and closer and closer,
until a weird craft came silently to rest on the desert floor not
seventy feet away.

For seconds, Fry, who had seen missile age developments at White
Sands that would have dumfounded most laymen, merely stood and stared.

The object, Fry told newsmen, was an "ovate spheroid about thirty
feet at the equator." (Fry has a habit of drifting off into the
technical). Its outside surface was a highly polished silver with a
slight violet iridescent glow.

At first Fry wanted to run but his rigid technical training overrode
his common, natural urges. He decided to go over to the object and
see what made it tick.

He circled it several times and nothing broke the desert silence.
Then he touched it.

"Better not touch that hull, pal, it's hot," boomed a voice in a
Hollywoodian tone.

Fry recoiled.

The voice softened and added, "Take it easy, pal, you're among
friends."

After politely reading off the spaceman, or whoever he was, for
scaring him, pal Fry and the voice settled down for a friendly
moonlight chat. Fry learned that the voice was indeed that of a
spaceman and they were down to pick up a new supply of air. After
about four years of earth air transfusions, according to the
spaceman, they would become adapted to our atmosphere, and our
gravity, and become "immunized to your bi-otics." The craft, Fry was
told, was a "cargo carrier," unmanned and built to zoom down and
scoop up earth air.

The conversation went on, waxing technical at times, and ended with
an invitation to look into the ship. Then the spaceman, possibly
carried away by all the interest Fry was showing, offered a ride.

Fry accepted and they antidemagnetized off for New York City. Thirty
minutes later they were back at White Sands.

Over New York City they came down from 35 to 20 miles and Fry could
read the marquee of the Fulton Theater. "The Seven Year Itch" was
playing.

He hadn't told the Air Force about his ride before because he was
afraid he'd lose his job. But, at the press conference, he did plug
his new book, _The_ _White_ _Sands_ _Incident_.

By this time Adamski had already published his book _Flying_
_Saucers_ _Have_ _Landed_ and it looked as if Fry was going to cut
him out. But Fry took a lie detector test on a widely viewed West
Coast television show and flunked it flat.

His stock dropped as fast as it had risen but the decline was
somewhat checked when a well known Southern California medium wrot