Reporters and photographers were waiting to interview him, and next day’s Detroit _Times_ carried a banner headline, “Mystery Discs Trail Plane Here,” over a picture of Captain Killian flanked by the plane’s two pretty hostesses, all three smiling as they held up to the camera three ordinary kitchen saucers[III-9]. After checking with the Detroit ATC, who did not know of any scheduled refueling operation, the pilot reported his experience to officials of American Airlines, and next day returned to New York where again he was besieged by reporters and photographers. Meanwhile, following standard CIRVIS procedure (Communication Instruction for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sighting from Aircraft), the manager of operations of American Airlines reported the incident to ATIC at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In New York the day after the sighting Captain Killian gave a telephone interview to Radio Station WCHS, Charleston, West Virginia, describing his experience. Following the customary procedure, intelligence officers from Mitchell Air Force Base questioned him and filled out the usual report form[III-2]. In the radio interview and in the talk with intelligence officers Captain Killian made the same statements he had made to American Airlines officials: he didn’t know what the lights were, and he couldn’t tell how far away they had been because he didn’t know their size or their altitude[III-10]. Not for months had such a good flying-saucer story appeared, and the newspapers made the most of it. Among the first to assert that the unknown lights had been flying saucers was the UFO Research Committee of Akron, Ohio (see _Chapter_ XIII). Members of the committee had received the news by telephone, even before Captain Killian’s plane landed at Detroit, from the pilot of a United Airlines plane who had watched the lights on his flight to Akron. During the days following, Captain Killian’s copilot gave an interview on Long John Nebel’s after-midnight radio program in New York. Captain Killian himself described the UFOs to members of a New York UFO organization, Civilian Saucer Intelligence (CSI), and appeared on several radio and TV programs. Both saucer addicts and newsmen besieged Air Force representatives, demanding an immediate explanation of the sighting. Finally, on February 28, only two days after receiving the report from American Airlines, ATIC yielded to public pressure and produced a tentative theory: it was possible that the pilots might have sighted the stars of Orion, as Captain Killian had first suggested. However, the release added, no definite conclusion could be reached until all the facts had been studied. Promptly rejecting the possibility that he might have been looking at Orion, Captain Killian stated in an interview with the New York _Herald Tribune_, “I am sure there are people on other planets and that they have solved the problem of space travel.... I sincerely believe that their vehicles are coming close to earth.”