Status: Unverified — the sighting that started the “flying saucer” era; the objects were never conclusively identified.
Credit: Associated Press (1947) · Licence: Public domain (per Wikimedia Commons) · Source
On June 24, 1947, Idaho businessman and private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier in Washington when he reported a chain of nine shiny objects passing the mountain at what he estimated was at least 1,200 miles an hour. He described their motion as like a saucer skipping across water, and reporters ran with the phrase.
Arnold's account was carried nationwide and is generally treated as the first widely publicized modern UFO sighting in the United States. Newspapers quickly adopted the terms “flying saucer” and “flying disc,” and a wave of similar reports followed over the next two to three weeks. Arnold became well known almost overnight.
He kept investigating UFO reports and wrote and spoke about the subject for years. His speed and distance figures were estimates made from the air, and ordinary explanations have been proposed over the years, none of them universally accepted. It remains one of the most influential sightings in UFO history, even though the objects themselves were never identified.
Sources: Wikipedia: Kenneth Arnold
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