The Sighting That Coined Flying Saucers

While flying his small plane near Mount Rainier, Washington, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted a chain of nine peculiar, gleaming objects cutting through the sky at speeds surpassing anything known to modern aviation. When he described their erratic, skipping motion to reporters, he mentioned they moved like a saucer skipping across water. The press ran with the phrasing, instantly coining the term flying saucer and launching the modern global fixation with UFO sightings and government cover-ups. #ufohistory #americanhistory #bizarrehistory #1940s #shorts