Project Blue Book: The Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting, Mt. Rainier, Washington, June 24, 1947

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.

Continue scrolling for more...

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

Document Archive

Project Blue Book Cases: The Kenneth Arnold Sighting, June 24, 1947 [61 Pages, 11MB]

 

Follow The Black Vault on Social Media:

This post was published on March 9, 2020 9:41 pm

John Greenewald

Recent Posts

TEMPS (Transportable Electromagnetic Pulse Simulator) Final Reports, 1973

The two volumes of the TEMPS (Transportable Electromagnetic Pulse Simulator) Final Report, dated August 1973…

June 8, 2025

FBI Releases Internal Emails on Comey Following FOIA Appeal Win by The Black Vault

This was originally published on  November 7, 2023. The article has been left unchanged, but…

June 6, 2025

Newly Released Navy Emails Reveal UAP Coordination, Five Eyes Briefings, and Forgotten Redactions

In a newly released batch of internal U.S. Navy emails, obtained by The Black Vault…

June 3, 2025

What the U.S. Military Now Says About TTSA’s Anomalous Artifact

The U.S. Army has officially closed out its Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with…

May 29, 2025

Defense Department Emails Confirm 2017 UAP Briefings, Further Clarify Luis Elizondo’s Role in AATIP

Newly released internal emails from the Department of Defense, obtained through a FOIA request filed…

May 28, 2025