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"You know what it probably means," he said. "The same thing we talked about last month. But why were we tipped off in advance?" "It's one more piece in the pattern," I said. "If the tip's on the level, then they're stepping up the program." Within three days, reports began to pour in--from Peru, Cuba, Mexico, Turkey, and other parts of the world. Then on March 9 a gleaming metallic disk was sighted over Dayton, Ohio. Observers at Vandalia Airport phoned Wright-Patterson Field. Scores of Air Force pilots and groundmen watched the disk, as fighters raced up in pursuit. The mysterious object streaked vertically skyward, hovered for a while miles above the earth, and then disappeared. A secret report was rushed to the Civil Aeronautics Authority in Washington, then turned over to Air Force Intelligence. Soon after this Dr. Craig Hunter, director of a medical supply firm, reported a huge elliptical saucer flying at a low altitude in Pennsylvania. He described it as metallic, with a slotted outer rim and a rotating ring just inside. {p. 13} On top of this sighting, thousands of people at Farmington, New Mexico, watched a large formation of disks pass high above the city. Throughout all these reports, the Air Force refused to admit the existence of flying saucers. On March 18 it flatly denied they were Air Force secret missiles or space- ne a oe oe - Three days later, a Chicago and Southern airliner crew saw a fast-flying disk near Stuttgart, Arkansas. The circular craft, blinking a strange blue-white light, pulled up in an arc at terrific speed. The two pilots said they glimpsed lighted ports on the lower side as the saucer zoomed above them. The lights had a soft fluorescence, unlike anything they 1o4 had seen. There was one peculiar angle in the Arkansas incident. There was no apparent attempt to muzzle the two pilots, as in earlier airline cases. Instead, a United Press interview was quickly arranged, for nation-wide publication. In this wire story Captain Jack Adams and First Officer G. W. Anderson made two statements: "We firmly believe that the flying saucer we saw over Arkansas was a secret experimental type aircraft--not a visitor from outer space. . . . "We know the Air Force has denied there is anything to this flying-saucer business, but we're both experienced pilots and we're not easily fooled." The day after this story appeared, I was discussing it with an airline official in Washington. "That's an odd thing," he said. "The Air Force could have persuaded those pilots--or the line president--to hush the thing up. It looks as if they wanted that story broadcast." exploration devices.