Mount Rainier UFO Event

One of the most influential UFO sightings that popularized the term “flying saucer.”

Name	Mount Rainier UFO
Occurred on	June 24, 1947
Seen by	Kenneth Arnold, Private Pilot
Investigated by	U.S. Air Force Through Project SIGN

Since June 2024, Washington state has already had a record of 7,230 alleged UFO sightings, and plenty of these occurred around a specific mountain: Mount Rainier.

The mountain plays a significant role in UFOlogy, as its grandeur not only attracts tourists’ attention but also that of flying saucers, so much so that some people claim it as a potential UFO base.

This assertion is seemingly supported by multiple sightings in the area, one of which is particularly significant: the report by Kenneth Arnold.

What Is the Mount Rainier UFO Incident About?

“Flying saucers” had already been used to describe aerial phenomena for decades, but it was private pilot Kenneth Arnold’s report on June 24, 1947, that brought it to the public’s attention.

Kenneth was a regular Idaho man who sold fire-extinguishing equipment and piloted a small airplane. He was also a member of Idaho’s search-and-rescue unit and had already accumulated 4,000 hours of flight time. Kenneth was a typical businessman whose most unusual aspect of his life was that he piloted his airplane to reach his more distant clients.

This made him the most unlikely character to fabricate a controversy for recognition. However, on June 25, 1947, he reported seeing nine UFOs flying past Mount Rainier during one of his search-and-rescue operations the previous day.

The Events on June 24, 1947

What Kenneth Arnold shared that day would be subject to constant rephrasing and misinterpretations. He had become the center of attraction the moment he told two reporters about his story, and his words would be misconstructed to become untrue.

However, on the 30th anniversary of when these headlines came out, journalist Erik Lacitis from The Seattle Times asked him to recount what happened on June 24, 1947.

Here was what he narrated:

• It was about 3 PM when he was searching for the downed U.S. Marine Corps Curtiss C-46 Commando as a member of the Idaho search-and-rescue team.
• He made a turn over Mineral at Lewis County, circling his plane about 20 miles west of Mount Rainier to search over the plateau when a bright flash consumed his plane.
• Once the light disappeared, he saw nine very bright, disk-shaped objects in a peculiar formation approaching Mount Rainier at the speed of 1700 miles an hour.

Upon seeing the spectacle, Kenneth stated that his first instinct was to assume it was a military lieutenant flying a shiny B-51, and the light was a reflection of the sun on his plane’s wings. However, when the flash happened again, he observed where it came from, and that’s when he saw it: a chain of nine circular aircraft.

Kenneth shared his story with reporters Bill Bequette and Nolan Skiff a day after. This was when the term “flying saucer” first came to the public’s attention, used to describe what Kenneth saw.

The Inconsistencies of His Statements

When his words were first published, nobody doubted the experienced pilot.

However, his description showed some inconsistencies. In his original statement, Kenneth described what he saw as disk-shaped, circular aircraft, but in the subsequent months, he claimed to remember more about their shapes and changed his description.

Instead of saucer-like, he began comparing them to the crescent moon, with a sharp protrusion and a mottled circle at the top surface. He also reported a different description in a report he sent to the U.S. Air Force in July. Kenneth drew a rounded leading edge and a trailing edge that tapered to a shallow point, resembling the Vought V-173 Flying Pancake.

The changes in his statements made it difficult for people to honestly believe and judge whether what he saw was a real flying saucer or not.

Corroborations and Other Witnesses

Although he had gotten to the point of inconsistency, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting was still, at large, believed to be true because of present corroborations. Multiple other witnesses came forward to share their experiences, which were deemed to support Kenneth’s claims.

Ethel Wheelhouse

One example was Ethel Wheelhouse, a woman who lived 97 km west-northwest of Richland in Yakima. She reported seeing several flying disks at fantastic speeds around the area, almost coinciding with Kenneth’s UFO sighting.

L.G. Bernier

The Portland Oregon Journal received a letter from Bernier of Richland containing a description of three strange objects heading toward Mount Rainier.

In his letter, Bernier stated he had seen a P-38 appear on one horizon and disappear in no time. These were said to travel faster than any aircraft he had known and believed to have been part of a larger group of UFOs. Bernier also claimed that these must have been the same objects that Kenneth saw a minute or a second later.

Mac Brazel

Another report was given by Mac Brazel, who allegedly discovered debris near the mountain, but on a separate date. The debris was defined as “wreckage made up of rubber strips, tough paper and sticks, and tinfoil.” He found them on June 14, before the Washington UFO sighting, but thought it was somehow connected to Kenneth’s experience.

Oregon Daily Journal

On the same day as Kenneth Arnold’s sightings, the Oregon Daily Journal received reports from two men from Oklahoma City who claimed to have seen nine unidentified flying objects. One of the men described them as “a shiny silvery color moving at terrific speed.” 

The same paper also reported about a man in Kansas City who claimed to have seen the same objects while working on his roof. He stated that these were flying so fast that he barely had time to count them as they were immediately gone, leaving vapor trails after them.

Tacoma Daily Ledger

Aside from these closely occurring sightings, a mysterious event had already happened at Mount Rainier half a century before June 1947.

This was reported by a couple who were lying abed on November 24, 1896, and saw from their window at Tacoma Avenue a strange light east of Mount Rainier.

The man, George St. John, described it as a brilliant electric light and nearly the size of an arc electric light. Every time it flashed, it sent various colored rays of light from its center.

Investigations and Explanations of the Mount Rainier UFO

Investigations into the event were conducted by UFO professionals who sought to provide explanations about it, whether in support or to disprove Kenneth Arnold’s claims.

Initial conclusions interpreted his sightings as:

• Airplanes flying in formation
• A flock of American white pelicans
• Balloons
• Droplets of water on the plane’s windshield

Mountain Mirage

A professional who showed deep interest in the subject was Donald Howard Menzel, one of the U.S.’s first theoretical astronomers and astrophysicists.

At an Air Force Conference in April 1952, Donald presented an explanation accounting for the large percentage of alleged UFO sightings.

He leaned towards debunking them, attributing these events to natural causes and claiming that they were formed due to planetary mirages and other atmospheric phenomena. In explaining what Kenneth saw on June 24, Donald shared that it was a mirage in which the peaks of Mount Rainier appeared to have floated above the mountain.

Cloud Formations

Another possible alternative to what Kenneth observed was orographic clouds, which stand motionless and can assume dramatic shapes, unique to mountainous regions. 

One of the mentioned cloud forms was the Grindstone clouds. These are thick, solid, disk-like clouds that are standard in the valleys east of the Sierra Nevada in California and the mountainous regions in Washington. Coincidentally, these areas are also where flying saucer reports are high.

Lenticular clouds were also suggested as a likely explanation. These are multilayered clouds formed by moist air forced to flow upward around mountains, causing large standing waves to form. Although these clouds are typically stationary, they can also move at incredible speeds when air temperature changes.

Project SIGN

Aside from the possible scientific explanations, the U.S. Air Force also participated in examining the surge in sightings around Mount Rainier.

It was in 1947 that the Air Force first began to investigate the phenomenon, initially considering the objects to be an unimaginable technology, possibly from the Soviet Union.

In 1948, Project SIGN was established to further evaluate and disseminate information about the sightings. This was done on the premise that these objects might be UFOs that pose national security concerns.

In his book about Project Sign: The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects, Major Edward J. Ruppelt stated that the Air Technical Intelligence Center ended up divided into two sides:

• One side believed that what Kenneth saw were simply airplanes. This argument was based on visual acuity, or the eye’s ability to see clearly, thinking that at 45 to 50 feet away, nothing would be discernible.
• However, another faction opposed their argument, believing that Kenneth would’ve known and seen the objects for him to time them. Besides, no airplane would have the ability to weave between mountains like how Kenneth described them

Mount Rainier’s Significance in Ufology

The incident at Mount Rainier and Kenneth Arnold’s sightings are credited for the establishment of the terminology “flying saucer.

To this day, UFO enthusiasts make the trek to the mountain to commemorate the birth of saucerology. Mount Rainier is listed as one of numerous UFO hotspots treated by researchers as UFO laboratories, where concentrated activities have been sighted.

The mountain plays a direct role in UFOlogy, as it helps generate “saucer-like apparitions,” a phenomenon that still leaves many questions unanswered.