Rather than simply provide a URL link, this is a copy of
research developments I have today published on the 'UFO
Research List' [UFORL], which I moderate.
As the contents are even more applicable here, a separate
posting is hopefully justified.
[BEGIN]
Thanks to an exceptionally helpful U.S. library service,
after much searching I now have a copy of Kenneth
Arnold's rare, self-published, 1950 booklet, 'The Flying
Saucer as I Saw it' [the correct punctuation].
This is a summary of inherent contents and Arnold is
directly quoted wherever possible.
Unless anyone knows otherwise, it's presumed all of the
booklet was written by Arnold.
My own remarks and further explanations are prefaced by
'Comment:'.
Cover: [Bottom insert] Well-known photograph of Arnold
with camera looking to the sky. Main image above this is
a large copy of the equally well-known artwork depicting
a 'bat-shaped' object.
There are copies at:
http://www.historylink.org/_output.CFM?file_ID=2067
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050118224556/https://www.historylink.org/_output.CFM?file_ID=2067
Page 1: "Copy of letter forwarded to Kenneth Arnold from
Robert Heilman, newstaff (sic) of the Seattle Times".
"This is an excerpt of a letter received from the
Secretary to the Director of Intelligence of the Fourth
Air Force, Hamilton Field, California. This should leave
no doubts in the minds of the public as to who produced
and released the Debunking Sidney Shalett articles in the
Saturday Evening Post issues of April and May 1949".
Page 2: "Official U.S. Navy photograph NA13 No. 1047 Date
25, July 1947. This is an at the scene photograph pf the
Marine Corps C-46 disaster on Tahoma glacier at the 9500
foot level on Mt, Rainier in the State of Washington".
Comment: Arnold goes on to question whether bodies were
actually ever found in the wreckage.
Page 3: "VIEWING the first photograph ever taken of a
flying disc in Seattle on July 5, 1947 are Captain E. J.
Smith (left) United Airlines Pilot, Kenneth Arnold and
United Airlines co-pilot, Ralph Stevens".
Comment: This photograph can be see at:
http://www.historylink.org/_output.CFM?file_ID=2067
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050118224556/https://www.historylink.org/_output.CFM?file_ID=2067
The photograph they are looking at isn't reproduced by
Arnold.
Page 4: Arnold's copies of the two William Rhodes
photographs - they are enlargements of the object and
missing background details shown in newspaper
reproductions.
Comment: Arnold explains how he was invited to see the
original negatives at Hamilton field and "was given the
above prints as a courtesy for the assistance he had
given Military Intelligence in the investigation in the
Tacoma affair". Arnold occasionally writes in the 'third
person'.
Pages 5: Newspaper clippings relating to Brown and
Davidson's death in the B-25 crash at Kelso. For
background, see:
http://www.parascope.com/nb/cautionarytales/mauryIsland.h
tm
[This URL will 'wrap around']
Comment: We now begin to appreciate that Arnold was
interested in the writings of Charles Fort. Following the
clippings, he quotes extracts from 'Records of Charles
Fort' and states:
"I have many Records of Black rain of so-called furnace
slag. Lava Rock fell from the sky. Slains, Scotland".
Quoting Fort's description of an 1894 sighting - "an
object seen in the sky was like an elongated flatfish" -
Arnold adds, "I have many accounts prior to 1900".
He then ends with the following:
"I think we are finished for - Charles Fort".
Page 6. A brief synopsis of the Maury Island story with
the large drawing of a 'flying saucer' dropping metal
fragments.
Comment: Arnold highlights a newspaper clipping which
reports that a new metal, Titanium, offers widespread
application if it's manufacturing cost could be reduced.
Arnold also cites another source, noting how the U.S.
government took great interest in Titanium after the
"Tacoma affair".
Pages 7 and 8: A montage of newspaper clippings and often
merely just headlines.
There's some fascinating material here, including:
_'Tiny 'Man' Reported in Mexico Not News to Original
Flying Saucer Man'_
A report from Mexico that the body of a tiny 'man' has
been found in the vicinity of a crashed 'flying saucer'
is not news to Kenneth Arnold...
He has heard other stories of little 'men' in connection
with inquiries he has had under way since the summer of
1947.
"Believe those stories of the little men?" mused Mr.
Arnold in Missoula, Friday. "Well I didn't see the little
men, yet I've heard many stories. When you hear such a
story you naturally discredit it until you're shown. I've
heard that in California someone has wreckage of several
of these ships with the bodies inside. A rancher told me
he had seen a little man on the desert: told me, 'First I
thought it was a rock chuck (a small animal). Then it ran
away'."
[...]
He said he was hesitant about reporting the first flying
disc.
"I realise it's the 'data of the damned' to make a report
on these things...".
[END OF EXTRACT]
Comment: Arnold's "data of the damned" remark is a quote
from Fort's 'The Book of the Damned'. See:
http://www.resologist.net/damn01.htm
As for his collection of clippings, many could have come
straight from 'Fortean Times' magazine:
'Einstein's New Theory Hints Spiritual Values'
'3-Tailed Twister Kills Oklahoma Man, Hurts Wife'
'NIGHT PLAYING JUKE BOX STIRS MYSTERY'
'Oregon's Sea Monster Said Giant Squid--Maybe'
'Philadelphia Sniffs and Doesn't Like it; Mystery Odor
Terrible'
'DEATH RAY SLAUGHTERS 300 BIRDS OVER AIR BASE'
'Rare Tornado Rips English Valleys'
'Ticking Ears Mystify Doctors, But Sankey Enjoys
Listening'
'Mystery Birdman Reported at Chehalis'
[END]
Arnold's evident Fortean predilection is a remarkable
realisation, certainly for myself.
Page 9: A letter to Arnold from Brown's widow; she
confesses, "I have never thought that Frank's death was
an accident".
Page 10: A letter to Arnold from Lieutenant George F.
Gorman, regarding the 1 October, 1948 incident when
Gorman reportedly encountered a 'UFO'.
Gorman explains why he can't discuss events with Arnold,
why he would be Court Martialed if he did and how both
his commanding officer and himself should already have
been, except that "General Edwards or some high officer"
refused to comply.
Comment: Arnold is clearly an active researcher.
One online summary of the Gorman case is:
http://ufocasebook.com/ltgorman.html
Is Gorman confirming the object, "was about six to eight
inches in diameter"?
Page 11: This will be addressed separately.
Page 12: A photograph of Arnold with John E. Ostrom,
Arnold examining Ostrom's truck which had, on 30 July,
1947, reportedly been struck by "a mysterious
incandescent object" near Council, Idaho, which was "of
such terrific heat that it melted through the steel plate
of the truck".
Comment: Arnold suggests this might be related to an
incident on 24 July, 1947, when a suspension bridge over
the Salmon River, Idaho, was burnt down - steel cables
inclusive - in "a matter of minutes".
Pages 13 and 14: Photographs of radar screens, showing
RADAR 'ANGELS', unidentified "target returns" which
frequently occurred.
Page 15: Another print of the Rhodes photograph, this
time with some foreground detail.
Page 11: The contents here are an astonishing and
unexpected discovery.
Arnold writes:
"YOU'VE heard stories of 'Little Men' associated with
FLYING SAUCERS. The many descriptions by responsible
people who have seen little men describe them differently
than these photographs but...
This tiny, monkey-like man once lived and breathed... and
walked on the earth as one of God's creatures. Scientists
and curators are unable to positively determine his
origin, but have tentatively concluded that he came to
earth during the post-glacial period. It is thought the
specimen might have existed previous to the little tree
men, who existed about the same time as the dinosaur".
[...]
"The anthropological department of Harvard University
says there is no doubt about the creature's rarity. The
Curator of the Egyptian Department of the Boston Museum
says the mummy has the appearance of Egyptian specimens.
Dr. Henry Fairfield, noted scientist, calls the creature
Hesperopithecus after a form of anthropoid, which roamed
the North American continent in the middle of the
Pliocene period. All of them say it is the most perfect,
prehistoric mummy ever discovered.
Height in position it sits six and a half inches. Weight
three quarters of one pound".
Comment: Arnold is clearly comfortable with an
association between 'Little Men' - even if they're only
inches tall - and flying saucers.
This would be coherent with his second 1947 sighting of
enigmatic aerial objects [Arnold claimed to have had some
eight separate encounters with 'UFOs' during his flying
days] as he first recalled in 'FATE' magazine, Spring
1948:
"It was July 30 at dawn I took off in my own plane,
intending to reach Tacoma before dark and contact Mr
Dahl.
It was at 7:00 o'clock that morning I sighted a formation
of small disks going south at 4,000 feet as I was letting
down at La Grande, Oregon.
I attempted to turn and catch up with them, but they were
out of sight before I could complete my turn".
[...]
"I would judge them about thirty inches across, very
thin, and light brown in color".
Arnold expresses no reservations about how irrational
this might seem.
What is the source of Arnold's "tiny, monkey-like man"...
Incredibly, it's nothing less than little Pedro.
The background story can readily be found online, for
example:
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Pedro.html
Arnold publishes three photographs; two are X-rays. In
addition to the X-ray photograph at the above web site,
there's a "Frontal X-Ray".
The other photograph shows a young boy holding up a ruler
in front of 'Pedro', confirming the artefact's size.
Alas, poor Pedro is by this time seemingly mounted
upright on a display plinth.
Perhaps a shocking end for such a curiosity, although it
would make a unique conversational paperweight.
Arnold may be mistaken that "Dr. Henry Fairfield, noted
scientist, calls the creature Hesperopithecus".
It seems this relates to another controversial artefact,
'Nebraska Man', dubbed 'Hesperopithecus haroldcookii' by
Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn.
Arnold's booklet is a rich miscellany of snapshots from
those formative 'flying saucer' years.
Despite the somewhat critical fact that Arnold's founding
encounter was misreported in the media and he had never
described a saucer-shaped object, that had become
irrelevant. People all over were seeing them now.
As Arnold elaborates in the 'FATE' article, it was the
Rhodes photographs - featuring an object at least looking
something like he had witnessed - which validated his
experience.
In the 'Tiny 'Man' Reported in Mexico...' article, Arnold
poignantly remarks of the time:
"I realise it's the 'data of the damned' to make a report
on these things... If you saw a chair suddenly rise up in
the air would you tell people? Yet there are the reports.
Seeing those things made me get down and dig mentally as
I never did before. Since then I've investigated every
way I could, I've spent money, I've travelled and I've
even sent specimens to laboratories.
Who's to determine what is and what isn't a fact?".
Unfortunately, as my copy was obtained under exceptional
circumstances and more than one librarian went out of
their way to help, I can't presently reveal my library
source.
They couldn't possibly be so obliging for everyone and
that leaves them open to complaints about preferential
treatment.
My extracts are considered to come under the copyright
category of 'fair use'.
However, due to copyright concerns, I can't make any
images available. The booklet cautions:
Copyright, 1950, by Kenneth Arnold
All rights reserved. Use of any material herein is
forbidden without express permission of author.
Does anyone know if surviving family members can be
contacted?
James Easton.
...
