Nine tailless objects race the Cascade crest past Mount Rainier, June 24, 1947 — Kenneth Arnold's sighting, the report that named the "flying saucer."
THINK ABOUTIT UFO | UAP SIGHTING REPORT
1947 Kenneth Arnold Sighting:
The Birth of the “Flying Saucer”
A flash of light off his wingtip made Kenneth Arnold think he’d nearly collided with another plane. It was just before 3:00 on the clear afternoon of June 24, 1947, and the experienced civilian pilot was sweeping the ridges near Mount Rainier for a downed Marine transport when he turned and saw them: nine bright, tailless objects strung out in a diagonal chain, weaving along the crest of the Cascades and flipping like mirrors as they banked. He timed them between Rainier and Mount Adams against the sweep hand of his panel clock and got a figure that staggered him — better than 1,500 miles an hour, far beyond anything flying in 1947. Trying to describe their motion to reporters in Pendleton, he said they moved like a saucer skipped across water. A newspaperman turned that phrase into “flying saucer,” and the modern age of the unidentified flying object began. Arnold never claimed to know what they were. He only insisted, to the Army, the FBI, and anyone who would listen, that he had seen exactly what he reported.
Date: June 24, 1947
Sighting Time: Approximately 3:00 PM (first object passed Mt. Rainier at one minute to 3:00)
Day/Night: Day
Location: Near Mount Rainier, Cascade Range, Washington (observed from a CallAir aircraft in flight)
Urban or Rural: Rural
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: Not applicable — no occupants or entities observed
Entity Description: Not applicable
Hynek Classification: DD (Daylight Disc) — metallic/whitish structured objects observed in daytime flight
Duration: Approximately 2.5 to 3 minutes total observation (timed segment Rainier-to-Adams: 1 minute 42 seconds)
No. of Object(s): 9
Description of the Object(s): Nine flat, very shiny, tailless objects, described as rather heel- or crescent-shaped (appearing round when the sun flashed off them, and as a thin black line when level). They flew in a diagonal, chain-like line “as if linked together,” swerving in and out of the high peaks while holding a constant elevation and a definite heading of roughly 170 degrees.
Shape of Object(s): Flat and heel/crescent-shaped; very thin edge-on
Size of Object(s): About two-thirds the size of a DC-4; estimated span comparable to the distance between the outer engines of a DC-4
Color of Object(s): Silver / bright, very shiny
Distance to Object(s): Estimated 20 to 25 miles, at nearly right angles to his flight path
Height & Speed: Objects at approximately 9,200–9,500 ft, near Arnold’s own altitude; calculated speed in excess of 1,500 mph based on timing across a known peak-to-peak distance; constant elevation (not climbing or diving)
Number of Witnesses: 1 (Kenneth Arnold), with numerous independent same-period reports he believed described the same objects (e.g., United Air Lines Capt. E.J. Smith’s crew; Cedar City, Utah airline employees)
Special Features/Characteristics: Tailless objects; flat, reflective, flipping/banking motion flashing sunlight; chain-like formation “linked together”; observed through the cockpit glass and with the side window open for an unobstructed view; timed against a calibrated panel clock between two peaks of known separation; witness was a highly credible civilian pilot and reserve law-enforcement flier; the press coinage “flying saucer” derives from his description of the motion, not the shape
Case Status: Unexplained
Source: Kenneth Arnold’s own written account (provided to the press and to Army Air Forces intelligence, 1947); case widely documented in the primary UFO literature (e.g., Bloecher, “Report on the UFO Wave of 1947”; Project Blue Book / Air Force files; Clark, “The UFO Encyclopedia”). Note: the live page’s sole citation (Loy Lawhon, About.com) is a dead secondary link and should be replaced.
Summary/Description: On June 24, 1947, civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold, flying near Mount Rainier while assisting in a search for a downed Marine transport, saw nine bright, tailless, flat objects flying in a diagonal chain-like formation along the Cascade crest at constant altitude. He timed their passage between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams against his panel clock and calculated a speed exceeding 1,500 mph. He described their motion as like a saucer skipped across water; a newspaper editor’s rendering of this gave rise to the term “flying saucer.” Arnold’s credibility as a witness gave the report international reach, triggering hundreds of similar accounts and the first formal U.S. government interest in the phenomenon. He maintained he could not explain what he saw and invited official investigation.
Related Cases: 1947 Maury Island Incident, Washington (Arnold was drawn into its investigation) | 1947 Promontory Point B-17 sighting, Utah (nine discs, formation) | United Air Lines Capt. E.J. Smith Emmett, Idaho sighting (July 4, 1947) | broader 1947 nationwide disc wave | 1948 Chiles-Whitted, Mantell cases (subsequent foundational reports)
DETAILED REPORT
The Arnold sighting is the foundational case of the modern UFO era, and it is unusually well-documented because the witness himself wrote a detailed first-person account that survives. Kenneth Arnold was a 32-year-old civilian businessman and experienced pilot — owner of a fire-control-equipment supply company, a member of the Ada County, Idaho sheriff’s aerial posse, and an occasional federal-prisoner transport flier — who flew a high-performance CallAir light plane for his livelihood. On June 24, 1947, en route from Chehalis toward Yakima, Washington, he diverted to search the ridges near Mount Rainier for a Marine C-46 transport believed down in the area.
At about 9,200–9,500 feet near the mountain, a bright flash startled him into thinking he was dangerously close to another aircraft. Searching the sky, he located the source: a chain of nine objects flying north to south along the Cascade crest, on a heading of roughly 170 degrees. They were tailless — a detail that troubled him as a pilot — flat and very shiny, appearing round when the sun flashed off them and as thin black lines when level. They moved in a diagonal, chain-like line “as if they were linked together,” swerving among the peaks while holding a constant elevation. Recognizing two landmarks of known separation, Arnold timed the formation against the sweep second hand of his panel clock: the lead object passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier at one minute to three, and the formation cleared Mt. Adams 1 minute 42 seconds later. From the peak-to-peak distance he derived a speed in excess of 1,500 mph — extraordinary for 1947. He judged the objects 20 to 25 miles distant at nearly right angles, and estimated their size, by comparison against a distant DC-4 and a tool held at arm’s length, at roughly two-thirds that of the airliner. Crucially, he reported observing the objects not only through his windscreen but with his side window open, eliminating reflection as an explanation.
Arnold’s account of the aftermath is as historically important as the sighting. He related it to fellow pilots at Yakima and Pendleton, several of whom took it seriously and speculated about secret guided missiles; he tried to reach the FBI in Pendleton, found the office closed, and spoke instead to the editor of the East Oregonian, who put it on the wires. Because of Arnold’s evident reliability, the story achieved international circulation within a day, and the press rendering of his “saucer-skipping” description as “flying saucer” entered the global lexicon — applied, ironically, to the objects’ supposed shape rather than to the motion Arnold had actually been describing. He was soon drawn into the wider 1947 story: he befriended United Air Lines Captain E.J. Smith (whose crew had their own sighting), corresponded with Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer, met Army Air Forces intelligence officers Lt. Frank Brown and Capt. William Davidson, and was ultimately entangled in the Maury Island affair (later judged a hoax), in which Brown and Davidson died in a B-25 crash. Through all of it, Arnold consistently declined to claim he knew what the objects were, basing his account, in his words, on positive facts and openly inviting official scrutiny of his story and his faculties.
The case’s enduring strength is the witness and the method: a sober, experienced pilot, observing in clear air, who took a timed measurement against known landmarks rather than merely estimating. Conventional explanations have been offered over the decades — mirages or atmospheric reflection, blowing snow, meteor fragments, and notably a flock of white pelicans — and each addresses some features while straining against others (the open-window observation undercuts reflection; the tight chain-like formation and reflective flashing fit the pelican hypothesis poorly at the reported distance and size). No explanation has achieved consensus, and the report retains its standing as a genuinely unresolved daylight observation by a credible witness.
RESEARCHER’S NOTES
The Saucer That Wasn’t a Saucer — Mount Rainier 1947 and the Case That Named the Phenomenon
- Classification Assessment: DD (Daylight Disc) is correct and should stand. The sighting is a daytime observation of structured, reflective objects in flight, with no occupants and no close approach — the defining DD profile. The famous “saucer” terminology is a linguistic artifact of the press, not a shape claim by Arnold, who described heel- or crescent-shaped objects; this is worth flagging because the case literally named the field while being widely misremembered as to what Arnold said. The live page’s Day/Night field reads “Night,” which is a clear error for a 3:00 PM sighting and must be corrected to Day.
- Source Chain Assessment: The provenance is strong at its core but mis-cited on the page. The primary source is Arnold’s own contemporaneous written statement, given to the press and to Army Air Forces intelligence in 1947 and reproduced at length in the report; this is first-person primary testimony from a named, highly credible witness, corroborated in its broad pattern by multiple independent 1947 reports. The case is exhaustively documented in the primary literature (Ted Bloecher’s “Report on the UFO Wave of 1947,” Project Blue Book/USAF files, Jerome Clark’s “UFO Encyclopedia”). The live page’s only citation — Loy Lawhon at About.com — is a defunct secondary aggregator link and should be replaced with the primary account and a standard scholarly reference. Source tier: Primary (witness statement) with strong secondary support.
- Pattern Context: This is the index case of the 1947 wave and, arguably, of the modern phenomenon. The nine-object count and chain formation recur in the immediate aftermath (the Utah B-17 nine-disc report among them), and Arnold himself catalogued several concurrent accounts he believed matched his own, including the United Air Lines crew sighting of July 4, 1947. The case also seeded the field’s first hoax entanglement (Maury Island) and its first official scrutiny, making it the hinge on which both genuine investigation and the surrounding mythology turned. Its influence on subsequent witness vocabulary (“disc,” “saucer”) is so pervasive that later reports cannot be treated as fully independent of its imagery.
- Physical Evidence and Evidentiary Weight: There is no physical evidence — no photograph (Arnold lamented not having a camera and vowed never to fly without one again), no radar, no recovered material. The evidentiary weight rests on the quality of the witness and the discipline of his observation: clear-air viewing, an open-window check against reflection, and a timed measurement between two landmarks of known separation rather than a bare guess. That method is what elevates the case above a simple sighting and is why it has resisted decades of attempted debunking. The competing conventional explanations (reflection, snow, meteors, pelicans) each fail to account for the full set of reported features, and none commands consensus. On weight of evidence and the absence of a settled prosaic explanation, Unexplained is the defensible status.
The Kenneth Arnold sighting is where the modern record begins — not because it was the first strange thing ever seen in the sky, but because a credible pilot reported it plainly, measured it carefully, and a newspaper gave it a name that stuck to the entire phenomenon. Stripped of the mythology, what remains is a disciplined daylight observation by an experienced witness in clear air, checked against reflection and timed against known landmarks, that no conventional explanation has ever fully resolved. The archive corrects the page’s Day/Night error to Day, replaces the dead About.com citation with Arnold’s primary account and the standard literature, and assigns Case Status: Unexplained. It stands as the cornerstone of the chronological record — the case that named the field, retained on the strength of its witness and its method rather than on the fame that grew up around it.
Report
Kenneth Arnold showing an illustration of one of the nine objects he saw.
Kenneth Arnold in front of his CallAir plane.
Kenneth Arnold’s drawing to Army Air Force (AAF) intelligence, July 12, 1947.
Funny how your life can get turned upside down just because you see something. Kenneth Arnold’s story is the story of a pretty straight guy. He was an Eagle Scout when he was a teenager. He worked for the Red Cross. He was an All-State football player in high school, with hopes of being a college star until a knee injury cut his football career short.
After college, Arnold became a salesman and learned to fly, combining the two by flying from small town to small town selling fire control equipment, eventually owning the Great Western Fire Control Supply Company. He was a member of the Sheriff’s “aerial posse” of Ada County, Idaho, he was a relief U.S. Marshall, and he sometimes flew prisoners to the Federal Penitentiary. Flying his light plane, a Callair, was the basis of his livelihood.
In other words, he was the perfect UFO witness: a solid citizen, honest and trustworthy, married, with two daughters.
On June 24, 1947, he was returning home from a business trip when he made a detour into the Yakima, Washington area to help in an aerial search for a missing C-46 marine transport plane that was believed to have gone down in the area.
At around 3:00 in the afternoon, he was flying at about 9,000 feet, near Mount Rainier, when a flash of light caught his eye. He turned and saw a procession of nine very strange objects flying from north to south in front of his plane. They were flat and rather heel-shaped, very shiny, and they moved erratically like a “saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” You can see Arnold’s drawing of what he saw here. Arnold estimated their size at about two-thirds that of a DC-4, and he calculated their speed at over 1500 mph by timing their travel between two mountain peaks of known distance.
When he arrived at Yakima, Washington, Arnold told several other pilots about his sighting. The consensus among them was that it was some type of military “secret weapon”. However, Arnold would later find that the U.S. military was as mystified by the objects as he himself was.
In Pendleton, Oregon, Arnold went to make a report to the FBI, but the local office was closed, so he talked to the editor of the East Oregonian newspaper instead and it was the editor who put the story on the newswires. Because of Arnold’s background and reliability as a witness, the story got wide circulation. Here’s Arnold’s report in his own words.
What did Arnold see? Skeptics said everything from clouds to blowing snow on the mountain, to droplets of water on his airplane window. Here Martin Kottmeter shoots down some of the early theories of what Arnold saw. More recent explanations include Phil Klass’ meteorite fragments and James Easton’s white pelicans.
The June sighting and the resulting hoopla were not the ends of Arnold’s association with UFOs. On July 5th, 1947, Arnold was introduced to Captain E. J. Smith, who, along with his co-pilot and a stewardess, had seen a formation of UFOs over Emmett, Idaho. They hit it off well and became good friends.
In the middle of July, Arnold received a letter from Raymond Palmer, editor of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. Arnold didn’t know who Palmer was, since he didn’t read the pulps. Palmer wanted Arnold to write down his experiences for publication in the magazine and he offered to pay. Arnold didn’t particularly care about the money and sent Palmer a copy of what he had already told the newspapers and the Army Air Corps.
Later in July, a couple of Army Air Force intelligence officers named Lt. Frank M. Brown and Capt. William Davidson had a friendly meeting with Arnold. He gave them an account of his sighting and they asked him to report any further incidents to them. Lt. Brown filed a report giving his impression of Arnold’s story. Arnold, Smith, Brown, Davidson, and Palmer were later to become involved in the Maury Island hoax.
BY KENNETH ARNOLD
The following story of what I observed over the Cascade mountains, as impossible as it may seem, is positively true. I never asked nor wanted any notoriety for just accidentally being in the right spot at the right time to observe what I did. I reported something that I know any pilot would have reported. I don’t think that in any way my observation was due to any sensitivity of eyesight or judgment than what is considered normal for any pilot.
On June 24th, Tuesday, 1947, I had finished my work for the Central Air Service at Chehalis, Washington, and at about two o’clock I took off from Chehalis, Washington, airport with the intention of going to Yakima, Wash. My trip was delayed for an hour to search for a large marine transport that supposedly went down near or around the southwest side of Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington and to date has never been found.
I flew directly toward Mt. Rainier after reaching an altitude of about 9,500 feet, which is the approximate elevation of the high plateau from which Mt. Rainier rises. I had made one sweep of this high plateau to the westward, searching all of the various ridges for this marine ship and flew to the west down and near the ridge side of the canyon where Ashford, Washington, is located.
Unable to see anything that looked like the lost ship, I made a 360 degree turn to the right and above the little city of Mineral, starting again toward Mt. Rainier. I climbed back up to an altitude of approximately 9,200 feet.
The air was so smooth that day that it was a real pleasure flying and, as most pilots do when the air is smooth and they are flying at a higher altitude, I trimmed out my airplane in the direction of Yakima, Washington, which was almost directly east of my position and simply sat in my plane observing the sky and the terrain.
There was a DC-4 to the left and to the rear of me approximately fifteen miles distance, and I should judge, at 14,000-foot elevation.
The sky and air were clear as crystal. I hadn’t flown more than two or three minutes on my course when a bright flash reflected on my airplane. It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other aircraft. I looked every place in the sky and couldn’t find where the reflection had come from until I looked to the left and the north of Mt. Rainier where I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking aircraft flying from north to south at approximately 9,500-foot elevation and going, seemingly, in a definite direction of about 170 degrees.
They were approaching Mt. Rainier very rapidly, and I merely assumed they were jet planes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the reflection had come from, as two or three of them every few seconds would dip or change their course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle that reflected brightly on my plane.
These objects being quite far away, I was unable for a few seconds to make out their shape or their formation. Very shortly they approached Mt. Rainier, and I observed their outline against the snow quite plainly.
I thought it was very peculiar that I couldn’t find their tails but assumed they were some type of jet plane. I was determined to clock their speed, as I had two definite points I could clock them by; the air was so clear that it was very easy to see objects and determine their approximate shape and size at almost fifty miles that day.
I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight-day clock, which is located on my instrument panel, read one minute to 3 P.M. as the first object of this formation passed the southern edge of Mt. Rainier. I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed airplanes flying so close to the mountain tops, flying directly south to southeast down the hog’s back of a mountain range. I would estimate their elevation could have varied a thousand feet one way or another up or down, but they were pretty much on the horizon to me which would indicate they were near the same elevation as I was.
They flew like many times I have observed geese fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if they were linked together. They seemed to hold a definite direction but rather swerved in and out of the high mountain peaks. Their speed at the time did not impress me particularly, because I knew that our army and air forces had planes that went very fast.
What kept bothering me as I watched them flip and flash in the sun right along their path was the fact that I couldn’t make out any tail on them, and I am sure that any pilot would justify more than a second look at such a plane.
I observed them quite plainly, and I estimate my distance from them, which was almost at right angles, to be between twenty to twenty-five miles. I knew they must be very large to observe their shape at that distance, even on as clear a day as it was that Tuesday, In fact, I compared a Zeus fastener or cowling tool I had in my pocket with them – holding it upon them and holding it up on the DC-4 – that I could observe at quite a distance to my left, and they seemed smaller than the DC-4; but, I should judge their span would have been as wide as the furthest engines on each side of the fuselage of the DC-4.
The more I observed these objects the more upset I became, as I am accustomed and familiar with most all objects flying whether I am close to the ground or at higher altitudes. I observed the chain of these objects passing another high snow-covered rIdge in between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams and as the first one was passing the south crest of this ridge the last object was entering the northern crest of the ridge.
As I was flying in the direction of this particular ridge, I measured it and found it to be approximately five miles so I could safely assume that the chain of these saucer-like objects was at least five miles long. I could quite accurately determine their pathway due to the fact that there were several high peaks that were a little this side of them as well as higher peaks on the other side of their pathway.
As the last unit of this formation passed the southernmost high snow-covered crest of Mt. Adams, I looked at my sweep second hand and it showed that they had traveled the distance in one minute and forty-two seconds. Even at the time, this timing did not upset me as I felt confident after I would land there would be some explanation of what I saw.
A number of newsmen and experts suggested that I might have been seeing reflections or even a mirage. This I know to be absolutely false, as I observed these objects not only through the glass of my airplane but turned my airplane sideways where I could open my window and observe them with a completely unobstructed view. (Without sunglasses)
Even though two minutes seems like a very short time to one on the ground, in the air in two minutes’ time a pilot can observe a great many things and anything within his sight of vision probably as many as fifty or sixty times.
I continued my search for the marine plane for another fifteen or twenty minutes and while searching for this marine plane, what I had just observed kept going through my mind. I became more disturbed, so after taking a last look at Tieton Reservoir I headed for Yakima.
I might add that my complete observation of these objects, which I could even follow by their flashes as they passed Mt. Adams, was around two and one-half or three minutes — although, by the time they reached Mt. Adams they were out of my range of vision as far as determining shape or form. Of course, when the sun reflected from one or two or three of these units, they appeared to be completely round; but, I am making a drawing to the best of my ability, which I am including, as to the shape I observed these objects to be as they passed the snow-covered ridges as well as Mt. Rainier.
When these objects were flying approximately straight and level, they were just a black thin line and when they flipped was the only time I could get a judgment as to their size.
These objects were holding an almost constant elevation; they did not seem to be going up or coming down, such as would be the case of rockets or artillery shells. I am convinced in my own mind that they were some type of airplane, even though they didn’t conform with the many aspects of the conventional type of planes that I know.
Although these objects have been reported by many other observers throughout the United States, there have been six or seven other accounts written by some of these observers that I can truthfully say must have observed the same thing that I did; particularly, the descriptions of the three Western [Cedar City, Utah] Air Lines employees, the gentleman [pilot] from Oklahoma City and the locomotive engineer from Illinois, plus Capt Smith and Co-Pilot Stevens of United Air Lines.
Some descriptions could not be very accurate taken from the ground unless these saucer-like disks were at a great height and there is a possibility that all of the people who observed peculiar objects could have seen the same thing I did, but, it would have been very difficult from the ground to observe these for more than four or five seconds, and there is always the possibility of atmospheric moisture and dust near the ground which could distort one’s vision.
I have in my possession letters from all over the United States and people who profess that these objects have been observed over other portions of the world, principally Sweden, Bermuda, and California.
I would have given almost anything that day to have had a movie camera with a telephoto lens and from now on I will never be without one – – but, to continue further with my story. When I landed at Yakima, Wash., airport I described what I had seen to my very good friend, Al Baxter, who listened patiently and was very courteous but in a joking way didn’t believe me.
I did not accurately measure the distance between these two mountains until I landed at Pendleton, Oregon, that same day where I told a number of pilot friends of mine what I had observed and they did not scoff or laugh but suggested they might be guided missiles or something new. In fact, several former Army pilots informed me that they had been briefed before going into combat overseas that they might see objects of similar shape and design as I described and assured me that I wasn’t dreaming or going crazy.
I quote Sonny Robinson, a former Army Air Forces pilot who is now operating dusting operations at Pendleton, Oregon, “What you observed, I am convinced, is some type of jet or rocket-propelled ship that is in the process of being tested by our government or even it could possibly be by some foreign government.”
Anyhow, the news that I had observed these spread very rapidly, and before the night was over I was receiving telephone calls from all parts of the world; and, to date, I have not received one telephone call or one letter of scoffing or disbelief. the only disbelief that I know of was what was printed in the papers.
I look at this whole ordeal as not something funny as some people have made it out to be. To me, it is mighty serious and since I evidently did observe something that at least Mr. John Doe on the street corner or Pete Andrews on the ranch has never heard about, is no reason that it does not exist. Even though I openly invited an investigation by the Army and the FBI as to the authenticity of my story or a mental or a physical examination as to my capabilities, I have received no interest from these two important protective forces of our country; I will go so far as to assume that any report I gave to the United and Associated Press and over the radio on two different occasions which apparently set the nation buzzing if our Military intelligence was not aware of what I observed, they would be the very first people that I could expect as visitors.
I have received lots of requests from people who told me to make a lot of wild guesses. I have based what I have written here in this article on positive facts and as far as guessing what it was I observed, it is just as much a mystery to me as it is to the rest of the world.
My pilot’s license is 333487. I fly a Callair airplane; it is a three-place single-engine land ship that is designed and manufactured at Afton, Wyoming as an extremely high performance, high altitude airplane that was made for mountain work. The national certificate of my plane is 33355
