On June 24, 1947, an amateur pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying a small plane near Mount Rainier, Washington State, when he saw something strange. To his left, about 28-35 km to the north and at the same altitude, a chain of nine objects swept across the sky, sparkling on the Sun.
Comparing their size to the size of an aircraft in the distance, Arnold determined that the size of these objects is 15 meters wide. They flew between two mountains located 70 kilometers apart in just 1 minute 42 seconds, which meant an astounding speed of 2380 km / h, or three times faster than any manned aircraft of the era.
When the objects disappeared in the distance, Arnold landed and immediately informed airport staff about the unidentified flying objects he noticed. The next day, he was interviewed by reporters, and the story spread like wildfire across the country.
“At the time, there was still the thought that Mars or Venus might be habitable,” said Robert Schiffer, author of books on UFOs (his books are skeptical). “People thought these UFOs were Martians who came to watch over us. now that we have nuclear weapons."
Journalistic error
Arnold's observation was "such a sensation that it hit the headlines across the country," wrote ufologist and author Martin Kottmeyer in The Saucer Error, REALL News, 1993.
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“Soon everyone was looking for strange objects in the sky, which, according to the newspapers, were saucer-shaped,” continued Kottmeyer. “Within a few weeks, hundreds of reports of flying saucers spread across the country. While people probably thought they were seeing the same thing that Kenneth Arnold saw, there was a great irony that no one at the time was aware of. Kenneth Arnold did not report seeing flying saucers."
In fact, Arnold told the press that the objects were flying randomly, "They were thin and flat, but crescent-shaped when viewed from top to bottom as they turned."
However, a reporter named Bill Beckett of the United Press interpreted Arnold's statement to mean that the objects he saw were circular discs. This was one of the most significant reporting mistakes in history, according to Benjamin Radford, a UFO expert and associate editor for Skeptical Investigator magazine."
"The phrase 'flying saucers' provided the shape that shaped the UFO myth in its early days," wrote Cottmeyer. He noted that UFOs have taken the form of flying saucers in art depictions, hoaxes, science fiction films, television shows, and even the vast majority of reports of alien abduction and sightings throughout modern history up to the present day.
So if he really saw something, what exactly?
Although he did not see flying saucers, most of Arnold's contemporaries believed that he did see something that day. The Army Observation Report states: "If Mr. Arnold could write a report of this nature without seeing objects, he would have to write Buck Rogers fiction." - His story was very convincing.
One theory claims that it was a fireball - a meteor that disintegrates upon entering the atmosphere. If a meteorite enters the atmosphere at a slight angle to the Earth, its debris will approach the surface, moving almost horizontally. In addition, the fragments of the meteorite will move along a chain similar to the one that Arnold saw, and glow very brightly rushing towards the surface at great speed.
But most historians believe that the objects were not from space at all: "They were probably pelicans flying in formation," Schaeffer said. "Perhaps Arnold misjudged the distance and thought they were huge objects at a great distance, but in fact they were much closer."
After all, the boomerang shape that Arnold drew, depicting the objects he saw, is very similar to a bird with outstretched wings.
A crescent-shaped UFO seen and later painted by pilot Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947.
Only, in accordance with Arnold's story, it should have been supersonic, glowing pelicans …