The Kenneth Arnold Sighting

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Kenneth Arnold was born in Sebeka, Minnesota; but grew up in Scobey Montana. Arnold was regarded as a very skilled and experiences pilot, and had over 9,000 flying hours, and almost half of those hours were devoted to Search ad Rescuse. He was also a very good swimmer and diver, and so good at diving that he tried out for the U.S. Diving Team.

But on June 24th of 1947 while Arnold was flying near Mt. Rainer, he claimed to have seen nine mysterious flying objects in the skies; and several other times afterwards. After the sighting incident in 1947 Arnold became somewhat of a celebrity for a decade and thereafter. And here are his accounts.

June 24th, 1947

At around 2:00pm Arnold was flying from Chehalis, Washington to Yakima, Washington in a small CallAir A-2 for a buisness trip. He then made a short detour after hearing there was a $5,000 reward for the discovery of a U.S. Marine Corps C-46 transport airplane that happened to crash near Mt. Rainer. The skies that day appeared to be clear with only a mild wind. After he searched for nearly an hour, Arnold was not able to find anything, so he turned east toward Yakima, Washington.


Just a minute or two within his return to Yakima, It was then that Arnold seen what he described as a bright flashing light, almost like sunlight, reflcting from his mirror.

Comment: The sun was slightly to the southeast and almost directly overhead him. This was two days after the winter solstice, and so it is important to rule out anything in the sky that could have been reflective and shiny; for example birds or atmospheric conditions.

Arnold then states in his book:

"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."

He also states that these flashes were approx. 20 to 25 miles away from him.

Arnolds first thought was that they must have been some kind of reflection on his airplanes windows, so he proceeded to do some quick tests in which he rocked his plane from side to side, removed his glasses, and later, rolled down his side window, in which ruled out this possibility. It was then determined that the reflection had in fact come, from flying objects.


Arnold stated they had flew in a long chain. These chains were flying from North to South at around 9,500 Feet of elevation and in a direction of approximentaly 170 Degrees. For a moment he thought they might be geese, but that idea was ruled out due to a number of reasons, which being the altitude, bright glint, and of course because of the very fast speed. He also thought that these things could have been a new type of Jet so he proceeded to look for some sort of tail, but was surely suprised when he did not find one.

Comment: Mt. Baker stands at an altitude of 10,000 feet and is approximentaly 130 Miles north of Mt. Rainer. Arnold states these chains to appear to be "in the vicinity" of Mt. Baker. So saying that, it can be more likely that they were in the approximent direction of Mt. Baker, but much closer. And even if the flashes werent as far away, they must have been extremely bright for him or anyone to have seen them over such a great distance. [Quote] (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.) [Quote] In conclusion the statement suggests that these flashes were reflections of sunlight from a mirror-like surfaces; such as polished metal. Sunlight flashes could be visible over gret distances as much as 100 miles over clear and cloudless conditions and anything less would practically be invisible over such a distance in the bright sky. So in conclusion, since the sun was at an elevation of about 60 degrees, a portion of the objects surface must have been momentarily at an angle of about 60 degrees to the horizontal in order to even cause a relfected sun ray to travel horizontally into the atomosphere from the objects seen and to the Arnolds plane.

And so the objects approached Rainier quickly and passed in front it. They had appeared very dark against the bright white snow that was covering Rainier. They had occasionally still given off flashes of bright light and flipped around erratically. He even said that sometimes when he caught them standing on edge, they had seemed so thin they were almost invisible. He then stated one of the objects was crescent shaped and the other eight objects were more of a circular shape. He then later described them as only disk-like shaped.


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He then proceeded to to use his dzus cowling fastener as a gauge to compare all nine objects to the distance of the DC-4 and had estimated their angular size was just slightly smaller than the DC-4 and about the width between the outer engines which was about 60 Feet. He said he ealized these objects would have to be very large to be able to see any detail at that distance and when he later compared notes with the United Airlines crew that had a smiliar sighting about 10 days later, he placed the size as larger than a DC-4 airliner (greater than 100 feet in length). The airforce later estimated it to be 140-280 Feet.

Arnold said the objects were grouped together in a diagonally stepped-down Echelon formation, and stretched out over a 5 mile distance.He then said the objects weaved from side to side "like the tail of a Chinease kite", darting through valleys and around smaller mountain peaks. And occasionally would flip bank on there edges in unison as they turned causing very bright light almost blinding in mirror-like flashes. He said this gave him an eerie feeling but just suspected he had seen test flights from a new military aircraft.

(Continued)


MOD EDIT: Added note and link in regards to posting work done by others.





[edit on October 30th 2009 by greeneyedleo]


en.wikipedia.org...
brumac.8k.com...

[edit on 30-10-2009 by Jess_Undefined]

In his letter, Arnold then stated since the formation of the craft was at almost right angles to him, and that he was traveling north to south, he was in a great position to try and clock there speed. So he made an attempt to do so. He said he remembered that his sweep second hand on on his eight day clock located on the instrument panel had read one minutes to 3pm as the first object passed the souther edge of Mt. Rainier.

Note: When clocking speed using only a sweep second hand, it fairly difficult to get it completely accurate. This is because several seconds can get lost when you break your gaze to look at the clock.

In the letter arnold wrote, it states:

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."

While Arnold times the flight he observed the objects carefully. Here is a list of the decriptions he gave.
- Did not fly like other aircraft he had seen before.

-There echelon formation was backwards than what was practiced by the navy.

- The elevation of the first craft was much higher than the elevation of the last craft.

- Could be compared to speed boats on rough water.

- Similar to the formation of geese.

- In a diagonal chain like, almost like there were linked together somehow.

- "They flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across water."

- They fluttered and sailed, while tipping there wings alternately and emitting very bright blue -white flashes from there craft surface.

- Arnold states at the time he did get the feeling the flashes were being produced by the craft but rather the suns reflection off its highly polished wings.

-Never could make out a tail on the craft.

-When the sun reflected from two or three of them, they appeared to be completely round.

-When the objects flew almost straight and level, they had appeared to be just a black thin line.

- The objects held almost a constant elevation and did not appear to be going up or down.


So as the objects started to pass Mt. Rainier he then turned around his plane in the southward direction on a course that would decribes as parallel. At that point he decided to open up the side window on the plane so when he observed these objects the glass would be unable to to produce a reflection and hinder his sight. The objects didnt disappear and they had continued to move southward at a very fast speed, all the while still moving forward of his position. So he continued to time and rate there speed, and said that they had moved from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams where they had then faded from view, which was a distance of about 50 miles, in one minute and forty-two seconds, or 1760 Miles Per Hour. ( It is noted Arnold intentionally underestimate this speed saying it was around 1200 Miles Per Hour.) Which was still around three times faster than any known manned aircraft in 1947, which had yet to break the sound barrier. So because of the supersonic speed and the unusual saucer or disk description, it really seemed to capture peoples attention.

After Arnold had seen all of this, he had thought about continuing the search for the downed C-46, but he said somehow the 5,000 reward didnt seem very important anymore, and he wanted to get to Yakima so he could share what he saw with his fellow pilots.

Arnold Reports His Sightings

Arnold landed in Yakima at around 4:00pm and told his friend whom was an airport general manager, Al Baxter, his story. And it didnt take long before the whole airport staff knew the claims Arnold had made. He had discussed the whole story with the staff, but said Baxter did not believe him.
So he continued on to fly to Pendleton, Orgeon for his buisness trip. During the flight he noted that one of the crafts had seemed to look different than the rest of them. And that it was darker and had a slightly different shape. Which would be the craft illustratred with the double crescent rear. He had not planned on discussing the matter any more, but someone at the airport called the press and told them that Arnold had seen some new high speed craft. So at that time Arnold studied the maps, and determined the distance between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams and then calculated the speed. He told alot of his pilot friends and wrote in his account to AAF Intelligence that none of them laughed. But they did suggest he may have seen guided missiles or something new, but Arnold thought that was inadequate. He also wrote that some former Army pilots told him they were briefed before going in combat that "they might see objects of similar shape and design as I described and assured me that I wasnt dreaming or going crazy." And a former Air Force Pilot informed him; "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."

When he had arrived at Pendleton he was suprised to see many reporters eager to his story and learn about the strange new aircraft he had saw. So Arnold told them all about his sighting and his (under)estimated speed of 1200 MPH. He said the crafts "wobbled and flipped, like saucers skipping on the water." After several days, the reporter used the description of the way the crafts flew and condensed the name that we have stuck with ever since, FLYING SAUCERS.

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June 25th - The Day After The Sighting

Arnold now made his way to the office of The East Oregonian in Pendleton. He was interviewed first by a man named Bill Bequette, along with Nolan Skiff. They were in a fairly small office. They both listened to his story and concluded they had no idea what he had seen but told him they would send the story to the Associated Press in hopes that some editor or newspaper reader just might have an explaination to what he had saw. That first meeting lasted no longer than maybe Five minutes. Nolan wrote down a few quick notes then wrote a short quick story that was squeezed into the bottom of page one in the newspaper. Then he recalled he punched down and even shorter version into the AP wire. He said they were only minutes from putting the newspaper "to bed" so they didnt have much time.

Note: The initial stories on the new wires were based on that very short interview and description of Arnolds sighting. So the brevity can explain why some of the important details didnt make it in the first published news stories and could explain some of the confusion about the details.

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Later, Arnold gave a more extensive interview. He said when he returned to the office that day after he had some lunch, the receptionists told him that newspapers from around the country and also Canada had been calling, wanting to know his story. Bequette stated he spent the next two hours with Arnold in his hotel room and from that interview he wrote a story about 40 column inches long and telephoned it to the AP Bureau in Portland. The next morning to Arnolds suprised, the story was on almost every newspaper in the country, on Page One! Bequette also formed an opinion on Arnold stating ""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. " He also said Arnold was a very respected buisnessman and experienced pilot and did not seem to be exaggerating what he saw, and neither seemed to be adding details to his report. He said he struck him as a person who was a very careful observer.

Corroboration

Arnolds sighting was a bit corronorated by a prospector named Fred Johnson on Mt.Adams. He wrote AAF intelligence and said he had saw six of the objects on June 24th around the same time Arnold did, and that he veiwed them through his small personal telescope. He described them as round and that they tapered sharply to a point in the head and in an oval shape. He also said the strange objects seemed to disturb his compass he had with him. When the AAF evaluted the witness, they found him credible. But in an ironic twist, Johnsons report was listed as the first unexplained UFO report in the Air Force Files, and Arnolds was just dismissed as a mirage. Even though Johnson just seemed to be decribing a continuation of Arnolds same exact event.

July 4th

The Portland Oregon Journal recieved a letter from a man named L. G. Bernier of Richland, Washington. Richland is about 110 miles east of Mt. Adams and 140 miles southeast of Mt. Rainier. He had wrote he saw three of the same strange objects over Richland and that they were flying almost edgewise towards Mt. Rainier about half an hour before Arnold did. He said they were traveling at a high speed. He also stated " I have seen a P-38 appear seemingly on one horizon and then gone to the opposite horizon in no time at all, but these disks certainly were traveling faster than any P-38. [The max speed of a P-38 was 440 miled an hour.] No doubt Mr. Arnold saw them just a few minutes or seconds later, according to their speed." The day before, Bernier had also spoken to his local newspaper, which was the Richland Washington Villager, ad he was among the first witnesses to suggest extraterrestrial origins.
Then, in Yakima, Washington, which is 60 miles west-northwest of Richland, a woman by the name of Mrs. Ethel Wheelhouse also reported seeing several strange flying discs moving at a very high speed around the same time as Arnold had seen them.

The military intelligence began investigating Arnolds sighting around early July and they found another witness from that area. They were a member of the Washington State forest service and had been on fire watch at a tower in Diamond Gap which is about 20 miles south of yakima. At 3:00pm they reported seeing flashes on the 24th over Mount Rainer which is the same exact time Arnold saw them and appeared to move in a very straight line. Then at 3:00pm a woman named Sidney B. Gallagher in Washinton State reported that she saw nine shiny discs flash by to the north.

A woman near Tacoma that a Seattle newspaper mentioned claimed she had saw a chain of nine, bright obejcts, flying at a high speed near Mt. Rainier. And the DC-4 Arnold has saw said he didnt see anything unusual. Also, other Seattle newspapers reported sighting and flashing and rapidly moving unknown objects on the same day but not the same time as Arnolds. Most were over Seattle or west of Seattle in Bremerton either in the morning or at night. There were 16 other reported sighting altogether the same day as Arnolds.

A woman near Tacoma that a Seattle newspaper mentioned claimed she had saw a chain of nine, bright obejcts, flying at a high speed near Mt. Rainier. And the DC-4 Arnold has saw said he didnt see anything unusual. Also, other Seattle newspapers reported sighting and flashing and rapidly moving unknown objects on the same day but not the same time as Arnolds. Most were over Seattle or west of Seattle in Bremerton either in the morning or at night. There were 16 other reported sighting altogether the same day as Arnolds.

A primary corroborative sighting then occured ten days later on July 4th. A United Airlines crew that was flying over Idaho on there way to Seattle said they had spotted five to nine disk like objects that paced there plane for about 15 minutes and then disappeared quickly. The next day Arnold had met with the pilot by the name of Captain E. J. Smith and his co-pilot and they compared details of there sightings together. The biggest difference in there descriptions was shape in that the United crew though the objects appeared rouch on the top.

Then two or three photos of an object were taken by a man named William Rhodes over Phoenix, Arizona on July 7th, 1947. The object was rounded in front with a crescent back. The photos seem to showsomething that resembled a hole in the middle and Rhodes thought it was a canopy. His photos were taken by the FBI and military but they show up later in Air Force intelligence reports. Arnold was show these photos and met with two AAf intelligence officers and said "It was a disk almost identical to the one peculiar flying saucer that had been worrying him since his original observation which was the one that looked different to the rest.

Kenneth Arnold's original sketch. The only one I trust as reflecting what he claims he saw. Everything that came later is ideological fantasy.

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Explainations Offered

There have been alot of explainations propossed for the strange objects Arnold saw that day. Arnold himself did not believe he had saw something out of this world, but merely just some new very secret aircrafts that were being tested by the United States Airforce. But strangely enough, after a few days, the Air Force ( which was still part of the army) denied that they had any secret aircraft that could account for it. The army then became worried thinking that the Soviet Union may had responsibilty for these saucers and that it would threaten the safety of the United States. They also said this "saucers" could have been genrerated by Soviet sympathizers in an effort to make the american people think the Air Force had no control of the skies over the United States.


Howard Blakeslee, an editor, had wrote an article stateing it could have just been "quirks of the eyesight", saying anything looks round if seen too far away. He said "Planes at great distances tend to look roung when light when light is reflected off there sides." And an unknown reference claimed that it could have been "motes in the eye", which are small particles like blood cells that flaot in the fluid within each person's eyeball and that they are only visible when they move to an area between the lens and the fovea. They can appear to be dark and its also important for me to state that they do move whenever the eye does, which could explain the "unearthly speeds" to the apparently distant and large objects.


An attorney named Dan Nelson published his explaination in the "daily Oklahoman" Newspaper. And on July 30th the FBI contacted him and wanted to learn more about his apparent solution to the mystery. He explained that all sightings from inside vehicles, including airplanes, that had windows were just reflection ofsunlight from shiny objects into the windows. And when the light reflected from the objects onto the windows it was then re-reflected toward the eye of the observer and could thus see a reflection silhouetted against backgrounds. And this could have been a really good explaination but snce Dan did not read the witness reports, it is impossible this was the case with Arnold, since he had turned down the window of his plane.

Other explainations given were noted to anything that could be in the sky like birds, clouds, balloons, mirages, and even Ice Meteors. After several years the air force just settled on the "mirage". And after reading the report you might wonder how the air force could justify that explaination becuse its not straightforward.

The Air Force Intell. Officers who investigated the initial saucer reports and Arnolds, treated them all very seriously, because of a number of Air Force pilots had reported seeing them also. Arnolds report was concluded as unexplained in the Top Secret Intelligence Memo compiled by the Air Force Intell. at the Pentagon during late fall of 1948. But suprisingly, in the early fall of 1948, General Hoyt Vandenburg had rejected that conclusion made, expressed by Air Force analysts in the "Estimate of the Situation." that these saucers were interplantary vehicles. These analysts were acknowledged experts in analysis of foreign aerodynamic vehicles. But Vandenburg rejected this, saying "interplanetary hypothesis" was not considered an acceptable explaination for any sighting.

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Conclusion

theAfter so many years its clear that Arnold and Johnsons sighting contained enough evidence to suggest these objects were not man made, y were indeed flying around in the atmosphere. So it is a tribute to the effectiveness of propoganda put there by the government and military. The propaganda that all sightings have been, or could be explained and that society in general still does not want to accept the idea of these strange objects.

I myself believe Arnold and Johnson saw something otherwordly that day. Given the time period it is just not possible these could have been experimental aircrafts. Ill contue to further post things I can find on this subject including more alternative theorys.






External Links:

en.wikipedia.org...

brumac.8k.com...


[edit on 30-10-2009 by Jess_Undefined]

Nice OP! Well done!

You might find it curious that the painting being held by Kenneth in your OP is not his "Sketch". The painting that he is holding was rendered by another artist altogether and it resembles Kenneth's original sketch like cats resemble dogs.

Here is a photo of the painting he's holding in comparison with a Nazi Horton 229 and IX which popular theory was what he saw in formation.



Another painting of the Horton craft.



However, that would be quite nifty an explanation if in fact, like I stated, he indeed painted that picture which he did not.

This is Kenneth's original sketch.



Which, as you see looks nothing like the above painting whatsoever.

It does however, resemble another Nazi project of the time. The Focke Wulf Schnellflugzeug 'Rochen'. Which is here.



And a nice scale model here.



Source


I just thought you might find this info helpful in addition to your OP. So why the mix up? Why was poor Kenneth and others associated with this case harassed and under heavy surveillance? Hmmm..

Cheers,

Erik

[edit on 22/OctpmFri, 30 Oct 2009 21:09:43 -0500/08 by redwoodjedi]

Hi all,

Informative stuff for sure. Do we know why Arnold was flying in the area to begin with?
Military air-transport disappeared in the Mountainous area.

Decoy

reply to post by Jess_Undefined



WOW, I am impressed by the amount of time and research you put into this thread. This is a classic case and known by many, but unfortunately there have not been any detailed threads on ATS about it, so this was much needed. I must say you have done a phenomenal job with your presentation and research here. While this case is still heavily disputed it is still a major part of ufology, as it is really the first modern era sighting, and the sighting that coined the term "flying saucer".

Here are some more related links for additional reference (although the Dr. Maccabee site is the most detailed):

www.nicap.org...

www.ufocasebook.com...

www.ufoevidence.org...

www.ufologie.net...

bluebookarchive.org...

Also I think that someone on here has a research type thread on this incident, I am not sure though, I will have to look. Maybe they will show up.


Again, great job. It is always good to see some well thought out threads come out, especially in the all too cluttered UFO forum.

S/F...


[edit on 10/30/2009 by jkrog08]

Thank you so much for your time spent gathering all the info on this case and putting it all together for us here. Excellent job

Stars and flag for you.

The cockpit area seems strange.
Any idea that Arnold 'had' to point to the depiction of his sighted ship.
People would say right off its a flying wing.
And the papers said a flying saucer because so many had been in the wind
of popular news.
So a fantastic plane was known as a saucer and he points to a wing.
I'd say he was coerced except for the fact a giant wing of the same
look was witnessed among the Hudson Valley sightings that ran
silent in the dark night.
So saucer capabilities can be given to almost any shape of craft.

Great post, this case is required reading for anyone interested in UFOs and Ufology. It always strikes me that at this point the subject of UFOs had not yet lost it's "innocence", although this would only last a few weeks until the crash at Roswell and subsequent cover-up.

S and F.

Originally posted by Jess_Undefined
The Kenneth Arnold Sighting

Wonderful presentation of an amazing UFO case Jess_Undefined, thanks for sharing this.
You really did some good research here, so my flag and star for it all are well disserved.
Very important to know is what you said here.

that there was also a woman near Tacoma that a Seattle newspaper mentioned who claimed she had also saw a chain of nine, bright objects, flying at a high speed near Mt. Rainier.

Because there have been attempts to try to debunk this sighting by claiming that the objects Kenneth saw where noting more than light reflections in the windows of his airplane.

And as you said here, Kenneth did checked that already out himself.

Arnolds first thought was that they must have been some kind of reflection on his airplanes windows, so he proceeded to do some quick tests in which he rocked his plane from side to side, removed his glasses, and later, rolled down his side window, in which ruled out this possibility. It was then determined that the reflection had in fact come, from flying objects.

It's as jkrog08 said here.

Originally posted by jkrog08
It is always good to see some well thought out threads come out.

And such threads are for me the cherries on the pie.

Thankks for sharing
IMHO, it's very very important the difference between his sketch and the artist's rendition. I've often noticed that some artists are inclined to somehow overemphasize the initial sketches.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/003931357578.jpg[/atsimg]
There's also a famous case (with photographic evidences) that has some very interesting similarities with this one:


these photos were taken on July 7, 1947 by William Rhodes from Phoenix, AZ.

1947-July 7- William Rhodes of Phoenix, Arizona allegedly saw a disk circling his locality during sunset and took two photographs. The resulting pictures show a disk-like object with a round front and a square tail in plan form. These photographs have been examined by experts who state they are true photographic images and do not appear to be imperfection in the emulsion or imperfections in the lens. Often called the "Roswell UFO." some info taken from: www.nicap.org

What makes it even more intriguing is that for two different reasons (shape of the alleged crafts and date) there seem to be links with both Arnold's and Roswell incidents (of course we are far away from proving it, but it soe nice coincidence, IMHO).

On July 7, 1947, William Rhodes took photos of an unusual object over Phoenix, Arizona.[45] The photos appeared in a Phoenix newspaper and a few other papers. According to documents from Project Bluebook, an Army counter-intelligence (CIC) agent and an FBI agent interviewed Rhodes on August 29 and convinced him to surrender the negatives. The CIC agent deliberately concealed his true identity, leaving Rhodes to believe both men were from the FBI. Rhodes said he wanted the negatives back, but when he turned them into the FBI the next day, he was informed he wouldn't be getting them back, though Rhodes later tried unsuccessfully.[46][47] The photos were extensively analyzed and would eventually show up in some classified Air Force UFO intelligence reports.

These images, often called "the Roswell craft" photos, (as it is widely reported that the Roswell craft was not a saucer, but a "delta" winged craft) appeared in several Southwestern newspapers around the time of Arnold's sighting and match his basic description of a heel shaped, domed flyer; These images were photographed the same day as the Roswell crash which took place in the evening of July 7, 1947, just one state away, in New Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIABLE OBJECTS,
WILLIAMS FIELD, CHANDLER,
ARIZONA.

14 July 1947

MEMORANDUM FOR THE OFFICER IN CHARGE:

On 8 July 1947, this Agent obtained pictures of unidentifiable objects, (Exhibits 1 and 2) from the managing editor of the Arizona Republic newspaper. The pictures were taken by Mr. Williams Rhoads, 4333 N. 14th St., Phoenix, Arizona, at sunset, on 7 July 1947. The subject object flew at unconveivable speeds, making three circles in the vicinity of Mr Rhoads' home. The pictures were taken with a box camera, size 620. The photograph (Exhibit 1) was taken at as the object passed in front of Mr. Rhodes, and Exhibit 2 as the object turned towards Mr. Rhoads. The height of the object was estimated at 1000 feet.

AGENT'S NOTES: See Exhibit 1 and 2, photographs of unifentifiable objects, enlarged aproximately 20 times. No further reports have been received by this office of objects seen by military personnel.

Lynn C. Aldrich, Special Agent, EIC - AAF, FDTRC.

The 1947 Rhodes photos - Ufologie.net

Project Blue Book Documents:
MAXW-PBB2 1238-1244, 1247-1271, 1278-1292 (47 pages) July 7, 1947; Rhodes Photo - Dan Wilson
MAXW-PBB2-1238
MAXW-PBB2-1244
MAXW-PBB2-1247
MAXW-PBB2-1271
MAXW-PBB2-1278
MAXW-PBB2-1292

Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the U.S.100-203-70, Dec 10, 1948 (.pdf)

More links and sources:
www.rr0.org...
www.thepetitionsite.com...
www.roswellproof.com...
www.nicap.org...
www.nicap.org...
www.ufocasebook.com...

Excellent supplementary information to this case internos, thanks for that.

The shape of the craft you showed here has indeed some very interesting similarities with the one on Kenneth Arnold drawings, nice find.

Starred and Flagged!

Great research and well put together.


Thanks for sharing.

this is truly great research on a classic case, written far better than i have read in numerous books on the subjects of UFOs, also some great input from fellow members, this is how a report should read.

could this be related to the roswell crash? i think maybe it could, the date's the same discription.

Thank you all for the replies I really do appreciate it because I worked really hard on this thread, its my first extensive thread ive ever done.

I couldnt believe how many scientists and peoples were trying to pass this off as just a mirage or other ridiculous theories, because ide like to think a pilot nonetheless can tell the difference between an actual craft and just a mirage or "mote in the eye".

And giving the many other people who saw something similar that day around the same time, I really do feel like he did see an actual craft.

WOW! is all I can say !

This thread has so much information with in it that it should be required ats reading!

Thanks for the awesome job!

Starred and flagged. I've no firm hypothesis of what he saw. The objects aren't that far off the kind of ideas people were having (captured war documents helping) with of things like Britain's V-Bomber program (which began its inception 1946/1947). Nuclear bombers. I think if there were parallels in the United States we probably would have heard of it by now.

If they were man made, e.g. part of a secret nuclear bomber program, it seems very odd that they'd remain secret, because I suspect they'd be made redundant long ago by nuclear missiles and submarines (the demise of the V-Bombers). The Bell X-1 flew in 1946. There were other prototype planes in the 1940s that approached the sound barrier inc. Axis, however they were dangerous, and unlikely to have appeared in numbers.

So if they were man made it'd have to be one of the biggest secrets of the 20th Century.

So, no idea, still sceptical though.

[edit on 31-10-2009 by jackphotohobby]

reply to post by Jess_Undefined


The Arnold case has always been troubling because when one reads his original report, the only conclusion one can come to is that there is no way that Arnold could even make a drawing of what attracted his attention. When you look up because you saw a contrail and it's so high up that you can't even see the plane leaving the contrail, you can't describe the aircraft accurately if they're probably 35,000-50,000 feet high (a little over 9 miles high)

Yet, Arnold claims he could see a DC-4 to his left and back of him, about 15 miles (24 km) away. About 30 seconds after seeing the first flash of light, Arnold saw a series of bright flashes in the distance off to his left, or north of Mt. Rainier, which was then 20 to 25 miles (40 km) away.
he said they moved from Mt. Rainer to Mt. Adams where they faded from view, a distance of about 50 miles

I have a lens implant and my eyesight in my right eye is better than prior to my cataract and I don't need glasses for distance. Manhattan is 13.4 miles long and I don't think that anyone standing in Battery Park and with no obstructions can see anything at 220th Street!