The Real 'Resident Aliens' - Part IX
By Raymond A. Keller, PhD, a.k.a. “Cosmic Ray,” the author of the international awards-winning Venus Rising Series, published by Headline Books and available on Amazon.com, while supplies last.
Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet
Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus
Cosmic Ray's Excellent Venus Adventure
Lady Columba Venus Revelations
UFOs Themselves as Living Organisms
The man who inaugurated the “Age of Flying Saucers,” civilian pilot Kenneth Arnold of Boise, Idaho, when interviewed by a reporter from the Portland, Oregon, Journal (17 October 1975), stated that he was more convinced than ever that the nine UFOs he reported as flying in formation over Mt. Rainier in Washington State on 24 June 1947 were “something real.” At the time of the interview, Arnold had turned 60 years old and had grown somewhat wary of media. Arnold expressed concern that a synopsis of his views, if unaccompanied by an extensive background on the subject of flying saucers, would make him “sound like a crackpot.”
To assuage his fears, the reporter said that he could present Arnold with written questions so that the flying saucer pioneer could take his time and write out all of his answers. Arnold agreed to these terms. Arnold informed the Portland reporter that, “I got into this thing (ufology) by accident; and I’ve been bugged about it for 30 years. I have never tried to exploit this subject and I don’t want to be exploited.”
Arnold remarked that, “These things (unexplained aerial phenomena) have never really been investigated.” Despite the alleged “scientific” conclusions arrived at in the so-called Air Force-sponsored “Condon Report” on UFOs conducted at the University of Colorado at Boulder and published in 1969, Arnold expressed little respect for the final document. “Flying saucer is a misnomer, of sorts,” explained Arnold, adding that, “Most of these objects are raffe-shaped. They look something like the axes that were used to behead people back in the Middle Ages.”
Since making the famous 24 June 1947 report, Arnold had five other occasions in which he encountered UFOs. Based on these observations, he has developed his own theory about the true nature of the objects: That UFOs are not spacecraft, but are themselves living organisms. “It’s the way they move,” explained the experienced pilot. “It’s more like something alive than a mechanical craft. The Air Force never released the best pictures of these things. They have a spot in the middle that pulsates like a heart.”
As far as the implications of this theory, Arnold was asked by the reporter, “How does a living organism do what UFOs do?”
“I don’t know. I have no answers,” Arnold honestly replied. “It’s a mystery; just as it is a mystery why the grass grows or a mystery how Christ walked on the water.”
Arnold felt that he needed to clarify the last statement, so he commented that, “I’m not bringing religion into this. I’m not a religious man, in the conventional sense.”
Two days after Arnold’s historic sighting of nine “saucer-like objects” flying at a high speed in the vicinity of Mt. Rainier in the Cascade Range, the Associated Press ran the above national wire story as printed in the Montreal Gazette (Quebec, Canada) on 26 June 1947. The story gets a couple of facts in the case wrong: Kenneth Arnold was a fire extinguisher salesman who was returning from a business trip when he spotted the UFOs; and Mt. Rainier is located in the state of Washington, not Oregon.
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(Editor’s Note: Keep reading this series for Part IX of the Cosmic Ray’s Real “Resident Aliens,” where we follow astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the former top Air Force UFO consultant, in his on-the-spot investigation of several flying saucer occupant encounters. - Lon)
