Authentic reports have described sightings; over the following Air Force bases: Chanute, Newark, Andrews, Hickam, Robbins, Godman, Clark, Fairfield Suisan, Davis-Monthan, Harmon, Wright-Patterson, Holloman, Clinton County Air Force Base, and air bases in Alaska, Germany, and the Azores. Saucers have also been sighted over naval air stations at Dallas, Alameda, and Key West, and from the station at Seattle. They have been reported maneuvering over the White Sands Proving Ground, over areas containing atomic developments, above the Muroc Air Base testing area, and over the super-secret research base near Albuquerque. Several times saucers have paced both military and civil aircraft; their actions strongly indicate deliberate encounters to learn our planes’ speed and performance. It seems obvious that both the planes and the bases were being observed, and in some cases photographed by remote-control units or manned space ships. Although I thought it improbable that the location of our uranium deposits would be of interest to space men, a Washington official told me it would be relatively simple to detect the ore areas with airborne instruments. “The Geological Survey has already developed special Geiger counters for planes,” he told me. “They had a little trouble from cosmic-ray noise. They finally had to cover the Geigers with lead shields. Whenever an important amount of radiation is present in the ground, the plane crew gets a signal, and they spot the place on their map. It’s a quick way of locating valuable deposits.” When I told him what I had in mind, he suggested an angle I had not considered. “Mind you,” he said, “I’m not completely sold on the interplanetary answer. But assuming it’s correct that we’re being observed, I can think of a stronger reason than fear of some distant attack. Some atomic scientists say that a super-atomic bomb, or several set off at once, could knock the earth out of its orbit. It sounds fantastic, but so is the A-bomb. It’s just possible that some solar-planet race discovered the dangers long ago. They would have good reason to worry if they found we were on that same track. There may be some other atomic weapon we don’t suspect, even worse than the A-bomb, one that could destroy the earth and seriously affect other planets.” At the time, I thought this was just idle speculation. But since then, several atomic scientists have confirmed this official’s suggestion. One of these was Dr. Paul Elliott, a nuclear physicist who worked on the A-bomb during the war. According to Dr. Elliott, if several hydrogen bombs were exploded simultaneously at a high altitude, it could speed up the earth’s rotation or change its orbit. He based his statement on the rate of energy the earth receives from the sun, a rate equal to some four pounds of hydrogen exploded every second. Still other atomic scientists have said that H-bomb explosions might even knock a large chunk out of the earth, with unpredictable results.