The original classic UFO sighting—definitively explained. On June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold, an experienced private pilot, saw nine unusual objects flying at an extraordinary speed near Mt. Rainier in Washington. The incident was the origin of the phrase flying saucers, and started a worldwide fascination with UFOs. Over the years, skeptics have offered no less than 14 prosaic explanations for what Arnold saw. Now, world-renowned UFO researcher and optical physicist Bruce Maccabee provides the most complete analysis ever attempted on this case. Not only is his telling of the story the most detailed ever given, but he meticulously breaks down each of the conventional explanations. One by one, they fall apart upon careful scrutiny. After seven decades, the most famous UFO sighting of the 20th century has received a final judgment—unknown, unconventional, and out of this world. World renowned UFO researchers Stanton Friedman and Jerome Clark have praised Maccabee’s book. — “Seventy years on, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting remains a mystery with the profoundest implications. Everything followed from it, and the answers remain as intriguingly out of reach today as they did on that memorable Tuesday afternoon in June 1947. The case deserves a full-length treatment, and nobody is more qualified to deliver it than Dr. Maccabee, whose searching, deeply informed treatment will be an essential contribution to serious UFO study. ” —Jerome Clark, author of The UFO Encyclopedia (1990–1998) — “Having had a serious interest in flying saucers since 1958, I can safely say that almost everybody with such an interest has been aware of pilot Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of 9 unusual high speed flying objects on June 24, 1947, near Mt. Rainier in the state of Washington. Thus it seems strange indeed that not until optical physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee wrote this book have we even come close to learning the entire story. This book tops them all. He has gathered and carefully evaluated every scrap of solid information about the Arnold case from books, interviews, Arnold’s statements, newspapers and broadcasts and concluded that the Arnold case clearly established that Earth is being visited by aliens and that we are not alone. ” —Stanton T. Friedman, Nuclear physicist, lecturer, ufologist.