MYSTERY WIRE — It was 74-years-ago, June 24, 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing unidentified flying objects.
The Kenneth Arnold sighting is now widely considered to be the beginning of the modern UFO era. July 2 is the date of the famous Roswell incident in 1947.
Kenneth Arnold reported seeing the high-speed metallic objects while flying his plane near Mount Rainier en route from Chehalis to his home in Boise.
Arnold said he saw a bright light that afternoon, looked north and saw the nine objects — each about 50 feet across and all of them roughly circular, except for one that was crescent-shaped. He said he watched the objects for about 2 minutes until they disappeared over Oregon at speeds approaching 1,400 mph.
Other Northwest UFO sightings soon followed, including ones in Portland, in Vancouver, Wash., and in Boise according to the Bellingham Herald.
The first pictures of an alleged UFO appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on July 5, 1947. The photo by U.S. Coast Guard Yeoman Frank Ryman showed a “small bright disc” he said he saw flying over his home in Lake City. Researchers later said his photo showed a weather balloon.
A few days later, on July 8, the U.S. Army famously announced it had recovered parts of a crashed UFO near Roswell, N.M. The Army withdrew its report the following day, saying the material was from a balloon.
It was reported that the test was being done to send microphones on weather balloons to extreme heights to detect Soviet nuclear test explosions. The crash was first spotted by William Brazel. He described that the wreckage was made of rubber strips and tinfoil and was not made of tough paper and sticks. Many people believe calling it a balloon incident was a cover-up and has been serving as the basis for this conspiracy theory ever since.
One unidentified video of Kenneth Arnold talking about his sighting has shown up on YouTube. Arnold appears to be frustrated about people not believing UFO sighting reports.
The World UFO Day Organization (WUFODO) aims to raise awareness about UFOs and the extraterrestrial intelligent beings that come from other worlds. The organization celebrates July 2 as World UFO Day to encourage people to think that humans are not the only intelligent being in the Universe. However, some people consider June 24 to be World UFO Day.
