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A red glow in the clouds over Godman Field, Kentucky—a disk the size of the Pentagon, lurking, silently, above a fighter base—a construction dwarfing the Queen Mary supported by dull orange flames that lit up the cloud base and caused Captain Mantell, of the U.S.A.A.F., to be dispatched in his tiny pursuit plane to investigate. When Mantell found it, his voice came over the radio, full of excitement. It was immense, he said, a colossal metallic thing, 500-1,000 feet in diameter, and cruising at 250 m.p.h. He was going to try to overtake it. As soon as it sighted him, the giant began climbing at 400 m.p.h. It accelerated faster than any jet, and Mantell went streaking up in pursuit. The next news of Mantell was that the wreckage of his plane had been found in tiny pieces, scored by peculiar deep lines as if he had got into a shower of some terribly powerful unexplainable something; as though he had flown into the tremendous exhaust stream—or worse—against which no terrestrial metal could survive. (en) |