On February 5, 1947, months before Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, a very similar formation of high-speed egg-shaped objects was seen by multiple witnesses in Australia
by Spartacus01
FEBRUARY 5, 1947, AUSTRALIA
February 5, 1947 – The Advertiser – Adelaide, South Australia, Australia – Page 1
Strange Objects Reported in Sky
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-strange-objects-reported/175455362/
Alternative link: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3511159
Based on accounts from three witnesses, this article describes the sighting of five “quivering” egg-shaped objects. The objects were flying in formation across the sky and disappeared “within a few seconds.” One witness estimated the size of the objects as comparable to a locomotive, judging by their shadows. The sighting occurred on February 5, and reports started appearing in newspapers the following day.
Here is the same story zoomed out, with the date clearly visible on the newspaper:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-the-advertiser-feb-07/175455485/
A letter to the editor from G.F. Dodwell, government astronomer at the Adelaide Observatory, dismissed the possibility that the sighting might have been caused by a mirage:
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-advertiser-strange-objects/174279212/
This sighting did not seem to attract much attention from the UFO community, but it was discussed in a blog post back in 2011:
https://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2011/01/cold-case-port-augusta-5-february-1947.html
The blog points out that an additional witness separately reported seeing a similar group of five objects on February 5, though this account was only reported two weeks later. This time, the objects were described as “oblong with narrow points”:
February 20, 1947 – Quorn Mercury – Quorn, South Australia, Australia – Page 3
Objects in Sky Seen at Lock
https://www.newspapers.com/article/quorn-mercury-objects-in-sky-seen-at-loc/175456236/
JUNE 24, 1947, THE KENNETH ARNOLD SIGHTING
I will focus solely on Arnold’s original description. Since memory can fade over time, I will disregard Arnold’s later recollections and concentrate on what he described in the days and weeks immediately following the sighting.
Arnold’s original drawing submitted to the Army:
https://imgur.com/a/ETRrFB1
Audio recording of Arnold’s description:
http://www.konsulting.com/K-Arnold Layer-3.WAV
Arnold verbally described the shape as similar to a pie pan cut in half, with a triangle added to the rear. This means the object was roughly round overall, but one side was pointed. His drawing shows a roughly round object with a more triangular back half that ended in a rounded blunt tip. Arnold initially estimated the speed at about 1,800 miles per hour, but conservatively reduced it by one-third to 1,200 miles per hour. The sighting involved a formation of nine objects. He described their movement as similar to a rock skipping across water, with the objects sometimes flipping on their sides like fish.
THE FRED M. JOHNSON SIGHTING, JUNE 24, 1947 (REPORTED TO THE AIR FORCE IN AUGUST 1947)
An interesting lesser-known fact is that another witness, a prospector from Portland, claimed to have seen the same objects that Kenneth Arnold observed on June 24. Although the orientation was reversed, the report is otherwise quite similar.
Letter from prospector Fred M. Johnson to Headquarters, Fourth Air Force, reporting his “flying disc” sighting:
https://www.project1947.com/fig/johns47.htm
And I saw the same flying objects at about the same time. Having a telescope with me at the time, I can assure you they are real and nothing like them I ever saw before. They did not pass very high over where I was standing at the time. [They were] probably 1,000 feet [altitude], they were round, about 30 feet in diameter tapering sharply to a point in the lead end in an oval shape, with a bright top surface. I did not hear any noise as you would from a plane. But there was an object in the tail and looked like a big hand of a clock shifting from side to side like a big magnet. Their speed, as far as I know, seemed to be greater than anything I ever saw. Last view I got of the objects they were standing on edge banking in a cloud.
Johnson also noted that his compass fluctuated wildly during the sighting. You can read the Project Blue Book report on Johnson’s sighting on pages 600–604. The report classified it as unidentified, though it expressed skepticism that any aerial object could cause magnetic disturbances strong enough to affect a compass from such a distance:
https://archive.org/details/roll1_BlueBook_nara/page/n599/mode/2up
ANALYSIS
Comparing Arnold’s sighting to the February 5, 1947 sighting, both reports mention the objects maintaining a steady altitude and flying in formation. The February sighting involved five objects instead of nine. Both accounts describe roughly round objects that are pointier on one end. In both, the objects were described as moving oddly.
The objects seen on February 5 must have been moving extremely fast to vanish from sight in just a few seconds. If the witnesses were even close to correct in estimating their altitude, these things were traveling at incredible speeds. To put it in perspective, imagine the objects were only 1,000 feet above the ground — a very low and conservative estimate — and let us say they were visible for about 20 seconds as they crossed the sky from one end to the other. Even under those generous assumptions, they would have been flying at around 14,000 miles per hour. Compared to that, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, where he estimated the objects at about 1,200 miles per hour, seems much less extreme. Still, despite the difference in speed, the two sightings share a lot of striking similarities.
As for the belated witness for Arnold’s sighting, and the belated witness for the sighting in February, both later reports recalled the objects as tapering to a sharper point. I would assume that the original reports, reported a day after the sighting, were probably more accurate than belated reports two weeks later and two months later, but they are all still quite similar, all things considered. One possibility: due to the angle they are viewed at, the same object could appear wider or thinner.
I am confident that the February sighting was discussed somewhere within the UFO community before 2011, but I found no evidence of it being mentioned anywhere in 1947. It seems likely that Arnold was unaware of this sighting since it happened on the opposite side of the globe months before the “flying saucer” craze in the U.S. It appears to have been overlooked, but it could serve as useful corroboration and a reference point for what Arnold’s objects probably looked like, especially if his original description did not convince everyone.