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From: DRudiak@aol.com
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 15:48:11 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 00:48:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Kenneth Arnold's testimony


>From: fergus@ukraine.corp.mot.com [George Fergus]
>Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 12:41:28 -0600 (CST)
>Fwd Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 09:31:54 -0500
>Subject: Re: Kenneth Arnold's testimony

>Also, wouldn't birds in June usually be flying back north, not
>flying south?

>But since this thread refuses to die I'll add my 2 cents of wild
>speculation:

>Arnold is annoyed by a strange flash and tries to see where it
>came from.  He turns the plane, looking, until he spots something
>ahead that looks like a group of planes.  His heading is now
>north rather than east.

There is nothing in Arnold's various retellings to indicate that
he did this. He was flying east and initially continued east,
observing the objects through the front cockpit window.
Furthermore, the objects were initially a little off to his left
at a shallow angle.  Turning north would have turned it into a
steep angle off to his right, worsening his view, not improving
it.

>He sees that the objects are moving to his right, and decides
>to see how fast they are going, not realizing that it is
>actually a flock of birds flying north and their apparent
>southward motion against the distant mountains is simply due
>to his own airspeed.

He saw them flying to the right from the gitgo while he was
headed east. Had they been flying north, they would have appeared
to be moving left, not right.  Further, turning north (which he
didn't do) would  have reversed their apparent direction of
travel.

>He determines that these planes are moving incredibly fast,

He determined that right from the start.  That's one reason why
he found them anomalous.  If he sees them flying south, on what
he described as an intercept course with his own eastward
trajectory, there was no reason for him to turn north, which only
worsens his view.

>and decides to get a better look by turning the plane
>completely around so that it is >now heading south in the
>direction he thinks they are flying,

Wait a second.  If they are geese and headed north at say, 50 or
60 mph and he turns north traveling at about twice that speed,
then it is going to take him a little bit of time to catch up
with their position.  E.g., if they were 1 mile east and 1/2 mile
north of his initial postion (placing them in the direction of
Mt. Rainier), then it will take him 45 seconds to catch up.  At
this point, they will be directly off to his right and moving
backwards relative to him to the south.  But if he turns his
plane completely around a this point, he will almost immediately
catch up with them again, except this time they will appear to be
moving BACKWARD in the OPPOSITE direction to the north

>and he opens his left window.  However, since he is now actually
>heading in the opposite direction from the birds, he passes them
>and after a brief closeup they quickly disappear from view.

In a completely opposite direction from which he said they
disappeared.  In other words, he would lose sight of them as they
appeared to disappear to the north, not to the south in the
direction of Mt. Adams.  Furthermore he would have to crane his
neck clear around to the left and look backward over his shoulder
to try to keep them in view, not  easily follow them through his
side window as they continued to move SOUTH over the ridge of the
southern Cascades..

>But he could definitely discern that they had no tails, since
>from his point of view they would have been flying backwards.
>He then resumes his eastward journey.

I can definitely discern you aren't familiar with the actual
details of the report and haven't thought this through.  The
objects were always moving to the right, he turned his plane to
the right (south) so he could open his pilot side window, and
they disappeared to the SOUTH in the direction of Mt. Adams, or
to his FRONT left.  Your scenario has them moving backwards and
disappearing to the NORTH, or at his left BACK, with Kenneth
Arnold getting a contorted neck trying to keep them in sight.

David Rudiak