“But why had the image taken off the way it did, and then rushed back? The moving plane of course was continually changing position relative to the ground features. A mountain peak on the distant horizon had briefly come between the plane and the star, obscuring the light. The light was not cut off all at once, however. Thus as the image dimmed it seemed to shrink, as though it were racing away. This temporary barrier also explained the sudden stops and starts and the tremendous instantaneous acceleration the object seemed to make at the instant it appeared. The large atmospheric lens was simply focusing the light of the star in the general direction of the plane and thus it was centered with my eye. That is why the object seemed to duplicate the motion of the plane. “I watched the object for several minutes after its return. I was able to get full confirmation of this identification when the star rose over the western horizon; it rose in the west because the southward motion of the plane more than compensated for the westward rotation of the star. And as Sirius came up from the horizon, the ‘flying saucer’ sank back into the brilliant hemisphere of stars, where it belonged.” (The witness in this case was the senior author of this book.) Sirius has inspired many UFO reports. On December 10, 1952, at 7:15 P.M. P.S.T., the pilot and radar observer of an F-94 on routine patrol duty were over the town of Odessa, Washington, at about 26,000 feet when they saw a large white light in the east[IV-1]. Dim reddish-white lights seemed to be coming from “windows,” and no trail or exhaust was visible. The pilot attempted to intercept but the object performed amazing feats--did a _chandelle_ in front of the plane, rushed away, stopped, and then made straight for the aircraft on a collision course at incredible speed. The pilot banked away to avoid collision, and afterward was not able to locate the object. The radar man then got a brief return but soon lost contact. Although the visual and radar contacts had not coincided, both men assumed that they referred to the same object[IV-2, p. 65]. Investigators suggested at first that the object might have been one of the Telemuk balloons, but this idea had to be discarded and the sighting was listed as Unknown. A review of the evidence by the present authors suggests a highly probable explanation. Above the low cloud cover at 3000 feet the night was clear and moonless. In the east, Sirius was just rising over the horizon at the exact bearing of the unknown object. Atmospheric refraction would have produced exactly the phenomenon described. The same atmospheric conditions that caused the mirage of the star would have caused anomalous radar returns (see _Chapter_ VIII). _Earth’s Distorting Atmosphere_