Kenneth Arnold
The private pilot whose 1947 sighting gave the world the phrase 'flying saucer'.
On 24 June 1947, flying his small plane near Mount Rainier in Washington State, businessman and pilot Kenneth Arnold reported nine bright, fast, crescent-shaped objects weaving between the peaks. He estimated their speed at over 1,000 miles per hour, faster than any aircraft of the day.
Describing their motion to reporters, he said they flew 'like a saucer if you skipped it across water'. A journalist compressed that into 'flying saucer', and the phrase, and the disc shape it implied, defined the subject even though Arnold's objects were not discs. His sighting is the conventional starting point of the modern UFO era.
Known for Starting the flying-saucer era, June 1947
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