jONFI)?E~'Tii~L
BY KENNETH ARNpLD •The foll owing st or y of what I observed ove r the Cascade mountains ,
as impossibl e a s it may seem, is positiv el y true . I never a sked nor wanted
any notoriety for just accidently being in the r ight spot at the r ight time
to observe what I did . I reported something that I know any pil ot would
have r epor ted . I don' t think that in any way my obserTation was due to any
sensiv ity of eye sight or judgment than what is considered normal for any pi l ot.
On June 24th, Tuesday , 1947 , I had finished my work for the Centr al Air
Service at Chehalis , Washington , and at about two o ' cl ock I -took off from
Chehal is, Washington , airpor t with the intention of going to Yakima , Wash .
!fy trip was delayed fo r an hour to search for a large marine transport that
supposedly went down near or around the southwest side of Mt . Rninier in the
state of Washington and to date has neTer been found.
I f l ew directl y toward Mt . Rainier after reaching an altitude of about
9 , 500 f eet, which is the approximate elevation of the high plateau f r om which
Mt . Rainier r ises . I had made one sweep of this hi gh plateau to the westward ~
sear ching a l l of the various ridges fo r this marine ship and flew to the west
down and near the ridge side of the canyon wher e Ashford, Washington, is l ocated .
Unable to see anything that looked like the lost ship , I ma.de a 360 degr ee
turn to the r ight and above the little city of Mineral, starting again towar d
Mt . Rainier . I cl imbed back u~ to an altit ude of appr oximately 9, 200 feet.
The ai r was so smooth that day that it was a r eal pl easur e flying and
as most pilots do when the air is smooth and they ar e f l ying at a hi gher 1
a l titude , I t r immed out my a i r pl ane in the dir ecti on of Yakima , Washington ,
which was al most di r ectly east of my position and simply sat in my pl ane ob
serving the sky and the terr ain .
Ther e was a DC- 4 t o the left and to the rear of me a pproximatel y
fift een mi les distance, and I should judge , at 14,000 f oot elevation .
The sky and ai r was as clear as crystal . I hadn ' t f l own more than
two or three minut es on my cour se when a bright flash refl ected on my
ai r plane . It startled me as I thought I was too close to some other air
craft . I looked every pl ace in the sky and couldn ' t find wher e the r efl ec
t i on had come from until I l ooked to the left and the nor th of Mt . Rainier
wher e I observed a chain of nine peculiar looking air craft f l ying f r om north
to south at approximate l y 9, 500 feet eleTation and going, seemingl y , i n a
definite dir ect i on of about 170 degr ees .
They wer e appr oaching Mt . Rainier ve r y r apidly , and I merely assumed
they were jet pl anes. Anyhow, I discovered that this was where the r efl ec
tion had come from, as two or thre e of them ev er y few seconds woul d di p or
change their cour se slightly, just enough for the sun to str ike them at an
angl e that r eflected brightly on my plane.
These objects being quite far away, I was unabl e for a few seconds t o
make out their shape or their formation . Ver y shor tly they appr oached Mt .
Rainier , and I observed thei r outline against the snow quite p l a i nl y .
I thought it was v er y peculiar that I couldn ' t find their tail s but
assumed they wer e some type of jet plane . I was determi ned to clock their
speed , as I had two definite points I could cl ock them by; the air was so
clear that it was very easy to see objects and deter mine their approximate
shape and size at almost fifty miles that day .
I remember distinctly that my sweep second hand on my eight day clock,
which is locat ed on my instrument panel , read one minute to 3 P .M. as the
fi r st object of this formation pa s sed the southe r n edge of Mt . Rainier .
I watched these objects with gr eat inter est as I had never befor e obee rved