The following is an article from the June '97 (Vol. 5, #6) issue of The
REALL News.  It may be reprinted by other skeptics organizations as long as
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                              Resolving Arnold
                                   Part 1
                            by Martin Kottmeyer
The 50th anniversary of the flying saucer phenomenon is upon us, and the 
Arnold 
story, here's how it first appeared from the Associated Press: sighting of 
nine objects speeding by Mount Rainier on a sunny June afternoon. At the time 
it was a sensation which made the front page of newspapers across the nation. 
           
Faster than any airplane of the era, Arnold's objects were a puzzle that 
eluded quick solution. The pilots of such craft would have claimed victory in 
the race to break the sound barrier, but none ever came forward. Officials in 
the American military denied it was anything of ours. Russian spokesmen 
denied they had anything to do with it. Reports of flying saucers multiplied 
in the wake of the mystery surrounding Arnold's objects and never entirely 
stopped.                                                     
Unusual aerial phenomena, all will acknowledge, long pre-date the Arnold 
case, but his report set fire to a controversy which made it a benchmark in 
the history of the subject. Whether it should be called a classic or a 
significant case is a thorny issue dependent mainly on one's perspective. In 
terms of cultural influence, no case could be more important. In terms of 
weight of
evidence for an extraordinary phenomenon requiring the belief of 
extraterrestrials or some new set of scientific concepts, the Arnold case   
sinks below a landscape of multiple-witness cases, physical traces, and 
photographically documented UFOs. In its initial presentation, the Arnold 
case was a single witness case with no corroboration. The pilot of a DC-4 
that was twenty miles away reported nothing unusual could be seen.1 Jacques 
Vallee termed it "by no means one of the best reports."2 In a 1965 survey 
asking UFO groups for the most significant cases, neither APRO or NICAP 
listed the Arnold sighting.
Even so, the credibility of that single witness seemed good. Arnold was an
experienced pilot. Skeptical journalists were readily convinced of his
honesty.3 The report he offered doesn't have the taste of a tall tale in
the sense that it is devoid of supernatural trappings. The speed of the
objects isn't merely stretching current aviation wonders; it is bizarrely
over double what the fastest planes were doing at the time. It is also
pointlessly over-complicated, most particularly in the details concerning
erratic motions by the objects and an echelon formation that was backward
from that practiced by the Air Force. It is almost as if he is going out of
his way to be disbelieved when he has nine objects going at these record
speeds. Why not simply report a single snazzy-looking jet on a
bullet-straight trajectory rushing past the nose of his plane? That alone
would have been enough to grab attention if publicity was the intent.
While there are no grounds to question his sincerity, some ufologists
express reservations about the psychology of the man. His unorthodox
speculations about UFOs being space animals with the ability to change
their density have bothered Frank Salisbury and Ronald Story.4 The
relevance of this belief to the 1947 sighting has never been articulated
however. Others have branded Arnold a "repeater" because of several other
UFO sightings he has reported seeing in subsequent years. Particularly
notable is a 1952 report of two living transparent UFOs that Arnold felt
was aware of him.5 This sounds suggestive of a delusion of observation and
the possible presence of paranoia. A 1981 interview reinforces this
supposition with Arnold expressing beliefs about J. Allen Hynek secretly
still being in league with the Air Force and the government being fearful
that the idea of UFOs would cause their destruction.6 It is reasonably
probable that this paranoid cast of thought was rooted in a knee injury
which thwarted Olympic ambitions and blew apart plans he had to use his
athletic talent to forward his college education.7 It is a common syndrome
that has been termed "the athlete's neurosis."8 Such an incident could
inculcate a habit of emotionally-generated misinterpretation.
On the positive side of the ledger, paranoia is frequently associated with
enhanced perception and could be regarded as grounds for trusting the basic
validity of the experience.9 We may accept he saw something and reported it
accurately, but his interpretation of it and the choice of which details
are important might be skewed. What he was looking at may not be identical
to what he saw. Arnold's initial belief that the objects were secret
experimental aircraft is bizarre on the face of it. Besides the impossible
speed for the era, you would not expect an experimental craft to be flown
in a group of nine and for all of them to display erratic motion. You would
expect one craft with perhaps a conventional plane tagging along to keep an
eye on it. If it was aiming for new speeds, the introduction of erratic
fluttering motions sounds suicidal. It also makes little sense to test a
craft near Mount Rainier, a tourist spot and major landmark, if you want it
to remain a secret.
The issue of what Arnold was actually looking at has spawned a sizable
literature and invites the comment that Arnold's must be the most solved
case in ufology. Regrettably, I am not saying it is the case with the most
loose ends snipped clean, but that more solutions have been offered for the
Arnold case than any other.
ATIC, Blue Book, William K. Hartmann (a co-author of the Condon report) and
Ian Ridpath argued Arnold was looking at a group of conventional aircraft
that was closer than Arnold thought and possibly seen through a mirage
layer to account for the skipping motion that Arnold reported.10 The
problems with this idea include the fact that the DC-4 pilot didn't notice
this group of planes, the fact that none of the pilots came forward to
clear things up on learning of the ruckus they caused, the unconventional"
formation, and the absence of visible tails.
Donald Menzel suggested the objects were billowing blasts of snow
ballooning off mountain ridges.11 Captain Ruppelt of Blue Book rejected
this as impossible because you just don't get powder snow low in the
mountains in June.12
Martin Gardner has twice suggested the objects were balloons.13 This
ignores the flat side profile drawn by Arnold. Arnold reported the air was
very smooth traveling that day, which seems inconsistent with the
undulatory motions he described.
cont...
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