The article below was published in the newspaper The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California, USA, on page 3, on June 26, 1947.
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PENDLETON, Ore., June 26. -- (AP) -- A tale of nine mysterious objects -- big as airplanes -— whizzing over western Washington at 1200 miles an hour got skepticism today from the Army and air experts.
The man who reported the objects, Kenneth Arnold, a flying businessman from Boise, Idaho, clung, however, to his story of the shiny, flat objects, each as big as a DC-4 passenger plane, racing over Washington's Cascade Mountains with a peculiar weaving motion "like the tail of kite."
An Army spokesman in Washington, D. C., commented, "as far as we know, nothing flies that fast except a V-2 rocket, which travels at about 3,500 miles an hour — and that's too fast to be seen."
The spokesman added that the V-2 rockets reported by Arnold, and that no high-speed experimental tests were being made in the area where Arnold said the objects were.
A Civil Aeronautics Administration inspector in Portland, Ore., added, "I rather doubt that anything would be traveling that fast."
Arnold described the objects as "flat like a pie pan," and so shiny that they reflected the sun like a mirror.
He said he was flying east a 2:59 p.m. two days ago toward Mt. Rainier when they appeared directly in front of him 25-30 miles away at 10,000 feet altitude.
To: Kenneth Arnold or Newspapers 1940-1949.
