rom Arnold's
timing the objects between two landmarks. "When Arnold told us how he
computed the speed," my chance acquaintance told me, "we all put a
lot of faith in his story." He went on to say that when the editors
found out that they were wrong about the hoax, they did a complete
about-face, and were very much impressed by the story. This
enthusiasm spread, and since the Air Force so quickly denied
ownership of the objects, all of the facts built up into a story so
unique that papers all over the world gave it front-page space.

There was an old theory that maybe Arnold had seen wind whipping
snow along the mountain ridges, so I asked about this. I got a flat
"Impossible." My expert on the early Arnold era said, "I've lived in
the Pacific Northwest many years and have flown in the area for
hundreds of hours. It's impossible to get powder snow low in the
mountains in June. Personally, I believe Arnold saw some kind of
aircraft and they weren't from this earth." He went on to tell me
about two other very similar sightings that had happened the day
after Arnold saw the nine disks. He knew the people who made these
sightings and said that they weren't the kind to go off "half
cocked." He offered to get a T-6 and fly me up to Boise to talk to
them since they had never made a report to the military, but I had to
return to Dayton so I declined.

Within a few days of Arnold's sighting, others began to come in. On
June 28 an Air Force pilot in an F-51 was flying near Lake Mead,
Nevada, when he saw a formation of five or six circular objects off
his right wing. This was about three-fifteen in the afternoon.

That night at nine-twenty, four Air Force officers, two pilots, and
two intelligence officers from Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama,
saw a bright light traveling across the sky. It was first seen just
above the horizon, and as it traveled toward the observers it
"zigzagged," with bursts of high speed. When it was directly overhead
it made a sharp 90-degree turn and was lost from view as it traveled
south.

Other reports came in. In Milwaukee a lady saw ten go over her house
"like blue blazes," heading south. A school bus driver in Clarion,
Iowa, saw an object streak across the sky. In a few seconds twelve
more followed the first one. White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico
chalked up the first of the many sightings that this location would
produce when several people riding in an automobile saw a pulsating
light