"Anyway," I said, "we'd hardly be flying them all over everywhere. The cost would be enormous, and there'd always be a danger of somebody getting the secret if a disk landed."

"Plus the risk of injuring people by radiation. just imagine an atomic-powered disk dropping into a city. The whole idea's ridiculous."

"That seems to rule out the guided-missile answer," I began. But Redell shook his head.

"Disk-shaped missiles are quite feasible. I'm talking about range, speed, and performance. Imagine for a moment that we have disk-type missiles using the latest jet or rocket propulsion--either piloted or remote-controlled. The question is, could such disks fit specific sightings like the one at Godman Field and the case at Fargo?"

Redell paused as if some new thought had struck him.

"Wait a minute, here's an even better test. I happen to

know about this case personally. Marvin Miles--he's an aviation writer in Los Angeles--was down at White Sands Proving Ground some time ago. He talked with a Navy rocket expert who was in charge of naval guided-missile projects. This Navy man--he's a commander in the regular service--told Miles they'd seen four saucers down in that area."

"You're sure he wasn't kidding Miles?" I said. Then I remembered Purdy's tip about a White Sands case.

"I told you I checked on this myself," Redell said, a little annoyed. "After Miles told me about it, I asked an engineer who'd been down there if it was true. He gave me the same story, figures and all. The first saucer was tracked by White Sands observers with a theodolite. Then they worked out its performance with ballistics formulas."

Redell looked at me grimly.

"The thing was about fifty miles up. And it was making over fifteen thousand miles an hour!"

One of the witnesses, said Redell, was a well-known scientist from the General Mills aeronautical research laboratory in Minneapolis, which was working with the Navy. (A few days later, I verified this fact and the basic details of Redell's account. But it was not until early in January 1950 that I finally identified the officer as Commander Robert B. McLaughlin and got his dramatic story.)

"Here are two more items Miles told me," Redell went on. "This Navy expert said the saucer actually looked elliptical, or egg-shaped. And while it was being tracked it suddenly made a steep climb--so steep no human being could have lived through it."

"One thing is certain," I said. "That fifty-mile altitude knocks out the rotating disk. Up in that thin air it wouldn't have any lift."

"Right," said Redell. "And the variable jet type would require an enormous amount of fuel. Regardless, those G's mean it couldn't have had any pilot born on this earth."

According to Marvin Miles, this White Sands saucer had been over a hundred feet long. (Later, Commander

McLaughlin stated that it was 105 feet.) If this were an American device, then it meant that we had already licked many of the problems on which the Earth Satellite Vehicle designers were supposed to be just starting. Their statements, then, would have to be false--part of an elaborate cover-up.

"If we had such an advanced design," said Redell, "and I just don't believe it possible--would we gamble on a remote-control system? No such system is perfect. Suppose it went wrong. At that speed, over fifteen thousand miles an hour, your precious missile or strato ship could be halfway around the globe in about forty-five minutes. That is, if the fuel held out. Before you could regain control, you might lose it in the sea. Or it might come down behind the Iron Curtain. Even if it were I smashed to bits, it would tip off the Soviets. They might claim it was a guided-missile attack. Almost anything could hap pen."

"It could have a time bomb in it," I suggested. "if it got off course or out of control, it would blow itself up."

Redell emphatically shook his head. "I've heard that idea before, but it won't hold up. What if your ship's controls went haywire and the thing blew up over a crowded city? Imagine the panic, even if no actual damage was done. No, sir--nobody in his right mind is going to let a huge ship like that go barging around unpiloted. It would be criminal negligence.

"If the White Sands calculations were correct, then this particular saucer was no earth-made device. Perhaps in coming years, we could produce such a ship, with atomic power to drive it. But not now."

Redell went over several other cases.

"Take the Godman Field saucer. At one time, it was seen at places one hundred and seventy-five miles apart, as you know. Even to have been seen at all from both places, it would. have to have been huge--much larger than two hundred and fifty feet in diameter. The human eye wouldn't resolve an object that size, at such a distance and height."

It was an odd thing; I had, gone over the Mantell case

a dozen times. I knew the object was huge. But I had never tried to figure out the object's exact size.

"How big do you think it was?" I asked quickly. This could be the key I had tried to find.

"I haven't worked it out," said Redell. "But I can give you a rough idea. The human eye can't resolve any object that subtends less than three minutes of arc. For instance, a plane with a hundred-foot wing span would only be a speck twenty miles away, if you saw it at all."

"But this thing was seen clearly eighty-seven miles away--or even more, if it wasn't midway between the two cities. Why, it would have to be a thousand feet in diameter."

"Even larger." Redell was silent a moment. "What was the word Mantell used--'tremendous'?" I tried to visualize the thing, but my mind balked. One thing was certain now. It was utterly impossible that any nation on earth could have built such an enormous airborne machine. just to think of the force required to hold it in the sky was enough to stagger any engineer. We were years away--perhaps centuries--from any such possibility.

As if he had read my thoughts, Redell said soberly, "There's no other possible answer. It was a huge space ship--perhaps the largest ever to come into our atmosphere."

It was clear now why such desperate efforts had been made to explain away the object Mantell had chased.

"What about that Eastern Airlines sighting?" I asked.

"Well, first," said Redell, "it wasn't any remote-control guided missile. I'll say it again; it would be sheer insanity. Suppose that thing had crashed in Macon. At that speed it could have plowed its way for blocks, right through the buildings. It could have killed hundreds of people, burned the heart out of the city.

"If it was a missile, or some hush-hush experimental job, then it was piloted. But they don't test a job like that on any commercial airways. And they don't fool around at five thousand feet where people will see the thing streaking by and call the newspapers.

"To power a hundred-foot wingless ship, especially at those speeds, would take enormous force. Not as much

as a V-two rocket, but tremendous power. The fuel load would be terrific. Certainly, the pilot wouldn't be circling around Georgia and Alabama for an hour, buzzing airliners. I'll stake everything that we couldn't duplicate that space ship's performance for less than fifty million dollars. It would take something brand-new in jets."

Redell paused. He looked at me grimly. "And the way I'd have to soup it up, it would be a damned dangerous ship to fly. No pilot would deliberately fly it that low. He'd stay up where he'd have a chance to bail out."

I told him what I had heard about the blueprints the Air Force was said to have rushed.

"Of course they were worried," said Redell. "And probably they still are. But I don't think they need be; so far, there's been nothing menacing about these space ships."

When I got him back to the Gorman case, Redell drew a sketch on his pad, showing me his idea of the disk light. He estimated the transparent rim as not more than five feet in diameter.

"Possibly smaller," he said. "You recall that Gorman said the light was between six and eight inches in diameter. He also said it seemed to have depth--that was in the Air Force report."

"You think all the mechanism was hidden by the light?"

"Only possible answer," said Redell. "But just try to imagine crowding a motor, or jet controls for rim jets, along with remote controls and a television device, in that small space. Plus your fuel supply. I don't know any engineer who would even attempt it. To carry that much gear, it would take a fair-sized plane. You could make a disk large enough, but the mechanism and fuel section would be two or three feet across, at least. So Gorman's light must have been powered and controlled by some unique means. The same principle applies to all the other light reports I've heard. No shape behind them, high speed, and intelligent maneuvers. That thing was guided from some interplanetary ship, hovering at a high altitude," Redell declared. "But I haven't any idea what source of power it used."

Until then, I had forgotten about Art Green's letter. I told Redell what Art had said about the Geiger counter.

"I knew they went over Gorman's fighter with a Geiger counter," Redell commented. "But they said the reaction was negative. If Green is right, it's interesting. It would mean they have built incredibly small atomic engines. But with a race so many years ahead of us, it shouldn't be surprising. Of course, they may also be using some other kind of power our scientists say is impossible."

I was about to ask him what he meant when his secretary came in.

"Mr. Carson is waiting," she told Redell. "He had a four-o'clock appointment."

As I started to leave, Redell looked at his calendar.

"I hate to break this up; it's a fascinating business What about coming in Friday? I'd like to see the rest of those case reports."

"Fine," I said. "I've got a few more questions, too."

Going out, I made a mental note of the Friday date. Then the figure clicked; it was just three months since I'd started on this assignment.

Three months ago. At that time I'd only been half sure that the saucers were real. If anyone had said I'd soon believe they were space ships, I'd have told him he was crazy.

CHAPTER XIII

BEFORE my date with Redell, I went over all the material I had, hoping to find some clue to the space visitors' planet. It was possible, of course, that there was more than one planet involved.

Project "Saucer" had discussed the possibilities in it! report of April 27, 1949. I read over this section again:

Since flying saucers first hit the headlines almost two years ago, there has been wide speculation that the aerial phenomena might actually be some form of penetration from another planet.

Actually, astronomers are largely in agreement that only one member of the solar system beside Earth is capable of supporting life. That is Mars. Even Mars, however, appears to be relatively desolate and inhospitable, so that a Martian race would be more occupied with survival than we are on Earth.

On Mars, there exists an excessively slow loss of atmosphere, oxygen and water, against which intelligent beings, if they do exist there, may have protected themselves by scientific control of physical conditions. This might have been done, scientists speculate, by the construction of homes and cities underground where the atmospheric pressure would be greater and thus temperature extremes reduced. The other possibilities exist, of course, that evolution may have developed a being who can withstand the rigors of the Martian climate, or that the race--if it ever did exist--has perished.

In other words, the existence of intelligent life on Mars, where the rare atmosphere is nearly devoid of oxygen and water and where the nights are much colder than our Arctic winters, is not impossible but is completely unproven.

The possibility of intelligent life also existing on the planet Venus is not considered completely unreasonable

by astronomers. The atmosphere of Venus apparently consists mostly of carbon dioxide with deep clouds of formaldehyde droplets, and there seems to be little or no water. Yet, scientists concede that living organisms might develop in chemical environments which are strange to us. Venus, however, has two handicaps. Her mass and gravity are nearly as large as the Earth (Mars is smaller) and her cloudy atmosphere would discourage astronomy, hence space travel.

The last argument, I thought, did not have too much weight. We were planning to escape the earth's gravity; Martians could do the same, with their planet. As for the cloudy atmosphere, they could have developed some system of radio or radar investigation of the universe. The Navy research units, I knew, were probing the far-off Crab nebula in the Milky Way with special radio devices. This same method, or something far superior, could have been developed on Venus, or other planets surrounded by constant clouds.

After the discussion of solar-system planets, the Project "Saucer" report went on to other star systems:

Outside the solar system other stars--22 in number--have satellite planets. Our sun has nine. One of these, the Earth, is ideal for existence of intelligent life. On two others there is a possibility of life.

Therefore, astronomers believe reasonable the thesis that there could be at least one ideally habitable planet for each of the 22 other eligible stars.

(After publication of our findings in True, several astronomers said that many planets may be inhabited. One of these was Dr. Carl F. von Weizacker, noted University of Chicago physicist. On January 10, 1950, Dr. von Weizacker stated: "Billions upon billions of stars found in the heavens may each have their own planets revolving about them. It is possible that these planets would have plant and animal life on them similar to the earth's.")

After narrowing the eligible stars down to twenty-two the Project "Saucer" report goes on:

The theory is also employed that man represents the average in advancement and development. Therefore, one-half the other habitable planets would be behind man in development, and the other half ahead. It is also assumed that any visiting race could be expected to be far in advance of man. Thus, the chance of space travelers existing at planets attached to neighboring stars is very much greater than the chance of space-traveling Martians. The one can be viewed as almost a certainty (if you accept the thesis that the number of inhabited planets is equal to those that are suitable for life and that intelligent life is not peculiar to the Earth) ."

The most likely star was Wolf 359--eight light-years away. I thought for a minute about traveling that vast distance. It was almost appalling, considered in terms of man's life span. Of course, dwellers on other planets might live much longer.

If the speed of light was not an absolute limit, almost any space journey would then be possible. Since there would be no resistance in outer space, it would be simply a matter of using rocket power in the first stages to accelerate to the maximum speed desired. In the latter phase, the rocket's drive would have to be reversed, to decelerate for the landing.

The night before my appointment with Redell, I was checking a case report when the phone rang. It was John Steele.

"Are you still working on the saucers?" he asked. "If you are, I have a suggestion--something that might be a real lead."

"I could use a lead right now," I told him.

"I can't give you the source, but it's one I consider reliable," said Steele. "This man says the disks are British developments."

This was a new one. I hadn't considered the British. Steele talked for over half an hour, expanding the idea.

The saucers, his informant said, were rotating disks with cambered surfaces--originally a Nazi device. Near the end of the war, the British had seized all the models, along with the German technicians and scientists who had worked on the project.

The first British types had been developed secretly in England, according to this account. But the first tests showed a dangerous lack of control; the disks streaked up to high altitudes, hurtling without direction. Some had been seen over the Atlantic, some in Turkey, Spain, and other parts of Europe.

The British then had shifted operations to Australia, where a guided-missile test range had been set up. (This part, I knew, could be true; there was such a range.) After improving their remote-control system, which used both radio and radar, they had built disks up to a hundred feet in diameter. These were launched out over the Pacific, the first ones straight eastward over open sea. British destroyers were stationed at 100-mile and later 500-mile intervals, to track the missiles by radar and correct their courses. At a set time, when their fuel was almost exhausted, the disks came down vertically and landed in the ocean.