Background

Kenneth Arnold, shown in 1966 with a drawing of a flying saucer, reportedly spent “many long hours of fruitless flying with a camera, trying and failing to find anything like his saucers again.” (Photo Credit: AP)

The Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred on June 24, 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold was flying his private plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State. According to his report, he observed nine unusual, high-speed objects flying in a “V” formation.

Arnold described the objects as flat and somewhat disc-like or saucer-shaped, with a bright, reflective surface. He estimated their speed to be over 1,200 miles per hour, far faster than any known aircraft at the time. His description led to the popular term “flying saucers” being coined in relation to UFO sightings.

As for its significance, the Kenneth Arnold sighting is often considered the event that sparked the modern UFO phenomenon. It brought the concept of “flying saucers” into the public consciousness and led to a surge in reported sightings in the years that followed.

You can find the official Project Blue Book files archived below on Arnold’s sighting.