back to the platform and crawled in.

For a long time I stared up at the sky, until finally, alone under the stars, I drifted off to sleep.

For information and directions to the Sattva Sanctuary, see Gilliland's web site: www.eceti.org or www.cazekiel.org, or call 509-395-2092. Also, on September 12, Dr. Steven Greer of the Disclosure Project (www.disclosureproject.org) will be speaking at the First Congregational Church at 1126 SW Park Avenue, from 6pm-10pm (video presentation starting at 6:30) Cost is $5.