Famous Stories - First Contact - Kenneth Arnold - Arnold's Task

Kenneth Arnold was an amateur, private pilot with experience described by Jerome Clark, author of "The UFO Encyclopaedia" as "A conservative, western sort of man with little imagination, not much of a reader and certainly not a science-fiction fan."

Just before 3:00 pm on the 24th of June 1947. Arnold was flying his small plane over the Cascade Mountains in search of the wreckage of a C-46 plane that crash-landed near Mt. Rainier with thirty-two men on board. The US Marine Corps had offered him $5 000 to locate the plane using his, since it was specially designed for flying in mountainous environments and because he knew the area very well.