Odd this day

Well, if it’s 25 June, it’s the 76th anniversary of the first article about ‘flying saucers’ appearing in the US media, sparking a summer of sightings of EXACTLY THE SAME THING, which is uncanny, isn’t it?

Story from East Oregonian, 25 June 1947

Too much for alt text, so here it all is, just in case:

Impossible! Maybe, But Seein’ Is Believin’, Says Flyer
Kenneth Arnold, with the fire control at Boise and who was flying in southern Washington yesterday afternoon in search of a missing marine plane, stopped here en route to Boise today with an unusual story-which he — doesn’t expect people to believe E but which he declared was true. He said he sighted nine saucer-like aircraft flying in formation at 3 pm yesterday, extremely bright — as if they were nickel plated — and flying at an immense rate of speed. He estimated they were at an altitude between 9,500 and 10,000 and clocked them from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams, arriving at the amazing speed of about 1200 miles an hour. “It seemed impossible,” he said, “but there it is-I must believe my eyes.” He landed at Yakima somewhat later and inquired there, but learned nothing. He said that in flight they appeared to weave in and out of formation.

Apparently, pilot Kenneth Arnold said the craft he saw flew in a saucer-like fashion, which became “saucer-like aircraft” in the story. The first use of the phrase ‘flying saucer’ may be the one in the Wilmington Morning Star on 6 July 1947:

Journalists on the first article, Bill Bequette and Nolan Skiff, “squeezed [it] into the bottom of page one”, because they were “only minutes away from ‘putting the paper to bed’”, and just had time to send an even shorter version to the Associated Press.

That’s from a 1998 article in International UFO Reporter (vol.23, no.4 if you want to track it down), which also reported that they then went to lunch, and…

Again, too much alt text, so here’s the text:

When I returned to the office after lunch, the receptionist’s eyes were as big as saucers — the kind we use under coffee cups. She said newspapers from all around the country and Canada had been calling. They wanted more details on the “flying saucers.” I spent the next two hours with Mr. Arnold in his hotel room. From that interview I wrote a story about 40 column inches long. The story was telephoned to the AP bureau in Portland. Next morning almost every newspaper in the country published the story on page one. Even after 40 years I feel some embarassment over the original UFO story. My embarassment is because I failed to recognize what a big story Mr. Arnold brought into the office that day.

The pilot, Kenneth Arnold, according to Wikipedia, “had the makings of a reliable witness … neither exaggerating … nor adding sensational details”, and was just confused by what he saw. A gap created by a mystery, though, tends to get filled with speculation before the facts arrive, and soon everyone was seeing flying discs everywhere.

A writer called Ted Bloecher wrote a Report on the UFO Wave of 1947 in 1967 containing this chart of ‘sightings’ around the time of Kenneth Arnold’s incident:

Then, of course, in July that year, staff at Roswell Army Air Field found the remains of a space ship with a real, actual alien inside — or recovered bits of metal and rubber from a military balloon, depending on who you believe.

That 1998 interview with Bill Bequette has him concluding that “some of the UFOs may be ultra-, super-, more-than-top-secret aircraft tested by our government or some other government”, and saying of a book he’d read called Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up:

…so, naturally, the unbiased journalist interviewing him for… er, International UFO Reporter (vol.23, no.4) concludes:

(I’ve just left some portentous ripples. I’d give it five minutes if I were you)

There are any number of possible explanations: mirages, clouds, Lockheed P-80s, even pelicans. Sadly, none of them are as much fun as little green men who want to stick their advanced scientific instruments into human anuses.

Out of This World: 60 Years of Flying Saucers