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Summer of Saucers
13 Plays1 month ago
✨🛸 MOSS GOBLIN CHALLENGE! 🛸✨
There’s a moment in this episode where a question is asked… and no answer ever comes—find it and timestamp it.
Send the time, your name, and a fun code name to BTevergreens@gmail.com or beneaththeevergreens.com between 12/22/25–1/9/26 for a chance to win BTE merch 🌲✨
In the quiet summer of 1947, Washington State looked peaceful, but something impossible was moving through its skies. When experienced pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine disc-shaped objects flying faster than any known aircraft, his story ignited a wave of sightings, warnings, and unanswered questions. From Mount Rainier to Puget Sound, witnesses described silent machines, strange debris, and encounters that suggested something far beyond misidentified planes or tricks of light. This episode dives into the Summer of Saucers, the moment America first learned to fear, and name, what might be watching from above.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Anna's Audio Mishap & Listener Challenge
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, Moss Goblins. This is Jess, and I'm interrupting this episode with a quick but very important announcement. At some point and during this episode, it may sound like I am fully talking to myself, and that's because i kind of am.
00:00:15
Speaker
Unfortunately, Anna's audio did not record, and due to holiday travel, we weren't able to re-record. But you know what they say, when life gives you moss, you need to make some lichen. So we're turning this into a game. There's a moment in this episode where I ask Anna a question and she doesn't respond.
00:00:33
Speaker
Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to find that moment, timestamp it, then email us at btevergreens at gmail.com or submit a contact form on our website beneath the evergreens.com. Be sure to include your name, a sweet code name, and the exact timestamp where I ask the question.
Introduction to the Podcast & Mystery Theme
00:00:54
Speaker
Anyone who submits will be entered to win some cool Beneath the Evergreens merch. The game will be live from December 22, 2025 through January 9, 2026. Thank you again so much for listening. Thanks for playing along.
00:01:10
Speaker
And happiest of holidays to you and all that you love. Now, enjoy the episode. Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens. Where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest.
00:01:24
Speaker
I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens.
00:01:37
Speaker
Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us Beneath the Evergreens.
00:01:50
Speaker
Music
00:02:12
Speaker
please don't do that merry christmas merry christmas i remember brown brown brown brown brownt what's nami that da da da dotta da dad it is christmas time i hope everybody's ready merry christmas get all of your all of your present put together All your stocking stuffers
Holiday Humor & Traditions
00:02:32
Speaker
ready to roll. All of them.
00:02:34
Speaker
If you have an elf on the shelf, I hope it's been very productive this year. Does it an elf on the shelf? We have three. Oh. Yeah. If you have children that are listening to this, maybe fast forward about, let's do a minute.
00:02:48
Speaker
Yeah, minute. So you're trying to see if she's there. Yeah. So we have three. And the reason why we have three is because I would forget where I put the elf on the shelf. Cause I, you can't put it with your normal Christmas stuff, right? Because they can't find it It's supposed to come up. And also you can't put it with your normal Christmas stuff because it's the day after Thanksgiving. It's got to be ready to go.
00:03:10
Speaker
Oh yeah. Well, I keep forgetting where I put it. And so then I would have to buy one, buy one. And so I'd buy the replacement. And then inevitably at some point when I'm unpacking my Christmas stuff, I'm like, oh, that's where I put it. That makes logical sense. I would put it there. So then we had two and I was like, well, we have two. This is fun. And so then I'd put the two up and then of course I would lose the one the next year. So then I have three and I'm like, well, if I have three, I might as well just, you know, put them all out. And so now we have three and I'm going be honest. Whoever came up with Elf on the Shelf hates parents.
00:03:45
Speaker
yeah It is only option because for the life of me, I never remember. And so I feel so bad because all of my kids friends have like their they' elves are doing wild shit. They're like building snowmen and like all this other kind of stuff. And mine are just moving places.
00:04:04
Speaker
Actually, this year I did do like a six, seven one. So that was kind of funny. And then there was like another one. I made them into flowers and like put them in a vase. So like every once a while I'll like do something cool. But half the time I like am so busy during the day, I forget about it. And then the next morning when they're awake and getting ready for school, I only have enough time.
00:04:24
Speaker
Replace it somewhere in the house. I've heard people like waking up in a panic of like... I didn't move the elf. Like, they're going to wake up. I need to go move it. Literally. And then, yeah.
00:04:35
Speaker
And then when you have, like, those Pinterest parents that are, like, perfect at everything, and then you're just, and or or my kid would come home and they'd be like, oh, x y and Z's elf did this and got strung up and they were doing, and almost got ran over by a train. I'm like,
00:04:51
Speaker
wow yeah ours just picked a watch they're kind of low-key they just they're they're lazy couch potatoes man but
00:05:01
Speaker
well is there anything specific that you're looking for this christmas not really i'm like very much in the stage where like we don't really need too much like there's not many presents that i want but i'm not going for more of the experience route like my husband and i are gonna go this like forge and make rings like they have classes that will teach you how to do it that sounds cool right yeah i'll let know how it goes we're gonna do we were excited to do this like a kind a later christmas thing but are you gonna make the one ring to rule them all and in the darkness spite them no we're gonna make we're each gonna make like our own wedding not wedding rings but like yeah you know
00:05:44
Speaker
Like a couple's ring. It's silver though, which like doesn't fit my aesthetic, but like it's fine. Oh, I'm i'm a silver person. I like gold. I really like gold. Yeah. I'll forget that.
00:05:56
Speaker
I don't have anything specifically that I'm looking for, but my child has a very long list. My favorite thing about this holiday season is I got the best wrapping paper.
00:06:07
Speaker
o who tell me about it. Macaroni and cheese. I'm sorry. Yep. I almost said that's how you know you're getting old because you're excited about wrapping paper and then mac and cheese.
00:06:19
Speaker
Mac and cheese, hamburgers, pickles. And i got one from Santa. I got one from Santa. That is It says 6-7 with holiday colors.
00:06:33
Speaker
Right? Yeah. i have nothing I have, like, never felt older in my life than when I talked people about 6, 7. Yeah. Like, there's, like, just such definitive, like, age gaps. Like, there's the kids that, like, get it.
00:06:47
Speaker
There's, like, the, like, adults that, like, don't have kids that are just, like, the fuck is all this? And there's the the adults that, like, have kids that are, like, yeah, no, we're in it. Like, it's so stupid, but I know what it is. And then, like, everyone older is just, like, these fucking kids, man. What is happening? Yeah. yeah i'm in it and and i figure if if you can't beat them you might as well join them so i've joined i've committed we've got the paper to prove it we bought the elves the one thing that they did this year yeah so i'm committed to it but do you have any traditions that you do a lot of the time it's just like family stuff like we do a christmas eve party
00:07:25
Speaker
We do a full Christmas morning. Like my siblings and I are all grown adults now. But it's like, no, we all need to like gather at my parents' house for Christmas morning to open presents.
00:07:36
Speaker
Get my grandma out of the house and all that fun stuff. I love it. Yeah. Then we're going to go see in-laws. And then, yeah, just honestly just like bouncing like family time. Yeah. So I'm super excited for it.
00:07:49
Speaker
Yeah. I think the only real tradition that we have is like decorating the Christmas tree, but that's like way before Christmas. So it doesn't really make sense, but yeah, we are like slowly, we we've decorated our tree, but like apartments really small. So we've like a one I have like a table of Christmas.
00:08:10
Speaker
Like we hang our stockings off this table. We have the Christmas tree on the table. Yeah, it's very minimal. Yeah, I just put up a tree, and then usually every year I put like hang up my own Christmas lights and then have like some stuff in the yard.
00:08:26
Speaker
The blow-up things in the yard. This year, though, I just... I can't believe it's already December 19th. And I feel like that's the oldest thing to say, but it just came and it went and we're sandwiched in between two houses that are very much about the Christmas spirit. And we look like the Grinch's house.
00:08:45
Speaker
Well, I feel like the, all like the windstorms too. Like I'd be kind of sketched out having all that stuff outside on my house. Yeah. Valid. That's very valid. It probably would have flown away.
00:08:55
Speaker
That's what I'm trying to make you feel little better. Yeah. I appreciate you. so That's
Teaser for Special Episode: 1947 UFO Sighting
00:09:00
Speaker
actually what happened. You did you did it great. It just all flew away. I will make sure to tell my child that because she is judgedg judging me harshly.
00:09:09
Speaker
Well, speaking about Christmas lights and things that go twinkle, I have a very special episode for you today that I am so excited about. Ooh, I love your intros like that. Now I'm so excited. Yes. Well, full disclosure, this is not about Christmas. On second thought, I probably should have done a Christmas theme, but there are some lights in the sky, so we will just go with that. So without further ado, it's the summer of 1947. We're in Washington state and
00:09:41
Speaker
we're in washington state It's a quiet time. The war is over. The air felt lighter, almost hopeful. Radios crackled with songs like Heartaches by Ted Weems and the orchestra drifting through homes in a haze of static and optimism.
00:09:58
Speaker
When people looked up. It was just to check the weather or admire a passing bird. No one was looking up for answers. But above their heads, high above snow-covered peaks and dark stretches of open water, something moved, silently, impossibly, crossing distances no machine should have been able to cross.
Kenneth Arnold's Encounter with Flying Saucers
00:10:21
Speaker
And the people who saw it weren't dreamers or thrill-seekers. They were pilots. They were loggers. They were prospectors. Men whose lives depended on understanding the world exactly as it was.
00:10:35
Speaker
What they described didn't quite fit. There were no engines. There was no sound. There was no explanation. only flashes of light, shapes that skipped and tilted across the sky, and a growing, unmistakable sense that whatever they were witnessing was not meant to be seen.
00:10:54
Speaker
Some tried to ignore it. Others tried to report it. A few were actually warned quite firmly to never speak of it again. And one man flying alone over the mountains of Washington would unknowingly give a name to something that still lingers nearly 80 years later.
00:11:12
Speaker
And this, well, this is the story of the Summer of Saucers. Ooh. Kenneth Arnold is opening our story tonight. By all accounts, he is kind of a nuts and bolts type of man. Most people described him as super honest, a very straight shooter, who was one of those people who just had to get to the bottom of everything. He's very logical, very analytical, almost like a scientist type.
00:11:39
Speaker
And this is probably good because he owned his own business installing fire equipment. very well-respected man. He had a big customer base, and by all accounts, he bent over backwards to ensure his customers were super happy. Just an all-around great person.
00:11:55
Speaker
But Mr. Arnold, he was a very busy man, and he had a second job and an even more serious job. He was a deputy sheriff in Ada County.
00:12:06
Speaker
and a licensed air rescue pilot. Kenneth being a pilot is why this story is so important, or why this story comes to fruition, because around 2.14 p.m. on Tuesday, June 24th in 1947, Kenneth is flying his private plane from Chehalis, Washington to Yakima when he saw something that would change his life forever.
00:12:30
Speaker
o While flying towards Yakima, Arnold decided to kill two birds with one stone. Earlier that week, a marine transport plane had gone missing near near Mount Rainier. And there was a $5,000 reward offered to anyone who could locate the wreckage, which is common for that time. I guess when things go down, they ask pilots to to maybe keep an eye out. And if you find something, they'll pay you for it.
00:12:53
Speaker
Well, adjusted for today's inflation, that comes out to roughly $76,000.
00:13:00
Speaker
Whoa. So well worth taking an extra hour if you're already flying over to take a look. Oh yeah. And remember he is also a rescue pilot. So this is kind of in his wheelhouse. He's very right his alley. Yeah. Right up his alley. So Arnold began a search in the West Southwest corner of Mount Rainier scanning the terrain for nearly an hour.
00:13:21
Speaker
He saw nothing. And eventually he turned towards Yakima giving up on the search. At this point, he was about 80 miles from Yakima proper and roughly 22 miles southwest of Mount Rainier.
00:13:34
Speaker
The sky, it's crystal clear. There's little to no turbulence. It was, by all accounts, a perfect day to fly. So beautiful, beautiful skies. He leveled off at cruising altitude around 92,000 feet and settled into the calm.
00:13:49
Speaker
Then he saw something. A sudden blinding flash of light erupted off the side of his aircraft. Instinctively, Arnold thought he might be on a collision course with another plane.
00:14:01
Speaker
So, of course, his his heart spikes. He's scanning the skies, trying to locate the source of the flash. He did spot a commercial aircraft far off in the distance, and air commercial aircraft are a lot higher, about 12,000 feet, but there was nothing close enough to explain what the flash was.
00:14:20
Speaker
He assumed that he might have gotten in the path of a military aircraft that streaked by, and he just couldn't see it anymore. But Arnold continued to remain on alert. He wanted to make sure that he was scanning the area, wanted to make sure there was nothing approaching where he he would hurt himself.
00:14:36
Speaker
But then he saw it again. This crazy flash. Unmistakable. But this time, he was able to pinpoint the origin.
00:14:47
Speaker
Something was approaching from the north. It was coming from Mount Baker, and it sat against the horizon. As he focused, the objects appeared to be in a chain and moving really fast.
00:15:00
Speaker
Like, unnaturally fast. According to the Air Force official report, Arnold initially believed that the object was a jet was multiple jet aircrafts flying really close together in formation. But as the train the chain drew closer, he realized that it wasn't a formation, at least not one that he had seen before.
00:15:24
Speaker
What he was looking at were nine disk-like objects moving together in tight formation towards Mount Rainier. Arnold would later say that the objects appeared to be almost dancing in the sky, like fluttering and weaving, oh yet never deviating from their actual course.
00:15:42
Speaker
The Desert News quoted him as saying, the objects flew like saucers if you skip them across water. So, like, just picture that. Imagine that a little bit. like Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:55
Speaker
oop boom yeah Kind of crazy. And that phrase actually would soon echo around the world, a.k.a. the term flying saucer. That's where it comes from.
00:16:06
Speaker
No way. I don't know. That was tied to Washington. Yes. Tied to Washington. Whoa. Yes. Arnold's account to the Air Force was actually so detailed that I feel like I need to read parts of it to you.
00:16:18
Speaker
So Arnold stated every few seconds, two or three objects would dip or change course slightly, just enough for the sun to strike them at an angle and reflect brightly.
00:16:29
Speaker
So that's what he was seeing in the sky when he was like Whatever. The objects being quite far away, i was unable to make out their exact shape or formation. As they approached Mount Rainier, however, I observed their outline quite clearly.
00:16:44
Speaker
I found it very peculiar that I couldn't find any tails and assumed they were some type of military jet aircraft. So he's still like after he sees this chain and it's like going crazy fast towards him, he's still thinking that it's like some jet. It's not quite like clicking that it could be something else.
00:17:02
Speaker
Interesting. He estimated their elevation varied about a thousand feet, but remained close to the horizon, suggesting that they were roughly at the same altitude as his own aircraft. So about 19 or yeah, 9,200 feet. So yeah, he's, he's flying kind of low. And then for something this fast though, that is pretty low.
00:17:21
Speaker
to the to the bottom. So Arnold went on, the objects flew like geese in a diagonal chain as if linked together. They were held at a very definite direction, but swerved in and out of the mountain peaks. So they're all kind of in line, but they're all kind of doing this like...
00:17:37
Speaker
Just a dance. They're doing a dance. The distance between Arnold and the objects was about 25 miles. So as he's looking at this, as he's seeing them go across the sky, he actually finds a cowling tool, kind of like a wrench, I'm assuming. to estimate the size of, he like picked it up and was trying to estimate the size of what these discs would be. And he estimated them to be about two thirds of a DC aircraft, which in layman's terms or my terms is about 50 feet long. So these are pretty big.
00:18:09
Speaker
He described that when the objects flew straight and level, they appeared as thin black lines. But when they tilted, when they're dancing, when they tilted and became visible, their movements, he said, were unlike anything he'd ever seen before. So when they turned, you could see them when they were straight on. It just looked like a black line, which is kind of crazy because that like means it's like flat, flat.
00:18:33
Speaker
So they were fluttering and sailing through the skies, tipping their wings and flashing blue and white lights, is what he's s saying. Perhaps most unsettling of all, Arnold said the objects didn't feel like machines. He described them as alive, which is kind of creepy to think about.
00:18:50
Speaker
He described them as alive as if they were living organisms capable of changing their density, moving more like a fish through water than an aircraft through air
00:19:01
Speaker
Isn't that kind of trippy to think about? In this time, well, I'll get into it a little later, but we barely have a plane that can break the sound barrier at this point.
00:19:12
Speaker
So having something that can move this fast and moves like it moves like it's alive, i so yeah, we don't have anything. Maybe a kite. I think that's the only thing that I can think of that could like...
00:19:23
Speaker
Look crazy like that. So then Arnold noticed something critical. As the objects passed the snow covered ridge near Mount Rainier, the first object cleared the southern crest while the last was just entering the northern edge. So that ridge measured five miles long, meaning that the chain of objects stretched nearly five miles across the sky.
00:19:46
Speaker
And that's when Arnold began timing them. So from Mount Rainier to Mount Adams, which is a distance of 47 miles, the objects traveled that in one minute and 42 seconds.
00:19:57
Speaker
That equates to 1,656 miles per hour. so for reference, a commercial airliner travels between 500 and 600 miles per hour. The fastest jet in 1947 was the Bell X-1, and that had only broken the sound barrier at Mach 1.
00:20:15
Speaker
1.6 or about 700 miles per hour. And that required it to be at an altitude of 12,000 square feet or 12,000 feet, not square feet. Arnold's altitude is roughly at 9,500 feet. The sound barrier would have be broken between 735 740 miles per hour, meaning that objects should have produced a continuous sonic boom.
00:20:39
Speaker
Right. So they're flying in the sky. They should have had a sonic boom. And as someone who used to work on aircraft, specifically jet aircraft, when a sonic boom goes off, it's not something you don't notice. It is. It literally sounds like a bomb is going off, but Arnold heard nothing.
00:20:57
Speaker
And physics tells us that a sonic boom from 25 miles away should take about two minutes and 27 seconds to reach the observer. Why does this matter? Because again, Arnold heard no boom, no thunder, no echo, only silence.
Arnold's Report & Media Frenzy
00:21:12
Speaker
So it's moving, slithering, if you will, through the sky, five miles long, and there's no sound. And it's going 1,000 miles per hour, over 1,600 miles per hour. That's crazy.
00:21:24
Speaker
So Arnold lands in Yakima with a story that sounded impossible. The first people he told, you know, told him to switch from liquor to water, which is crazy. But he persisted even as doubts crept in about sharing his story and how people might take him, take it the wrong way. And it might affect his career. Cause remember he's a rescue pilot. He's also a part-time sheriff like that.
00:21:49
Speaker
You know, if people start calling you crazy, that could really derail your career. So he's really stressing about it. But the next day he has to go from Yakima to Oregon to service some fire equipment that he installed. And on the way over, he's looking and he decides that he needs to make an official report to federal authorities because he thought maybe this is like some military aircraft that's going on.
00:22:13
Speaker
So while he's speaking to other pilots in Oregon, some of them were retired World War ii military aviators. And they told him that they'd actually been briefed during the war that they might see things like this and that it could be secret military technology and that they suggested it could even be Russian aircraft.
00:22:33
Speaker
So he should report it as soon as possible. So this part I kind of find funny. So Arnold immediately after he, he got his plane all situated, did his daily, he decided that he was going to go tell the FBI. So he went to the FBI office in Oregon, but it was closed.
00:22:53
Speaker
So the next thing he decided to do was go to the East Oregonian newspaper where he gave a five minute interview to Nolan Skiff and Bill Baquette. They didn't really know what to do with the story. So they just kind of wrote a small blurb at the bottom of, of one page about flying saucers and and sent it to the Associated Press, not really thinking anything was going to come of it. But then the story exploded.
00:23:21
Speaker
The two reporters coined the term flying saucers, like I said, which you know came out of Washington State, from sighting in Washington State. And with the coverage came lots of theories. So secret government projects, foreign aircraft, mass and there was just mass hysteria everywhere. People thought Russia was in our skies.
00:23:40
Speaker
We were going to die. Craziness. And in a really rare move, the Air Force actually responded rather quickly, stating that it was they were not responsible and they were not testing a secret weapon, so this, whatever the sighting was, was not them.
00:23:57
Speaker
They suggested that the sightings were actually reflections of sunlight on the snowy peaks or meteors breaking apart and landing into the mountain range.
Corroborating Sightings & Air Force Denial
00:24:06
Speaker
Which I say, if meteors are falling, don't we get told of that?
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, even with this meteors breaking apart theory, the stories didn't stop. And actually, other witnesses began coming forward. So Fred Johnson was prospecting in the Cascades on June 24th.
00:24:24
Speaker
So same day as Arnold. And he reported seeing the same type of flash overhead. He looked up and when he looked up, he saw a disc streak by like almost so fast that he didn't realize He was like, did I see that? And so he climbed up to higher ground, got out his binoculars, and he observed five to six discs kind of floating in the air.
00:24:46
Speaker
He estimated them to be about 30 feet in diameter. He wanted to pull out his compass to see which way they were going. And when he pulled out his compass, the compass was going insane. It was spinning, spinning, spinning. It wasn't pointing directions. It was going crazy.
00:25:02
Speaker
And so Johnson, he was like, okay, I'm a prospector. I'm out here by myself. I'm kind of camping. No one's going to believe me. I'm not going to tell anyone. And so he goes home to Oregon and that's when he reads Arnold's story.
00:25:15
Speaker
And so he comes forward and he reports that Then came something called the Maury Island incident. Have you ever heard of the Maury Island incident? Okay. So about seven nautical miles outside of Tacoma on June 21st. So three days before Arnold's sighting, five men were aboard the Northern Queen and they were salvaging logs near Maury Island in the Puget Sound.
00:25:39
Speaker
On this boat was Harold Dahl, his son, Charles, Fred Chrisman, and another worker, as well as their dog Sparky. As they were on the water, they watched as six disc-like objects appeared in the sky above them.
00:25:55
Speaker
These discs morphed into donut-shaped-like objects. they had hollow centers They had hollow centers, and they were flying in formation. Then all of a sudden, one of the discs started acting really erratically.
00:26:09
Speaker
It broke apart from the other aircraft and starts kind of just jerking around, and the other aircraft starts circling around it. About 100 feet before the boat, the damaged aircraft starts spewing molten material and they know it's molten because as the debris is hitting the water, it's making the Puget sound steam, which is kind of creepy because it's coming towards them fast.
00:26:34
Speaker
And before the men can really make a move, metal starts raining down upon them. The dog was killed. Charles arm was broken and the boat's cabin was very dad badly damaged.
00:26:48
Speaker
After some time, the middle aircraft stopped spewing molten metal and The other aircraft stopped circling around. It joins back in formation and they just take off.
00:27:02
Speaker
Terrified, the men actually ran the boat aground on Maury Island and stayed there until they were sure the discs were gone. And they made a pact of silence that they would never talk about it again.
00:27:14
Speaker
However, the next morning, a man in a black suit showed up at Harold Dahl's door.
00:27:23
Speaker
He invited Dahl to breakfast and at the diner, he he began aggressively questioning him about what happened the day before. Asking all these questions, taking all these notes, and he's listening super intensely. And then Dahl gets the end of his story and the men in black look at him and say, actually, don't ever talk about this again.
00:27:45
Speaker
If you talk about this, your family will be injured and there will be legal repercussions. So Dahl tried to stay silent. That is until he heard on June 26th, Kenneth Arnold's story in the papers.
00:28:02
Speaker
Well, all of these incidents helped spark Project Blue Book. do you know what Project Blue Book is? Well, it's the Air Force response to this crazy summer of saucers. They actually opened an official investigation into UFO sightings. And this was tracked from 1947 1969.
00:28:21
Speaker
Over 13,000 sightings were cataloged. And 700 remained unexplained.
Subsequent Sightings & Air Force Investigations
00:28:28
Speaker
Arnold's sighting was written off as a mirage. Johnson's and Dahl's were not a be able to be written off. So they're still open cases.
00:28:39
Speaker
Well, over the course of July, reports are still coming in. UFO sightings are coming out of Spokane, Bellingham, Bremerton, Yakima. And Eugene, Oregon residents published a photo of flying saucers flying in formation. These were later debunked as dust laid on negatives to create this effect. So that was discounted. But Frank Ryman, a Seattle resident, published a UFO photo in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on July 5, 1947. That was not able to be debunked.
00:29:09
Speaker
On July 4th, several hundred people in Portland reported seeing flying saucers hovering over the city. And that same day, a pilot on United Flight 105 reported seeing five disks flying in formation over Idaho, with four disks joining together shortly after. The co-pilot and the pilot pulled the flight attendant into the cockpit to ensure they were not going crazy or like there was some leak in the cockpit making them see things. And she immediately shouts, what the hell is that? And for 10 minutes, they watch these jet aircraft kind of do this little dance and then shoot into Washington state.
00:29:46
Speaker
Then another story on July 8th, blew up the news again. And this crash was Roswell, New Mexico. And that was reported that the Air Force actually recovered a body from that crash site. But, you know, that's out of Washington State, so i'm not going go into that. But after this event, the pilot, Smith, and Mr. Arnold actually started hunting UFOs together. They're like, actually, something crazy is going on. We need to pair up. We need to become superheroes.
00:30:15
Speaker
And they actually reach out to Harold and go visit him in Washington state. And as they're interviewing doll, he actually said, actually, you know, what's crazy is I took pictures of what happened to my boat and what happened to my son and all of this other stuff, for insurance because the, my boat was damaged. I needed to to get it fixed.
00:30:36
Speaker
What was weird is that when he went to go grab the pictures the day after to send the insurance company, someone had broken into his car and stolen the photographs. Yes, the the photographs were gone, and he thought it was probably the men in black.
00:30:52
Speaker
And so they were trying to figure out what they could do to to try and prove what Harold had saw. So they actually went back to the crash site and recovered some of the metal that had spewed out of the aircraft that Arnold had saw.
Mysterious Crashes & Unresolved Mysteries
00:31:06
Speaker
And when they grabbed this material, they actually contacted the Project Blue Book officers and said, hey, you need to come up here. We have tangible evidence that you can test. Come up here. So Lieutenant Frank M. Brown and Captain Will Davison from the intelligence team in the Air Force flew up to Washington State to grab the materials.
00:31:25
Speaker
They came up here, they listened to Dahl's story, kind of seemed disinterested, but grabbed the material and pretty much immediately said, oh, we have to go back to California.
00:31:36
Speaker
So they grabbed the material, go back to McCord Air Force Base, get in their bomber that they're driving or flying, I should say. And this is where some conflicting accounts happen.
00:31:50
Speaker
Some say that the intelligence officers did take the items from the wreckage onto the plane with them to take them back to California. Others say they actually just threw it away.
00:32:03
Speaker
Nothing is actually confirmed. However, what is true is that the plane these investigators were on caught fire outside of Kelso, Washington, and the fire was so intense that a wing fell off.
00:32:18
Speaker
causing it to crash just outside of Kelso, Washington. Two Crow members did survive, but Frank M. Brown and Will Davison, the actual investigators, died.
00:32:31
Speaker
So as you can imagine, this took the media by storm. The Tacoma Times reported that the crash was carrying classified materials and had been shot down. Many other papers followed suit with the same types of stories. But what is interesting is that the the mysteries ended for a while.
00:32:47
Speaker
But on April 1959... a plane flying just east of Sumner, Washington in Pierce County reported having crashed into something while they were flying.
00:32:59
Speaker
They couldn't see what they crashed into though. And they were, because of this crash in the sky, they were having to crash land and people seeing the aircraft coming down noted that the engines were dead and it was glowing and that it was being trailed by four round disks.
00:33:16
Speaker
Upon crashing, all four members unfortunately passed away. Yes. So fast forward to today, or not today, but within the past 30 years,
00:33:27
Speaker
bull or All of the individuals, Smith, Arnold, and Dahl, all held firm to their convictions of seeing these dislike objects in the sky. And in later years, Kenneth Arnold held on to a story saying, I never asked or wanted wanted or expected any publicity for for accidentally being in the right spot at the right time. to observe the chain of nine mysterious objects.
00:33:49
Speaker
I reported something that any pilot would have. My observations were not due to any particular sensitivity of eyesight or and or to abnormal or supernatural abilities. I am positive that any so any pilot at the same place at the same time would have observed what I did.
00:34:06
Speaker
And so we are left wondering, what haunts the skies above us? Is it human hands at work, illusions of light and distance, or something else entirely? Something ancient, something patient, something waiting for us to look up.
00:34:23
Speaker
That's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time.
00:34:36
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us. Until next time, keep your eyes up and your spaceships locked.