PROJECT 1947

UFO REPORTS - 1947

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The beginning of the modern UFO era is often traced back to June 24, 1947, when
businessman Kenneth Arnold sighted "a formation of very bright objects" while fl
ying over the Cascade mountains of Washington State.
The June 25, 1947 issue of the Pendleton (Oregon) East Oregonian carried the ver
y first report of Arnold's sighting at the bottom of page 1:
Impossible! Maybe, But Seein'
Is Believin', Says Flier
Kenneth Arnold, with the fire control at Boise and who was flying in south
ern Washington yesterday afternoon in search of a missing marine plane, stopped
here en route to Boise today with an unusual story -- which he doesn't expect pe
ople to believe but which he declared was true.
He said he sighted nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation at 3. p.m
. yesterday, extremely bright -- as if they were nickel plated -- and flying at
an immense rate of speed. He estimated they were at an altitude between 9,500
and 10,000 feet and clocked them from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams, arriving at the
amazing speed of about 1200 miles an hour. "It seemed impossible," he said, "b
ut there it is -- I must believe my eyes."
He landed at Yakima somewhat later and inquired there, but learned nothing
. Talking about it to a man from Ukiah in Pendleton this morning whose name he
did not get, he was amazed to learn that the man had sighted the same aerial ob
jects yesterday afternoon from the mountains in the Ukiah section!
He said that in flight they appeared to weave in an (sic) out in formation
.
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The June 26 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune quoted Arnold in a page one story
:
"The first thing I noticed was a series of flashes in my eyes as if a mirror was
reflecting sunlight at me... I saw the flashes were coming from a series of obj
ects that were traveling incredibly fast. They were silvery and shiny and seemed
to be shaped like a pie plate . . . What startled me most at this point was . .
. that I could not find any tails on them.
I counted nine of them as they disappeared behind the peak of Mount Rainier. Th
eir speed was apparently so great I decided to clock them. I took out my watch a
nd checked off one minutes and 42 seconds from the time they passed Mount Rainie
r until they reached the peak of Mount Adams . . . All told the objects remained
in view slightly less than two minutes from the time I first noticed them."
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Arnold described the objects as moving "like a saucer would if you skipped it ac
ross the water.". Bill Bequette, a reporter with the East Oregonian newspaper,
recalled Arnold's description when he later placed his story on the AP wire. His
use of the phrase "saucer-like" gave the phenomenon a name: "flying saucers"
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The military's initial reaction to Arnold's June 24 sighting was muted, but as '
saucer' reports continued to stream in it was obvious some action needed to be t
aken. On the 7th of July a meeting was held at the Pentagon in the office of Gen
eral Schulgen, Chief of the Army Air Forces' Air Intelligence Requirements Divis
ion. It was decided that 'saucer' reports from "more 'Qualified' observers of fl
ying discs" should be selected for follow-up investigation.
On the 10th of July, a cable from ConAC (Continental Air Command) arrived at 4th
Air Force Headquarters, Hamilton Air Force Base, California, requesting that Ke
nneth Arnold be interviewed.
4th Air Force dispatched two Counter Intelligence Corps investigators to intervi
ew Kenneth Arnold, and the resulting documents located in the Project Blue Book
files can be found on the Kenneth Arnold Page. This page also contains the CIC i
nvestigator's report, and excerpts from a later radio interview with Arnold cond
ucted by Edward R. Murrow.
Kenneth Arnold's sighting was one of the first of over 850 UFO reports to appear
in the US media by the end of July, 1947. Approximately 150 reports made their
way into the files of Technical Intelligence, T-2, at Wright Field. Today these
files are part of the USAF Project Blue Book files located at the National Archi
ves in College Park, Maryland.
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The Roswell Incident
Perhaps even better known than Kenneth Arnold's sighting is the so-called Roswel
l Incident, the alleged retrieval and cover-up of a crashed flying disc somewher
e near Roswell, New Mexico, in June/July, 1947.
Visit the PROJECT 1947 Roswell Page for documents and articles relating to one o
f UFOlogy's most enduring controversies.
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"Operation Charlie:" An Investigation into UK's "Ghost Planes"
"Six months before Kenneth Arnold's seminal sighting of a formation of nine stra
nge objects above the Cascade Mountains, unidentified flying objects were tracke
d by Britain's Air Defence radars..."
British Researchers David Clarke and Martin Shough document and analyze Britain'
s official investigations into "unidentified flying objects" in early 1947, a pr
oject code-named "Operation Charlie".
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