June 24, 1947. A turning point occurred. The phenomenon of Unidentified Flying Objects gained its eternal fame. All the films, books, series and other elements of the popular culture inspired by UFOs have their origin in that very moment.
The pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying over Mount Rainier in Washington State that day, looking for the wreckage of a crashed Navy plane. He did not see the plane but something strange. Something in the distance reflected sunlight. Several things, actually. A strange fleet of nine half-moon objects.
They were moving in perfect formation at an altitude of about 3,000 km. They must have been pretty big, because Arnold could see them perfectly from 20-25 miles away. They glided through the air like “saucers skipping across water”, as the pilot said. An expression that the press will use to coin the immortal term “flying saucer” after misinterpreting his words. A few days later, on July 4th, the famous crash of an alleged “flying saucer” in Roswell, New Mexico, would finally consolidate ufology in the collective unconscious of the entire world.
This gave rise to what is known as the Modern Era of Ufology. Many still believe this is when the UFO phenomenon began, but it is not. Even in World War II (1939-1945) both Allied and Axis pilots witnessed these phenomena, though they would call them Foo Fighters. The truth is that the origin of the phenomenon is lost in the night of time.
