{"it":{"id":"UFO-ARN","kind":"ufo","sub":"Pilot report","name":"Kenneth Arnold sighting","place":"Near Mount Rainier, Washington, USA","lat":46.853,"lon":-121.76,"date":"24 June 1947","rep":"Arnold reported nine shiny objects flying in a line past Mount Rainier at about 1,200 mph.","off":"The sources listed here record no official explanation.","src":[{"t":"Wikipedia: Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting"},{"t":"Kenneth Arnold's written report to the Army Air Forces, July 1947 (transcription)","u":"https://www.ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/arnoldrepaf.htm"},{"t":"National Air and Space Museum: 1947, Year of the Flying Saucer","u":"https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/1947-year-flying-saucer"}],"tags":["Pilots","USA"],"sum":"Kenneth Arnold was not looking for flying saucers. On 24 June 1947, near Mount Rainier, he was flying his small CallAir plane over the Cascades, searching for a crashed Marine transport that had gone down with 32 men aboard. There was a $5,000 reward for finding it.\n\nA bright flash caught his eye. At first he took it for sunlight off another aircraft. Then he counted them: nine shiny objects in a line, crossing in front of him. Each looked about 100 feet across, with no tail, and they flipped and weaved as they flew, he said, \"like the tail of a Chinese kite\". Arnold, a private pilot with some 4,000 hours in the air, decided to time them.\n\nHe clocked them between two peaks, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, and put their speed at about 1,200 mph, faster than any aircraft of the day. Some later accounts give 1,700 mph. Months would pass before Chuck Yeager's rocket plane reached 700 mph.\n\nArnold told his story to two reporters at the East Oregonian, Bill Bequette and Nolan Skiff. It was Skiff's article that used the words \"saucer-like\". Arnold denied ever calling them saucers, but the phrase \"flying saucer\" spread from there.\n\nNo one has settled what he saw. Sceptics point to the guesswork in his distances; believers to his experience as a pilot. Whatever crossed the Cascades that day, it gave the world a name for a shape he never described.","qs":["His speed rests on a distance he estimated from the cockpit. How far can a single pilot's timing be trusted?","Months before any aircraft broke the sound barrier, an experienced pilot reported nine fast objects. Mirage, birds, aircraft, or something unknown?","Arnold's sighting launched a wave of reports within weeks. Was it the first time people saw them, or the first time people said so?"],"yt":"His speed rests on a distance he estimated from the cockpit. How far can a single pilot's timing be trusted?","rel":["GOV-PBB","REC-TWI1947"],"hook":"A search pilot timed nine shiny objects at about 1,200 mph in 1947, and the word 'saucer' entered the story","why":null},"S":{},"rec":{"id":"UFO-ARN"},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/m/UFO-ARN-16x9.webp","w":1600,"hh":900,"alt":"Kenneth Arnold sighting, Near Mount Rainier, Washington, USA — Kenneth Arnold","by":"Associated Press","lic":"Public domain","lu":"","p":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenneth_Arnold.jpg","g":false,"ct":true,"cap":"","sec":[{"src":"img/t/UFO-ARN.webp","by":"UPI","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_Sun_1947-06-26-2_Flying_Saucer_headline-th.jpg","cap":"Chicago Sun 1947-06-26-2 Flying Saucer headline-th.jpg"}]},"hh":[{"v":"9","u":"objects","h":"Shiny objects a private pilot reported flying in a line past Mount Rainier","s":[335]},{"v":"~1,200","u":"mph","h":"His estimate of their speed, in 1947","s":[335]},{"v":"24 June 1947","h":"Date","s":[335]},{"v":"Near Mount Rainier","h":"Location: Near Mount Rainier, Washington, USA","s":[335]}],"hs":{"335":["Wikipedia: Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Arnold_UFO_sighting"]}}