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"I have, of course, suffered some embarrassment
here and
there by misquotes and misinformation," K~ri'';\'nloT.a::was saying
about the famous incident that took placeSi) ye-a:f:~nigoyesterday
in the skies near Mount Rainier.
.
"I'll tell you, sometimes I think that an editor of a newspaper
says to the newsman, 'Now, lookit, I want you to write a story
about these flying saucers and make this goofy bastard look
silly!'
.
"You know, that's just the way I think they go about it. They
misspell your name, misspell the place it happened, get it all
fouled up.
"This one paper in Mexico said the sighting was June 24,
1974! Then they said that the flying saucers were circling my
. plane.and played hopscotch with me in the Cascade Mountains!
Well, this is ridiculous! That's not what happened!
"Hell, I bet I could show you a hundred newspaper stories
that were written about me that were absolutely untrue. But
what the hell can I do about it?"
WRITE A letter to the editor, it was suggested.
"Oh, yeah. But nothin' ever happens. In fact, they use that
letter for another story and say that Mr. Arnold is unhappy about
this and that. It's impossible, I tell you."
.
Ken Arnold is 62. If it weren't for him, the term "flying
saucers" would not exist today.
It was Ken Al1101d,who, "in 1947, while flying his small plane'
near Mount Rainier, saw nine unidentified flying objects the likes
of which he never had seen before.
Later, when asked by a reporter to describe the flight of the
objects, Ken Arnold innocently replied:
"Well, they flew erratically, like speedboats on rough water.
Or, erratically like if you took a saucer and skipped it across the

water.".

'

Ken Arnold never meant to say the objects LOOKED like
saucers (more like disks, he says). But by then it was too late.
Headline machines across the world pounded out the news:
"FLYING SAUCERS SPOTTED!"
.
THIS WEEKEND being the 30th anniversary of those headlines, as well as the annual regional U.F.O. convention (at Cedar
Park near Ashford, Pierce County), I was going to recount that
incident, using old newspaper clippings.
But since Ken Arnold doesn't think much of their accuracy, I
asked him to relive again, in a phone conversation, what happened that summer day (he lives in Meridian, Idaho). I taped it
to double-check my notes.
.
"It was a beautiful day. Just clear as a bell," Ken Arnold
began his story. "It was about 3 in the afternoon.
"1 was a member of Idaho search-and-rescue.
At the time,
there was a $5,000 reward offered for finding a downed C-46
Marine transport that had crashed into the southwest side of
Mount Rainier with 32 Marines aboard it.

"During the course of a business trip (fire controland mining, in which heoften used his private plane), I decided to spend
an hour or so in search of the downed plane. At the time, I had
something like over 4,000 hours of mountain high-altitude pilot
'time.
"As I made a turn over Mineral (Lewis County) to make
another search of this high plateau, a very bright flash lit up the
.plane and the sky around me.
. "It startled me. I just assumed it was some military lieutenant out with a shiny B-51 and I had withstood the reflection of the
sun hitting the wings of his plane.
"BUT THE flash happened again, and that's when I saw
where it was coming from. It came spasmodically from a chain
of nine circular-type aircraft way up from the vicinity of Mount
Baker.
"They were on a 17()'degree course, so I knew they were
. going to approach Mount Rainier. At the time, I was 22 or 23
miles west of Mount Rainier. I was going to be at a right angle as
they crossed in front of me.
"I could not find any tails on these things. They didn't leave a
jet trail behind them. I judged their size to be at least 100 feet in
wingspan. I thought it was a new type of missile.
"I determined to clock their speed because, you know, most
of pilots' conversations are about how fast the military are building their planes these days.
"I watched these objects carefully. I had a big sweep second
hand on a 24-hour clock on the instrument panel. The nearest I
could determine, they covered a distance between Mount Rainier
and Mount Adams in 1 minute 42 seconds.
"That figured out to something like 1,760 miles an hour.
which I could hardly believe. I know that figure couldn't be
entirely accurate, but I'd say it was within a couple hundred
miles accurate.
"It was one of the darndest things I ever saw. I was pretty
well familiar with most civilian and military aircraft ... and it
wasn't any type of our manufacture."
ARNOLD WAS asked if it bothered him that for 30 years,
some people have thought him to be a kook.
"I didn't make my report because I wasn't interested in
newspaper publicity or anything else. I can't eat newspaper
clippings.v.he said.
.
"I made my report because I thought it was my duty. It was
the only proper and American thing to do. I saw what I saw."
Ken Arnold said he had read that 15 million people in the
world have seen U.F.O.s.
"Now, I don't care whether that many have," he said. "But I
know there's hundreds of other pilots who have seen them because they've called me on the phone."
Then Ken Arnold said he had business to take care of and
ended the interview.
"Hey, listen," he said. "Make sure you send me a copy of the
story. I want to know if you got this right."