Kenneth Arnold, a businessman and private pilot, was flying near Mount Rainier, Washington, when he became the first person to make a widely reported UFO sighting. While flying at approximately 9,200 feet on June 24, 1947, he spotted what he initially thought were military aircraft. Upon closer inspection, he counted nine unusual, bright objects flying in a 'V' formation. The objects were maneuvering at incredible speeds, and Arnold estimated they were travelling at over 1,200 miles per hour. Arnold described their shape as 'flat and disk-like,' and the sighting led him to famously liken their movement to that of 'a saucer being skipped across water.'

After his landing in Pendleton, Oregon, Arnold reported the incident to the local authorities and the media. His sighting garnered significant attention, resulting in a flurry of public fascination with unidentified flying objects. Anxious to understand the phenomenon, newspapers across the nation picked up the story, and Arnold became a key figure in what would become the burgeoning UFO movement.

The events that followed would change both public perception and governmental response to the idea of unidentified aerial phenomena. Arnold faced skepticism, praise, and all manner of speculation while UFO enthusiasts began to emerge, captivated by the rendered images of the objects he had seen. This sighting marked the beginning of extensive media coverage of UFOs and touched off a wave of reported sightings across the United States, complicating the air traffic narrative with intertwining tales of the unexplained, leading to a decade defined by UFO lore and the quest for extraterrestrial life.