On June 24th 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold reported seeing a string of nine, shiny unidentified flying objects flying past Mount Rainier at a high rate of speed. Less than a month later, the infamous Roswell incident occurred in New Mexico. Two esteemed UFO researchers joined George Knapp to discuss the 75th anniversary of both events and how these two occurrences changed the discussion about life in the universe. In the first half, Graeme Rendall from the UK joined the show. Arnold had described one of the flying objects he witnessed as shaped like a pie plate cut in half with a convex triangle in the rear. Yet, Rendall pointed out, the craft bore little resemblance to the "crescent-shaped" sketch that Arnold was pictured with in newspaper accounts at the time.

A number of sightings by military pilots followed in the wake of Arnold's report, Rendall noted, including in 1948 when George Gorman got into a dogfight with a fast-moving light or orb, and Thomas Mantell chased after an unidentified craft in his plane (Mantell didn't survive the incident, as he flew higher in the atmosphere than he had sufficient oxygen for). Rendall also covered early military projects like Grudge and Bluebook assigned to investigate UFOs but ended up trying to debunk cases or propose mundane explanations when something extraordinary had occurred.

In the latter half, author Richard Dolan recalled various cases from the 1940s, including Roswell, where the military backtracked on the original UFO report of a crashed disc, and used different cover stories over the years, starting with a weather balloon. Dolan pointed out that Operation Mockingbird, a longstanding CIA/intelligence community manipulation of mainstream media, began around this time and may continue to this day. Starting in the 1960s and going forward, the intelligence community was known to infiltrate the UFO field with operatives who worked to discredit reports and evidence, he added, citing the MJ-12 documents as an example of this.

The Arnold sighting and Roswell garnered the most publicity in 1947, but there was a whole wave of UFO reports in that period, he noted, including a significant set of sightings at Muroc Airfield (now called Edwards AFB). Yet, after the military debunked Roswell as a weather balloon, media coverage began to die off about UFOs in general, he explained. While 1947 is considered by many to be the kickoff of the modern UFO era, "there were elements within the US national security apparatus that did already know about this phenomenon," he revealed. For instance, there was the unexplained "ghost rocket" seen over Europe in the summer of 1946, and the foo fighters during WWII, as well as rumors of prior crash retrievals like Cape Girardeau in 1941.

KNAPP'S NEWS:

George Knapp shares recent items of interest, including his interview with Dr. Travis Taylor about his work on the UAP Task Force, and articles that look back on early UFO reports and revelations.

• I-Team: Physicist reveals he’s a UFO hunter for the Pentagon
• We’ve seen UFOs for 75 years – pilots have died chasing them, we are powerless to stop them & need answers, says author
• Summer of the Saucers
• This Year’s Extreme Weather Is Just Getting Started
• Do animals feel pain? Science author Ed Yong says that’s the wrong question.
• Scientists Are One Step Closer to Discovering Why Some People Can Hear the Dead Speak
• With an eye on space challenges, new National Space Intelligence Center is activated