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{{short description|American aviator and businessman (1915–1984)}}
'''Kenneth Arnold''' made what is generally considered the first major ] sighting.
{{about|the businessman and pilot|the programmer|Ken Arnold}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Kenneth Albert
| image =
| image_size =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1915|03|29}}
| birth_place = ], US
| alma_mater = ]
| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|1984|01|16|1915|03|29}}
| death_place = ], US
| occupation = Businessman, aviator
}}


'''Kenneth Albert Arnold''' (March 29, 1915 – January 16, 1984) was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.
On ] ], Arnold — a private pilot from ] and part time Search and Rescue Mercy Flyer — reported seeing nine unusual objects flying in a chain near ] while he was searching for a missing military ] in his ]. He described the objects as almost blindingly bright when they reflected the sun's rays, their flight as "erratic" ("like the tail of a Chinese kite"), and flying at "tremendous speed". Arnold's story was widely reported by the ] and other news outlets, and is usually credited as the catalyst for modern ] interest.


Arnold is known best for reporting what is generally considered the first widely publicized modern sighting of an ] (UFO) in the United States, after claiming to have seen ] flying in unison near ], ] on June 24, 1947. After his alleged sighting, Arnold began investigating reports of UFOs, writing and speaking about the topic for several years afterward.
Shortly after his sighting Arnold landed in ] where he made a routine report to a Civil Aeronautics Administration representative. When he stopped on his way back to Boise to refuel in ], he repeated his story to a group of curious listeners which included a newspaper reporter. Several years later, Arnold claimed he told the reporter that "they flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water" and that was how the term "]" was born. Another commonly used term to describe the objects arising from the Arnold sighting was "flying disks" (or "discs"). Arnold felt that he had been misquoted since the description referred to the objects' motion rather than their shape.


In 1962, Arnold won the ] nomination for ], losing the ].
]However the truth of Arnold's shape description is more complicated. Immediately after his sighting, he generally described the objects as thin and flat, rounded in the front but chopped in the back and coming to a point, i.e., more or less saucer- or disk-like. E.g., in a radio interview two days after his sighting, he described them as looking "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear." (). In a United Press story the same day he was quoted saying, "They were shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them." In the ''Portland Oregon Journal'' the following day, Arnold's quoted description was "They were half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ...they looked like a big flat disk."


==Biography==
In a written statement to Army Air Force intelligence on July 12, Arnold several times referred to the objects as "saucer-like." At the end of the report he drew a picture of what the objects appeared to look like at their closest approach to Mt. Rainier. He wrote, "They seemed longer than wide, their thickness was about 1/20th their width."
Arnold was born on March 29, 1915, in ].<ref name="GovRace">{{Cite web|title=14 Dec 1961, 6 – The Idaho Statesman at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/724219689/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}}</ref><!--<ref>, "Some life data on Kenneth Arnold"</ref>--> He grew up in ]. He was an Eagle Scout and all-state football player in high school.<ref name="Spokesman2017"/> He attended the University of Minnesota in 1934–35.<ref name="GovRace"/> His family was of Lutheran faith.<ref name="Long 2022 p. 323">{{cite book | last=Long | first=G. | title=Nine Flying Objects: The Amazing Story of Kenneth Arnold | publisher=Page Publishing, Inc. | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-6624-7493-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utGTEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT323 | access-date=2023-02-07 | page=323}}</ref>


In 1938, he began work for Red Comet, manufacturer of automatic firefighting equipment. He was promoted to district manager the next year. In 1940, Arnold started his own company, the Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise, Idaho, which sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the Pacific Northwest.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bartholomew|first=Robert E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XR55jphsw4C&pg=PA160|title=Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking|year=2010|publisher=Prometheus Books|isbn=978-1-61592-338-0|language=en}}</ref>
]To complicate the story further, a month after his sighting, Arnold was to become involved in the bizarre ]. In a meeting with two AAF intelligence officers, Arnold first revealed one of the nine objects was different, being larger and shaped more like a crescent coming to a point in the back (see picture at right).


In 1941, Arnold married Doris Lowe (1918–1990); they had four daughters.<ref name="GovRace"/>
Regardless, in the weeks that followed, several thousand reports of similar sightings flooded in from the U.S. and around the world &mdash; most of which described saucer-shaped objects. A sighting by a United Airlines crew of nine, disk-like objects over Idaho on July 4 probably garnered more newspaper coverage than Arnold's original sighting, and opened the floodgates of media coverage in the days to follow.


==Role in UFO phenomenon==
Adding intrigue to Arnold's story, the U.S. military denied having any planes at all in the area of Mount Rainier at the time of his sighting. Likewise, on July 6, speculation arose in newspaper articles that the objects being sighted were due to either the "]" or "flying flapjack," a disc-shaped aircraft, both experimental planes under development by the U.S. military at the time (see ]). The military repeated that neither aircraft could account for the sightings.


===Arnold's 1947 UFO sighting===
The most famous UFO event during this period was the ], the alleged military recovery of a crashed flying disk, the story of which broke on July 8. To calm rising public concern, this and other cases were debunked by the military in succeeding days as mistaken sightings of ]s.
{{Main|Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting}}
On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a series of nine, shiny ] flying past ] at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932&nbsp;km/h). This was the first post-] sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of ], including numerous reported sightings during the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also resulted in the press soon inventing the terms '']'' and ''flying disc'' as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.


===Investigation of Maury Island UFO "hoax"===
Despite this public debunkery, on July 9 AAF intelligence secretly began an investigation of the best sightings, with help from the FBI. Arnold's sighting, as well as that of the United Airline's crew, were included in the list of best sightings. Three weeks later they came to the conclusion that the saucer reports were not imaginary or adequately explained by natural phenomena; something real was flying around. This laid the groundwork for another intelligence estimate in September 1947 by Gen. ], commanding officer of the ], which likewise concluded the saucers were real and urged a formal investigation by multiple government agencies. This is turn resulted in the formation of Project Sign at the end of 1947, the first publicly acknowledged USAF ] investigation. Project Sign eventually evolved into the better known ].
{{main|Maury Island incident}}
After the 1947 UFO sighting, Arnold became famous "practically overnight". Arnold's daughter would later recall the family receiving 10,000 letters and constant telephone calls.<ref name="Spokesman2017">{{Cite web|title=Flying saucers still evasive 70 years after pilot's report {{!}} The Spokesman-Review|url=https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=www.spokesman.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812160716/https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|archive-date=12 August 2022}}</ref>


Arnold was contacted by ], editor of science fiction magazine '']'',<ref name="ComingOf"/> who asked Arnold to investigate the story of two harbormen in Tacoma who reportedly possessed fragments of a "flying saucer".<ref name="ComingOf">Arnold "The Coming of the Saucers" (1952)</ref> Palmer sent $200 to fund the investigation.<ref name="ComingOf"/>
One unusual aspect of Arnold's sighting that sets it apart from most is that Arnold calculated the speed of the objects by timing how long it took them to fly between Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams, 50 miles to the south. The objects faded out in the distance near Mt Adams after 1 minute and 42 seconds, yielding a computed speed of over 1700 miles an hour. Arnold conservatively rounded this down to 1200 miles an hour, still far faster than any manned aircraft of the time, which had yet to break the ] . It was this ] speed in addition to the unusual saucer or disk description that seemed to capture people's attention.


On July 29, Arnold interviewed a harborman who claimed that one of the objects "began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very light weight metal, fluttered to earth". The harborman claimed the craft emitted a substance resembling lava rocks that fell onto his boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog.<ref name="ComingOf"/><ref name="Harrison2007">{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Albert A. |author-link=Albert Harrison (psychologist) |year=2007 |title=Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion, and Folklore |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-84545-286-5 |pages=123– |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ORNcQUBAEjUC&pg=PA123 |access-date=2 October 2013}}</ref>
Arnold's sighting was partly corroborated by a prospector on Mt. Adams, who wrote AAF intelligence that he saw six of the objects on June 24 at about the same time as Arnold, which he viewed through a small telescope. He said they were "round" and tapered "sharply to a point in the head and in an oval shape." An evaluation of the witness by AAF intelligence found him to be credible. A Seattle newspaper also mentioned a woman near Tacoma who said she saw a chain of nine, bright objects flying at high speed near Mt. Rainier. Unfortunately this short news item wasn't precise as to time or date, but indicated it was around the same date as Arnold's sighting. However, a pilot of a ] some 10-15 miles north of Arnold en route to Seattle reported seeing nothing unusual.


Arnold interviewed ], an associate of the harborman, who reported having recovered debris from Maury Island in
Nevertheless, Arnold was an experienced pilot who apparently had nothing to gain by fabricating the story. Indeed, he did not seem to enjoy the ensuing publicity, later remarking "none of us appreciate being laughed at." Furthermore, his description remained fairly consistent.
Puget Sound and having witnessed an unusual craft.<ref name="ComingOf"/> Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with the harborman's description.<ref name="ComingOf"/>


Arnold contacted the Air Force, and two officers arrived to investigate.<ref name="ComingOf"/> The officers performed interviews, collected the fragments, and took off in their airplane. While returning to their base in California, during the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the ] airplane they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington.<ref name="howstuffworks">{{cite web|title=The Maury Island UFO Incident|url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/maury-island-incident.htm|website=How Stuff Works|date=8 February 2008|publisher=How Stuff Works|access-date=15 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326142046/https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/maury-island-incident.htm|archive-date= 26 March 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In a 1950 interview with journalist ], Arnold reported seeing similiar objects on three other occasions, and said other pilots flying in the northwestern U.S. had sighted such objects as many as eight times. The pilots initially felt a duty reporting the objects despite the ridicule, he said, because they thought the U.S. government didn't know what they were. Arnold did not assert that the objects were alien spacecraft, although he did say: "being a natural-born American, if it's not made by our science or our Army Air Forces, I am inclined to believe it's of an extra-terrestrial origin." Then he added that he thought everybody should be concerned, but "I don't think it's anything for people to get hysterical about." The extra-terrestrial speculation may have been motivated by a desire to allay public fears of the (seemingly) real possibility of a foreign invasion--Arnold's sighting was less than two years after the end of ] and in the early stages of the ].


Writing in 1956, Air Force officer ] would conclude "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history."<ref name="ruppelt">{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrbCDwAAQBAJ|title = The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|last1 = Ruppelt|first1 = Edward J.|date = 20 November 2019}}</ref> Ruppelt observed:
In 1952 Kenneth Arnold described his experiences in the book ''The Coming of the Saucers'', which he and a publisher friend named Raymond Palmer published themselves.
<blockquote>
The government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men.<ref name="ruppelt"/>
</blockquote>

===Aftermath===

Arnold was involved with interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees (notably, he investigated the claims of ], one of the first alleged contactees).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYcx2lFvTrEC&pg=PA111|title = Hidden Realms, Lost Civilizations, and Beings from Other Worlds|isbn = 978-1578593408|last1 = Clark|first1 = Jerome|date = 2010}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}}</ref>

In spring 1948, Arnold and Science Fiction editor ] collaborated on an article titled "I ''Did'' See The Flying Disks", based on Arnold's sighting.<ref name="Spokesman2017"/><ref name="books.google.com">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X0HCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science|isbn=978-0486131627|last1=Gardner|first1=Martin|year=2012}}</ref><!-- Note that May misidentifies title as 'truth about the flying saucers; that is wrong. --> <ref name="May 2016">{{Cite book|last=May|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2O0QDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA65|title=Pseudoscience and Science Fiction|year=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-42605-1|language=en}}</ref> In 1950, Arnold self-published a 16-page booklet titled "The Flying Saucer As I Saw It".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Arnold|first=Kenneth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8t0HAAACAAJ|title=The Flying Saucer as I Saw it|date=1950|language=en}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}}</ref> In 1948, he authored "Are Space Visitors Here?"<ref>Fate, Summer 1948</ref> and "Phantom Lights in Nevada".<ref>Fate, Fall 1948</ref><ref name="books.google.com"/>

On April 7, 1950, broadcaster ] interviewed Arnold, who stated that since June 1947 he had had three additional sightings of nine spacecraft.<ref name="Garber">Garber, Megan (June 15, 2014). "". ''The Atlantic''. Retrieved October 30, 2021.</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.project1947.com/fig/kamurrow.htm | title=Project 1947 – Ed Murrow – Kenneth Arnold Interview }}</ref>

In January 1951, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article titled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", which accused Arnold of " a chain reaction of mass hypnotism and fraud that has taken on the guise of a prolonged 'Martian Invasion' broadcast by that bizarre ] Orson Welles".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.project1947.com/fig/cosmojan51.htm | title=Project 1947: Cosmopolitan Magazine "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax" – January, 1951 }}</ref><ref name="Spokesman2017"/>

In 1952, Arnold and Palmer authored '']''.<ref name="May 2016"/><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/TheComingOfTheSaucers|title=The Coming Of The Saucers|language=English}}{{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}}</ref>

Reportedly, Arnold came to believe he had experienced seven additional sightings, one of which involved a transparent saucer he likened to a jellyfish.<ref name="Spokesman2017"/> By 1955, he began to promote ] when he suggested that the UFOs are "sort of like sky jellyfish". Arnold added: "My theory might sound funny, but just remember that there are a lot of things in nature that we don't know yet".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/la-grande-observer-kenneth-arnolds-cryp/12450519/|title=Eerie Blue Light Said Live 'Thing' |newspaper=La Grande Observer |date=January 29, 1955|pages=1|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> In 1962, he argued "the so-called unidentified flying objects that have been seen in our atmosphere are not spaceships from another planet at all, but are groups and masses of living organisms that are as much a part of our atmosphere and space as the life we find in the oceans".<ref>Flying Saucer Magazine, Nov. 1962</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/the-cosmic-pulse-of-life|title=The Cosmic Pulse of Life: The Revolutionary Biological Power Behind UFOs|date=May 9, 2008|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

==Political career and later life==
In 1962, Kenneth Arnold announced plans to campaign for Governor of Idaho, and won the Republican nomination for the ];<ref>{{Cite web|title=6 Jun 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/408264435/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}}</ref> in the election, Arnold lost to incumbent Democrat ].<ref>{{Cite web|title=9 Nov 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/408220693/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}}</ref> In 1964, Arnold publicly campaigned for Republican presidential nominee ], flying an airplane painted with Goldwater '64 slogan "Au-H2O-64".<ref>{{Cite web|title=10 Sep 1964, Page 1 – Idaho State Journal at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/15890974/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}}</ref>
{{Election box begin no change | title=1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election<ref name="results">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/564546269/|title=24 Nov 1962, 20 - Spokane Chronicle at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}</ref>}}
{{Election box winning candidate with party link_no change|
| party = Democratic Party (United States)
| candidate = ] (incumbent)
| votes = 135,474
| percentage = 54.17
}}
{{Election box candidate with party link_no change|
| party = Republican Party (United States)
| candidate = Kenneth Arnold
| votes = 114,617
| percentage = 45.83
}}
{{Election box end}}
<!-- In 1964, a human interest piece covered his daughter's departure to college.<ref>https://www.newspapers.com/image/724438915/ {{Bare URL inline|date=May 2022}}</ref>--->

He appeared at a 1977 convention curated by the magazine ] to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern UFO age.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/156014786/ | title=The News Journal |date=4 May 1977|page = 4 }}</ref>

In 1984, Kenneth Arnold, aged 68, died from ] at ] in ].<!--or a hospital in ]??--><ref name="collins">{{cite web |last1=Collins |first1=Curt |title=UFOs, Kenneth Arnold and the American Bible |url=http://www.kennetharnoldufo.com/kenneth-arnold.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120040746/http://www.kennetharnoldufo.com/kenneth-arnold.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 20, 2012 |website=blueblurrylines.com |date = March 15, 2017 |access-date=October 25, 2018}}</ref><!--<ref>, Cremated, and ashes given to his wife</ref>-->

==Bibliography==
* ''The Real Flying Saucers'', ] (January 1952)
* '''' (1952) (with ])

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
* {{Citation | first1 = Kenneth | last1 = Arnold | author-link = Kenneth Arnold | last2 = Palmer | first2 = Ray | author2-link = Raymond A. Palmer | title = The coming of the saucers: a documentary report on sky objects that have mystified the world | place = Boise, Wisconsin | publisher = Privately published by the authors | year = 1952 | pages = 192 | id = 3021444 }}
* Clark, Jerome, ''The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon from the Beginning, Volume 2, A–K'', Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1998 (2nd edition, 2005), {{ISBN|0-7808-0097-4}}
* ], ''The UFO Mystery Solved'', Explicit Books, 1994, {{ISBN|0-9521512-0-0}}
* Obituary, '']'', January 22, 1984
{{refend}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
*
* by ] *
* 10-part series at Saturday Night Uforia
*
*
*
* {{Skeptoid | id= 4820| number=820 | title=Maury Island: The Government's Alien Artifacts| date= 2 February 2022}}


{{Authority control}}
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Latest revision as of 03:52, 27 October 2024

American aviator and businessman (1915–1984) This article is about the businessman and pilot. For the programmer, see Ken Arnold.

Kenneth Albert
Born(1915-03-29)March 29, 1915
Sebeka, Minnesota, US
DiedJanuary 16, 1984(1984-01-16) (aged 68)
Bellevue, Washington, US
Alma materUniversity of Minnesota
Occupation(s)Businessman, aviator

Kenneth Albert Arnold (March 29, 1915 – January 16, 1984) was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.

Arnold is known best for reporting what is generally considered the first widely publicized modern sighting of an unidentified flying object (UFO) in the United States, after claiming to have seen nine silver-colored discs flying in unison near Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. After his alleged sighting, Arnold began investigating reports of UFOs, writing and speaking about the topic for several years afterward.

In 1962, Arnold won the Republican Party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Idaho, losing the election of the same year.

Biography

Arnold was born on March 29, 1915, in Sebeka, Minnesota. He grew up in Scobey, Montana. He was an Eagle Scout and all-state football player in high school. He attended the University of Minnesota in 1934–35. His family was of Lutheran faith.

In 1938, he began work for Red Comet, manufacturer of automatic firefighting equipment. He was promoted to district manager the next year. In 1940, Arnold started his own company, the Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise, Idaho, which sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the Pacific Northwest.

In 1941, Arnold married Doris Lowe (1918–1990); they had four daughters.

Role in UFO phenomenon

Arnold's 1947 UFO sighting

Main article: Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting

On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a series of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/h). This was the first post-World War II sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings during the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also resulted in the press soon inventing the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.

Investigation of Maury Island UFO "hoax"

Main article: Maury Island incident

After the 1947 UFO sighting, Arnold became famous "practically overnight". Arnold's daughter would later recall the family receiving 10,000 letters and constant telephone calls.

Arnold was contacted by Raymond A. Palmer, editor of science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, who asked Arnold to investigate the story of two harbormen in Tacoma who reportedly possessed fragments of a "flying saucer". Palmer sent $200 to fund the investigation.

On July 29, Arnold interviewed a harborman who claimed that one of the objects "began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very light weight metal, fluttered to earth". The harborman claimed the craft emitted a substance resembling lava rocks that fell onto his boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog.

Arnold interviewed Fred Crisman, an associate of the harborman, who reported having recovered debris from Maury Island in Puget Sound and having witnessed an unusual craft. Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with the harborman's description.

Arnold contacted the Air Force, and two officers arrived to investigate. The officers performed interviews, collected the fragments, and took off in their airplane. While returning to their base in California, during the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the B-25 Mitchell airplane they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington.

Writing in 1956, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt would conclude "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history." Ruppelt observed:

The government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men.

Aftermath

Arnold was involved with interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees (notably, he investigated the claims of Samuel Eaton Thompson, one of the first alleged contactees).

In spring 1948, Arnold and Science Fiction editor Raymond Palmer collaborated on an article titled "I Did See The Flying Disks", based on Arnold's sighting. In 1950, Arnold self-published a 16-page booklet titled "The Flying Saucer As I Saw It". In 1948, he authored "Are Space Visitors Here?" and "Phantom Lights in Nevada".

On April 7, 1950, broadcaster Edward R. Murrow interviewed Arnold, who stated that since June 1947 he had had three additional sightings of nine spacecraft.

In January 1951, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article titled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", which accused Arnold of " a chain reaction of mass hypnotism and fraud that has taken on the guise of a prolonged 'Martian Invasion' broadcast by that bizarre hambone Orson Welles".

In 1952, Arnold and Palmer authored The Coming of the Saucers.

Reportedly, Arnold came to believe he had experienced seven additional sightings, one of which involved a transparent saucer he likened to a jellyfish. By 1955, he began to promote space animal hypothesis when he suggested that the UFOs are "sort of like sky jellyfish". Arnold added: "My theory might sound funny, but just remember that there are a lot of things in nature that we don't know yet". In 1962, he argued "the so-called unidentified flying objects that have been seen in our atmosphere are not spaceships from another planet at all, but are groups and masses of living organisms that are as much a part of our atmosphere and space as the life we find in the oceans".

Political career and later life

In 1962, Kenneth Arnold announced plans to campaign for Governor of Idaho, and won the Republican nomination for the 1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election; in the election, Arnold lost to incumbent Democrat W. E. Drevlow. In 1964, Arnold publicly campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, flying an airplane painted with Goldwater '64 slogan "Au-H2O-64".

1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic W. E. Drevlow (incumbent) 135,474 54.17
Republican Kenneth Arnold 114,617 45.83

He appeared at a 1977 convention curated by the magazine Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern UFO age.

In 1984, Kenneth Arnold, aged 68, died from colon cancer at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, Washington.

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ "14 Dec 1961, 6 – The Idaho Statesman at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  2. ^ "Flying saucers still evasive 70 years after pilot's report | The Spokesman-Review". www.spokesman.com. Archived from the original on August 12, 2022. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  3. Long, G. (2022). Nine Flying Objects: The Amazing Story of Kenneth Arnold. Page Publishing, Inc. p. 323. ISBN 978-1-6624-7493-4. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
  4. Bartholomew, Robert E. (2010). Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61592-338-0.
  5. ^ Arnold "The Coming of the Saucers" (1952)
  6. Harrison, Albert A. (2007). Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion, and Folklore. Berghahn Books. pp. 123–. ISBN 978-1-84545-286-5. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  7. "The Maury Island UFO Incident". How Stuff Works. How Stuff Works. February 8, 2008. Archived from the original on March 26, 2018. Retrieved March 15, 2018.
  8. ^ Ruppelt, Edward J. (November 20, 2019). "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects".
  9. Clark, Jerome (2010). Hidden Realms, Lost Civilizations, and Beings from Other Worlds. ISBN 978-1578593408.
  10. ^ Gardner, Martin (2012). Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. ISBN 978-0486131627.
  11. ^ May, Andrew (2016). Pseudoscience and Science Fiction. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-42605-1.
  12. Arnold, Kenneth (1950). The Flying Saucer as I Saw it.
  13. Fate, Summer 1948
  14. Fate, Fall 1948
  15. Garber, Megan (June 15, 2014). "The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
  16. "Project 1947 – Ed Murrow – Kenneth Arnold Interview".
  17. "Project 1947: Cosmopolitan Magazine "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax" – January, 1951".
  18. The Coming Of The Saucers.
  19. "Eerie Blue Light Said Live 'Thing'". La Grande Observer. January 29, 1955. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. Flying Saucer Magazine, Nov. 1962
  21. "The Cosmic Pulse of Life: The Revolutionary Biological Power Behind UFOs". May 9, 2008 – via Internet Archive.
  22. "6 Jun 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  23. "9 Nov 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  24. "10 Sep 1964, Page 1 – Idaho State Journal at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved December 30, 2021.
  25. "24 Nov 1962, 20 - Spokane Chronicle at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com.
  26. "The News Journal". May 4, 1977. p. 4.
  27. Collins, Curt (March 15, 2017). "UFOs, Kenneth Arnold and the American Bible". blueblurrylines.com. Archived from the original on January 20, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2018.

Sources

  • Arnold, Kenneth; Palmer, Ray (1952), The coming of the saucers: a documentary report on sky objects that have mystified the world, Boise, Wisconsin: Privately published by the authors, p. 192, 3021444
  • Clark, Jerome, The UFO Encyclopedia: The Phenomenon from the Beginning, Volume 2, A–K, Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1998 (2nd edition, 2005), ISBN 0-7808-0097-4
  • Campbell, Steuart, The UFO Mystery Solved, Explicit Books, 1994, ISBN 0-9521512-0-0
  • Obituary, Idaho Statesman, January 22, 1984

External links

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