Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting - UFO in the Cascade Mountains

Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting - UFO in the Cascade Mountains

On June 24, 1947, around 3 p.m., American aviator Kenneth Arnold returned from his flight over the Cascade Mountains with world-changing news. Let's talk about those things one at a time. Kenneth Arnold was a deputy sheriff in the godforsaken town of Yakima, which is located in the Cascade Mountains 100 miles from Seattle, and he was also a mid-level businessman and an amateur pilot who owned his own plane.

Kenneth Arnold UFO

On that day - a full week and a half before the "Roswell incident" - Arnold was flying over the Mount Rainier Mountain range in search of a transport plane that had crashed in the mountains the day before. He intended to get a $ 5,000 bonus if he found the wreckage, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find any remains of the wreck.

But he "found" something completely different. When he flew over the slopes of the highest mountain in the area called Rainier, the pilot's attention was suddenly attracted by 9 disc-shaped objects that flashed in the sky at a speed of about 3000 km / h. They flew in the correct formation and, as Arnold later said, their movement."..it was like flying saucers skimming the water."

UFO sightings

Arnold's "vision" lasted for about a minute, or even less, but it was enough time for the pilot to instantly "identify" the objects that flashed in front of him. When he returned to Yakima and visited the editorial office of the local newspaper to tell his discovery to the press, the whole world suddenly learned that the Earth was finally honored with its presence by beings of no other kind ...from another star civilization! The term "flying saucers", introduced into ufology by a previously unknown deputy sheriff from a remote Yakima, soon became a common formula that got into reference books and even dictionaries...

However, after a while it turned out that K. Arnold was not the first to observe "flying saucers".

Someone interested in depriving the Yakima sheriff of his fame as a discoverer found in the ancient archives a local newspaper dated January 17, 1883, in the pages of which the logger Olof Youngman described seeing strange "flying tin plates" in the very place where Arnold saw them 64 years later. In addition, one US Air Force pilot also described seeing strange flying objects similar to "saucers"over the ocean near Taiwan on July 29, 1945.

But, as you know, Columbus was not the first European to visit America, he only opened this continent "for the press", it is from this position that you can approach the discovery of Arnold – this Columbus from ufology.

our note

However, ufologists, including those few whose competence is (almost) not necessary to doubt, investigating this landmark observation of Arnold, for some reason stubbornly ignore the message of other observers - a group of climbers led by an instructor at the Portland Science Center, Bernard Holt. On that day, Holt and his three companions were climbing Mount Rainier (4392 m) and watched Arnold's plane circling far below them.

But no "flying saucers", later so advertised by the pilot, they did not see at close range, although from the height at which they were, they could survey the entire panorama of the Cascade Mountains up to the Canadian border.

When they returned to the Acoma a few days later, they were surprised to learn that the whole world was plunged into a new era of humanity's relationship with celestial phenomena.

No one wanted to hear their denials in those days, especially since the mayor of Yakima and even the governor of Washington State himself began to understand that Arnold's "vision" was a Gift from Above, and this Gift, despite what Arnold saw there, should be used to the fullest extent as soon as possible, before people like Holt thwarted the emerging hype.

Kenneth Arnold's report to USAF Intelligence on July 12, 1947, which includes annotated sketches of a typical aircraft in a chain of nine objects.

Kenneth Arnold's report to USAF Intelligence on July 12, 1947, which includes annotated sketches of a typical aircraft in a chain of nine objects.

 As soon as the newspapers and radio stations spread the news about the "flying saucers", many attractions of the Wild West (and even all of America) immediately lost all their significance. The town of Yakima and the approaches to it very soon became crowded with crowds of curious tourists and just onlookers with photo and movie cameras. What happened next can be perfectly imagined by flipping through some Bret Garth novel about the" gold rush " in California or Jack London's collection about the Klondike.

Newspaper flying saucer

However, Kenneth Arnold naturally chose not to stop there. This man was a true American, looking out for the interests not so much of his town or even the state, but of his own pocket. The very next day, he found himself in Seattle, at the office of a Science Fiction magazine owned by a certain Raymond Palmer, a distant relative of Arnold's on his mother's side.

The deputy immediately sold him a much-improved story about his " vision" for a decent amount of cash and intended to" sail " to Los Angeles to look for richer editions, but Palmer, quickly making some calculations in his mind, told him that there was much more to be learned from this case if you approach it from a completely different angle.

It turns out that Palmer had "very reliable" information that just four days before Arnold's "vision", similar "visions" were visited by two other people who lived very close to Seattle - in the city of Tacoma, located on the shores of the winding and relatively deserted Puget Sound within sight of Mount Rainier. Along the way, Palmer introduced Arnold to two military men who had arrived from Washington the day before in General Vandenberg's entourage and suggested that Arnold develop the "gold mine" on a strictly "scientific" basis.

UFO sightings

On Arnold's plane, the three of them (Palmer remained in the editorial office), immediately went to Tacoma, where she met a certain Harold Dahl, a ruined farmer who hunted in forbidden protected areas. On that day, June 21, this same Dal, swimming with his thirty-two-year-old son-assistant on a motorboat in the waters of the southern part of the Puget Sound near Mowry Island, on which a significant part of the Olympic National Reserve is located, saw three "troidal", as he put it (that is, in the form of a donut) UFOs flying at an altitude of approximately 2000 feet (700 meters).

According to him, each object was about thirty meters in diameter and about ten meters wide in the center. The objects had a metallic sheen and had what looked like dark frosted glass portholes around the perimeter. One of the objects, as it seemed to Dal, was damaged, as it barely held on to the fly, and then exploded with a terrible roar, scattering fragments of metal and a lot of hot scale in all directions...

These fragments allegedly wounded Dal's son and killed his dog. In support of his story, the poacher showed the military a piece of "emissions" of UFOs, resembling a fragment of volcanic stone, but with a very porous structure. Dal's story, however, did not make much impression on the military, but they still loaded this piece of debris into Arnold's plane and ordered him to fly back to Seattle.

arnolds UFO

However, on the way back, the researchers were in a disaster - a few minutes after takeoff, Arnold's plane for an unknown reason caught fire in the air and exploded right over the city. Burning debris fell on a residential building, bringing the list of victims from three to ten.

Arnold himself and both soldiers were killed, and the "alien" wreckage given to them for Free was never found. This case has developed an even greater "wave" around reports of UFOs, for many years and decades to come, providing the neighborhood with attention from numerous travel companies. In conclusion, it should be said that a few days after the crash of Arnold's plane, the poacher Dal was killed in a shootout with forest protection inspectors, and his son disappeared in the most mysterious way, and there is still no information about his whereabouts.

But the editor of "Fiction", Raymond Palmer, showed a very enviable business activity for other publishers. He immediately renamed his magazine "Amazing Stories" and began publishing various UFO stories on its pages, similar in general terms to those told by Arnold and Dahl.

The message that came from Roswell was an excellent reason for this man to organize around his magazine the so-called "CLUB OF GREEN MEN", which united all those who had ever had contact with extraterrestrials (later this club was transformed into the so-called LEAGUE OF UFO RESEARCH, which has nothing to do with research as such).

At the same time, the editor somehow beat out a considerable subsidy from the federal bank, which is tight-fisted in relation to such projects, for the foundation of another magazine called "Fate", dedicated to various occult and pseudoscientific issues.

The famous American journalist Allen Hawley once tried to investigate the story of this and in fact incomprehensible subsidy. As he was able to find out, the money to this bank was never returned by Palmer, and yet the bank did not bring any claims against his publisher.

Hole made of this discovery are far-reaching conclusion is that the state simply stimulated Palmer at the incitement of "UFO hysteria."

Some scientists, including Menzel and Baxter Hanfo (astrophysicist) also believed that none other than Palmer programmed the imagination of an entire generation, turning Americans into real fans of "flying saucers". He, according to Hanfo, also planted the idea that the saucers are ships from outer space, and inspired people with the idea that the government has surrounded the UFO with a veil of secrecy

our note

Later, Palmer became a writer himself - he wrote several science fiction novels about UFOs, but these novels, despite some commercial demand, did not have much success among the public. But it was this failed writer, who so ably contributed to the popularization of UFOs in the United States, was the real "godfather" of a man who has every right to be called no other than the FIRST TRUE UFOLOGIST in the history of mankind.

There are many versions that explain what Arnold saw: from the latest developments (guided missiles or new aircraft) to illusions that arise from the reflection of sunlight from snow or dust (from the book Flying Saucers by Donald Menzel (1954)). Ufologists of the time, who told about this and other similar observations, made the assumption that it could be alien ships.

UFO sightings

During the official investigation of the incident, it was established that in 1947, 112 km northeast of Yakima, near Lake Moses, there was a test site for launching air missiles. If we assume that the speed of Arnold's "saucers" is overstated, then it could well be a rocket. Despite this, the official public conclusion of the BBC was that the businessman saw a mirage from the snow-capped peaks.

Despite the worldwide fame and numerous investigations, this case of UFO sightings over the Cascade Mountains is not fully explained: there is no version that fully explains what Arnold saw, nor official confirmation of the" unidentification " of the observed objects.


About author:

Ufologist, PhD, blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon

Serg Toporkov

Ufologist, Ph.D., blogger, I go on my own expeditions for UFOs. I use scientific methods to investigate the UAP phenomenon. Write to me


Related tags:

Kenneth Arnold  UFO sightings  UFO  Cascade Mountains  flying saucers  1947  Yakima  unidentified flying objects


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