ALAN writes:
It was probably in 1974 when Tom and I met in a meeting room of some bank in St. Louis County. We were not bankers, but we belonged to a discussion group that held monthly meetings there.
We were ordinary citizens who held a common interest in the night sky, the science of astronomy, and the controversy about reports of strange objects in the sky made by seemingly-reliable people like police officers and airline pilots. One man in the group had been a policeman years earlier, and others were engineers, photographers, businessmen, housewives, and amateur astronomers.
We presented lectures, reviewed books, held a picnic every summer, and learned aircraft identification procedures. In May 1975, Tom and I and other members worked as volunteers at a lecture given by a physics professor in Washington University’s Graham Chapel.
In the mid-1970s, we took part in late-night sky-watches in the small town of Pacific, Missouri, far from the lights of big cities. On some of those nights I rode with Tom in his car. We usually stopped in south St. Louis County to pick up a bag of White Castle hamburgers (also known as “belly bombers”) to sustain us throughout an evening of sky-watching.
We never saw anything inexplicable in the night sky, but we became expert observers and acquired experience in how to investigate and evaluate accounts of such incidents. I saw Tom at many meetings and we always talked and exchanged news. (more…)