Kenneth A. Arnold (born March 29, 1915 in Sebeka, Minnesota; died January 16 1984 in Bellevue, Washington) was an American businessman and pilot.
He is best-known for making what is generally considered the first widely reported unidentified flying object sighting in the United States, after claiming to see nine unusual objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington on June 24, 1947. Arnold described the objects' shape as reminiscent of crescents or flying wings, or as resembling a flat saucer, and described their erratic motion as resembling a saucer skipped across water; from this, the press quickly coining the new terms "flying saucer" and "flying disk" to describe such objects, many of which were reported within days after Arnold's sighting.
The U.S. Air Force formally listed the Arnold case as a mirage; this is one of many explanations that have been rebutted by critics, and researchers Jerome Clark and Ronald Story both argue that there has never been an entirely persuasive conventional explanation of the Arnold sighting.
