ause the mail girl brought in
a copy of a wire that had just arrived. It was a report of a UFO
sighting at Terre Haute, Indiana. I read it and told Metscher that
I'd quickly whip out an answer and get back to helping him sort. But
it didn't prove to be that easy.

The report from Terre Haute said that on October 9, a CAA employee
at Hulman Municipal Airport had observed a silvery UFO. Three minutes
later a pilot, flying east of Terre Haute, had seen a similar object.
The report lacked many details but a few phone calls filled me in on
the complete story.

At 1:43P.M. on the ninth a CAA employee at the airport was walking
across the ramp in front of the administration building. He happened
to glance up at the sky--why, he didn't know--and out of the corner
of his eye he caught a flash of light on the southeastern horizon. He
stopped and looked at the sky where the flash of light had been but
he couldn't see anything. He was just about to walk on when he
noticed what he described as "a pinpoint" of light in the same spot
where he'd seen the flash. In a second or two the "pinpoint" grew
larger and it was obvious to the CAA man that something was
approaching the airport at a terrific speed. As he watched, the
object grew larger and larger until it flashed directly overhead and
disappeared to the northwest. The CAA man said it all happened so
fast and he was so amazed that he hadn't called anybody to come out
of the nearby hangar and watch the UFO. But when he'd calmed down he
remembered a few facts. The UFO had been in sight for about fifteen
seconds and during this time it had passed from horizon to horizon.
It was shaped like a "flattened tennis ball," was a bright silver
color, and when it was directly overhead it was "the size of a 50-
cent piece held at arm's length."

But this wasn't all there was to the report. A matter of minutes
after the sighting a pilot radioed Terre Haute that he had seen a
UFO. He was flying from Greencastle, Indiana, to Paris, Illinois,
when just east of Paris he'd looked back and to his left. There,
level with his airplane and fairly close, was a large silvery object,
"like a flattened orange," hanging motionless in the sky. He looked
at it a few seconds, then hauled his plane around in a tight left
bank. He headed directly toward the UFO, but it suddenly began to
pick up speed and shot off toward the northeast. The time, by the
clock on his instrument panel, was 1:45P.M.--just two minute