The summer of 1947 provided two seminal moments in UFO lore. The June 24th sightings of "flying saucers" near Mt. Rainier in Washington State by well-known businessman/pilot Kenneth Arnold and the subsequent reports of a July 2nd UFO mishap in Roswell, New Mexico.

Fittingly, on the sixty (60) year anniversary of the summer of UFO's, the wire services are atwitter with the report of a 'Mile-wide UFO' spotted by a British airline pilot.

A London newspaper reports "One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.

Aurigny Airlines Captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as 'a cigar-shaped brilliant white light'."

Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, is making no claims of extra-terrestrials. "I'm certainly not saying that it was something of another world. All I'm saying is that I have never seen anything like it before in all my years of flying," he said.

Viewed through high-resolution binoculars, Bowyer's says of the UFO, "It was a very sharp, thin yellow object with a green area.

"It was 2,000ft up and stationary. I thought it was about 10 miles away, although I later realised it was approximately 40 miles from us. At first, I thought it was the size of a [Boeing] 737.

"But it must have been much bigger because of how far away it was. It could have been as much as a mile wide."

Both passengers of the Aurigny Airlines flight and a separate pilot flying in the area confirm Bowyer's sighting.

A few weeks earlier, Pilot Magazine carried an official air-miss report on the incident.

Ufology (yoofollowgy) has become a fascinating global cottage industry. Modern day sightings (as opposed to Biblical sightings), bubbled up during WW II when military pilots began reporting mysterious globes of light toying with their planes. In the heat of battle, such "Fool-Fighter" reports, although interesting, took a back seat to fighting a known enemy.

After the war, as life settled in, UFO sightings began. Not only in Washington State, or even in Roswell, New Mexico, but all across the West and the Southwest reports poured into wire services about mysterious objects in the sky.

For those interested in further actual reports on "flying saucer" reports during the summer of 1947, check out Project 1947 on the web.

Project 1947 contains a bundle of pages with real-time newspaper reports about the "flying saucer" deluge of 1947.

For example: Portland, Oregon Daily Journal - July 2, 1947

Rankin Report Adds Credence to 'Disks'
The report of a long-time West Coast man was added today to the growing account of "flying saucers" over the west.

Richard Rankin, veteran of more than 7000 hours in the air, said he saw the much-debated mystery disks high over Bakersfield, Cal., and going "maybe 300 or 400 miles an hour."

There were 10 in formation flying north, he told the reporter, but when "they returned on the reverse course, headed south, there were only seven.

"I couldn't make out the number or location of their propellers and couldn't distinguish any wings or tail. They appeared almost round," he said.

Rankin said he saw them June 23, but hesitated to describe what he saw until he noted others were reporting the same thing.

The UFO reports were so pervasive that even as far away as Chicago, folks lined up their new aluminum lawn chairs in the backyard and spent many a summer eve scanning the heavens for mysterious lights.

For current up-to-date information on Roswell and other UFO research, try the Art Bell and George Noory website based on their highly-rated radio broadcast, "Coast to Coast A.M." heard during the wee hours by multitudes, (www.coasttocoastam.com).
UFO
For up-to-the-minute details on the current sighting by the British pilot, visit Matt Drudge at The Drudge Report. Should the E.T.'s come, there's no way Drudge won't be first with the story.

Stay tuned and keep a weather-eye on the horizon...,