Kenneth Arnold

Arnold was born on March 29, 1915, in Sebeka, Minnesota.{{Cite web|title=14 Dec 1961, 6 – The Idaho Statesman at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/724219689/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}} He grew up in Scobey, Montana. He was an Eagle Scout and all-state football player in high school. He attended the University of Minnesota in 1934–35. His family was of Lutheran faith.{{cite book | last=Long | first=G. | title=Nine Flying Objects: The Amazing Story of Kenneth Arnold | publisher=Page Publishing, Inc. | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-6624-7493-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utGTEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT323 | access-date=2023-02-07 | page=323}}

In 1938, he began work for Red Comet, manufacturer of automatic firefighting equipment. He was promoted to district manager the next year. In 1940, Arnold started his own company, the Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise, Idaho, which sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the Pacific Northwest.{{Cite book|last=Bartholomew|first=Robert E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XR55jphsw4C&pg=PA160|title=Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking|year=2010|publisher=Prometheus Books|isbn=978-1-61592-338-0|language=en}}

In 1941, Arnold married Doris Lowe (1918–1990); they had four daughters.

{{Main|Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting}}

On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a series of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour (1,932 km/h). This was the first post-World War II sighting in the United States that garnered nationwide news coverage and is credited with being the first of the modern era of UFO sightings, including numerous reported sightings during the next two to three weeks. Arnold's description of the objects also resulted in the press soon inventing the terms flying saucer and flying disc as popular descriptive terms for UFOs.

{{main|Maury Island incident}}

After the 1947 UFO sighting, Arnold became famous "practically overnight". Arnold's daughter would later recall the family receiving 10,000 letters and constant telephone calls.{{Cite web|title=Flying saucers still evasive 70 years after pilot's report {{!}} The Spokesman-Review|url=https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=www.spokesman.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812160716/https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/jun/25/flying-saucers-still-evasive-70-years-after-pilots/|archive-date=12 August 2022}}

Arnold was contacted by Raymond A. Palmer, editor of science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, who asked Arnold to investigate the story of two harbormen in Tacoma who reportedly possessed fragments of a "flying saucer".Arnold "The Coming of the Saucers" (1952) Palmer sent $200 to fund the investigation.

On July 29, Arnold interviewed a harborman who claimed that one of the objects "began spewing forth what seemed like thousands of newspapers from somewhere on the inside of its center. These newspapers, which turned out to be a white type of very light weight metal, fluttered to earth". The harborman claimed the craft emitted a substance resembling lava rocks that fell onto his boat, breaking a worker's arm and killing a dog.{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Albert A. |author-link=Albert Harrison (psychologist) |year=2007 |title=Starstruck: Cosmic Visions in Science, Religion, and Folklore |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-84545-286-5 |pages=123– |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ORNcQUBAEjUC&pg=PA123 |access-date=2 October 2013}}

Arnold interviewed Fred Crisman, an associate of the harborman, who reported having recovered debris from Maury Island in

Puget Sound and having witnessed an unusual craft. Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Arnold, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with the harborman's description.

Arnold contacted the Air Force, and two officers arrived to investigate. The officers performed interviews, collected the fragments, and took off in their airplane. While returning to their base in California, during the early hours of August 1, the two officers died when the B-25 Mitchell airplane they were piloting crashed outside of Kelso, Washington.{{cite web|title=The Maury Island UFO Incident|url=https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/maury-island-incident.htm|website=How Stuff Works|date=8 February 2008|publisher=How Stuff Works|access-date=15 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326142046/https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/maury-island-incident.htm|archive-date= 26 March 2018|url-status=dead}}

Writing in 1956, Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt would conclude "The whole Maury Island Mystery was a hoax. The first, possibly the second-best, and the dirtiest hoax in the UFO history."{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrbCDwAAQBAJ|title = The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects|last1 = Ruppelt|first1 = Edward J.|date = 20 November 2019}} Ruppelt observed:

The government had thought seriously of prosecuting the men. At the last minute it was decided, after talking to the two men, that the hoax was a harmless joke that had mushroomed, and that the loss of two lives and a B-25 could not be directly blamed on the two men.

Arnold was involved with interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees (notably, he investigated the claims of Samuel Eaton Thompson, one of the first alleged contactees).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wYcx2lFvTrEC&pg=PA111|title = Hidden Realms, Lost Civilizations, and Beings from Other Worlds|isbn = 978-1578593408|last1 = Clark|first1 = Jerome|date = 2010}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}}

In spring 1948, Arnold and Science Fiction editor Raymond Palmer collaborated on an article titled "I Did See The Flying Disks", based on Arnold's sighting.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X0HCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science|isbn=978-0486131627|last1=Gardner|first1=Martin|year=2012}} {{Cite book|last=May|first=Andrew|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2O0QDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA65|title=Pseudoscience and Science Fiction|year=2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-42605-1|language=en}} In 1950, Arnold self-published a 16-page booklet titled "The Flying Saucer As I Saw It".{{Cite book|last=Arnold|first=Kenneth|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8t0HAAACAAJ|title=The Flying Saucer as I Saw it|date=1950|language=en}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}} In 1948, he authored "Are Space Visitors Here?"Fate, Summer 1948 and "Phantom Lights in Nevada".Fate, Fall 1948

On April 7, 1950, broadcaster Edward R. Murrow interviewed Arnold, who stated that since June 1947 he had had three additional sightings of nine spacecraft.Garber, Megan (June 15, 2014). "[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/the-man-who-introduced-the-world-to-flying-saucers/372732/ The Man Who Introduced the World to Flying Saucers]". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 30, 2021.{{cite web | url=http://www.project1947.com/fig/kamurrow.htm | title=Project 1947 – Ed Murrow – Kenneth Arnold Interview }}

In January 1951, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article titled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", which accused Arnold of "[igniting] a chain reaction of mass hypnotism and fraud that has taken on the guise of a prolonged 'Martian Invasion' broadcast by that bizarre hambone Orson Welles".{{cite web | url=http://www.project1947.com/fig/cosmojan51.htm | title=Project 1947: Cosmopolitan Magazine "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax" – January, 1951 }}

In 1952, Arnold and Palmer authored The Coming of the Saucers.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/TheComingOfTheSaucers|title=The Coming Of The Saucers|language=English}}{{ISBN?}}{{page needed|date=February 2022}}

Reportedly, Arnold came to believe he had experienced seven additional sightings, one of which involved a transparent saucer he likened to a jellyfish. By 1955, he began to promote space animal hypothesis when he suggested that the UFOs are "sort of like sky jellyfish". Arnold added: "My theory might sound funny, but just remember that there are a lot of things in nature that we don't know yet".{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/la-grande-observer-kenneth-arnolds-cryp/12450519/|title=Eerie Blue Light Said Live 'Thing' |newspaper=La Grande Observer |date=January 29, 1955|pages=1|via=Newspapers.com}} In 1962, he argued "the so-called unidentified flying objects that have been seen in our atmosphere are not spaceships from another planet at all, but are groups and masses of living organisms that are as much a part of our atmosphere and space as the life we find in the oceans".Flying Saucer Magazine, Nov. 1962{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/the-cosmic-pulse-of-life|title=The Cosmic Pulse of Life: The Revolutionary Biological Power Behind UFOs|date=May 9, 2008|via=Internet Archive}}

In 1962, Kenneth Arnold announced plans to campaign for Governor of Idaho, and won the Republican nomination for the 1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election;{{Cite web|title=6 Jun 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/408264435/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}} in the election, Arnold lost to incumbent Democrat W. E. Drevlow.{{Cite web|title=9 Nov 1962, 2 – The Times-News at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/408220693/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}} In 1964, Arnold publicly campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, flying an airplane painted with Goldwater '64 slogan "Au-H2O-64".{{Cite web|title=10 Sep 1964, Page 1 – Idaho State Journal at Newspapers.com|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/15890974/|access-date=2021-12-30|website=Newspapers.com|language=en}}

{{Election box begin no change | title=1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/564546269/|title=24 Nov 1962, 20 - Spokane Chronicle at Newspapers.com|website=Newspapers.com}}}}

{{Election box winning candidate with party link_no change|

| party = Democratic Party (United States)

| candidate = W. E. Drevlow (incumbent)

| votes = 135,474

| percentage = 54.17

}}

{{Election box candidate with party link_no change|

| party = Republican Party (United States)

| candidate = Kenneth Arnold

| votes = 114,617

| percentage = 45.83

}}

{{End}}

He appeared at a 1977 convention curated by the magazine Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern UFO age.{{cite web | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/156014786/ | title=The News Journal |date=4 May 1977|page = 4 }}

In 1984, Kenneth Arnold, aged 68, died from colorectal cancer at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, Washington.{{cite web |last1=Collins |first1=Curt |title=UFOs, Kenneth Arnold and the American Bible |url=http://www.kennetharnoldufo.com/kenneth-arnold.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120040746/http://www.kennetharnoldufo.com/kenneth-arnold.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 20, 2012 |website=blueblurrylines.com |date = March 15, 2017 |access-date=October 25, 2018}}

• The Real Flying Saucers, Other Worlds (January 1952)
• [https://archive.org/details/TheComingOfTheSaucers/ The Coming of the Saucers] (1952) (with Raymond A. Palmer)

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Citation | first1 = Kenneth | last1 = Arnold | author-link = Kenneth Arnold | last2 = Palmer | first2 = Ray | author2-link = Raymond A. Palmer | title = The coming of the saucers: a documentary report on sky objects that have mystified the world | place = Boise, Wisconsin | publisher = Privately published by the authors | year = 1952 | pages = 192 | id = 3021444 }}
• 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

{{refend}}

{{wikiquote}}

• [http://www.martinshough.com/aerialphenomena/Arnold%20analysis2.pdf The Singular Adventure of Mr Kenneth Arnold]
• [http://www.saturdaynightuforia.com/html/articles/articlehtml/positivelytruestoryofkennetharnold1.html The Positively True Story of Kenneth Arnold – Part One] 10-part series at Saturday Night Uforia
• [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v05/n06/resolving-arnold-part-1.html Resolving Arnold part 1]
• [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v05/n07/resolving-arnold-part-2.html Resolving Arnold part 2]
• {{Skeptoid | id= 4820| number=820 | title=Maury Island: The Government's Alien Artifacts| date= 2 February 2022}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnold, Kenneth}}

Category:1915 births

Category:1984 deaths

Category:20th-century American politicians

Category:University of Minnesota alumni

Category:People from Wadena County, Minnesota

Category:American aviators

Category:People from Scobey, Montana

Category:People associated with ufology

Category:Maury Island incident

Category:1947 flying disc craze

Category:Deaths from colorectal cancer in Washington (state)