On Monday, the 4th, the "Levelland Thing" struck again near the
White Sands Proving Ground. James Stokes, a 20-year Navy veteran, and
an electronics engineer, had the engine of his new Mercury stopped as
"a brilliant, egg-shaped" object made a pass at the highway. As it
went over, Stokes said, "it felt like the radiation of a giant sun
lamp."

Stokes said there were ten other carloads of people stopped but if
this is true no one ever found out who they were.

The Air Force wrote off Stokes' story as, "Hoax, presumably
suggested by the Levelland, Texas, reports."

Maybe the Air Force didn't believe James Stokes but when the Coast
Guard Cutter _Seabago_ radioed in their report from the Gulf of
Mexico wheels began to turn--fast.

On Tuesday morning, the 5th, the _Seabago_ was about 200 miles south
of the mouth of the Mississippi River on a northerly heading. At
5:10A.M. her radar picked up a target off to the left at a distance
of about 14 miles. This was really nothing unusual because they were
under heavily traveled air lanes.

The early morning watch is always rough and as the small group of
officers and men in the Combat Information Center quietly watched the
target, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, it moved south, made a
turn, and headed back to the north again. A few of the men noticed
that the turn looked "a little different," but this early in the
morning they didn't give it much thought.

At 5:14 the target went off the scope to the north.

At 5:16 it was back and the lassitude was instantly gone. Now the
target was 22 miles _south_ of the ship. No one in the CIC had to
draw a picture. Something, in two minutes, had disappeared off the
scope to the north, made a big swing around the ship, out of radar
range, and had swung in from the south!

Word went up to the lookouts. They tensed up and began to scan the
sky.

The radar contacts continued.

This second contact, south of the ship, was held for two full
minutes as the target moved out from 22 to 55 miles. Then it faded.

At 5:20 the target was back but now it was _north_ of the ship
again, and it was hovering!

Again the lookouts were called. Could they see anything now? Their
"No" answers didn't hold for long because seconds later their terse
reports began to come into the CIC. A "brilliant light, like a
planet" was streaking across the northwest sky about 30 degrees above
the horizon. Unfortunately the radar had lost contact for a moment
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