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Project Blue Book case file: Kenneth Arnold

The Black Vault (USAF records) · 62 pages · text by OCR

This US Air Force Project Blue Book case file on Kenneth Arnold's sighting of nine objects near Mount Rainier, Washington, on 24 June 1947 was released through The Black Vault. It contains the Project 10073 record card, which concludes the objects were a mirage, plus Arnold's telegram, questionnaire data and interview notes. It also includes J. Allen Hynek's analysis arguing the objects were closer and slower than Arnold estimated. Other items are David Johnson's sworn statement on a Boise sighting, a Tacoma investigation telegram and news clippings.

  • p. 12 …found it to be approximately 150 MPE. Never before had he observed planes flying so close…
  • p. 22 …pressing the search, that I probably would never see the disc-like objects referred to by…
  • p. 26 …has never consulted aeronautical charts of the type the Army uses. Mr. stated that his business…
  • p. 27 Incident LAF 1208 I flying through the air I would never say a word about it…
  • p. 30 …I never asked nor wanted any notoriety for just accidently being in the right spot at…
  • p. 31 …I watched these objects with great interest as I had never before observed
  • p. 36 …John Lee on the street corner or Pete Andrews on the ranch has never heard about…
  • p. 45 …Arnold had never been much of a reader and was not a science fiction fan, but…
  • p. 47 …SAUCERS Reed concludes that, although we can never know for certain, the implication that the Times…
  • p. 51 …hour," he admitted. "but I know I never saw any thing, so fast." He said at…
  • p. 54 …hour," he admitted, "but I know I never saw anything so fast." By his plane's…
Case: Arnold made drawings of objects showing definite shape, and stated that objects seemed about 20 times as long as wide, estimating them as 40-50 feet long.

He also estimated the distance as 20-25 miles and clocked them as going 47 miles in 102 seconds. (1700 MPH)

These statements are mutually contradictory:

If the distance were correct, then in order for details to be seen, objects must have been of the order of 100 X 2000 feet in size.

If, we adopt a reasonable size - own estimate, in fact, of 50 feet long, hence about 3 feet wide, the objects must have been closer than a mile, obviously contrary to his statement.

If we adopt a reasonable limiting size to the objects of 20 X 400 feet, objects must have been closer than six miles to have shown the detail indicated by

At this distance, angular speed observed corresponds to a maximum speed of 400 MPH.

In all probability, therefore, objects were much closer than thought, and moving at definitely "sub-sonic" speeds.

Note: Observational data taken from original and files.

J. Allen Hynek

of the Flames with the hearer , with the youngest and the youngest The

Cases discussed

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 62 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.