“Explains it perfectly. You know what Mantell was chasing? The planet Venus!”
“That’s the Post’s answer?” I said, incredulously.
“It’s what the Air Force contract astronomer told Shallett. I’ve checked with two astronomers here. They say that even when Venus is at full magnitude you can barely see it in the daytime even when you’re looking for it. It was only half magnitude that day, so it was practically invisible.”
“How’d the Air Force expect anybody to believe that answer?” I said.
Purdy shrugged. “They deny it was Venus in this report. But that’s what they told Shallett—that all those Air Force officers, the pilots, the Kentucky state police, and several hundred people at Madisonville mistook Venus for a metallic disk several hundred feet in diameter.”
“It’s a wonder Shallett believed it.”
“I don’t think he did. He says if it wasn’t Venus, it must have been a balloon.”
“What’s the Air Force answer?” I asked Purdy.
“Look in the report. They say whatever Mantell chased—they call it a ‘mysterious object’—is still unidentified.”
I glanced through the case report, on page five. It quoted Mantell’s radio report that the thing was metallic and tremendous in size. Linked with the death of Mantell was the Lockbourne, Ohio, report, which tied in with what Jack Daly had told me, over a year before. I read the report: