It was clear now why such desperate efforts had been made to explain away the object Mantell had chased.
“What about that Eastern Airlines sighting?” I asked.
“Well, first,” said Redell, “it wasn’t any remote-control guided missile. I’ll say it again; it would be sheer insanity. Suppose that thing had crashed in Macon. At that speed it could have plowed its way for blocks, right through the buildings. It could have killed hundreds of people, burned the heart out of the city.
“If it was a missile, or some hush-hush experimental job, then it was piloted. But they don’t test a job like that on any commercial airways. And they don’t fool around at five thousand feet where people will see the thing streaking by and call the newspapers.
“To power a hundred-foot wingless ship, especially at those speeds, would take enormous force. Not as much as a V-two rocket, but tremendous power. The fuel load would be terrific. Certainly, the pilot wouldn’t be circling around Georgia and Alabama for an hour, buzzing airliners. I’ll stake everything that we couldn’t duplicate that space ship’s performance for less than fifty million dollars. It would take something brand-new in jets.”
Redell paused. He looked at me grimly. “And the way I’d have to soup it up, it would be a damned dangerous ship to fly. No pilot would deliberately fly it that low. He’d stay up where he’d have a chance to bail out.”
I told him what I had heard about the blueprints the Air Force was said to have rushed.
“Of course they were worried,” said Redell. “And probably they still are. But I don’t think they need be; so far, there’s been nothing menacing about these space ships.”
When I got him back to the Gorman case, Redell drew a sketch on his pad, showing me his idea of the disk light. He estimated the transparent rim as not more than five feet in diameter.
“Possibly smaller,” he said. “You recall that Gorman said the light was between six and eight inches in diameter. He also said it seemed to have depth—that was in the Air Force report.”