UFO sightings did not begin in 1947, but that year is often treated as the start of the modern American “flying saucer” era. Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 report helped spark a wave of flying-saucer reports in the United States. [1]
Records describe reports from before Arnold’s sighting. An FBI report recounts a witness’s account of a large, round craft rising near a military complex in Germany in 1944. [2] The record documents what the witness reportedly said; it does not establish what the object was or whether the account was accurate. [2]
Other files show that reports continued in later decades. An FBI file includes an 1967 account from an eleven-year-old child who said they heard a strange noise and saw a flash of light. [3] It also discusses an alleged April 8, 1954 UFO sighting, but the FBI said it had no record of that event. [3] So, the sources point to reports before and after 1947, while identifying Arnold’s incident as a trigger for the modern U.S. UFO frenzy. [1][2] They do not tell us when the first UFO sighting in history occurred, or verify that any reported object was extraterrestrial. [2][3]