Kenneth Arnold

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Kenneth A. Arnold (born May 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minnesota , † January 16, 1984 in Bellevue ) was an American pilot and businessman. He became famous for his sighting of unidentified objects in flight near Mount Rainier on June 24, 1947, for which he first used the term flying saucer .

Life

Arnold was born in Sebeka, Minnesota and raised in Scobey , Montana. He attended the University of Minnesota. Arnold began working for Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise in 1940, a company that installs and sells fire extinguishing systems.

UFO sighting

On June 24, 1947, Arnold claimed while flying near Mount Rainier, Washington state, that he saw nine unusual flying objects in the clouds. He said he had stopped time and estimated its speed to be 1200 miles per hour (around 1900 km / h). At first he only recognized a kind of ball of light until he got closer. The first reports described eight objects as flat, plate-like disks and one object as flat and bat-like or sickle-shaped. Although Arnold also referred to the objects as "saucer-like discs" and "saucer-like objects" in his own writings, such as a letter to the US Air Force from 1947 and an article in FATE magazine from 1948, Arnold later used the term " flying saucer "by himself. In a radio interview from 1950 Arnold denied having used the term "saucer" as a description for the appearance. He would have always described the objects as a "disk". The term "flying saucers" was a misunderstanding with reporters:

"... when I described how they flew, I said that they flew like they take a saucer and throw it across the water. Most of the newspapers misunderstood and misquoted that too. They said that I said that they were saucer-like; I said that they flew in a saucer-like fashion. "

"" ... when I described how they flew, I said they fly like you take a plate and make it jump over the water. Most newspapers misunderstood that and misquoted me. They wrote that I said "They were plate-like; I said they flew like plates."

- Kenneth Arnold : Kenneth Arnold in a radio interview with Edward R. Murrow, CBS, 04/07/1950

Although Arnold's UFO sighting is often seen as the beginning of the phenomenon, there were similar sightings shortly before with the ghost rockets in Sweden and with the airship wave at the end of the 19th century. However, its sighting is considered to be the first after the Second World War to receive widespread attention from the press and the population nationwide. As a result, there were more sightings all over the USA, some of which had occurred a long time ago, but have now been made public.

The American Air Force had no rational explanations for the sighting, while others tried to explain the matter. These explanations ranged from mirages of snow mountains to misidentified meteors and flying pelicans .

literature

  • Martin Shough: The Singular Adventure of Mr Kenneth Arnold . Ed .: National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. Revised / July 2010. July 2010 ( online [PDF; 4.8 MB ; accessed on March 1, 2013]).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History.com: Kenneth Arnold
  2. ^ Project 1947 , "Some life data on Kenneth Arnold"
  3. ^ Letter from Kenneth Arnold to the US Air Force . In: Project Blue Book Archive (Ed.): Project Blue Book . Project Sign / Project Sign Roll 1, p. 132-140 ( online [accessed November 6, 2013] PID: USAF-SIGN1-132).
  4. ↑ Kenneth Arnold: I Did See the Flying Disks . In: Fate Magazine . Volume 1, 1 (Spring 1948), 1948 ( online [accessed November 6, 2013]).
  5. ^ Carl Sagan: The Demon-Haunted World . Headline Book Publishing, London 1997, ISBN 0-7472-5156-8 , pp. 69 .
  6. ↑ Keith Thompson: Angels and Other Aliens. UFO phenomena in a new interpretation. Munich 1993, p. 19ff.
  7. ↑ Edward J. Ruppelt; Report On Unidentified Flying Objects; New York: Doubleday 1956
  8. ^ Campbell, Steuart (1994). The UFO Mystery Solved, Chapter 5: The first flying saucers. Explicit Books. ISBN 0-9521512-0-0 .
  9. ↑ The Skeptics UFO Newsletter ( Memento of the original from April 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (SUN) # 46 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.csicop.org
  10. ↑ RRRGroup, " Kenneth Arnold and the pelicans " (Wednesday, April 4, 2007)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Arnold, Kenneth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arnold, Kenneth A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American businessman and UFO sifter
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Sebeka, Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1984
Place of death Bellevue (Washington)