July 10. Time of sighting, between five and six in
the evening."

Rick printed industriously. Scotty read from his notes until over twenty
lines of information had been printed on the chart. Then Steve
interrupted, bringing a tray of tall glasses of iced ginger ale.

The young agent put the tray down and scanned the columns while the boys
helped themselves. In a moment Steve nodded. "There's a pattern taking
shape, at least in the descriptions. But I can't make much out of the
dates and locations, yet."

"We'll keep plugging," Rick said. "Maybe we'll need to rearrange the
columns before they make sense."

"You have a point," Steve agreed. "Use the chart for the source, then we
can fill out sheets on the individual items, or I have some
four-by-five-inch file cards that would be ideal."

"But we'll be at it all night," Scotty objected.

"I don't think so. Once the basic data are on paper, it will go fast.
Keep at it. Yell if you want refills on the ginger ale. I need to finish
my own homework."

The boys returned to logging the data while Steve settled down with a
bulky report. In another hour the notebook had been exhausted, and the
big sheet of paper was nearly full of ruled lines and columns, recording
data.

"We're done," Rick announced.

Steve put his report aside and joined them at the table. The boys waited
expectantly while the agent scanned the sheet.

"You've done a good job of collecting information," Steve said. "Now it
needs breaking down some more. The mixture in the 'color' column bothers
me. I have a hunch those colors may be related to the position of the
sun. Look."

Rick watched as Steve's forefinger touched a line that showed the color
as "dark." The finger moved across the line to the time of day, eleven
A.M. Steve pointed to another line where the color was listed as
"orange." The time of day was seven fifteen P.M., with an additional
note of "twilight."

"Got it," Scotty agreed. "You think the objects may actually be dark,
but appear in various colors depending on the position of the sun and
the position of the viewer."

"It makes sense," Rick agreed. "All of the colors listed--red, orange,
silvery, bright--could be reflections of the sun on a smooth object."

Steve walked to a bookshelf and pulled down a copy of _The World
Almanac_. "Sunrise and sunset times are listed in here. You can figure
out quickly enough where the sun was in relation to the observer. It
will take another