United Air Lines Smith sighting near Emmett, Idaho
4 July 1947 · Emmett, Idaho
Summary
United Air Lines Captain E. J. Smith and co-pilot Ralph Stevens reported objects in the sky on the evening of 4 July 1947, shortly after leaving Boise, Idaho, on a flight toward Seattle. A 4th Air Force summary listed the report as made eight minutes out of Boise. A list of 1947 reports gave the time as 2015 at Emmett, Idaho, and a later table named Smith and Stevens as observers from the air.
Smith was interviewed at 1500 on 9 July 1947. He said the plane left Boise at 2004 and that the first object was sighted near Emmett at about 2015, with four more appearing beside it. He put the first group in view for about two minutes and the second for twelve to fifteen minutes. Stevens, interviewed that evening, corroborated the flight details, but the interviewer noted two discrepancies, in the size of the smaller objects and in their altitude. Stevens said he first took the object for an oncoming DC-3 and turned on the landing lights. He added that the Ontario, Oregon, weather station was radioed and saw nothing. He also said the tower had asked about disks before takeoff, and that the stewardess saw the same things.
Newspaper accounts of 5 July varied. The Oregon Journal quoted Smith as saying the objects were not aircraft, smoke or clouds, and that they were followed northwest for about 45 miles. A Washington Star item gave about 12 minutes of observation from Emmett to a point southeast of Ontario. Two Air Force check-list copies gave different times, 8:04 P.M. in one and 2:30 P.M. in the other.
A CIC memorandum of 16 July recorded that Smith was interviewed again at Boise on 12 July and repeated his press statements. The agent wrote that Smith would have to be strongly convinced he saw disks before exposing himself to ridicule. An analytical table recorded that the objects disappeared into the sunset and that Smith did not know whether they sped away or disintegrated. An FBI Seattle teletype of 12 August said Smith had been publicised for the sighting and had met Kenneth Arnold on 5 July in Seattle.
Where the files disagree
Two documents give different accounts of the same detail. Both are quoted as written; we don't say which is right.
Distance the objects were followed
What the files say
“Captain Smith reiterated the statements originally made by him to the press as to what he had seen in the late evening of July 4th, when 8 minutes out of Boise on the route to Seattle, Washington.”
Page 174 →“We left Boise, Idaho, at 2004 Pacific Standard Time.”
Page 108 →“The weather was clear and unlimited, with not a cloud in the sky.”
Page 109 →“I couldn't swear on a stand that they were not clouds, but I think it impossible.”
Page 110 →
Explanations in the record
What the documents themselves say the event was, as recorded. Not our assessment.
- Stevens first took the first object for an oncoming DC-3 about five miles away, then judged it was not a cloud. He said he could not swear they were not clouds but thought it impossible. — FBI file on 1947 flying saucer wave, Arnold sighting, page 110
- Smith said the objects were not aircraft, smoke or clouds. He thought they either sped away or dissipated, and that they might be ground controlled. — FBI file on 1947 flying saucer wave, Arnold sighting, page 108