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Project Blue Book case file: Kenneth Arnold

The Black Vault (USAF records) · 62 pages · text by OCR

This US Air Force Project Blue Book case file on Kenneth Arnold's sighting of nine objects near Mount Rainier, Washington, on 24 June 1947 was released through The Black Vault. It contains the Project 10073 record card, which concludes the objects were a mirage, plus Arnold's telegram, questionnaire data and interview notes. It also includes J. Allen Hynek's analysis arguing the objects were closer and slower than Arnold estimated. Other items are David Johnson's sworn statement on a Boise sighting, a Tacoma investigation telegram and news clippings.

  • p. 7 …Investigation of Flying Disc. TO: Commanding General, Army Air Force, Washington, D. C. ATTENTION: AC of…
  • p. 8 …DETAILED ACCOUNT OF AN INVESTIGATION OF FLYING DISC THAT TOOK PLACE IN TACOMA WASHINGTON JULY 29…
  • p. 12 …that he saw the "flying discs" In this regard agent further stated that if Mr. Arnold…
  • p. 16 …Investigation of "Flying Discs" TO: Commanding General, Army Air Forces, Washington 25, D. C. ATTENTION: AC…
  • p. 18 …Adams, where first reported seeing objects henceforth described as saucers or discs. On the eighth day…
  • p. 22 …hours on an assignment to find a disc and if possible, to photograph it. In all…
  • p. 23 …I trust this matter will be of help to those investigating the flying disc phenomena which…
  • p. 35 …One witness viewed nine "saucer-like discs" from the air calculated to be 20 to 25…
  • p. 50 …Idaho, airport where he described seeing flying discs over Cascade Mountains in Washington. He didn't…
Case: Arnold made drawings of objects showing definite shape, and stated that objects seemed about 20 times as long as wide, estimating them as 40-50 feet long.

He also estimated the distance as 20-25 miles and clocked them as going 47 miles in 102 seconds. (1700 MPH)

These statements are mutually contradictory:

If the distance were correct, then in order for details to be seen, objects must have been of the order of 100 X 2000 feet in size.

If, we adopt a reasonable size - own estimate, in fact, of 50 feet long, hence about 3 feet wide, the objects must have been closer than a mile, obviously contrary to his statement.

If we adopt a reasonable limiting size to the objects of 20 X 400 feet, objects must have been closer than six miles to have shown the detail indicated by

At this distance, angular speed observed corresponds to a maximum speed of 400 MPH.

In all probability, therefore, objects were much closer than thought, and moving at definitely "sub-sonic" speeds.

Note: Observational data taken from original and files.

J. Allen Hynek

of the Flames with the hearer , with the youngest and the youngest The

Cases discussed

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 62 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.