This shift had taken only a brief second and was completed by the time Nash reached the window. Both he and Fortenberry then observed the disks flip back from the on-edge to the flat position. In the same fraction of a second, the entire line changed direction as abruptly as a ball bouncing off a wall and shot away to the west on a heading of 270 degrees. An instant later two similar disks darted out, apparently from beneath the plane, and joined the line as numbers 7 and 8 (Figure 18). The lights receded to the west, suddenly disappeared, immediately reappeared, abruptly began a steep climb to an altitude above that of the plane, then vanished not in sequence but in random order. The sighting had lasted for a period of twelve to fifteen seconds[XII-1, XII-5, XII-6, XII-7]. After a quick check showed that no one else in the aircraft had observed the lights, the pilots radioed a message to the CAA station at Norfolk for forwarding to the Norfolk Navy Base, reporting eight unidentified objects traveling at speeds in excess of 1000 miles an hour. In Miami, next morning, Air Force officials questioned both witnesses. According to their estimates, the disks had moved horizontally about 2000 feet above the ground until their final climb and disappearance, were about 100 feet in diameter, and about 15 feet thick. Since they apparently traveled fifty miles during the twelve to fifteen seconds they were in view, their velocity would have been 6000 to 12,000 miles an hour. Intelligence officials first checked the air traffic. Five jets from Langley Air Force Base, near Newport News, had been in the region at the time of the sighting, but they were ruled out as an explanation for the disks. Both pilots were informed that seven other persons, apparently on the ground, had reported unknown lights in the Norfolk area; the Air Force files contain no record of these reports and it is probable that some, at least, of these persons mistook the sunset-reddened jet trails for UFOs.