On Tuesday 24 June 1947 a man flying a plane had earlier heard a conversation about a five thousand dollar reward relating to the dissapearence of a US Marine Corps C-46 transport which had crashed near to Mount Rainier and if anyone could locate it then the reward would be theirs.

He decided to take a detour and head for Mount Rainier to see if he could spot any wreckage. As he was doing so, a flash of light caught his eye but he thought it was another plane looking for the same one as himself, looking around for the other plane he saw something weird. There were nine aircraft, he thought they were some new jet aircraft that had just been assembled but they were in the shape of a cresent, and there were no tail surface on any of them. As they flew nearer he noticed that they weren't cresent shaped but round! The aircraft were about the size of a DC-4 airliner which were fliying at 1,700 mph (his estimates).

Flying back to base he went straight to the FBI but found the building closed, so he went to the papers instead! They had a field day, the story went around the world and people were claiming to have seen the same. After being besieged by reporters he went home to Boise but it was too late, the damage had been done! The newspapaers now had UFO stories and were exploiting them. A reporter called Bill Begrette gave a name to these unidentified flying objects, 'Flying Saucers'

You're maybe wondering who this man who caused a wave of UFO hysteria after his experience in the 1950's is, it was a man named Kenneth Arnold. The first person to make the sighting that started it all.