The article below was published in the newspaper The Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon, USA, on page 1, on June 26, 1947.
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PENDLETON, Ore., June 25 - (AP) - Nine shiny objects flying at 1200 miles an hour over the Cascade range of western Washington - That's what Pilot Kenneth Arnold, Boise, Idaho, today reported he saw while on a routine flight over the mountains.
He stuck to his story tonight while experts said they had no explanation as to what the "objects" could be.
He said they were bright, saucer-like objects - he called them "aircraft" - flying at 10.000 feet altitude. A flash of reflected sunshine brought them to his attention and for a second he was stunned by their "incredible" speed, he told a reporter.
He rolled down the window of his plane, thinking it might have caused the reflection, but he still saw them with the window down, Arnold continued.
They flew with a peculiar dipping motion, "like a fish flipping in the sun," he said. "They were extremely shiny, and when they caught the sun right it blinded me," he added.
He said they were about 25-30 miles away when first sighted flying south. He glanced at his instrument clock and timed them between Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier, a distance of 47 miles, he said.
It took 1.42 minutes, Arnold reported, adding that after he landed, he got out a map and by triangulation figured the speed of the "objects" at 1200 miles an hour.
"I might have missed a second or two in my timing, but the speed still would be near 1.200 miles," he asserted.
In Portland, Ore., the state senior CAA inspector, Edward Leach, said he doubted "that anything would be traveling that fast."
Arnold also said a DC-4 was flying in the vicinity and he estimated the "objects" were about the same site as the four-engined passenger ships, although the "objects" did not have wings.
"One thing that struck me," he said, "was that they were flying so low. Ten thousand feet is very low for anything going at that speed."
He said they appeared to fly almost as if fastened together - if one dipped, the others did too.
Recently there have been several "Mystery missile" reports in Oregon, one which fell on the Hill Military academy grounds in Portland later was attributed to thaw blowing out an ice cap from an hollowed-out piece of metal. On another occasion a nurse in Vancouver, Wash., found a red-hot egg-shaped object. Geologists said it was not of meteorite composition. It never has been explained satisfactorily.
In Washington, the war department said it had no information on the Oregon sky mystery.
Arnold, a Boise businessman, who was searching for a missing plane, was flying a three-passenger, single-engined plane at the time.
Inquiries at Yakima last night brought only blank stares, he said. But he added he talked today with an unidentified man from Ukiah, south of here, who said he saw similar objects over the mountains near Ukiah yesterday.
"It seems impossible," Arnold said, "but there it is."
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
