The following is an article from the July '97 (Vol. 5, #7) issue of The
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                   Resolving Arnold - Part 2: Guess Again
                            by Martin Kottmeyer
One problem that stands out in any attempt to make the Arnold case a True-UFO 
is the drawing in the Air Force files. The shape of the object in the top 
view is roughly similar to a shoe heel. Not only is it not round as all good 
flying saucers ought to be, it is for most practical purposes unique. Only 
one or two other cases even come close -- the 1947 Rhodes photo and perhaps 
the 1993 backdated recollections of Frank Kaufman concerning Roswell. The 
distinctiveness calls into question whether it should be considered part of 
the UFO phenomenon at all.
                                          
J. Allen Hynek also offered an argument which should be addressed here since 
it is repeated by both critics and proponents of the case unaware it is 
partially erroneous.  Hynek asserts that the eye cannot resolve objects that 
subtend an   angle appreciably less than 3 minutes of arc. If we accept that 
Arnold was right in saying the objects were 25 miles away and that each 
object's length was 20 times its width, then a bit of trigonometry would put 
their size as     2000 feet in length. This being between a third and a half 
mile, it is simply too bloody huge to believe. Such a titan-size fleet would 
blot out the sun and a fair portion of sky to people beneath its flight path. 
How could only one     person 25 miles away see this and everybody closer in 
miss it?        
         [Arnold's drawing]
         This is the drawing of Arnold's objects from the
         original report in the Air Force files. Source: Brad
         Steiger, Project Blue Book, Ballantine, 1976.
Hynek then takes a different tack. Accept the 25 miles for distance and
accept Arnold's 45-50 estimate of length and the subtended angle is about
80 seconds (1 minute, 20 seconds) of arc and that is below the third minute
resolution limit. Hynek understood that to be impossible.23 That judgment
was too severe. Texts I have consulted generally put the limit of visual
acuity at around 1 minute of arc. With increases of luminosity even that
limit lowers.24 Since Arnold's sighting happened in full daylight and the
objects were highly reflective by his own account, the conditions for
resolution were optimal. It is perhaps worth adding that there are
different types of visual acuity which can make it possible for the eye to
detect wires as fine as 1/100 minute of arc. Deciding which form of acuity
is applicable in this real-world situation isn't automatic. The detail of
the report involving Arnold seeing the objects silhouetted against a snow
suggests a practical analogy to the question of the limits of acuity in
sunspot watching. In that situation, science shows the average person can
detect sunspots as small as 27 seconds (roughly ½ minute), of arc. Hynek's
calculation of 80 seconds thus would not be sufficient grounds for
rejection of Arnold's report.
It seems only fair to add that Arnold offered another measure of the
objects, sizes worth pondering. He compared the angular size to the span
between the engines of that passing DC-4 noted earlier which Arnold
estimated as 15 miles distant. This gives a visual span of 2' 40", which is
still better in terms of resolution plausibility while still being in the
ballpark of being consistent with the other set of figures. They are still
both tiny images, but not impossibly tiny. While this strengthens the
credibility of Arnold as an observer and allows a more believable size to
the objects to be assumed if the 25 miles distance is accepted, the paradox
of the single observer status of the case stays relatively intact. We are
still dealing with a five mile long chain of objects swooping past a
national landmark in broad daylight at speeds in excess of 1,200 m.p.h.
People closer in had to have taken notice of such a spectacle. If nothing
else, the cascade of sonic booms generated by supersonic craft would be
impossible to ignore even if everyone's attention was riveted elsewhere.
Before we bestow the label of True-UFO to Arnold's objects, a serious
search for an alternative must be done.
The absence of a large population of corroborative witnesses near Mount
Rainier seems sufficient grounds for wondering if the event was much more
localized than Arnold surmised. A critical look at the distance estimate is
both warranted and necessary. One must almost certainly accept the objects
passed in front of Mount Rainier's snow field as Arnold claimed. The
angular velocity of the objects indicated by Arnold's clocking of the
objects between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams is .8 degrees per second. At
that speed it would take nine seconds to cross the face of Mount Rainier at
the 9,200 foot level indicated by Arnold's report. This is too long for a
spurious observation related the fleetingness of the phenomenon. This would
rule out explanations based on distant sky phenomena like a train of
meteors, Campbellian mirages, or density-shifting space animals.
What of distances closer than Mount Rainier's vicinity? It has been pointed
out that Arnold spoke of the objects having "swerved in and out of the high
mountain peaks." This would seem to put a lower limit to the distance if
one could first determine which peaks they swung around and if they were
broad enough to have a transit time to regard the observation as secure.
Arnold was slightly more specific in later recountings of the event. In The
Coming of the Saucers he said they momentarily disappeared "behind a jagged
peak that juts out from Mount Rainier proper."25 In his memoir for the
First International UFO Congress he says, "When they turned length-wise or
flat-wise to me they were very thin and they actually disappeared from
sight behind a projection on Mount Rainier in the snowfield."26 These are
not exactly the same thing, but they give a fair indication of what to look
for on the geological survey maps.
Arnold estimated the crafts were at an altitude of 9,200 feet plus or minus
1,000. The task at hand is thus to locate some feature extending above the
8,200 foot level. This yields a neat little surprise. There are no such
peaks between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. The closest thing I could find
was Pyramid Peak which stands only 6,937 feet tall in front of Mount
Rainier's base. There is a sharp little projection called Little Tacoma
which sticks out around the 10,000 foot level, but it is on the wrong side
of the mountain to be seen from Arnold's flight path. It would be badly
stretching things to suggest he got either his position or altitude that
far wrong.
Normally one prefers early accounts to later ones, but the Congress memoir
may provide the clue to what happened here. When the object turned
flatwise, the optical thickness likely dropped below the ½ minute
resolution limit and briefly dropped from sight. The rough surface of the
mountain provided opportunities for an illusory correlation of the
disappearance to some feature of the mountain. The disappearance seemed to
be caused by an intervening feature where none in fact existed. With no
firm lower distance estimate, the way is opened for the objects being
closer to Arnold than he had surmised.
Return to Arnold's report: "They flew like many times I have        [Birds]
observed geese to fly in a rather diagonal chain-like line as if
they were linked together." That is what they certainly seem like. Geese do
fly in chains. A number of nine makes sense. The arrangement of the leader
being higher than the others, unlike military formations, is sensible for
geese who take advantage of the downdraft turbulence of others in the
formation for easier flying. Geese chains do undulate like kite tails. They
do present a basically flat side profile when seen edge-on.
From above they have a bilateral symmetry like the heel drawn by Arnold. In
his Congress paper he however emphatically denies this idea," -- but they
were not geese!"
He does not explain the reasoning. If the 25 mile distance estimate is the
root of it, we could simply shake it off. Other objections do suggest
themselves however. 9,200 feet is a bit high for geese to be flying. As an
experienced pilot, Arnold surely saw geese too often to be puzzled by their
appearance. He speaks of the brilliant flashes of light reflected on the
objects just before that quoted denial; maybe they were unusual in some
way. The pulsation rate perhaps was subliminally felt to be wrong. Perhaps
he felt he should have been able to see the necks and couldn't. They aren't
on the drawing.
Perhaps it was a different type of waterfowl. Swans would clear up most
these objections. They normally migrate at night and birders complain
"details of their flights are seldom observed."27 When flying, it is known
they travel exceptionally as high as 10,000 feet to take advantage of
calmer air at that altitude and Arnold commented on the smoothness of the
air he was travelling in at the time. Birds generally travel higher than
their normal textbook rates in mountainous regions. The geometry of the
encounter involves a shallow viewing angle and a flight path running
parallel to the path of the objects -- he turned the plane to get a better
look out the side window -- thus making identification optimally unlikely.
An intersecting path or a higher viewing angle and the flapping wings would
have cleared things up. Swans would be more reflective than geese. They
"move deceptively fast."28 The neck would be slenderer and harder to
resolve than geese as the image approaches acuity limits.
Will swans fit the established angular sizes and velocities? Arnold's
clocking of the objects have them passing through an angle of roughly 80
degrees in 102 seconds. The plane was traveling at about 100 m.p.h.,
according to Arnold’s Congress memoir. Swans travel roughly 50 m.p.h. Since
they were traveling on parallel paths the relative velocity had to be 50
m.p.h. or 150 m.p.h. In the first situation, the angular velocity means the
swans had to be close to a mile away. At that distance, the torso of swans
(about 2-feet long) would subtend an angle of roughly 100 seconds (1
minute, 40 seconds) which fits in the ballpark of the observed figures
calculated earlier. The situation of the 150 m.p.h. relative velocity would
put the swans 3 times farther away and an angular image down around 30
seconds and thus doubtful. We can thus say a plausible case can be made for
a fit in at least the first eventuality.
cont...
--- msgedsq 2.0.5
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