The First UFO: The Kenneth Arnold Sighting

NOTE: the style and format of the show was very different back in these days! But we think you'll still enjoy it.  Join Cian by the fire to discuss paranormal and unexplained topics in this spooky episode of Wide Atlantic Weird. Oh, and have a fine ale at hand too! THE FIRST UFO: In 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold saw nine, shiny, disc-shaped somethings flying in formation over Mount Ranier in Washington State, and the world was never the same again. Over 70 years later, people are still arguing about what he did (or didn’t see). Whatever the truth, this encounter proved to be the beginning of the modern UFO movement. Everything that has followed – flying saucers, alien greys, abductions, the X-Files – has its roots in the Arnold sighting. So what really happened? Who was Kenneth Arnold, anyway? And should we take his report seriously? Why do people say that newpapers really invented flying saucers? This report finds Cian being less sceptical than usual as he dives into this seminal case. AMERICAN EUGENICS: Cian shares an anecdote about his time working in the US, at a site that had once been fundamental in the history of the American eugenics project. Creepy graveyards, Hell’s Tunnel, the body hold: Cian seems to wind up living in places that are a magnet for urban legends and unsettling history, and this time he discovered that the remnants of some of America’s darkest doings are still to be found today. THE PINE BARRENS EXPEDITION: A fictional piece. When a dedicated eugenics scientist takes his crusade to the New Jersey Pine Barrens in the 1930s, he hopes to meet some the most degenerate people the US has to offer. There’s nowhere better for him to begin his plan to rid the country of undesirables. But what he finds in those swampy depths goes to show that what’s desirable can mean different things to different folks.    Daily Grail: Re-Evaluating The Kenneth Arnold UFO Sighting The Coming Of The Saucers, Kenneth Arnold & Ray Palmer