The First “Flying Saucer” Sighting

Many sci-fi authors and screenwriters can thank Kenneth Arnold, as he was the first person to witness a mysterious flying object in the sky – the subsequent report of which lit the torch for our worldwide fascination with UFOs.

Arnold spotted nine “bat-wing shaped” objects flying overhead near the Cascade Mountains of Washington on a June afternoon in 1947. Describing his sighting to a reporter, he said that the strange objects moved like a saucer would if you “skipped it across the water.”

When the story broke, an editor coined the term “flying saucers” and a sci-fi phenomenon was born. Today, many fanatics make it their life’s work to seek out flying objects in the sky – all based on one eyewitness account almost 70 years ago! Steven Spielberg ain’t complaining.