Flight 105 UFO sighting

The Flight 105 UFO sighting occurred on July 4, 1947, when three crew members aboard a United Airlines flight reported seeing multiple unidentified objects in the skies over the Pacific Northwest. A week prior, private pilot Kenneth Arnold had reported seeing similar objects nearby – a sighting that was followed by nearly 800 "copycat" reports during the summer of 1947. Four days after the Flight 105 sighting, Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that they had recovered a "flying disc"; that statement was quickly retracted after the crashed object was identified as a conventional weather balloon. The following month, on July 29, an air crew flying the same route also reported unidentified objects.

The Flight 105 sighting was the first "flying disc" report from professional airline pilots. As a result of the sighting, Flight 105's Captain Emil Smith and original saucer witness Kenneth Arnold began a collaborative investigation of additional disc reports, including the Maury Island hoax.

The Air Force ultimately concluded that the sighting was attributable to "ordinary aircraft, balloons, birds, or pure illusion".