Kenneth Arnold and Flying Saucers

Arnold was introduced to Nolan Skiff, then editor of “The End of the Week” column, who called in news editor Bill Bequette. Arnold had a strange story to report. The day before, on Tuesday, June 24, 1947, Arnold told the East Oregonian reporters that he had observed, during a trip in his own plane between Chehalis and Yakima, a chain of nine peculiar-looking aircraft in the region around Mt. Rainier. His first idea was that they were jet aircraft but “what I had just observed kept going through my mind.” There were nine of them flying in formation in two lines and moving “like a saucer would do if you skipped it across the water.” They were flat, their fronts were circular, and their backs were tri-angular in the rear-but one of them looked crescent-shaped. They were traveling at least twice the speed of sound, Arnold guessed. In the last days of June 1947, breaking the sound barrier was still a dream and the subject of much speculation and discussion among pilots. Arnold’s first thought was that they were some kind of new secret jets or guided missiles. But there was also another possibility that came to his mind after a moment: Soviet aircraft, as 1947 was a threshold year in the developing Cold War.

At Yakima, he told his story to pilots who remarked that the craft were bound to have been guided missiles from Moses Lake, Washington. Arnold recalled that “I felt satisfied that that’s probably what they were. However, I had never heard of a missile base at Moses Lake.” When he landed at Pendleton,Arnold learned that his story had arrived ahead of him. The Yakima pilots had telephoned Pendleton to notify them of Arnold’s arrival and had related his adventure. (Contrary to what has often been written in UFO books, there were no reporters among these people). After discussing this with them and reaching the conclusion that these missiles were something out of the ordinary,Arnold-

“armed”with his maps and calculations so as to give “the best description I could”-repaired to the local FBI office.He found the office shut. Not having any luck with the FBI, Arnold decided to look up the journalists from the East Oregonian. One consideration in particular seems to have pushed him.As he explained to them, he had met, probably at the Hotel Pendleton where he was staying, a man from Ukiah, Oregon, who had said that he had seen a similar formation of craft there. Before leaving Pendleton, then, he went to the offices of the East Oregonian. He told Nolan Skiff and Bill Bequette about his adventure. Arnold described them as moving “like a saucer if you skipped it across the water.” Skiff, skeptical to begin with, was rapidly convinced of Arnold’s honesty. So was Bequette. The latter sent off, as he always did with local news, an Associated Press dispatch. The text of this dispatch, which was to have so many repercussions,was as follows: