The Sighting That Started It All: Kenneth Arnold and the Birth of the “Flying Saucer”

If you caught Episode 3 of our podcast, you heard us mention a little-known pilot named Kenneth Arnold, whose 1947 sighting over Washington State didn’t just ignite media attention — it created the entire concept of the “flying saucer.”

Here’s a dive into the event that many consider the true beginning of modern UFO lore.

✈️ June 24, 1947: The Sky Over Mount Rainier

Kenneth Arnold, a 32-year-old businessman and experienced pilot from Boise, Idaho, was flying his CallAir A-2 single-engine plane near Mount Rainier around 3:00 PM. He was searching for a missing C-46 military transport plane, hoping to claim a reward for locating it.

While cruising at approximately 9,200 feet, Arnold noticed a series of bright flashes reflecting off

what he first assumed was another aircraft. He soon realized the lights were coming from nine strange, wingless objects flying in a V-formation. Arnold described the objects as flat, thin, and crescent or boomerang-shaped, roughly 50 to 100 feet wide, with no tails or visible propulsion systems.

“They flew like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” — Kenneth Arnold

The group of objects was moving erratically — “like geese,” he said — but incredibly fast. Arnold timed the craft as they passed between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, a distance of about 50 miles. He estimated the speed at 1,700 miles per hour, which was three times faster than any aircraft known at the time. For context: In 1947, the world speed record for a manned aircraft was just over 600 mph.

When Arnold landed in Yakima, Washington, he told a friend, then a reporter, about the sighting. In describing their motion, not their shape, he said they moved like saucers skimming across water. Unfortunately, the phrase got misinterpreted. The press ran with the term “flying saucers,” and the legend was born. Even though Arnold insisted they were crescent- or delta-shaped, not round, the damage (or legacy) was done.

Arnold's story was published in the East Oregonian on June 25 and quickly picked up by the Associated Press, going national within days. Headlines across America shouted about “flying saucers” seen in the Northwest skies. The military took the sighting seriously. Arnold was interviewed by intelligence officers from Hamilton Field, and later, Project Sign (a precursor to Project Blue Book) included his case in its initial investigations. “Kenneth Arnold's report was one of the first that forced the Air Force to treat UFOs as a national security matter.” — J. Allen Hynek, Astronomer & Air Force Consultant

There was no photographic or radar confirmation of the objects. It was daylight, and Arnold was a lone observer — but a credible one. He had over 4,000 hours of flying time, was a federal marshal, and had nothing to gain by fabricating such a bizarre story. In interviews, Arnold never claimed the objects were extraterrestrial — just that they were unlike anything he'd ever seen. He even speculated they might be secret military aircraft, though the Air Force denied testing anything in the area.

We only scratched the surface of the Kenneth Arnold sighting in Episode 3 of our podcast, but this case is crucial. It launched the UFO wave of 1947, which peaked weeks later with the infamous Roswell Incident. Arnold’s sighting occurred just two weeks before Roswell, and set the stage for:

Mass public interest in UFOs

• The U.S. military's first serious investigations

• The birth of Project Sign, and later, Project Blue Book

• A cultural obsession that’s still going strong today

🎧 Missed Episode 3? [Listen here]

To this day, the Kenneth Arnold sighting remains unexplained. No aircraft from that era could

match the speed or formation behavior Arnold described. And despite hundreds of similar sightings since, nothing has quite matched the timing and impact of that day in 1947.

So what did Kenneth Arnold see? Was it top-secret tech? A natural phenomenon? Or the first glimpse of something not from this world?

What’s Your Theory? Let us know in the comments — and if you’ve ever seen something in the sky that defies explanation, drop us a message. We might feature your story in an upcoming listener episode.