pul9503.27a
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 1995 23:05:58 -0500
From: Germannvh
Subject: The Arnold Chronology, Part 2/4 --

The Arnold Chronology, Part 2/4 --

UFOSearch
Columbia, Missouri 65203

What do you remember about Kenneth Arnold? That his sighting set
off the so-called "modern era?" That he was a private pilot who
saw several objects over the mountains in Washington state and
said they skipped "like saucers across a pond," thus the name
"flying saucers? That he was involved in the Maury Island
incident, a hoax perpetrated by the infamous Crisman, Dahl and
Palmer? Is that what you remember?

That is all you probably know about Kenneth Arnold because that
is about all most widely available UFO literature will tell you.
Ufology is not an academic discipline and there are no archives.
Each researcher is on his own, re-inventing the wheel, so to
speak. This writer was lucky enough to have a friend from the
Chicago area (Palmer's home town) send him Arnold's 1952 book,
The Coming Of The Saucers, published with Ray Palmer.

Reading this book opened my eyes in a big way. I realized that
there was much, much more to the so-called "Arnold sighting" and
the Maury Island affair than I had been told. They were both
truly bizarre and deserved to be looked at again in the light of
what we now know now. I was shocked at what Arnold had written.

Who was Kenneth Arnold? Well, he was an Eagle Scout, no mean
feat in his day or any other day. He was a field representative
for the American Red Cross for many years. He was an All-State
Football player in 1932 and 1933 in his home state of North
Dakota. He enrolled at the University of Minnesota in the
mid-1930s with the dream of becoming a football coach but a
serious knee injury put an end to that. He left school in 1936
with $57.00 in cash and a Model-T Ford car.

He took up selling and by the beginning of World War II was
combining a boyhood interest in flying with his job. He began
selling fire control equipment throughout the Northwest, flying
from small town to small town to do it. By 1944 he was flying
over 1,000 hours per year and was a member of an "aerial posse"
for the Ada County, Idaho, Sheriff. He was also a relief Federal
U.S. Marshall and occasionally flew Federal prisoners to McNeil
Island Federal Penitentiary. He was an interesting fellow.

First and foremost, Arnold was a pilot and a good one. He
regularly flew into and out of tiny, dangerous airfields.
Sometimes he flew into a field that was just a field, literally.
He depended upon a small, single-engined plane for his very life.

He was meticulous, careful and alert. The overwhelming
impression one gets from his book is of a solid citizen, honest
and unafraid. Arnold was brave enough to not be overly concerned
about what people thought of him, something rebounding much to
his credit today.

On June 24, 1947 Kenneth Arnold was flying over Mineral,
Washington, at 9,000 feet when he saw a procession of very
strange objects flying from north to south in front of his plane.

He was amazed at their speed and made very reliable estimates of
that speed and also of their size and altitude. They were very
reflective and flew slightly erratically. One of the objects was
very different from the others. It had a strange double curve at
the rear and a light-colored spot on top. The objects together
made a powerful impression.

When Arnold arrived at his destination of Yakima, Washington, he
told the airport manager and several other people about his
sighting. One of them said, "Ah, it's just a flight of those
guided missiles out of Moses Lake." Arnold's next stop was at
Pendleton, Oregon, and when he got there he had a committee of
interested people waiting for him. Before long he was telling a
large group of airfield hangers-on all about his sighting. But
he did not mention that one of the objects was different.

Arnold ended his day by talking to the editor of the East
Oregonian newspaper and it was he who put the story on the wires.

Both Arnold and the editor agreed that the government had taken
this way of introducing the world to a new method of flight. In
a matter of hours Kenneth Arnold was known to the entire country
and the "flying saucer" craze of 1947 was under way. His story
was, for some reason, picked up by newspapers and radio stations
all over the USA and around the world. Three days later Arnold
would say that there would soon be a flying saucer in every
garage in the United States.

When Arnold arrived back at his home in Boise, Idaho, the editor
of the Idaho Statesman newspaper came to call. After this
conversation Arnold began to wonder if the objects he saw were
really military after all. The editor seemed to doubt Arnold's
story and told him that there was nothing in the possession of
the United States that could do what Arnold said these objects
did. We now know that this editor, David Johnson, was supplying
information to the Air Force and other arms of government.

Johnson told Arnold that he had sent a report to Wright Field in
Ohio. But he didn't tell him that he was in fact assembling an
intelligence dossier on Arnold, one that included what amounts to
the beginnings of an FBI check. He provided both the Air Force
and whomever was behind "Project Sign" with information about the
character and background of Kenneth Arnold. He was an
intelligence agent. His name is to be seen, barely, at the
bottom of a document released in 1969 when the Air Force
terminated Project Blue Book.

On July 3rd a good friend of Arnold's called. This was Colonel
Paul Wieland who had just returned from Germany where he had been
a judge at the Nuremburg trials and had investigated the Malmedy
massacre. (Interesting, is it not, the friends this free-lance
pilot and fire equipment salesman had?) But no matter, Arnold and
"Colonel Paul," as Arnold called him, discussed his sighting at
some length on a fishing trip they took to Sekiu, Washington.
But the fishing was horrible as thousands of salmon were dying in
the area from a mysterious "red tide." Arnold flew over the area
and said, "it looked as if a gob of something had fallen from the
sky, a jelly-like substance that was sticking to the salmon,
poisoning them." Those were strange times. Arnold and the
Colonel flew home.

Then on July 5th Arnold and the Colonel were at Boeing Field,
Seattle, when they heard about Captain E.J.Smith and his co-pilot
who had made a spectacular sighting the day before. In the
papers that day there was also a photograph taken by a Coast
Guard Yeoman of a flying object virtually identical to the ones
Arnold had reported. It had been taken in the Seattle area.
Arnold went to the offices of the newspaper to see the original
of the photo and there met Captain Smith and his co-pilot. They
hit it off well.

The photos must have been pure dynamite because on the 10th of
July a nationwide ban would be said to have been placed on them.
These photos are reproduced in Arnold's book but the country at
large never got to see the Coast Guardsman's flying saucer, which
was identical to eight of those Arnold had seen.

On July 15th Arnold got a letter from Ray Palmer. He says that
if he had known at this time who Palmer was he would not have
answered the letter. He thought that the kind of material Palmer
published was a gross waste of time for anybody to read. Ray
Palmer and his Amazing Stories were still running a series of
yarns that began in the mid-1940s and were called the Shaver
Mysteries, concerning two groups of aliens living on and under
the Earth with man. That should sound vaguely familiar to anyone
current in what passes for ufology today.

In any event, Palmer wanted Arnold to write down his experiences
for him and offered to pay. Arnold did not particularly care
about the money and sent Palmer a copy of what he had sent the
Army Air Corps at Wright Field. About a week later came a letter
asking Arnold to investigate a strange incident said to have
occurred in the Seattle area. Fragments of a flying disc were
said to have fallen. Arnold put the letter aside.

Then, about the 25th of July, two representatives from A-2,
Military Intelligence, Fourth Air Force, visited Arnold. They
were Lt. Frank Brown and Cpt. William Davidson. They took Arnold
and his wife Doris out to dinner and were very kind and
considerate of Ken's position. They said they did not know what
the so-called flying saucers were. Arnold then mentioned that
Captain Smith was due in at Boise airport later in the evening
and it wasn't long before the Arnolds and the two officers were
on their way to the airport.

When they got there they found David Johnson, the newspaper
editor who had first de-briefed Arnold, waiting for them. Just a
coincidence, you understand. Arnold learned that the two
intelligence men had flown over in an A-26 bomber specially to
talk to him that evening. Just a coincidence. Arnold and his
new friends spoke to Smith and his co-pilot for a few minutes and
then left for the Arnolds' home. There Ken gave them his account
of his sighting complete with drawings. But he did not tell them
that one of the objects he saw was different from the others. He
held this one item back.

Arnold had not even told his wife about this "different" object.
For some reason he thought it would diminish the story and
anyway, it was probably not that important. Wrong.

Then the intelligence officers left, asking Arnold not to discuss
the sighting with "outsiders." The next day Arnold was visiting
again with David Johnson, who said that he had been asked to
supply a report to Wright Field. Arnold asked him if he should
take up Palmer's offer. Johnson said he had never heard of
Palmer but it would be silly not to take his money. Johnson said
that Arnold should write and ask for $200 and see what happened.
Arnold wrote, and Palmer sent him $200, to the surprise of both
Arnold and Johnson. In 1947, $200 was not trivial. Thus did
Arnold turn investigator, at the insistence of an acquaintance
known to be supplying intelligence information.

End, Part 2/4.