Such an incident occurred on a Pan American flight from New York to San Juan early on the morning of March 9, 1957. At about 3:30 A.M. when the plane was off Jacksonville, Florida, the pilot and the flight engineer saw a burning, greenish-white, round object coming out of nowhere, seemingly only a half mile away and headed across their nose on a direct collision course[V-19]. In such a situation a plane’s captain cannot waste time in analyzing what he sees, but must act. In a violent evasive move he put the plane into a climb of about 1500 feet, during which several passengers were thrown out of their seats and injured. At the same moment the crews of at least seven other flights within an area of 300 miles were reporting the same object. One witness saw it split in two and the fiery rear section drop away. About an hour earlier, the pilot of another plane in the area had seen the breakup of a similar meteor but had not reported it. In spite of all the evidence that the unknown was a normal meteor, breaking apart as many meteors do, the Pan American pilot, “having seen thousands of meteors,” could not accept the object as a natural phenomenon although he did realize, after he heard the other reports, that he had greatly underestimated its distance. The object showed all the characteristics of a typical fireball, but the flying-saucer cultists have still tried to convert this undoubted meteor into an unknown object. The number of meteors reported as flying saucers or spaceships has diminished in the last few years, but the Air Force has continued to investigate all doubtful or puzzling sightings to determine whether they in any way represent a possible threat to the nation’s security. Every sure identification of a UFO as merely a meteor, not a ballistic missile, brings a certain amount of relief. A typical case, successfully solved, is that of June 20, 1959. About 2:15 A.M. the pilot of a United Airlines flight over the Pacific reported by radio to Flight Operations that he had observed an apparent rocket firing about thirty-five miles west of the plane position; radar detected the presence of a surface vessel at about the same position. The pilot first noticed a flash of light, then the entire sky lighted up and he saw four round, fiery globules, of an intense bluish-white color, with no tails. Flying two by two in a straight line, they made no sound and disappeared after about two seconds. The weather was clear and calm, the visibility excellent. The copilot, sitting at the right, saw only the first flash, but the pilot of another plane some 120 miles to the west reported seeing the same objects at the same time[V-19]. Because this sighting occurred in a very sensitive area where military officials were expecting a Russian test firing of an ICBM, the Air Force made an exhaustive study of this report and identified the object as a meteor. Their evaluation proceeded as follows: