Talk:Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting

Richard Carrier? Delete this
Richard Carrier's personal anecdotes have no relevance whatsoever to this article except that he's a popular figure among the kind of people (and only the kind of people) who edit Wikipedia. That paragraph referencing him should be deleted. Furthermore, the explanation is not even clear, since it says that Arnold incorrectly believed he was level to "mountains 4000 feet below" when in fact both Adams and Rainier summit thousands of feet above 9500 feet. Unless someone cares to clarify this, it's doubly wrong to have it in here. In fact, I'm deleting it myself. 174.114.28.136 (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Any relation between this and the Flying Pancake plane?
I have noticed that the AAF document.jpg shape Kenneth Arnold drew in his report looks very much like the Flying Pancake Vought V-173 airplane. Is it possible that Kenneth Arnold simply saw that plane, or the very similar Flying Flapjack Vought XF5U? Does any notable source make this connection? Devil Master (talk) 14:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. Of course, the supersonic speeds recorded by Mr. Arnold is inconsistent with the flying record of the Flying Pancake and Flapjack. I'm not sure if that is relevant, though, as many debunk theories don't take that into account.

-- 21:29, 16 June 2013 (UTC) I'd say that what Mr. Arnold saw was probably some Horten Ho 229 captured by US troops and being tested in secrecy in the US. The aircraft was the right shape, and the design was much more advanced than any other jet plane of the time.79.167.143.88 (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Very unlikely it was a Horten 229. Firstly, no official record of the USAF testing it exists.
 * Secondly, fewer than 3 prototypes were built SrBlaza (talk) 16:11, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Missing Project Mogul paragraph(s)
Why isn't there any mention of Project Mogul?

Project Mogul involved strings of weather balloons on fishline: lifting a microphone, radio transmitter, radar reflectors, battery, and other stuff. What Arnold saw was obviously part of one of these assemblies - balloons in a line. Arnold didn't see the fishline and being an experienced pilot thought he was seeing aircraft flying in formation. Vastly overestimated the size, distance and speed.

It's well understood that a Project Mogul assembly came to grief on a ranch near Roswell, NM and really whipped up the UFO craze. So it's not any nutcase theory. How it got to Washington's easy: separated from the payload (fishline parted) the string of balloons went around the world on the jet stream. That's not unreasonable either, the Japanese were sending balloons with payloads across the Pacific. Mogul being a classified project, the Air Force could not simply explain what it was. Those that knew had to keep silent and let those who weren't briefed to deal with the press. The hype actually helped shield the real project and its purpose. Friendly Person (talk) 02:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Sound Barrier
Estimated speed 1200 mph. Anyone hear a sonic boom? Did Arnold hear anything? Are we suspending the laws of physics because some smart-ass aliens think it's cool to buzz our planet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Longinus876 (talk • contribs) 03:20, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Locate this document?
I would like to see an expert contributor locate a certain supplemental document mentioned in ref. 4, (Ted Bloecher's "Report on the UFO Wave of 1947"). In it the author states that the chronological list of cases is a separate PDF. The chronology can be reconstructed from tables in Bloecher's study, but there are 853 cases and it would be tedious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cpacker666 (talk • contribs) 16:22, 1 April 2020 (UTC)


 * That data has been added to 1947 flying disc craze and Table of reports during the 1947 flying disc craze Feoffer (talk) 02:42, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Prank news item appeared almost immediately
I have discovered what is apparently an early prank news item that was distributed at the same time as the wave of sightings was maxing out around the July 4 weekend. It was supplied by a syndication service to small weekly newspapers and made its first appearance right away (on June 26) on page 4 of the Oklahoma County Register. It refers to a supposed experiment with "nine flying lightning rods" being carried out by the government. You can find it by searching online for that exact phrase. As of this writing, you'll get five hits to select from. Cpacker666 (talk) 03:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I tried that today in Bing search and Copilot and don't get any hits at all. gateway.okhistory.org has only two years of that paper (1937-8) in its public archives, it might be possible that a paid service has a 1947 archive. Germitage (talk) 23:26, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Title: UFO or "Flying Saucer"?
UFO is anachronistic, the WP:COMMON name for Arnold's sighting is "flying saucer'.  I'd propose we move to something like Kenneth Arnold 'flying saucer' sighting?  Feoffer (talk) 16:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Stories from UFO books
UFO fans refuse to rely on newspaper reports and restore pseudoscience UFO book accounts. Oh well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbheaton (talk • contribs) 18:17, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I am anything but a UFO fan. I reverted your edits, which relied on original research and synthesis of sources to propose explanations for the July 1947 UFO sightings. Your edits also eliminated whole paragraphs sourced to The Atlantic, Carl Sagan, and accounts published in 1947 in The Seattle Times, the Spokane Daily Chronicle, the Salt Lake City Deseret News, the Chicago Times, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, and numerous other reliable sources. The Arnold story is notable, as it has been written about a great deal, and Wikipedia's job is to summarize what reliable sources have said about notable subjects. Therefore we have informative articles on all kinds of cultural lunacy, e.g. perpetual motion, hollow earth, Inedia, Bigfoot, table-turning, Spring-heeled Jack, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, the gasoline pill, alien autopsy, Oak Hill satanic ritual abuse trial, World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories, Pizzagate conspiracy theory, etc. Ewulp (talk) 04:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Connecting to Chehalis, Washington
Hey everyone!

Seeing as I have little to no installed neurons that are built to wrap my head around all this, I didn't want to step on any toes of all the editors who've put in some good work here...

Question is...there is an annual festival held in Chehalis, Arnold's starting point, titled, "Chehalis Flying Saucer Party". I guess from time to time his friends and family participate in lectures during the festival. Should/could we add mention here of that? Or does it get to hokey and folksy, distracting from Arnold's story?

Cheers! Shortiefourten (talk) 19:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Merge this page?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maury_Island_incident 2601:2C1:9081:9940:9D41:6D86:74A8:29CC (talk) 03:10, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Probably better as separate articles. The Maury Island hoax was just one of many copycat incidents; see also Twin Falls saucer hoax, Flight 105 UFO sighting, etc. Ewulp (talk) 04:57, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Skeptical explanations section addition
I'm new to editing here so excuse me if there's better/more proper ways to do this. James Easton's "pelicans" theory is mentioned in the article, but the links that are attached to the footnote (to the "RRRgroup") seem invalid. I found a link that is currently valid for his Easton's blog (KENNETH ARNOLD'S FLYING SAUCERS (jceaston.blogspot.com)) in which he expands on an article of his own that previously appeared in the Fortean Times magazine (cover story of August 2000 issue). The statement made in the Wikipedia paragraph: "James Easton was the first of several skeptics to suggest that Arnold may have misidentified pelicans" is not accurate; Easton gives numerous references to other researchers and media that had already suggested birds and specifically pelicans as the objects Arnold saw. In my opinion, Easton does an excellent job of supporting his theory and addressing both obvious and subtle objections to it. I would suggest a possible revision of the article paragraph that Easton does believe the pelican theory is the most likely natural explanation of the sighting and his arguments are laid out in the articles mentioned above. Germitage (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion!  I've updated the article to reflect that Easton was not first.  Welcome aboard, glad to have you here! Feoffer (talk) 03:11, 16 January 2024 (UTC)