Army, CAA Officials Unable to Explain Whizzing, Mysterious Objects
Pendleton, Ore.?(AP)?Army and CAA spokesmen expressed skepticism today over a report of nine mysterious objects?whizzing at 1,200 miles an hour.
Kenneth Arnold, a flying Boise, Idaho, businessman who reported
seeing them, 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 Washinton, 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
.
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.
By his plane's clock he timed them at 1:42 minutes for the 47 miles from Mt. Rainier to Mt. Adams, Arnold said, adding that he later figured by triangulation that their speed was 1,200 miles an hour.
I could be wrong by 200 or 300 miles an hour
, he admitted, but I know I never saw anything so fast
.
He said at first he thought they were geese, but quickly saw they were too big?as big as a DC-4 that was about 20
miles away, he said. The DC-4 pilot reported nothing unusual sighted. Then Arnold said he thought of jet planes and
started to clock them, but their motion was wrong for jet jobs
.
I guess I don't know what they were?unless they were guided missiles
, said Arnold, who continued here on a business trip.