rted the light to be. The warrant
officer, who was the duty controller for the night, told me that he'd
studied the target for several minutes. He knew how weather could
affect radar but this target was "well defined, solid, and bright."
It seemed to be moving, but very slowly. He called for an altitude
reading, and the man on the height-finding radar checked his scope.
He also had the target--it was at 16,000 feet.

The warrant officer picked up the phone and asked the filter center
to connect him with the spotter. They did, and the two people
compared notes on the UFO's position for several minutes. But right
in the middle of a sentence the lady suddenly stopped and excitedly
said, "It's starting to move--it's moving southwest toward Rapid."

The controller looked down at his scope and the target was beginning
to pick up speed and move southwest. He yelled at two of his men to
run outside and take a look. In a second or two one of them shouted
back that they could both see a large bluish-white light moving
toward Rapid City. The controller looked down at his scope--the
target was moving toward Rapid City. As all three parties watched the
light and kept up a steady cross conversation of the description, the
UFO swiftly made a wide sweep around Rapid City and returned to its
original position in the sky.

A master sergeant who had seen and heard the happenings told me that
in all his years of duty--combat radar operations in both Europe and
Korea--he'd never been so completely awed by anything. When the
warrant officer had yelled down at him and asked him what he thought
they should do, he'd just stood there. "After all," he told me, "what
in hell could we do--they're bigger than all of us."

But the warrant officer did do something. He called to the F-84
pilot he had on combat air patrol west of the base and told him to
get ready for an intercept. He brought the pilot around south of the
base and gave him a course correction that would take him right into
the light, which was still at 16,000 feet. By this time the pilot had
it spotted. He made the turn, and when he closed to within about 3
miles of the target, it began to move. The controller saw it begin to
move, the spotter saw it begin to move and the pilot saw it begin to
move--all at the same time. There was now no doubt that all of them
were watching the same object.

Once it began to move, the UFO picked up speed fast and started to
climb, heading north, b