The 1947 UFO sightings spawned two World UFO Days, both of which are celebrated about a week apart. One is on June 24 and commemorates the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting in 1947. The other is on July 2 in observance of the Roswell crash with a goal to raise awareness that UFOs exist and to encourage governments to disclose their data.
I recently subscribed to Newspapers.com for some other research I’m doing. Out of curiosity and to practice using the site, I decided to search Kenneth Arnold’s name.
I don’t know why I was surprised when the search proved fruitful. Or maybe “excited” is the better word?
Previously I’d regurgitated facts I’d found from other sources, but now I was looking at articles that had first reported the incident back in 1947. It was thrilling in a time-traveling kind of way.
And also enlightening. I discovered some information I hadn’t seen mentioned before.
I thought it’d be fun to share some of the newspaper clippings of the 1947 UFO sightings. Here are my five favorites.
1. They weren’t called UFOs at first.
The headline in the Corvallis Gazette-Times on July 25, 1947 at first labeled the sightings as “mystery airplanes,” which is less sensational than “UFOs” right?
2. Doomsday Harbingers & Men from Mars
This clip from the Spokane Chronicle on June 27, 1947 is perhaps my favorite. First because of the preacher’s claim, and then the experience Arnold said he had with a woman in a cafe.
3. Reports exploding overnight
This recap of the 1947 UFO sightings timelines is interesting because it was one of the first I came across that mentioned Roswell.
4. The day the flying disc was reported found on a Roswell ranch.
I always thought the Roswell crash had made more of a headline. It was front-page news, but as far as font-size goes? Two other stories had bigger headlines the day it was reported. The biggest was “Signing of Coal Pact Averts National Strike,” and the second biggest was “Income Tax Bill Passes House 302 to 112.”
Also, it made headlines on July 8, 1947, even though the debris was said to be found weeks earlier. No wonder people cry, “Cover up! Conspiracy!” It is suspish!
5. The weather balloon story.
Could it have been? Or did it take the Army a few weeks to come up with this cover-up story? Will we ever know?
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Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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Those are very interesting newspaper clippings. I’m about 60 percent sure there are other life forms out there. Two things have swayed me over the years. People whose lives were made worse by reporting a sighting (folks calling them crazy and stuff like that), and the giant drawings in the desert that can only been seen from space even though they were made well before modern technology. Make that 70 percent!
LOL! I love this comment because it came with a surprise twist!