The pilot was a man of unusual experience, in command of a fighter escort wing, and well aware of the illusions a flyer can experience at night. He was also a remarkably accurate and resourceful observer, so that his report to Intelligence investigators is a model of exact statement. If all such reports were similarly precise and complete, few UFOs would remain unidentified and the civilian saucer groups would have to disband (see _Chapter_ XIII). Carefully separating what he observed from what he concluded, the pilot stated that the object looked larger than the stars or any planet; he assumed that it was circular, but could not determine the actual shape. He could not determine whether the object was silent or noisy because the noise of his own motors would have prevented his hearing any sound from the unknown. The object seemed to show a cluster of lights, red, white, and green, which slowly rotated in a counterclockwise direction from east to west; one complete cycle of revolution required a time estimated at four to eight seconds. The shifting of the three colors during the cycle resembled the rotating colors in some jukeboxes, and the effect was phenomenal. “As these colors rotated in the body of the object, at times the entire body was one solid color, either white, green, or red, but in the process of completing a revolution the body was frequently fractionally red, white, or white-green, plus the other possible combinations of the three colors.” Also there seemed to be three beams of white light radiating out from the main body in straight shafts which, unlike the colors, did not change their relative positions but remained constant at positions of roughly 11:00, 5:00, and 7:00. No phenomenon that might be an exhaust was observed. As to motion and behavior, the object seemed to travel exactly parallel to the plane and maintained a constant distance in spite of the pilot’s attempts to intercept it at speeds of around 500 miles an hour. At no time did it execute any maneuvers except for a gradual change of direction during the two observations. The sighting ended when the lights vanished in the west[IV-1]. These rotating lights were also seen by the crew of an F-94 interceptor who watched them for about forty minutes, by the crew of a B-26 bomber who watched them for about seven minutes, and by various ground observers. To make a positive identification, the investigator must know the weather conditions, the bearing of the observing aircraft, and the position of the object. Atmospheric conditions were found to be conducive to the formation of mirages. At the time of the first sighting on December 29, the observing plane was headed slightly to the east of north; the UFO was in the west, apparently traveling north on a course parallel with that of the plane. After the pilot lost sight of the object, he circled and hunted and was flying slightly east of south when he again picked up the object, which was still in the west.