Arnold Sighting - Mistaken Identification????

[RadarRyder]

Don't know if anyone here has ever noticed this before, but as I was discussing the German Horten Ho-229 with a friend, and how it was so far advanced of anything that the allies had during WWII, I noticed how close the model's that were built for Arnold's sighting and the Ho-229 resembled each other. Could Arnold really have seen a flight of Ho-229's skimming across the sky??? I wonder......
(End of WWII - 14 and 15 August 1945)
(Arnold sighting - June 24, 1947)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
(even had stealth tech)

 

[Heidi Lemmer]

Don't know if anyone here has ever noticed this before, but as I was discussing the German Horten Ho-229 with a friend, and how it was so far advanced of anything that the allies had during WWII, I noticed how close the model's that were built for Arnold's sighting and the Ho-229 resembled each other. Could Arnold really have seen a flight of Ho-229's skimming across the sky??? I wonder......
(End of WWII - 14 and 15 August 1945)
(Arnold sighting - June 24, 1947)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229
(even had stealth tech)

I believe that his sighting had nine objects and this plane didn't have nine produced at that time.

 

[RadarRyder]

Yes.......but if at least one of the proto-types was transported back to the United States after the war along with blue prints, it is possible that they had constructed nine in the years to follow the war, at some secret base, and were testing them. Remember, Horton planned to use a charcoal type powder mixed with wood glue to coat the aircraft and allow for radar absorption. Not to mention the natrual shape of the aircraft would deflect radar signals away from the return. The resemblence is almost uncanny.

 

[manxman]

Where would they be based if they were experimental ?, and is where they were witnessed within range.

I see the Arnold sighting, as

[1] Genuine mystery

But his involvement in other UFO related matter's bothers me.

[2] Mis-information, [not attention seeking lie's in a personal gratification sense, but an organisational deception ]

 

[boomerang]

This seems feasible at first glance. Arnold described the flight characteristics of the sighted objects skipping, jinking etc. Early flying wing designs were notoriously unstable. High strangeness events following his public reports might be attributed to government dis-info. Still hard to make all of the dots connect, though.

 

[Randall]

This seems feasible at first glance. Arnold described the flight characteristics of the sighted objects skipping, jinking etc. Early flying wing designs were notoriously unstable. High strangeness events following his public reports might be attributed to government dis-info. Still hard to make all of the dots connect, though.

I've mentioned this before, but not all the flying wings were as unstable as we have generally been led to believe. There is one original that has been restored and you can see it flying ( without any "skipping motion" ) in the video below:

And in this video featuring original USAF footage of the YB-49 we can see for ourselves that it flew just fine, and the commentator even makes mention of how well it handled:

http://youtu.be/WPIZMJv09DY?t=18m55s

NOTE: If the video doesn't start at the right time, skip ahead to 18:55. The rest of the video has less relevance to the point of the discussion but is still may be of some interest if you want to get a dumbed down explanation 1950s style of how the plane was made.

 

[Burnt State]

It's one of the most interesting memes in Ufology, this constant reporting of advanced technology before advanced tech is even developed. The scare ships, ghost ships, ghost rockets, airships - all of these demonstrate next generation technology. They are either witnessed by chance or sometimes deliberately circle cities, shine lights, land, interact with locals, steer when they shouldn't be able to, travel at unheard of speeds etc.

So while not trying to lump them altogether, still there's something extremely suspicious about these various reports. On one hand they lead us to believe that advanced human tech is flying in the skies - a simple answer, but on the other hand they seem to display characteristics well beyond anything humans are working on or are capable of at the time.

In some cases there seems like there is a deliberate intention to almost mimic a human technology for very stimulating possibilities.

Arnold's sighting, if we believe his tale, is entirely random. But as described by many Arnold was too good a "boyscout" to make this story up. The impact of his chance sighting has been explosive. The Maury Island hoax follows and pulls Arnold down the rabbit hole. The visible similarities of his sighting and the HO-229 are uncanny, yet the flight speed and pattern appear well beyond our capacity. Are we being lured up into the skies? Are these design shifts trying to speak to engineers down below? Perplexing stuff.

One other wrench: frequently the drawings of witness reports are interpretations and take on an identity of their own that may not always be as accurate we believe.

 

[Sentry]

Arnold didn't come up with the winged version until years later. His initial sketches are of something more like a saucer, but with a flat rear.

 

[Burnt State]

Arnold didn't come up with the winged version until years later. His initial sketches are of something more like a saucer, but with a flat rear.

That's what I'm talking about, like the various sketch pieces of the Flatwoods Monster which has many incarnations, Cash-Landrum same deal if I remember correctly. These sketches often play a bigger role in the minds of the UFO curious crowd than the original sighting.

 

[Bananas]

Arnold didn't come up with the winged version until years later. His initial sketches are of something more like a saucer, but with a flat rear.

Did he ever give an explanation as to why?

 

[Burnt State]

 

[Burnt State]

 

[Sentry]

Did he ever give an explanation as to why?

I'm relying from guesswork and memory, but I think it was in a book co-authored by Ray Palmer, and it was a "now it can be told" sort of revelation.

 

[Constance]

This seems feasible at first glance. Arnold described the flight characteristics of the sighted objects skipping, jinking etc. Early flying wing designs were notoriously unstable. High strangeness events following his public reports might be attributed to government dis-info. Still hard to make all of the dots connect, though.

Was the Horton flying wing known to have been capable of the speed estimated by Arnold? (He estimated a range of speed even the lower end of which does not seem possible for terrestrial aircraft at the time). I also wonder about the high reflectivity of the craft Arnold saw (also described by the prospector who witnessed the overflight at the same time Arnold did). If the Horton wing was painted black to reduce detection by radar, would it have reflected light to the extent these witnesses reported?

 

[Constance]

Where would they be based if they were experimental ?, and is where they were witnessed within range.

I see the Arnold sighting, as

[1] Genuine mystery

But his involvement in other UFO related matter's bothers me.

[2] Mis-information, [not attention seeking lie's in a personal gratification sense, but an organisational deception ]

As I recall, Arnold fell prey to hoaxing at one point (I've forgotten the name of the case) and, as boomerang suggests below, to likely governmental/military disinformation. I haven't read any research suggesting that he was likely to engage in deception himself; just the opposite -- he appears to have been driven to pursue information about the ufos.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

You're referring to Maury Island.

 

[Constance]

Right. I just saw it named in Burnt's post.

 

[Bananas]

I'm relying from guesswork and memory, but I think it was in a book co-authored by Ray Palmer, and it was a "now it can be told" sort of revelation.

That seems kinda odd to me, and makes little sense.

So it's ok to talk about UFO's, but not ok to talk about it's actual shape? And no one found that suspect?

 

[Sentry]

From Saturday Night Uforia: The Positively True Story of Kenneth Arnold - Part Ten

Above: Depictions of Arnold's first saucer sighting. Left, as given in his July, 1947 report to Wright Field. Middle, as portrayed for his Spring, 1948 Fate magazine article. Right, as illustrated in his self-published pamphlet in 1950, titled "The Flying Saucer As I Saw It". Arnold is shown with the picture in a 1966 Associated Press wire photo which included the statement "Arnold said pulsating light came from the dark spot in the center".

 

[Constance]

UAL Flight 105 - July 4, 1947
Probably the most dramatic conversion from skeptic to believer was the experience of Captain E. J. Smith, a story that made nearly every major newspaper.

As early as June 26th Captain Smith, a pilot for United Air Lines, had been approached by reporters and asked for his opinion on the flying saucers being seen over the northwest, an area where he regularly flew airliners. He told reporters: "I've never seen anything like that (Arnold's flying saucers) and the boys (other pilots) say they haven't either. . .what that other fellow (Arnold) probably saw was the reflection of his own instrument panel."

On the evening of July 4th at Boise, Idaho, Captain Smith was walking up the ramp to board his plane, flight 105, for a trip to Seattle when someone mentioned the massive wave of saucers taking place all day over the northwest. Captain Smith joked: "I'll believe in those discs when I see them."

The airliner lifted off at 9:04 p.m. and turned towards Seattle. As Captain Smith remembers it, the control tower at Boise bid him farewell by: "joshingly warning us to be on the lookout for 'flying saucers.'"

Shortly after takeoff five disc-like objects, one larger than the rest, approached Captain Smith's DC-3 head on. Stunned, Captain Smith and his co-pilot Ralph Stevens watched as the objects quickly reversed direction and took up a course that paralleled their own. For 45 miles Captain Smith was able to keep the objects in sight. Co-pilot Stevens thought the objects were aircraft at first and flashed the airliner's landing lights. The objects reacted by changing formation from a very tight cluster to a more open one. The cluster of discs then began to open and close repeatedly before settling down into a loose formation. This group soon vanished and another group of four came into view. The new group soon merged and vanished into the northwest. The airliner's stewardess, Miss Marty Morrow, verified the sightings.

Flight 105's next scheduled stop was the airport at Pendleton, Oregon, a place not unfamiliar with flying saucers. Captain Smith radioed ahead, telling the Pendleton control tower that he and his crew had just seen a whole flock of the mysterious flying discs. Airport officials contacted the press and had a newspaper reporter on the telephone as Captain Smith taxied his airliner up to the Pendleton airport terminal. Within moments of landing, a shaken Captain Smith was relating all the details.

The Captain Smith report was picked up by Reuters News Service and sent around the world. Even some small eight-page newspapers in India carried a lengthy account of Captain Smith's experience, along with references to the massive wave of UFO sightings that were exciting the whole of the U.S.

Source: UFOs: A History, 1947, pp.14-15, by Loren E. Gross, © 1988, Fremont, Calif. Reproduced with permission.

James McDonald's report on this case, presented to the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, July 1968, Washington, D.C ., follows at the link:

PROJECT 1947: UAL Flight 105, July 4, 1947 - Capt E. J. Smith