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20 JUST THE idea of gigantic flying disks was incredible enough. It was almost as hard to believe that such missiles could have been developed without something leaking out. Yet we had produced the A-bomb in comparative secrecy, and I knew we were working on long-range guided missiles. There was already a plan for a three-thousand-mile test range. Our supersonic planes had hit around two thousand miles an hour. Our two-stage rockets had gone over two hundred miles high, according to reports. If an atomic engine had been secretly developed, it could explain the speed and range of the saucers. But I kept coming back to Mantell's death and the Air Force orders for pilots to chase the saucers. If the disks were American missiles, that didn't jibe. When I reached the lobby, I found it was ten after four. I caught a taxi and made the Congressional Limited with just one minute to spare. In the club car, I settled down to look at Purdy's summary. Skipping through the pages, I saw several familiar cases. Here and there, Purdy had scrawled brief comments or suggestions. Beside the Eastern Airline report of a double- 10404 yoroa "Check rumor same type seen over Holland about this date. Also, similar Philippine Islands report--date unknown." I went back to the beginning. The first case listed was that of Kenneth Arnold, a Boise businessman, who had set off the saucer scare. Arnold was flying his private plane from Chehalis to Yakima, Washington, when he saw a bright flash on his wing. Looking toward Mount Rainier, he saw nine gleaming disks outlined against the snow, each one about the size of a C-54. "They flew close to the mountaintops, in a diagonal chainlike line," he said later. "It was as if they were linked together." {p. 24} away, he said, and moving at fantastic speed. Arnold's estimate was twelve hundred miles an hour. CHAPTER III decked saucer, he had written: The disks appeared to be twenty to twenty-five miles