From: Tim Matthews <matthews@zetnet.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 16:51:14 -0000
Fwd Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 09:59:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Kenneth Arnold's Saucer-like Descriptions
>From: David Rudiak <DRudiak@aol.com>
>Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 21:14:22 EST
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: Kenneth Arnold's Saucer-like Descriptions
>>Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 23:50:09 -0500
>>From: Bruce Maccabee <brumac@compuserve.com>
>>Subject: Re: {100} Part 2 - United Kingdom UFO Network
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>><T_Matthew>Yes, I've got all the documents (well nearly all) and spent
>>>a great deal of time looking into them and asking people all the
>>>difficult questions. To me the thing starts off with a lie; "On 24th
>>>June 1947....Kenneth Arnold saw 9 flying discs". No he didn't. There
>Bruce Maccabee:
>>>Huh? He didn't see 9 flying discs? Then what did Arnold report?
>Tim Matthews:
>>Good question Bruce and I think we've debated this before. One
>>of his drawings was of a Horten wing
>As is detailed below, _all_ of Arnold's initial descriptions and
>his initial drawing were of disc-shaped objects. Arnold later
>added the description and drawing that applied to only one of
>the objects, what Tim Matthews refers to as a "Horten wing."
>But Arnold said 8 of the 9 objects were clearly disc-like or
>saucer-like in shape.
>>but as you have agreed there are tremendous problems with the
>>sighting........
>Bruce Maccabee has never said there were anything like there
>were "tremendous problems" with the sighting. He has said
>Arnold probably got his estimate of object altitude wrong and
>may have overestimated the width to thickness ratio. But that's
>about it. These are actually minor points that have no bearing
>on more important aspects of Arnold's sighting, such as his
>calculations of supersonic speed.
That's certainly wrong because in an extended email exchange
with Bill Rose he did say that there were problems.
>>It was the media who decided to give birth to the terms 'flying
>>saucers' - and not really Kenneth Arnold who was attempting to
>>describe the motion of the objects he saw..........
>Pure unadulterated rubbish, and boy is it time to get rid of
>that hoary old myth. In fairness to Tim Matthews, the same
>erroneous statement appears in many "saucer" books and from
>people who should know better.
>Kenneth Arnold very definitely used terms like "saucer" and
>"disc" to describe the _shape_, not the motion of what he saw.
>Here are some of the contemporaneous quotes from Arnold:
>Associated Press, e.g., Tacoma News Tribune and Portland Oregon
>Journal, June 26, 1947: "Arnold described the objects as 'flat
>like a pie-pan.'"
>Portland Oregon Journal, June 27: "They were half-moon shaped,
>oval in front and convex in the rear. ...There were no bulges
>or cowlings; they looked like a big flat disk."
>Norman Oklahoma Transcript, June 26: "They were shaped like
>saucers and were so thin I could barely see them..."
>Chicago Tribune, June 25: "They were silvery and shiny and
>seemed to be shaped like a pie plate."
>Radio interview, June 25: "They looked something like a pie
>plate that was cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in
>the rear."
>Pendleton East Oregonian (article by Bill Bequette, first
>newsman to interview Arnold), June 26: "[Arnold] described the
>objects as 'flat like a pie-pan and somewhat bat-shaped.'"
>Portland Oregonian, July 11, 1947: "'I actually saw a type of
>aircraft slightly longer than it was wide, with a thickness
>about one twentieth as great as its width.' '...I reckoned the
>saucers were 23 miles away,' he said..."
>On July 12, less than three weeks after the sighting, Arnold was
>interviewed by A.F. intelligence and filed a written report.
>Several times within the report he referred to the objects as
>"saucer-like." At the end of the report he drew a picture of
>what the objects appeared to look like at their closest approach
>with Mt. Rainier or other snow-capped peaks as a backdrop. He
>wrote, "They seemed longer than wide, their thickness was about
>1/20th their width."
My God, all these different statements attributed to KA?
Did he say all of these, some of them or did the media get it
wrong?
He did use the term flying saucers and most interestingly when
he drew a picture of these in 1977 on the 30th anniversary of
the sighting he drew something closely resembling the 1938
Horten parabola!
No doubt Dave thinks that ET flies in aircraft adhering to the
principles of aerodynamics and reduced drag!!
>The picture Arnold drew of the objects looked something like
>(and please excuse the difficulty of trying to draw rounded
>shapes using only text -- use nonproportional font like Courier
>to view properly):
>
> ____
> ( *
> ) \
> ( ) -==========-
> ) /
> ( ____ *
>
> Profile Edge-on
>
Nice picture and bery Horten/Northrop looking.
Edge-on mystery solved? Low Aspect ratio airfoil???
>Compare to some of Arnold's verbal descriptions: "half-moon
>shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear" like "a big flat
>disk." Or, "They looked something like a pie plate that was
>cut in half with a sort of a convex triangle in the rear. Or,
>"flat like a pie-pan and somewhat bat-shaped."
>Please tell us where the "Horten flying wing" is in all this?
Possibly of great significance because these aircraft were being
tested in the USA at the time and certainly in the North West.
Speaking of the North West that's where Paul Trent saw his disc.
Despite the fact that Royce Myers states that Trent believed
he'd seen a MMUFO you still cannot accept this possibility
despite the FACT that these designs were on the drawing board in
the 1930s -although at that time they were seriously
underpowered.
It has been established through my research that the US Navy
was conducting expts on this type of aircraft in 1947/8 and this
is admitted in a memo latter written by Col RD Wentworth
(Acting Chief of Intelligence) and working on Project Sign.
Yes they did have enough money to do all this, as Barrett
Tillman has made clear in several books on Navy a/c.
AIR 100-203-79 also states that the XF5U1 had been "operational
in recent years" and Thomas C Smith who worked for Chance-Vought
with a TS clearance designed parts of a jet-powered disc from
1946 onwards.
In relation to the jet-powered disc an article in a 1948 edition
of Aeroplane magazine by AS Weyl stated categorically that gas
turbines HAD BEEN FITTED to the XF5U1 (a simple thing to have
done, by removing some of the metalite paneling) and that the
new a/c had the potential to hover and travel up to 600mph.
Of course we never hear about this in Ufology.....
These revelations do not answer all the sightings - but it's
interesting to note how they are totally ignored by ET
proponents. Even Wendy Connors admits in a recent IUR article
that there was a large hangar at Wright-Patt closed off to even
fairly high-ranking personnel including those tasked with
so-called 'flying saucer ' investigations!
Wonder why?
Wouldn't have anything to do with those 'saucer' models they had
in 1947 would it??
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