20 Facts About Kenneth Arnold

Kenneth Albert Arnold was an American aviator, businessman, and politician.

In 1962, Kenneth Arnold won the Republican Party's nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Idaho, losing the election of the same year.

Kenneth Arnold was born on March 29,1915, in Sebeka, Minnesota.

Kenneth Arnold was an Eagle Scout and all-state football player in high school.

Kenneth Arnold was promoted to district manager the next year.

In 1940, Kenneth Arnold started his own company, the Great Western Fire Control Supply in Boise, Idaho, which sold and installed fire suppression systems, a job that took him around the Pacific Northwest.

In 1941, Kenneth Arnold married Doris Lowe ; they had four daughters.

On June 24,1947, Kenneth Arnold claimed that he saw a series of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at speeds that Arnold estimated at a minimum of 1,200 miles an hour.

Arnold was contacted by Raymond A Palmer, editor of science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, who asked Arnold to investigate the story of two harbormen in Tacoma who reportedly possessed fragments of a "flying saucer".

Kenneth Arnold interviewed Fred Crisman, an associate of the harborman, who reported having recovered debris from Maury Island in Puget Sound and having witnessed an unusual craft.

Crisman showed "white metal" debris to Kenneth Arnold, who interpreted it as mundane and inconsistent with the harborman's description.

Kenneth Arnold contacted the Air Force, and two officers arrived to investigate.

Kenneth Arnold was involved with interviewing other UFO witnesses or contactees.

In 1950, Kenneth Arnold self-published a 16-page booklet titled "The Flying Saucer As I Saw It".

In January 1951, Cosmopolitan magazine published an article titled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", which accused Kenneth Arnold of "[igniting] a chain reaction of mass hypnotism and fraud that has taken on the guise of a prolonged 'Martian Invasion' broadcast by that bizarre hambone Orson Welles".

Reportedly, Kenneth Arnold came to believe he had experienced seven additional sightings, one of which involved a transparent saucer he likened to a jellyfish.

Kenneth Arnold added: "My theory might sound funny, but just remember that there are a lot of things in nature that we don't know yet".

In 1962, Kenneth Arnold announced plans to campaign for Governor of Idaho, and won the Republican nomination for the 1962 Idaho lieutenant gubernatorial election; in the election, Arnold lost to incumbent Democrat W E Drevlow.

In 1964, Kenneth Arnold publicly campaigned for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, flying an airplane painted with Goldwater '64 slogan "Au-H2O-64".

Kenneth Arnold appeared at a 1977 convention curated by the magazine Fate to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the modern UFO age.