fifty miles above the earth. After a few seconds, they accelerated at
high speed and streaked out of sight.

On the following day Commander Augusto Orrego, a Chilean naval
officer, reported that saucers had flown above his antarctic base.

"During the bright antarctic night," be said, "we saw flying saucers,
one above the other, turning at tremendous speeds. We have photographs
to prove what we saw."

Early in March, Ken Purdy phoned the latest development in the
investigation. He had just received a tip predicting a flurry of
saucer publicity during March. It had come from an important source in
Washington.

"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.