Historically Important UFO Sightings
Kenneth Arnold - Flying Saucers
The first well-known UFO sighting occurred in 1947, when businessman Kenneth Arnold claimed to see a group of nine high-speed objects near Mount Rainier in Washington while flying his small plane. Arnold estimated the speed of the crescent-shaped objects as several thousand miles per hour and said they moved “like saucers skipping on water.” In the newspaper report that followed, it was mistakenly stated that the objects were saucer-shaped, hence the term flying saucer.
The Roswell UFO Incident
The same year that Arnold saw the flying objects, rancher W.W. “Mac” Brazel came across a mysterious 200-yard long wreckage near an Army airfield in Roswell, New Mexico. Local papers reported it was the remains of a flying saucer. The U.S. military issued a statement saying that it was just a weather balloon, though the newspaper photograph suggested otherwise.
