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appearance of a searchlight similar to those used on automobiles, and it rose and fell like a bird in flight. The night was cloudy, which precludes the possibility of the light having been a star or any atmospheric phenomena. Our strange aerial lights were apparently back in Arkansas, keeping their usual 10 P.M. timetable. We can’t blame this one on Mr. Tillinghast. Things were relatively quiet for the next few days. After his initial press conference, Mr. Tillinghast withdrew and refused to issue further statements. He was supposedly laboring in his secret laboratory, prepar- ing for the enormous wave of sightings that occurred Christmas week, beginning on Monday, December 20. Shortly after midnight on the morning of December 20, those resi- dents of Little Rock, Arkansas, who were still awake were amazed to see a very powerful beam of light probing across the southern sky. The Arkansas Gazette (December 20, 1909) said it was ‘‘a cylindrical shaft of light, which, arising from the southeast horizon, stretched athwart the firmament far to the east.”’ The editor consulted astronomers and could find no explanation for the phenomenon. At 1 A.M. people around the harbor of Boston, Massachusetts, saw “a bright light passing over.”’ “Immigration Inspector Hoe . . . came to the conclusion that it was an airship of some kind’ (New York Tribune, TDannha- 910 1ANAY December 21, 1909). The next night, Tuesday, December 21, the real flap began. At 1:15 A.M. residents of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, saw “‘two red lights proceed- ing southward... All were able to make out the outline of the flying machine against the background of the stars” (New York Tribune, Decem- ber 22,1909). At 5:20 P.M. on Wednesday, December 22, a brilliant light appeared over Marlboro, Massachusetts, its powerful ‘‘search-light’”” sweeping the sky. Then it slowly proceeded to Worcester, some sixteen miles distance, where it hovered above the city for a few minutes and then disappeared for two hours. Finally it returned and circled four times above the city, “using a searchlight of tremendous power. Thousands of people thronged the streets to watch the mysterious visitor.” The newspaper reports on this sequence of events are voluminous. Reporters immediately dashed to Mr. Tillinghast’s home in Worcester, where they found the “‘inventor’’ absent. His wife told them, ‘My husband knows his business. He’ll talk when the proper time comes.” The following night everyone in New England was out scanning the 102 / Operation Trojan Horse