28 June 2020

73 YEARS OF THE ARNOLD CASE - the influence of the press



This June 24 has been a new anniversary of the Arnold case.

Businessman Kenneth Arnold was traveling in his light aircraft near Mount Rainier in Washington State, when at 3 PM he saw nine objects traveling in a
column, which were crossed. His attention was called by the brightness of the objects when the sun hit them.

Very fast, at a certain moment they moved "like saucers if you throw them into the water."

They had no circular shape, but journalist William "Bill" Bequette had the unfortunate occurrence of generating the phrase "flying saucers" and the influence of the press was such that people invariably reported seeing round objects, never by any means another shape!

Arnold made two drawings. In the first, he described 8 of the objects. In a second drawing, he described the last one.
Maybe they were all the same but only the last one gave him the chance to better define their
shape.

Why did the Arnold case become "the case that started it all"? Because it was the first to determine that the United States Air Force creates an agency to investigate the phenomenon.

There are some particular things about this case.

What did Arnold think of what he saw? He stated: "I am convinced that it was some type of airplane, although in many respects it did not conform to the conventional types I knew of. "

What surprised Arnold? That since the account of his incident was published by the most important news networks, however, the authorities only interviewed him almost a month later. July 17.

What significance can the last object seen have? Arnold stressed that its

shape and color was different from the others, and scholars of the case have pointed out that its shape immediately evokes that of the German Ho-229 plane, a turbojet capable of flying at 12 thousand meters high, at a speed of 977 kilometers per hour in 1945.

 

There was no airplane then capable of such speed. It was the product of the ingenuity of the brothers Walter and Reimar Horten, who were not pilots or aeronautical engineers but who developed several flying wings in Germany, a factor that will be of special attention by the Commander of the USAF, Brigadier General George Schulgen.

Schulgen will write: "There is also a possibility that the perspective thinking of
the Horten brothers may have inspired this type of airplane - particularly the" Parable, "which is shaped like a crescent moon."

And he will give the order to find out as much as possible about the Horten brothers thinking that perhaps their inventions were taken advantage of by the Soviets.

But I find that here is the tip of the skein of a plot that became very active in the skies of the United States. Something that was not American neither from the Soviet Union. Something that started just after the Second World War…


Milton W. Hourcade
Iowa City, June 26, 2020 


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