Kenneth Arnold’s Mount Rainier, Washington Sighting, 1947

Kenneth Arnold

In what is considered the true start of the modern UFO era, Seattle pilot and businessman Kevin Arnold spotted a number of “undulating” shapes flying over Mount Rainier one afternoon in May, 1947, moving at speeds many times faster that the best aircraft of the day could achieve. Somehow he got the media’s attention after he landed and, upon declaring that the objects seemed to “skip like saucers across a pond”, the term “flying saucer” was born, thus starting a new chapter in the world of aerial phenomena. Skeptics today continue to challenge Arnold’s assessment of the craft’s actual speed and distance or claim they were merely light reflections off his own cockpit window, but it can’t be denied that whatever it was Mr. Arnold saw that day, his curious encounter in the skies over the Pacific Northwest had a greater effect on our culture than even he could have imagined.