Saucer publications still list this sighting of Venus as an Unknown. _Venus as a Morning Star_ One of the “best” UFOs of the year 1950 appeared when Venus performed in plain sight of the ATIC offices at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio[IV-2, p. 103]. About midmorning on March 8 a TWA plane, coming in to land at Dayton municipal airport, was circling to get into the traffic pattern when both pilot and copilot noticed an extremely bright light hovering in the southeast. Much brighter and larger than a star, it appeared and disappeared in the high, thick, scattered clouds. The tower operators, who also saw it, immediately telephoned the Ohio Air National Guard and officials at ATIC. Within minutes the UFO had attracted an audience of exceptionally well-qualified observers. Air Force experts on unidentified flying objects watched it from the ground, technicians studied returns on the radar screens at the laboratory at Wright Field, and the pilots of two hastily scrambled F-51s tried to intercept it. The radar operators, who reported returns from both UFO and pursuit planes, called the pilots and vectored them in toward the target. Both pilots could see the light at first, but when they had climbed to about 15,000 feet they found themselves in clouds so thick that neither could see the other plane, and the unknown was no longer visible. Since ground radar reported that the planes were getting closer to the target, the pilots decided to continue, on instruments, but they separated to avoid the danger of colliding with each other. In a few seconds they were deep in dense cloud. Flying conditions were far worse than they had expected and the planes were icing up fast. Nevertheless the pilots kept climbing until ground radar advised them that they were almost on target. Realizing that if a solid object actually were ahead of them they would hit it before they could see it, the pilots immediately descended to below the clouds and circled, hoping for a break in the overcast, until ground radar reported that the target was fading fast. The planes then landed. When the clouds broke momentarily, after about an hour, the UFO was not visible. A conference took place at ATIC that afternoon to discuss the identity of the mysterious light and the cause of the radar echoes. A check showed that the position of the UFO had been identical with that of Venus. The light, the conference concluded, had been Venus. One pilot later disagreed, arguing that the light had not looked to him like a planet and that if the object had been Venus it should have appeared, but did not, at the same time on the following day. But the weather conditions the first day would have distorted the image and made it unlike the pale light of Venus occasionally visible in the daytime. It was not visible at all the following day because of different weather conditions.