tographs before, but a full-sized three-dimensional
color projection is something else again.

"Until three weeks ago, we knew of no explanation for the peculiar
happenings in northern Asia. After eight months of investigation, we
found ourselves up against a blank wall. Nothing could account for that
peculiar fire nor for the queer circumstances surrounding the death of
the forest ranger. The investigators suspected an intelligent alien
life-form, but--well, the notion simply seemed too fantastic. Attempts
to trail the being by means of those peculiar 'footprints' failed. They
ended at a riverbank and apparently never came out again. We know now
that it swam downstream for over a hundred miles. Little wonder it got
away.

"Even those investigators who suspected something non-human pictured the
being as humanoid, or, rather, anthropoid in form. The prints certainly
suggest those of an ape. There appeared to be four of them, judging by
the prints--although frequently there were only three and sometimes only
two. It all depended on how many of his 'feet' he felt like walking
on."

"And then the whole herd of them dived into a river and never came up
again, eh?" remarked one of the listeners.

"Exactly. You can see why the investigators kept the whole thing quiet.
Nothing more was seen, heard, or reported for eight months.

"Then, three weeks ago, a non-vision phone call was received by the
secretary of the Board of Regents of the Khrushchev Memorial Psychiatric
Hospital in Leningrad. An odd, breathy voice, speaking very bad Russian,
offered a meeting. It was the alien. He managed to explain, in spite of
the language handicap, that he did not want to be mistaken for a wild
animal, as had happened with the forest ranger.

"The secretary, Mr. Rogov, felt that the speaker was probably deranged,
but, as he said later, there was something about that voice that didn't
sound human. He said he would make arrangements, and asked the caller to
contact him again the next day. The alien agreed. Rogov then--"

"Excuse me," one of the men interrupted apologetically, "but did he
learn Russian all by himself, or has it been established that someone
taught him the language?"

"The evidence is that he learned it all by himself, from scratch, in
those eight months."

"I see. Excuse my interruption. Go on."

"Mr. Rogov was intrigued by the story he had heard. He decided to check
on it. He made a few phone calls, asking questions a