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| Affiliation | Republican |
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| Name | Kenneth Arnold |
| Address |
, Idaho , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
March 29, 1915
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| Died | January 16, 1984
(68 years)
|
| Contributor | ev |
| Last Modifed | ev
Apr 20, 2010 12:02am |
| Tags |
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| Info | Kenneth A. Arnold (March 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minnesota[1] – January 16, 1984 in Bellevue, Washington) was an American aviator and businessman.
He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to see nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. (See Kenneth Arnold unidentified flying object sighting)
Arnold originally described the objects' shape as "flat like a pie pan", "shaped like a pie plate", "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear", "something like a pie plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear", or simply "saucer-like" or "like a big flat disk" (see quotes), and also described their erratic motion being "like a fish flipping in the sun" or a saucer skipped across water. From these, the press quickly coined the new terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc" to describe such objects, many of which were reported within days after Arnold's sighting. Later Arnold would add that one of the objects actually resembled a crescent or flying wing (image at right).
The U.S. Air Force formally listed the Arnold case as a mirage; this is one of many explanations that have been disputed by critics, and researchers Jerome Clark[2] and Ronald Story[3] both argue that there has never been an entirely persuasive conventional explanation of the Arnold sighting.
[edit] Biography
Arnold was born in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, but grew up in Scobey, Montana. He attended the University of Minnesota. Arnold began Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise, Idaho in 1940, a company that sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the Pacific Northwest.
Arnold was regarded as a skilled and experienced pilot, with over 9,000 total flying hours, almost half of which were devoted to Search and Rescue Mercy Flyer efforts.[4]
He was an avid swimmer and diver -- and good enough at the latter to try out for the U.S. Diving team. Arnold and his wife Doris had four daughters.
On June 24, 1947, while flying near Mt. Rainer, Arnold claimed to have seen nine unusual objects flying in the skies. He also claimed to have seen UFOs on several other occasions afterwards, as well.
After his UFO sighting, Arnold became a minor celebrity, and for about a decade thereafter, he was somewhat involved in interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees (notably, he investigated the claims of Samuel Eaton Thompson, one of the first contactees). Arnold wrote a book and several magazine articles about his UFO sighting and his subsequent research.
By the 1960s, Arnold had little to do with UFOs. He appearead at a 1977 convention currated by Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the "birth" of the modern UFO age. He ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor of Idaho in 1962.
Arnold died in 1984.
[edit] References
1. ^ [Link]
2. ^ Jerome Clark, The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Visible Ink, 1998. ISBN 1-57859-029-9
3. ^ Story, Ronald, editor, The Encyclopedia of UFOs, Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1980, ISBN 0-385-13677-3
4. ^ Diana Palmer Hoyt, "UFOCRITIQUE: UFO's, Social Intelligence and the Condon Committee"; Master's Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2000; read it online
* 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
[edit] External links
* Resolving Arnold part 1
* Resolving Arnold part 2
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