Kenneth Arnold's sighting

First Person to Report Flying Disc Sticks to Story

Pendleton, Ore., July 10. -- (INS) -- The first person to report "flying discs" stood staunchly by his original story today and rejected any suggestion that he might have seen a weather balloon or the exhaust of jet planes.

He also declared that only three other people have seen what he witnessed and implied that other "eye witnesses" of the mysterious aircraft are reporting something else - or nothing at all.

He is Kenneth Arnold, flying businessman of Boise, Idaho.

Arnold still refuses to say what he thinks they are, declaring:

"I won't make any wild guesses. I'm only telling what I saw."

After completing a five-hour flight over Oregon and Washington seeking more of the strange aircraft - he denied flatly that they could have been weather balloons. A "disc" finally captured yesterday turned out to be such a balloon.

He expressed belief that the only other authentic reports of the discs have come from Capt. E. J. Smith, pilot of a United Airlines plane, and his co-pilot, Ralph Stevens, who reported seeing the things on a flight from Boise to Portland.

The flyers said they called their stewardess, Marty Morrow, of Seattle, who saw the same things.

Arnold declared:

"All three of us agree that the discs are bigger than a DC-3 (a twin-engine passenger plane) and that they were moving at a high rate of speed.

"I've seen weather balloons and a lot of things floating around in the sky.

"But I got a good view of what I looked at.

"I actually saw a type of aircraft slightly longer than it was wide, with a thickness about one-twentieth as great as its width.

"I observed them not only with the sun shining on them but also as black objects against the snow and ridges of Mount Rainier and Mount Adams )in Western Washington."