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Seven Unidentified Airplanes Conventional prop-driven airplanes with discernible wings and tails are an integral part of the UFO mystery. Although international law requires all aircraft to bear identifying markings and license numbers on their wings, tails and fuselages, none of these mystery airplanes bothers to comply. They are usually a dull gray or black and display no insignia of any kind. Often they are seen flying very low at night in UFO flap areas, and the pilot’s cabin is usually brightly illuminated. Customarily, conventional planes flying at night do not have brightly illuminated cockpits because it would interfere with the pilot’s night vision. These pirate aircraft have been busy all over the world since 1896. At 2 P.M. on the afternoon of Monday, July 22, 1968, one of them appeared in the clear skies over the airports of San Carlos de Bariloche, outside the city of Bahia Blanca, Argentina. It circled the field lazily at an altitude of 200 feet, apparently preparing to land. Innumerable witnesses, including pilots, police officers and airport employees, paused in whatever they were doing and watched. The arrival of an airplane at a busy airport in broad daylight was hardly an earth-shaking event—but there was some- thing very odd about this one. Something very odd, indeed. All of the witnesses later agreed that the plane had an unusually long fuselage and that its delta wings seemed far too short to support a craft of its size. Furthermore, it moved very slowly—too slowly to stay aloft. One of the fundamental rules of aerodynamics is that the shorter an airplane’s wings are incomparison to its overall size, the faster it must go to maintain lift. The airport control tower made an effort to contact the plane by radio but received no reply. Then a green light was flashed at it, signaling permission to land. The giant machine continued to lope around the field. When it reached the end of runway 28, it suddenly rolled over on its axis, completing a 360-degree turn in remarkably little space. Astonished