By Andrea Verschuyl | Published October 05, 2023 Besides its food and beauty, Washington is known for its rain. Our moody landscapes can almost feel like they’re from another planet. This may be why the Evergreen State has produced so many influential sci-fi authors, including Octavia Butler and Frank Herbert. But these luminaries aren’t the
By Andrea Verschuyl
| Published October 05, 2023
Besides its food and beauty, Washington is known for its rain. Our moody landscapes can almost feel like they’re from another planet. This may be why the Evergreen State has produced so many influential sci-fi authors, including Octavia Butler and Frank Herbert. But these luminaries aren’t the only Washingtonians who were unsettled and inspired by the local climate. In 1947, a pilot spotted an unidentified aircraft flying above Mount Rainer. His experience sparked the modern era of UFO sightings, bringing aliens into popular culture across the United States.
It’s difficult to imagine a time when aliens weren’t a part of popular consciousness. Experts believe that UFO sightings and alien encounters became more commonplace as people processed what they’d seen and experienced during World War II.
Though he was born in Minnesota and would eventually retire in Washington, Kenneth Arnold was a proud Idahoan at the time of his brush with extraterrestrial life. On June 24, 1947, he was flying from Chehalis to Yakima when he responded to a radio report that a US Marine Corps airplane had crashed near Mount Rainier.
Hoping to collect a reward by locating the crash site, Arnold detoured to the Rainier area. Frustrated, he called it quits at 3:00 PM and returned to his original route. But while heading east, he began to see bright flashes behind him, as focused as deflections of light from a mirror.
An experienced pilot, Arnold determined they came from objects flying in a straight formation. At first, he thought they might be geese, but their altitude and speed made that impossible. He also reasoned they couldn’t be a jet, given they left no trail. The objects passed Arnold at a speed he’d later estimate to be at least 1,200 miles per hour, flipping and whirling erratically until they disappeared in front of him.
Arnold began telling people what he’d seen as soon as he landed. Eventually, a newspaper picked up his bizarre story, thrusting him into overnight fame. The sensation of his UFO encounter caught on like wildfire, and soon, other Americans were reporting their own stories of unexplainable objects in the sky.
What could Arnold have encountered that day? He’d later describe the aircrafts moving like «saucers skipping on water,» giving rise to the term «flying saucer.» Though he’s quoted as complaining that the «whole thing [had] gotten out of hand» and that people saw him as a combination of «Einstein, Flash Gorgon, and screwball,» he’d go on to write books and do interviews about his experience. He’d even use his notoriety to run for Lieutenant Governor of Idaho!
Whatever the truth of his claims, Arnold’s experience changed Americans’ beliefs about space forever, almost single-handedly creating the modern image of the UFO and alien as we know it.
Have you ever seen a UFO in Washington? Tell us down below. If you’re a lover of all things extraterrestrial and spooky, check out this accommodation near Vancouver, where you can stay in a flying saucer just like the one Kenneth Arnold saw 76 years ago.
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