But the hooker was the reported landings northeast of Washington. Too many people had reported a glow on the ground to write this factor off even though an investigator, dispatched to the scene shortly after dawn, had found nothing in the way of evidence. One possibility was that some unknown object had streaked across the sky, landed and then took off again. Could be, but it wasn't. The next night the case broke. The glow from the landing was a bright floodlight on a barn. No one had ever really noticed it before until the object passed nearby. A few days later the object itself was identified. From the many identical descriptions Project Blue Book's astrophysicist pinned it down as a large meteor. The meteor had broken up near the end of its flight to produce the illusion of three objects flying in formation. Of all the 590 UFO reports the Air Force received in 1958, probably the weirdest was solved before it was ever reported. About four o'clock on the afternoon of October 2, 1958, three men were standing in a group, talking, outside a tungsten mill at Danby, California, right in the heart of the Mojave Desert The men had been talking for about five minutes when one of them, who happened to be facing the northwest, stopped right in the middle of a sentence and pointed. The other two men looked and to their astonishment saw a brilliant glow of light. It was so close to the horizon that it was difficult to tell if it was on the horizon or in the air just above it. At first the men ignored the light but as it persisted they became more interested. They'd all heard "flying saucer" stories and, they later admitted, this possibility entered their minds. As they watched they speculated. It could be something natural but all of them had been around this area for months and they'd never seen this light before. About the time they decided to get a telescope and take a closer look the light suddenly faded. All the next day the men kept glancing off toward the northwest as they worked but the clear blue sky was blank. Then, at 4:00P.M., the light was back. This time they had a telescope. All the men took turns looking at the object and all agreed that it was about 15 feet long, 5 feet high and solid. It looked like the sun reflecting off shiny metal. It was about four miles away, they estimated, and almost exactly on the horizon. Now the men's curiosity was thoroughly whetted. Martian spaceship or whatever, they were going after it. But a several-hour search of the area produced nothing. And, as soon as they left the mill they lost sight of the object. Darkness brought the search to a halt. The next day at 4:00P.M. a crowd had gathered and the UFO kept its appointment. Again the men studied the object and tension ran high. Someone had resurrected the stories of UFO's landing in the desert. At the time they'd sounded absurd but now, standing there looking at a UFO, it was different.