WEEKEND EDITION
RITTER HOT SPRINGS
OUTSIDE/8C
LIFE IN REMISSION
HALEY GREB
LIFESTYLES/1C
SPORTS/1B
JUNE 17-18, 2017
141st Year, No. 175
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WINNER OF THE 2016 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
Flying saucers still evasive 70 years after pilot’s touchstone report
Daniel
Wattenburger
THE SIGHTING
By PHIL WRIGHT ♦ East Oregonian
Comment
B
oise businessman Ken Arnold
had no idea he would change the
world when he told reporters in
Pendleton he saw nine strange objects
fl ying along the Cascades.
But 70 years ago June 25, that’s
what he did.
East Oregonian reporter Bill
Bequette and editor Nolan Skiff didn’t
fi gure the 191-word story they banged
out that Wednesday just in time for
the evening paper and The Associated
Press noon wire would take off, well,
like a fl ying saucer.
But it captured the attention of the
nation.
The headline at the bottom of the
front page of the EO for June 25, 1947,
reads: “Impossible! Maybe, But Seein’
Is Believin’, Says Flyer.” And in the
seven sentences that followed, Bequette
and Skiff reported Arnold’s claims that
on the day before he saw “nine saucer-
like aircraft fl ying in formation” at an
altitude between 9,500 and 10,000 feet
between Mount Rainer and Mount
Adams moving at “the amazing speed
of about 1,200 miles an hour.”
That would make them faster than
any aircraft the U.S. or any other nation
had back then.
Give dad
his due
T
he transformation
from dude to dad is
one of the remarkable
metamorphoses in nature.
It certainly rivals the
caterpillar, which essentially
takes a month-long nap and
then wakes up with wings.
Or the tadpole, which
spends summer break in the
pond and comes out in the
fall with some legs.
Picture a human male
in his pre-fatherhood state.
Can you imagine ever
giving him care of a child?
Can you imagine him ever
willingly taking care of a
child?
But it happens, and it
happens all at once. While
nine months of pregnancy
dramatically alters an
expectant mother’s life and
she wisely takes the time to
understand what is coming,
the expectant father is still
somehow caught by surprise
when the child arrives. Cut
what? Change who? Burp
how?
The path to parenthood
unfolds in many ways, but
no matter the means there
is an undeniable moment
where a guy becomes a
father.
For me the moment
came in a hospital room.
Suddenly, a new person
was in the room with us,
a little girl, and I was in
charge of naming her and
cleaning her and watching
her obsessively all hours of
day and night. That was six
years ago this month — we
added a son three years later
— and I’m still awestruck
by both of them most days.
But there was a clear
moment. Before, I was a
guy with my own interests,
preferences, goals and
aspirations. After, I was
a guy with those same
interests, preferences, goals
and aspirations, but they all
moved a notch down my
to-do list.
See FATHERHOOD/12A
Associated Press fi le photo
Ken Arnold was photographed in 1947 with his CallAir
plane shortly after he reported seeing nine high-speed
objects “fl ying like a saucer would” near Mount Rainier.
While the imagery was there, the EO
never used the phrase “fl ying saucer”
in its reporting, contrary to plenty of
reports.
Within days of the EO breaking the
story, some bright newspaper writer
elsewhere coined “fl ying saucer.” The
term stuck in the lexicon and the Amer-
ican psyche.
A daughter remembers
Kim Arnold, 63, of Meridian,
Idaho, said her father was not seeking
publicity when he told his story. The
objects scared and baffl ed him, she
said, and he wanted to know what they
were.
“It didn’t make sense to him how
fast they fl ew,” she said. “My father
was a real nuts-and-bolts realist. He
really believed there were explanations
for things.”
Ken Arnold was 32 at the time of
the sighting. He and his wife, Doris,
lived in Boise, and had two little girls.
He had a reputation as a respected
businessman selling fi re suppression
equipment. Kim came along in 1954
and another daughter followed a few
years later. Of the four siblings, Kim
See UFO/13A
“He believed that our military would come forth and tell everyone what these
strange things really were. And it never happened.”
— Kim Arnold, daughter of pilot Ken Arnold, who reported ‘saucers’ fl ying by Mt. Rainier to an East Oregonian reporter June 25, 1947
The UFO convention that almost was
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Pat Kennedy saw Pendleton
hosting a UFO festival as plain as
stars.
After all, the Eastern Oregon
city had a hand in the birth of
modern UFO culture.
Sure, Pendleton boasts a
world-famous Round-Up, but
this also is where Ken Arnold of
Boise on June 25, 1947, told East
Oregonian reporter Bill Bequette
and editor Nolan Skiff that he was
fl ying the day before near Mount
Rainer and saw nine strange craft
zipping through the sky at 1,200
mph.
The EO men pushed out a
four-paragraph story before lunch
that day and the paper’s afternoon
deadline, and the rest, as they say,
is UFO history.
History that Kennedy, former
manager of the Pendleton
Convention Center, wanted to
capitalize on.
“The opportunity is just laying
there for Pendleton,” he said.
Kennedy said over the course
of 20 years he tried to start a UFO
event, but he knew little about the
topic and needed someone who
did.
“My idea was, you got to bring
in some fi rst-class speakers from
all over the world,” he said. “I
don’t want some carnival attrac-
tions.”
Tim Hills faced a similar
dilemma and had a similar
desire. Hills is a historian for
the Portland-based craft brewer
McMenamins, which in 1999
renovated the old Hotel Oregon
in downtown McMinnville, near
where famous UFO photographs
were taken 50 years prior.
Evelyn and Paul Trent lived on
their farm just outside Sheridan,
about nine miles southwest of
McMinnville. They claimed on
the evening of May 11, 1950, they
saw a large, metallic, saucer-life
craft near the farm. Paul Trent
took photos of the object and on
June 9, 1950, the News-Register
(then the Telephone-Register) ran
See CONVENTION/14A
The McMenamins Hotel Oregon UFOfest in McMinnville
would not be complete without aliens, and there were
plenty in this year’s UFO Parade.
Staff photo by Phil Wright
Creepy crickets
invade Arlington
Insects munching
crops, causing nuisance
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The city of Arlington has been inundated by a Mormon cricket outbreak, leaving
residents with few options as to how to deal with the insects.
They’re crawling up the
sides of houses, swarming
driveways, munching crops
and generally causing a creepy
nuisance around town.
Mormon crickets have
invaded Arlington this year
in startling numbers, with
residents trying desperately
to fi gure out how to keep the
exploding population under
control.
More online
For video of the
crickets visit
eastoregonian.com
“We’re just overrun,” said
Jessica Gossett, who works at
the local library. “Now my kids
won’t even go out to play.”
The problem has gotten so
bad in recent days that roughly
50 people turned out Friday
for a community meeting at
the Arlington City Council
chambers to discuss possible
solutions, which ranged
See CRICKETS/12A