Why Are There Two World UFO Days?

Trick Question

Recently I published a post on The Occult Section asking is World UFO Day June 24 or July 2?

You know how I love my Weird Holidays & Observances. As I explained in the TOS post, my confusion about which was the correct date for World UFO Day sprung from that.

If you follow HJ on either Instagram or Facebook, you may have seen some posts about all this there too.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

???? ? ???? #Repost @theoccultsection with @get_repost ??? On the blog: Is World UFO Day June 24 Or July 2? . A new post by @courtsmroch from @hauntjaunts ! . . . #ufo #ufos #worldufoday #flyingsaucer #flyingsaucers #roswellincident #roswell #kennetharnold #ufosightings #alien #aliens

A post shared by Haunt Jaunts (@hauntjaunts) on Jun 25, 2019 at 6:00pm PDT

The Answer

I actually don’t know why there are two days. Maybe someone didn’t get the message or check before creating each of them?

One thing I do know is that July 2 is the one widely regarded as the actual World UFO Day date. It commemorates the alleged crash that is now known as the infamous Roswell UFO Incident. (Though the crash didn’t actually happen on July 2. It’s among the many information discrepancies released by the government that fuels the Roswell UFO conspiracy theory to this day.)

However, June 24 was when private pilot Kenneth Arnold said he spotted nine shiny unidentified flying objects flying at high speeds past Mount Rainier. He estimated the speeds were about 1,200 miles per hour –much faster than any known aircraft could fly at that time.

The Washington Sightings

Other than being generally acquainted with the Roswell story, I never knew about Kenneth Arnold –or that there were other UFO sightings the summer of 1947.

For instance, a prospector named Fred Johnson was on Mt. Adams when he saw six objects similar to what Arnold claimed to have seen. It was also June 24 and around the same time as Arnold spotted them.

Johnson wrote AAF intelligence with what he had seen, which he had viewed through a telescope. He also noted the objects appeared to “disturb his compass.”

A woman in Yakima, Washington, named Ethel Wheelhouse also claimed to have witnessed “several flying discs moving at fantastic speeds” at around the same time as Arnold’s experience.

There were at least 16 UFO reports in Washington on June 24.

Other 1947 Sightings

One of the most intriguing sightings I learned about was from a United airlines crew on July 4, 1947. They were flying from Idaho to Seattle and spotted nine disks.

Both the plane’s pilot and co-pilot met with Arnold to compare notes. Arnold felt a lot of the other sightings reported after his weren’t reliable. He felt most people were letting their imaginations run away with them and were only thinking they were seeing things. But he felt Captain Smith’s account was genuine.

The two became friends and even investigated another incident later that July, what would come to be known as the Maury Island incident.

But there were also similar sightings in Phoenix, Arizona, on July 7, 1947, and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on July 12, 1947.

What Were They?

Reports of UFOs –though not always called that– have been documented and reported throughout history, even as far back as 1440 B.C.!

However, the sightings in 1947 became the first well-known documented and publicized cases.

Maybe because pilots were involved? Ones who persisted in investigating on their own despite ridicule from military agencies?

Not sure. Nor is it clear what they were seeing back then. Even today, answers about unidentified flying objects remain elusive.

Some have had reasonable explanations, but not all.

Were any of the ships that Arnold spotted among the one (or more; that’s still undetermined) that crashed near Roswell? Or was it just a weather balloon as the military insists?

Check-In

 

Do you think we’ll ever get answers to any of these UFO mysteries? And are you a believer or a skeptic?

 

Sources:

• Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting
• List of reported UFO sightings