The samples include minerals such as anorthite, which is made up of calcium, sodium, aluminum and silicate; and diopside, made of calcium magnesium and silicate. Such minerals only form in very high temperatures.

"That's a big surprise. People thought comets would just be cold stuff that formed out ... where things are very cold," said NASA curator Michael Zolensky. "It was kind of a shock to not just find one but several of these, which implies they are pretty common in the comet."

The discovery raises questions about where the materials in comets form, he added.

One theory is that particles from the outer reaches of the solar system slowly move toward the sun, where they are set ablaze and shot back out. A scientific model once suggested that might be a natural occurrence, but it wasn't accepted because materials tend to cluster in zones the farther they are from the sun, Zolensky said.

If the model were true, materials would mix more, the NASA scientist said.

"It raises a question of why we still see zoning in the asteroid belt. It is a big mystery now," Zolensky said. "It's kind of really exciting."

He said it is also possible that the comet particles could have been formed in another solar system and catapulted into our solar system.

To determine where the particles originated, scientists are now studying their isotopic makeup. About 150 scientists worldwide have been studying the dust since it arrived.

During the $212 million mission, the Stardust spacecraft looped around the sun three times to capture the interstellar and comet dust. The comet dust was captured in a silicone-based material contained in a tennis racket-sized collector mitt.

The mother ship, which has traveled nearly 3 billion miles, remains in permanent orbit around the sun. The next time it flies by Earth will be in January 2009.

Don Brownlee, a University of Washington astronomer who is the mission's principal scientist, said in a few weeks or months he and his colleagues hope to know more.

"It depends on whether the isotopic composition indicates these grains are from our solar system or from another star," he said. "It's a real exciting mystery story. So stay tuned."

The article itself was extremely authoritative sounding: "A nuclear-powered bomber is being flight tested in the Soviet Union. Completed about six months ago, this aircraft has been flying in the Moscow area for at least two months. It has been observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers from Communist and non-Communist countries." The article continued: "The Soviet aircraft is a prototype of a design to perform a military mission as a continuous airborne alert warning system and missile launching platform."

But it turns out that the atomic-powered bomber never existed, and the plane was never "observed both in flight and on the ground by a wide variety of foreign observers." It was observed by nobody at all, but that did not prevent the magazine from reporting about it.

It is worth remembering that when you are reading about Aviation Week and Space Technology's latest report of a top secret aircraft known as the "Blackstar." According to three articles that appeared in the March 6 issue of the magazine, "Blackstar" is actually a two-stage-to-orbit system consisting of a large mothership aircraft and a small "transatmospheric vehicle" possibly capable of flying into orbit. Despite the fact that it is on the cover of a magazine, there is no reason to believe that Blackstar exists, at least not in the form that the author claims it does.

Like Fox Mulder of The X-Files, the author wants to believe, even when the evidence is lacking. Admittedly, Fox Mulder was actually right. But he was also a TV character.
Manta or myth?

Many people might instantly assume that this story is credible because it appeared in Aviation Week, a publication that has a well-deserved reputation for obtaining insider information on aviation and space projects. But what they should realize is that Aviation Week also has a well-deserved reputation for publishing poorly-researched articles about top secret aircraft programs that do not exist, such as the 1958 claims about a Soviet nuclear-powered bomber. In fact, the same author who wrote the Blackstar articles, William Scott, has written several previous articles about top secret aircraft that never existed. It is his specialty, and he repeats the same pattern in all of them.

In 1990 Scott wrote an article about so-called top secret, or "black," aircraft developed by the U.S. government in the 1980s ("Scientists' and Engineers' Dreams Taking to Skies as 'Black' Aircraft," December 24, 1990, p. 41). Scott speculated that the Air Force had developed a hypersonic bomber capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads in vertical ejection racks. Sixteen years later, no such plane has ever been declassified, seen, or photographed.

In 1991 Scott was back, this time with an article about a top secret stealthy reconnaissance aircraft called the "TR-3 Manta" ("Triangular Recon Aircraft May be Supporting F-117A," June 10, 1991, p. 20). He wrote that "about 25–30 of the special reconnaissance aircraft-designated the TR-3A Black Manta-could be placed in service eventually, based at Holloman AFB, NM, and Tonapah, Nevada." He continued: "Several TR-3As are believed to have been deployed temporarily to Alaska, Britain, Panama and Okinawa. More recently, they are believed to have supported F-117A operations in the Persian Gulf War."

Nearly fifteen years have now passed since that article, and no such aircraft has entered operational service. No photographs of it have been produced, nor has anybody who worked on it stepped forward to discuss it, even anonymously. If a stealthy triangular-shaped aircraft ever existed, it certainly did not become operational or the government would have declassified its existence just as it has for other operational aircraft that start out as classified projects. If an aircraft becomes operational, sightings of it will increase. But the alleged rash of sightings of the "Manta" ended over a decade ago.

In the case of the "TR-3 Manta" it is easy to speculate what happened. At the time, the military was starting a project known as "Tier-3" (there was also a "Tier-2," which became the Global Hawk drone). Tier-3 was actually a follow-on project after the cancellation of a CIA airplane program to replace the SR-71 known as Quartz. Quartz was canceled in 1991 before any prototype was developed because it was obscenely expensive (for more, see Jeffrey Richelson's book The Wizards of Langley, pp. 225-226). Tier-3 was then created to be a much smaller stealthy subsonic drone that could fly inside denied airspace and loiter over a target. That project also got scaled back to become the "Tier-3 Minus," which ultimately produced some real hardware. Lockheed Martin and Boeing built an aircraft called the DarkStar, flew it once in early 1996, and then crashed it during its second flight. Tier-3 Minus was canceled in favor of less stealthy unmanned aerial vehicles like the Global Hawk and the Predator.

Obviously Scott heard part of this story. He misinterpreted "Tier-3" to be "TR-3," which seemed credible because the U-2 spyplane had been reborn in the 1970s as the "TR-1" aircraft. But Scott took rumors of a stealthy reconnaissance development project and speculated wildly, arriving at the conclusion that stealthy spyplanes were already in operation, and had even been used over Iraq.

The Manta story demonstrates a pattern that Scott repeats in all of his black airplane stories. Usually there is a small bit of real information about a classified aircraft project. Scott then connects alleged sightings of an unusual aircraft in flight to this bit of information. Then the article is padded out with a large amount of speculation, usually involving various studies and research projects conducted by various contractors. The characteristics are always the same, however: he never quotes anybody by name who has any direct connection to the alleged program, and he never even includes anonymous quotes of anybody who supposedly knows the big picture about the alleged program. All of the anonymous quotes of people who are supposedly involved are always clearly low-level worker bees who do not know what they are working on.

These articles also have several other characteristics. One is that virtually all of the sightings are anonymous. One could imagine an Air Force officer or a Boeing employee being nervous about having their name in print commenting about a secret airplane. But how come an average citizen standing on the ground who supposedly spots an unusual airplane does not want their name in print? Another characteristic is a bit of highly specific detail that has no source whatsoever, such as measurements, specific dates and times, or tail numbers of airplanes. The information is presented as fact, but the reader is required to take it entirely on faith. A final common characteristic is that the articles are padded out with large amounts of admitted speculation. If you take a magic marker and cross out every single paragraph in the articles that is admitted speculation, you end up with very few paragraphs that are supposedly based upon real information.
The mothership

In August 1992 Scott published another article in Aviation Week about an aircraft that had reportedly been spotted in Georgia and California ("Secret Aircraft Encompasses Qualities of High-Speed Launcher for Spacecraft," August 24, 1992, p. 25). This time he speculated that the aircraft carried a spaceplane on its back and launched it at Mach 6–8. "This concept, at present, has not been confirmed by any U.S. government agency or military service. However, aeronautics and space experts agreed the concept has considerable merit, particularly for orbiting payloads essential to national security."

After asserting that this large aircraft was spotted in Georgia and California, Scott does not say where, when, or by whom. The reader was told that a large airplane existed, but then was not presented with any proof.

The article quickly turned to the subject of the spaceplane and included another example of highly specific detail without any sourcing information. Scott wrote that a "long, slender aerodynamic shape with rounded chines was loaded into an Air Force C-5 transport at Lockheed's Burbank, California 'Skunk Works' facility on the night of January 6." The plane reportedly departed Burbank at 11:15 pm "and was cleared to Boeing Field near Seattle, Wash." But despite the precision of this sighting, many vital details are missing. Who spotted it? Did the reporter speak to that person directly? Nor did Scott explain why he believed that "an aerodynamic shape" being loaded into a C-5 transport was a "spaceplane."

The rest of the article was filled with speculation, such as a long discussion about the CIA's work on the D-21 TAGBOARD drone in the 1960s, and the alleged value of microsatellites. Cross out all of the speculation in the article and you are left with about two paragraphs, and no sources for the information. But it has now been nearly fourteen years, and one would presume that in that time, the author has been able to amass significant proof that this plane exists. Alas, that assumption would be wrong.
Skeptical reading

The cover story about the Blackstar in the March 6 issue included three articles: a main one ("Spaceplane Shelved?"), one on the small spaceplane known as "Speedy," or the "Experimental Orbital Vehicle" or "XOV" ("'Speedy' Damaged?"), and another on the carrier aircraft designated the "SR-3" ("Echoes of Valhalla").

Like many articles about intelligence matters, the articles rely upon anonymous sources. Many media outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have rules for their reporters using such sources that generally boil down to: try to convince sources to go on the record, use anonymous sources only when they materially contribute to the story and there is no other option, obtaining corroboration whenever possible. Based upon these three articles in Aviation Week, it is clear that that publication does not operate via the same rules for anonymous sources.

Because Aviation Week does not appear to have rules governing the use of anonymous sources, the burden falls on the reader to be highly discriminating about the evidence. When approaching an article like this it is good to keep in mind several questions to ask:

* First, who are the named sources for information? Are they credible? Knowledgeable?
* Second, do the anonymous sources sound credible? Is there a credible reason for their anonymity? And are the anonymous sources quoted, or are they merely paraphrased?
* Third, does the article contain any information that you can actually check yourself using other sources?
* Fourth, is the logic of the article internally consistent? In other words, does any part of the article contradict or not fit well with other parts of the article?
* And finally, how does the logic of the article hold up? Does it make sense in light of what we know about the world?

One thing that is not mentioned in the articles is the fact that stories about a top secret supersonic "mothership" carrying a smaller aircraft have been around since the early 1990s. A simple Google search quickly demonstrates this. There is a Testor model kit of an "SR-75 Penetrator" mothership and its small baby aircraft. There are 3D models for computer flight simulators. And there are numerous websites with information on this rumored aircraft. For instance, Google the term "Brilliant Buzzard" and you will get a hit to a website last updated in 1997 that contains information on this rumored aircraft.

The fact that all these other sources mention such an aircraft does not mean that it exists-two false claims do not equal a positive. But what it does mean is that Aviation Week does not have an exclusive story, and that it may also be merely repeating lies and legends that have been passed around the Internet for over a decade.

But there is an even greater possibility that people who have read the earlier claims are being influenced by them. Just as a rash of UFO and abduction stories follow a popular report in the media, it is entirely possible that people who read about strange airplanes in the sky suddenly start seeing strange airplanes in the sky, even when they are not there.

That fact should inform your questions about the new Aviation Week articles-is it possible that Scott is merely repeating stories that have been bouncing around, and being embellished, for over a decade, without having any solid evidence to support his claims?

Qualifiers

The main article is titled "Spaceplane Shelved?" and the warning signs start with the very first sentence. "U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance satellite-insertion, and, possibly, weapons delivery."

Note the use of the word "may." That word gets a lot of use in the article. For instance, the next paragraph states "This two-vehicle 'Blackstar' carrier/orbiter system may have been declared operational during the 1990s." Other words that get used a lot are "could be" and "perhaps" and "is believed." These are qualifiers. They indicate uncertainty, and they are clearly warning signs. The problem is that they clash with other more authoritative-sounding language in the articles. After all, if Blackstar may have been declared operational, that also leaves open the possibility that it was not declared operational. It even leaves open the possibility that it never existed at all. And if that is the case, then why is it on the cover of the magazine?

In fact, the first five paragraphs of the article do not include any mention of evidence at all, merely speculation, such as the fact that "U.S. Air Force Space Command officers and contractors have been toying with similar spaceplane-operational concepts for years." But "toying" with a concept is not the same as flying an airplane.

It is not until the sixth paragraph of the main article that the author mentions that "observed spaceplane landings have been reported at Hurlburt AFB, Fla; Kadena AB, Okinawa; and Holloman AFB, NM." Observed by whom? The author never names any of the observers at these airbases, nor does he even indicate that he spoke to these eyewitnesses directly. In fact, the alleged Hurlburt sighting is never mentioned again in any of the articles-just like the California and Georgia sightings of the large mothership mentioned in Scott's 1992 article were mentioned and then quickly forgotten.

The article then authoritatively states that "the spaceplane is capable of carrying an advanced imaging suite that features 1-meter-aperture adaptive optics with an integral sodium-ion-sensing laser. By compensating in real-time for atmospheric turbulence-caused aberrations sensed by the laser, the system is capable of acquiring very detailed images of ground targets or in-space objects, according to industry officials familiar with the package." What "industry officials" and for what company? The author never names them. Furthermore, the characteristics of adaptive optics and laser guide stars are well known and have been used for ground-based telescopes for years. There are physical reasons why they will not work in the other direction.
Surprise overflight, Quartz, and ISINGLASS

The article is also based upon some long-standing misperceptions about the conduct of strategic reconnaissance. For instance, it states: "The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights."

This statement was often made by spyplane buffs in the 1990s to explain the existence of the mythical "Aurora" spyplane, the hypersonic replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird. Those who believed in Aurora started from several false premises. One false assumption was that the SR-71 was such an amazingly useful airplane that the Air Force would not retire it unless they had something equally amazing to replace it. The other false assumption was that "surprise overflight" is an extremely useful capability. In actuality, both of these factors have some validity, but less than their advocates claim for them.

By the 1980s the SR-71 occupied a specific and well-defined niche in the imagery intelligence arsenal. It could not be flown over many targets like the Soviet Union or China because it would be shot down. It could also not be flown over many other targets because it would have to fly over hostile countries during the course of its mission-the Blackbird could not turn quickly to avoid hostile airspace. By the 1980s the SR-71 was restricted primarily to overflight missions over places like Cuba and Nicaragua and peripheral missions off the coast of more threatening nations. Simply put, the SR-71 cost a lot of money to operate and had limited use, and it was not as popular within the intelligence community as it was among airplane buffs.

But "surprise overflight" is actually the more important issue, because it is a real requirement, but not the highest priority requirement for reconnaissance.

There are many reconnaissance targets that cannot be hidden. Buildings, for instance. An Iraqi army about to invade Kuwait. Missile silos. Satellites in "predictable" orbits work just fine for these targets. But there are also some targets that can be hidden from predictable satellites. They have to be small and mobile, or they have to be the kinds of operations that occur over a short period of time. For instance, it has been widely reported that India successfully concealed its preparations for an atomic bomb test by timing them to occur between passes of American reconnaissance satellites. The important thing to consider is that these kinds of targets are clearly a small subset of the overall list of targets that intelligence collectors are interested in.

Clearly there is a well-defined niche for surprise reconnaissance. But one problem with using an aircraft to fill this niche is that you have to know when the adversary is doing something that you need to see and you have to know when he is doing it. Would the Blackstar have been useful at spotting the preparations of the Indian nuclear test? It would, but only if the United States had known that the Indians were preparing such a test at precisely that time and could schedule a flight to catch it while it was happening. In other words, before using this system to gather intelligence, it first has to be tipped off that something is happening. However, that kind of luck is exceedingly rare in the intelligence collection business.

We also know that the US intelligence community has sought to conduct surprise overflight in a different way-by making some of its satellites stealthy and therefore unpredictable. Reports of one or two stealthy imaging satellites have circulated for years, and in the past year the Washington Post reported on a controversy in Congress over the high costs of a follow-on stealth satellite system. So it is harder for an adversary to hide from a satellite that they do not know is overhead.

But more importantly, we know that ever since the early 1990s the intelligence community has pursued a new strategy toward collecting reconnaissance-continuous presence. The Global Hawk and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles are the best example of this. Rather than flying over a target at high speed and then leaving, they orbit over an area of interest for hours until they spot something happening, like a terrorist emerging from a house.

Blackstar would also be a bad choice for overflight reconnaissance for other reasons. It would be visible on radar by infrared sensors in space as soon as it launched. Another problem is that if it was used to overfly Russia it could easily be misinterpreted as a missile attack. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the intelligence community canceled the ISINGLASS spyplane in the 1960s (the name was always written in all-caps in official documents). Two decades before the CIA sought to develop Quartz, the Air Force tried to develop ISINGLASS as a successor to the SR-71. It was supposed to be air-dropped from a B-52, and fly a skip-glide trajectory over the USSR. Numerous technical problems plagued the development project, but many intelligence officials were uneasy about a reconnaissance system that to the Soviets would look a lot like a B-52 launching a missile aimed at the motherland. (I have collected dozens of declassified documents on ISINGLASS and plan on writing a history article in the near future.)

This raises an additional point: because of its speed, there is no way for Blackstar to be used that would not entail it flying over or relatively near Russia. That would be dangerous. But it also prompts the question of why the Russians have never revealed Blackstar's existence. Why don't they blow the cover of this supersecret American project?
Connecting mythical dots

The article is unclear on what the supposed Blackstar orbiter actually did. It mentions the one-meter optical telescope, but then lists a bunch of other possible missions: carrying specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit, or carrying hypervelocity missiles to low Earth orbit (the "Rods from God" scenario). Clearly Scott never talked to anybody in a senior position in this alleged program.

The article states that "actual development and employment of a transatmospheric spaceplane have not been confirmed officially. However, many sightings of both an XB-70-like carrier and a spaceplane have been reported, primarily in the western U.S. Only once have they been seen together, though."

If "many" sightings have occurred, what are the names of the people who have made the sightings? How credible are they? It is also worth noting that "many sightings" of flying saucers have also occurred, and many people claim to have been abducted by aliens. But Aviation Week does not consider these sightings to be proof of extraterrestrials visiting Earth. Why is the magazine willing to accept unsubstantiated claims in one case but not in another?

Only two people are named in the articles as eyewitnesses to the vehicle. One is "James Petty," who is listed as the "President of JP Rocket Engine Co." Petty claims to have spotted the carrier aircraft and the spaceplane attached to its belly flying over Salt Lake City at 2:35 in the afternoon on October 4, 1998. Why a top secret aircraft would be flying over a major American city in broad daylight is unclear. Also unclear is why no other person reportedly saw this unusual plane in the middle of the day over a major metropolis.

In these articles, Scott claims that Petty is the only person who has seen the two aircraft connected to each other. But that raises an important question-if the two aircraft were only spotted together in 1998, why was Scott writing in 1992 about a "mothership" aircraft and its attached spaceplane? Clearly he had nothing to connect them together back then, but he speculated that they were connected.

Furthermore, the 1992 article claimed that the spaceplane was located on the top of the mothership. But based upon Petty's alleged sighting, Scott now claims that it is carried on the bottom of the mothership, which supposedly looks like a B-70 Valkyrie bomber. The artwork in the article depicts it stuck on the bottom of the carrier, giving the mothership a pregnant look. This is another example of the internal illogic of the stories, because the B-70 Valkyrie had its landing gear mounted in the lower triangular section, where it would be blocked by the spaceplane. In other words, if the planes looked like Aviation Week claims, the mothership would not be able to roll down a runway to take off.

Other supposed facts make no sense. For instance, the article states that on the spaceplane "air is directed to what is believed to be aerospike engines similar to those once planned for use on the NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33." There are several problems with this statement. For starters, aerospike engines are rocket engines. They are not jet engines and they do not use air, they use propellant and oxidizer. Equally important, the theoretical value of an aerospike engine is that it can work efficiently at both high and low altitude. But if the spaceplane is launched at 90,000 feet [27,400 meters], an aerospike engine is unnecessary.

The article is also filled with suppositions that are based upon no stated data. For instance, the carrier aircraft is capable of "operation at supersonic speeds and altitudes up to 90,000 feet." How does the author know about altitude and speed if the only hard data that he possesses are eyewitness accounts?

The main article states that "three oversized [C-5 Galaxy] transport aircraft were modified with 8-foot wide 'chipmunk cheek' extensions on each side of the cargo compartment aft of the nose hinge point; an extra six-wheel set of landing gear that partially retracts up against the after fuselage, forward of the ramp; a shortened upper deck, and two internal harness/cradle supports." But where are the photographs of these three odd-looking C-5s? C-5 Galaxies are so big that they cannot be parked indoors at airfields. They are always parked outside. Has anybody ever photographed one in flight or on a ramp at an airbase? Anybody at all?

The article also lists two tail numbers for the aircraft: 00503 and 00504. These "tail numbers" imply Fiscal Year Serial Numbers, which consist of six digits (not five), with the first two designating the year that the aircraft was ordered. So the likely candidates are 70-0503/4, 80-0503/4, or possibly 90-0503/4.

But none of those numbers actually assigned to C-5 Galaxies. We know that 70-0503/4 were numbers assigned to canceled F-4E Phantom interceptors. 80-0503/4 were assigned to F-16A Fighting Falcon fighters, and 90-0503/4 were assigned to AH-64A Apaches built for Egypt. If these are bogus serial numbers were actually painted on C-5s, then why has nobody photographed these planes with the fake numbers? There is a large planespotting community around the globe that loves to take photos of rare and unusual aircraft, tracking them by their serial numbers. Have they produced any photos of these planes? No. The article states that a third C-5 had a distinctive red "CL" on its tail "and supposedly was used by the Central Intelligence Agency." Are there any photos of this prize either? No. In fact, we know that there are two C-5C (Space Cargo Modified) Galaxies in operation. Their serial numbers are 68-0213 and 68-0216, and photographs of them have appeared on the Internet (Google "C-5C Galaxy").

The article also states that "all three C-5s may have been retired in recent years, according to a NASA contractor." When C-5s are retired they are sent to the "Boneyard" at Davis Monthan Air Force Base, and TV documentary crews and airplane buffs have toured the base and taken photographs of them. Commercial imaging satellites have also photographed the Boneyard. So where are the photos of these unusual C-5s? It is also worth noting that the Air Force has a website listing all of the C-5 aircraft that have been sent to the Boneyard. “Speedy” and the Valkyrie One of the three articles is devoted to the spaceplane. It states that “the two-vehicle Blackstar system’s spaceplane has been referred to as ‘Black Magic,’ ‘Speedy’ and ‘XOV’ (experimental orbital vehicle) over the years, but none of these monikers have been confirmed by high-level U.S. government representatives. Intelligence officials called it the XOV, and that designation seems to be the most accepted in ‘black world’ circles.” Once again the intelligence officials are unnamed. But also once again there is no indication, such as a direct quote, that would indicate that the author spoke to them directly. The spaceplane article contains the most detailed account of a sighting. It states that “A manned XOV was spotted at Holloman AFB, NM, in 1994 by an F-15 crew chief as he prepared a fighter for an early morning flight…” Supposedly the crew chief alerted his pilot, who used a pair of binoculars to watch the spaceplane. Once again, neither person is named. Around the same time there was reportedly an incident at Kadena Air Base at Okinawa where an “aircraft in distress” reportedly landed at the base and the base was locked down. “A civilian contractor who saw the spaceplane land was ‘debriefed’ and hustled off-base within hours.” But the author does not state that he himself talked to anybody involved, even if he was asked to keep their names anonymous. In fact, after providing what seems like two definitive accounts, the article ends with “Attempts to confirm both the Kadena-area and Holloman incidents have been unsuccessful.” Does that mean that the author heard these accounts second-hand and never talked to the alleged eyewitnesses himself? Or does it mean that he talked to the eyewitnesses, but could not find anybody else who would confirm that they were telling the truth? The eyewitness accounts mentioned in the article about the mothership aircraft are equally dubious. The XB-70 like aircraft has supposedly been spotted by persons a dozen times and the reports have “found their way to Aviation Week & Space Technology.” The latest report was from a “retired test pilot living in the southern U.S.” Again, the author does not provide a name, nor does he list any of the other supposed eyewitnesses. How can an outsider independently verify this claim? Besides Mr. Petty (the man who allegedly saw the mothership and spaceplane flying at low altitude over Salt Lake City) the other person named in the article is “Nancy Weitzman,” who lived in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and saw the mothership fly over her home in 1993. It was so close, Weitzman said, that she could actually see the pilot’s helmet. Doylestown is a rural area in the northern outskirts of Philadelphia and west of Trenton. Once again we are left to ask why a top secret aircraft is flying over a populated area, near a major metropolis, at low altitude and in broad daylight. Weitzman is labeled “an excellent, detail-oriented observer” because she is a “longtime birdwatcher” and was then a medical student (begging the question: was she a good birdwatcher?) But despite the fact that Weitzman admits to knowing nothing about aircraft, she spotted an unknown airplane in the sky and judged its altitude to be 2,500 feet [760 meters] and determined that it was 180–200 feet [55–60 meters] long. The article then included another statement that falls apart as soon as it is parsed: “Two XB-70-like spaceplane carriers may have been built. One might have crashed, and a second is stored at the USAF’s secret Groom Lake test site in Nevada, says an industry source.” Again, the source is unnamed. But how does one rectify such a clear declaration with words like “may” and “might”? How reliable is the source if the best information “might” be true? One thing that we have learned from past classified aircraft programs is that they are flown at isolated airbases at night until their existence is declassified and they are flown during daylight and based at less isolated facilities. The F-117 stealth fighter is a perfect example of this. Yet these various eyewitness sightings were all supposedly made during daylight hours at locations that are not isolated, such as Salt Lake City and the outskirts of Philadelphia. In fact, Holloman Air Force Base—the alleged location of the detailed sighting of the spaceplane—is a very bad place to operate a highly classified aircraft because it is not isolated from civilian observation. A civilian road passes close to the main runway, and airplane buffs with cameras and telephoto lenses regularly take pictures of the planes operating there. Two civilian astronomy observatories are located on peaks nearly a mile above the base, and at one of these observatories there are coin-operated telescopes mounted along a walkway: put a quarter in the machine and you can look straight down at the Holloman flightline, the same flightline where the top secret spaceplane was supposedly being unloaded during daylight hours. Flying into the void Collectively, the articles contain many examples of internal inconsistencies, such as the airbreathing aerospike engines and the spaceplane that blocks the landing gear of its carrier aircraft. But the articles also include claims that are externally illogical—that is, they make no sense compared to what we know about the world. For instance, take this statement: “Overall, a two-stage-to-orbit system wouldn’t have been technologically difficult to develop, according to aerospace veterans.” This of course raises an obvious question—if it was so easy to do, why hasn’t NASA or the Air Force done it? Why are we still stuck with expensive space shuttles and expensive Atlas and Delta rockets? Even small rockets like the Pegasus are relatively expensive, and in fact the very existence of small rockets undercuts the justification for Blackstar’s use as a satellite launcher. If Blackstar existed, why do we have the Pegasus and Minotaur small launch vehicles? Why has DARPA sponsored the FALCON rocket program? Why did NASA and the Air Force dabble in the X-43A hypersonic vehicle if an operational hypersonic spaceplane already existed? If Blackstar could have launched small satellites as part of a “responsive space” system, then why is the Air Force currently trying to develop that capability on its own? Certainly something like Blackstar would have been insanely expensive to build, so why would it have been kept classified rather than shared with the rest of the military research community that could benefit from its experience? Six blind men in a zoo After reading these articles with a skeptical eye, the reader cannot help but get the sense that the author is basing all of his information on hearsay—somebody told him that somebody else said something, but the author has not collected the information himself, or even tracked down the anonymous sources. In fact, many of the anonymous sources are so anonymous—not even a hint of what company they worked for or where they lived or how they knew something—that they go beyond anonymous; they become vaporous. Most of the information in the article, including the alleged eyewitness reports, sound like the kinds of stories told among UFO buffs, or spread around the Internet: indirect evidence, anonymous sources, inconsistent facts, and no firm dates or locations. One suspects that William Scott has a circle of mystery aircraft watchers who feed him stories and rumors that he is unable to corroborate himself. One also suspects that his research skills are poor, because the articles include factual mistakes about unclassified subjects, indicating that he is not carefully fact-checking the work. And the overriding impression that one gets from these articles is that Aviation Week has very low editorial standards and that the editors are not forcing Scott to prove anything by presenting them with tape recorded interviews or notes or documents. At no point does the reporter clearly indicate that he personally has been told anything substantive by a source that has direct knowledge of the program. At no point does he write “a CIA official told this author that…” or “an NRO official stated that…” or “a military officer who worked on the program said that…” or “this reporter has seen documents that clearly indicate that…” Because of this lack of specificity, of solidity, it seems probable that what the author has done is connected the dots between several disparate classified study projects, not an actual operational vehicle, retired or not. At several points the articles refer to anonymous industry sources who worked on a part of a secret program. None of these anonymous sources, however, provide information on the overall project. They worked on the wings of a classified plane, or they knew about an optical reconnaissance system, or a hypersonic research project. It was the author who connected them, not the people who supposedly worked on the alleged Blackstar. These stories sound somewhat like the parable of the six blind men describing an elephant—one feels the trunk, another a tail, another a foot, and so on, creating a description that makes no sense. But what is more likely here is that rather than six blind men describing an elephant, we have six blind men in a zoo, each describing a different part of a different animal, and a reporter assuming that these reports all refer to the same very strange beast. William Scott assumed that there was a mothership and a spaceplane back in 1992, six years before anybody reported seeing the two connected. For the next fourteen years he added more dots to the picture, even if they belonged to something else entirely. But although the Aviation Week articles are based on wild speculation, filled with holes, and do not demonstrate careful fact-checking, there is a possibility that some of the information might be based upon actual aircraft or even spaceplane research programs. Just as William Scott took “Tier-3” and morphed it into “TR-3” back in 1990, he may be taking legitimate but incomplete information, and speculating wildly about spaceplanes and motherships. A little bit of history regarding secret airplane projects is useful, however. For instance, the Air Force tested the Tacit Blue aircraft from 1982 to 1985. Rumors circulated of an aircraft that amateurs nicknamed “Shamu” for its weird shape. But it was not declassified until 1996 after sitting in storage for eleven years. Similarly, Boeing flew its Bird of Prey stealth demonstrator between 1996 and 1999, and it was not declassified until 2002. Aviation Week did not have stories about the flights of either aircraft, however, until after they were declassified. The F-117 stealth fighter was different. The first one flew in 1981. Rumors of its existence leaked out by the mid-1980s. But because it always flew at night, there were no credible eyewitness reports even though dozens of the aircraft were manufactured. It was not until the plane’s existence was declassified in the late 1980s that the public knew what it looked like. Compare these examples with the alleged Blackstar. If the Air Force was so effective at keeping Tacit Blue, the Bird of Prey, and the F-117 secret, why would it fly a much larger top secret aircraft during daylight hours over populated areas? Certainly the U.S. military has developed other classified aircraft programs that have not yet been declassified. But Aviation Week has had fourteen years to produce evidence that this huge mothership and its spaceplane exist. They have not provided that evidence. Then again, they still have not provided evidence of the Soviet nuclear-powered bomber either. Author’s note: The information on aircraft serial numbers is from the Skunk Works Digest listserve. Dwayne A. Day was the primary editor of Eye in the Sky, a history of early American satellite reconnaissance. He has written numerous articles on the origins of strategic reconnaissance and early satellite systems for books, journals and magazines. He has also written a book-length history of the Air Force Chief Scientist’s Office under contract to the US Air Force, and numerous articles on aviation for the official Centennial of Flight website. He can be reached at zirconic@earthlink.net.

This two-vehicle "Blackstar" carrier/orbiter system may have been declared operational during the 1990s.

A large "mothership," closely resembling the U.S. Air Force's historic XB-70 supersonic bomber, carries the orbital component conformally under its fuselage, accelerating to supersonic speeds at high altitude before dropping the spaceplane. The orbiter's engines fire and boost the vehicle into space. If mission requirements dictate, the spaceplane can either reach low Earth orbit or remain suborbital.

The manned orbiter's primary military advantage would be surprise overflight. There would be no forewarning of its presence, prior to the first orbit, allowing ground targets to be imaged before they could be hidden. In contrast, satellite orbits are predictable enough that activities having intelligence value can be scheduled to avoid overflights.

Exactly what missions the Blackstar system may have been designed for and built to accomplish are as yet unconfirmed, but U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) officers and contractors have been toying with similar spaceplane-operational concepts for years. Besides reconnaissance, they call for inserting small satellites into orbit, and either retrieving or servicing other spacecraft. Conceivably, such a vehicle could serve as an anti-satellite or space-to-ground weapons-delivery platform, as well.

Once a Blackstar orbiter reenters the atmosphere, it can land horizontally at almost any location having a sufficiently long runway. So far, observed spaceplane landings have been reported at Hurlburt AFB, Fla.; Kadena AB, Okinawa; and Holloman AFB, N.M.

The spaceplane is capable of carrying an advanced imaging suite that features 1-meter-aperture adaptive optics with an integral sodium-ion-sensing laser. By compensating in real-time for atmospheric turbulence-caused aberrations sensed by the laser, the system is capable of acquiring very detailed images of ground targets or in-space objects, according to industry officials familiar with the package.

THE SPACEPLANE'S SMALL CARGO or "Q-bay" also could be configured to deliver specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit or, perhaps, be fitted with no-warhead hypervelocity weapons--what military visionaries have called "rods from god." Launched from the fringes of space, these high-Mach weapons could destroy deeply buried bunkers and weapons facilities.

While frequently the subject of advanced studies, such as the Air Force's "Spacecast 2020," actual development and employment of a transatmospheric spaceplane have not been confirmed officially (AW&ST Sept. 5, 1994, p. 101). However, many sightings of both an XB-70-like carrier and a spaceplane have been reported, primarily in the western U.S. Only once have they been seen together, though.

On Oct. 4, 1998, the carrier aircraft was spotted flying over Salt Lake City at about 2:35 p.m. local time. James Petty, the president of JP Rocket Engine Co., saw a small, highly swept-winged vehicle nestled under the belly of the XB-70-like aircraft. The vehicle appeared to be climbing slowly on a west-southwest heading. The sky was clear enough to see both vehicles' leading edges, which Petty described as a dark gray or black color.

For whatever reason, top military space commanders apparently have never been "briefed-in"--never told of the Blackstar system's existence--even though these are the "warfighters" who might need to employ a spaceplane in combat. Consequently, the most likely user is an intelligence agency. The National Reconnaissance Office may have played a role in the program, but former senior NRO officials have denied any knowledge of it.

One Pentagon official suggests that the Blackstar system was "owned" and operated by a team of aerospace contractors, ensuring government leaders' plausible deniability. When asked about the system, they could honestly say, "we don't have anything like that."

Aerospace industry contractors suggest that a top secret Blackstar system could explain why Pentagon leaders readily offered the Air Force's nascent unclassified spaceplane project, the briefly resurrected SR-71 program and the Army's anti-satellite program for elimination from budgets in the late 1990s. At the time, an industry official said, "if we're flying a spaceplane, it makes sense to kill these cover programs and stop wasting money on things we can already do."

U.S. and European aerospace companies have pushed two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) spaceplane concepts for decades. Most large U.S. airframe manufacturers designed spaceplane-type vehicles during the 1950s and '60s, and XB-70 program documents include a concept for carrying and launching a low-Earth orbiter. Two former test pilots and executives for North American Aviation (later, Rockwell) said the company had a technically viable plan for such a system in the 1950s (AW&ST Aug. 24, 1992, p. 25).

Boeing is believed to be one of several major aerospace companies involved in the Blackstar program. On Oct. 14, 1986, Boeing filed a U.S. patent application for an advanced two-stage space transportation system. Patent No. 4,802,639, awarded on Feb. 7, 1989, details how a small orbiter could be air-dropped from the belly of a large delta-winged carrier at Mach 3.3 and 103,800-ft. altitude. The spaceplane would be boosted into orbit by its own propulsion system, perform an intended mission, then glide back to a horizontal landing. Although drawings of aircraft planforms in the Boeing patent differ from those of the Blackstar vehicles spotted at several USAF bases, the concepts are strikingly similar.

One logical explanation given for why a Blackstar system is developed says that, after the shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986, and a subsequent string of expendable-booster failures, Pentagon leaders were stunned to learn they no longer had "assured access to space." Suddenly, the U.S. needed a means to orbit satellites necessary to keep tabs on its Cold War adversaries.

A team of contractors apparently stepped forward, offering to build a quick-reaction TSTO system in record time. The system could ensure on-demand overflight reconnaissance/surveillance from low Earth orbit, and would require minimal development time. Tons of material--including long-lead structural items--for a third XB-70 Valkyrie had been stored in California warehouses years before, and a wealth of data from the X-20 DynaSoar military spaceplane program was readily available for application to a modern orbiter (see following articles).

DYNASOAR WAS TERMINATED shortly after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, after $430 million had been spent on the spaceplane's development. Political opposition and the fatal crash of XB-70 No. 2 on June 8, 1966, contributed to the bomber program's being canceled before Air Vehicle No. 3 could be built. However, at one time, there had been plans to mate the two vehicles.

In XB-70 Valkyrie: The Ride to Valhalla, Jeannette Remak and Joe Ventolo, Jr., wrote: "One version of the B-70 could have been used as a recoverable booster system to launch things into low-Earth orbit. . . . The DynaSoar program, the first effort by the [U.S.] to use a manned boost-glider to fly in near-orbital space and return, was considered in this context in November 1959. The B-70 was to carry the 10,000-lb. DynaSoar glider and a 40,000-lb. liquid rocket booster to 70,000 ft. and release them while traveling at Mach 3. With this lofty start, the booster could then push the glider into its final 300-mi. orbit."

The two-stage U.S. spaceplane concept apparently has undergone several iterations since then, but the basic idea remained--launch a manned boost-glide vehicle from an XB-70-like platform (AW&ST Dec. 24, 1990, p. 48; Sept. 24, 1990, p. 28). An aerospace industry source said the Air Force once used the "Blackstar" moniker, but others suggested the intelligence community referred to this TSTO combination as the "SR-3/XOV" system. The SR-3 is the large, XB-70-like carrier aircraft, while the small orbital vehicles drop-launched at high speed are called XOV-1, XOV-2 and so forth. At one time, the XOV designator meant "experimental orbital vehicle."

Based on information gleaned from multiple industry sources, the SR-3 features:

*A roughly 200-ft.-long, clipped-delta-winged planform resembling that of the North American Aviation XB-70 trisonic bomber. The forward fuselage is believed to be more oval-shaped than was depicted in a 1992 artist's rendering (AW&ST Aug. 24, 1992, p. 23).

*Canards that extend from the forward fuselage. These lifting surfaces may sweep both fore and aft to compensate for large center-of-gravity changes after dropping the spaceplane, based on multiple sighting reports.

*Large, outward-canted vertical tail surfaces at the clipped-delta's wingtips.

*At least four engine exhaust ports, grouped as two well-separated banks on either side of the aircraft centerline.

*Very loud engines. One other classified military aircraft may have used the same type of powerplant.

*Operation at supersonic speeds and altitudes up to 90,000 ft.

During the system's development cycle, two types of spaceplane orbiters may have been flown. Both were a blended wing/fuselage lifting-body design, but differed in size. The smaller version was about 60-65 ft. long and may have been unmanned or carried a crew of two, some say. Industry engineers said this technology demonstrator was "a very successful program."

The larger orbiter is reportedly 97.5 ft. long, has a highly swept, blended wing/body planform and a short vertical fin. This bulky fin apparently doubles as a buried pylon for conformal carriage of the spaceplane beneath the large SR-3. The "Q-bay" for transporting an optics-system pallet or other payloads may be located aft of the cockpit, with payload doors on top of the fuselage.

Outboard sections of the spaceplane's wing/body cant slightly downward, possibly for shock-wave control and compression lift at high speeds while in the atmosphere, whether on ascent or reentry. The only visible control surfaces are flap- or drag-type panels on the wing's trailing edge, one section on each side of the stubby vertical fin. A relatively large, spade-shaped section forward of the cockpit--which gives the orbiter a "shark-nose" appearance--may provide some pitch stability, as well.

The orbiter's belly appears to be contoured with channels, riblets or "strakelets" that direct airflow to engine inlets and help dissipate aerodynamic heating. These shallow channels may direct air to a complex system of internal, advanced composite-material ducts, according to an engineer who says he helped build one version of the orbiter in the early 1990s. Air is directed to what is believed to be aerospike engines similar to those once planned for use on the NASA/Lockheed Martin X-33.

A former Lockheed Skunk Works official once expressed confidence in the X-33 prototype orbiter's powerplants, noting that "they have history." Whether this implies the aerospikes had flown before, perhaps on an XOV, or simply referred to ground test-firings is unknown. The X-33 was a prototype of what was to be the single-stage-to-orbit Venture Star (AW&ST Nov. 10, 1997, p. 50).

Technicians who worked at a McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis in the late 1980s and early 1990s said much of the XOV's structure was made of advanced composite materials. Some wing skin panels measured 40 ft. long and 16 ft. wide, yet were only 3/8 in. to 1/2 in. thick.

"Two people could pick them up; they were very light," one said. These panels were stacked in a sandwich structure to obtain the required thickness, then machined to shape. Although much of the structure was honeycomb, it was "incredibly strong, and would handle very high temperatures," he noted. Inside skin surfaces "were ungodly complicated," though.

WORK ON THE ORBITER moved at a relatively slow pace until a "fuel breakthrough" was made, workers were told. Then, from 1990 through 1991, "we lived out there. It was a madhouse," a technician said. The new fuel was believed to be a boron-based gel having the consistency of toothpaste and high-energy characteristics, but occupying less volume than other fuels.

Regardless of where they land, spaceplane orbiters usually are retrieved by one or more "fat" C-5 Galaxy transports. Three of the oversized aircraft were modified with 8-ft.-wide "chipmunk cheek" extensions on each side of the cargo compartment aft of the nose hinge point; an extra six-wheel set of landing gear that partially retracts up against the aft fuselage, forward of the ramp; a shortened upper deck, and two internal harness/cradle supports. These alterations originally were made to enable carriage of dome-topped containers measuring 61.2 ft. long, 17.2 ft. wide (maximum) and 16.7 ft. tall at the highest point. The containers normally protected satellites during transit to launch sites.

In 1994, NASA sources confirmed that two of the C-5s (Tail Nos. 00503 and 00504) were listed on NASA's inventory--although the aircraft did not "officially" exist, according to the agency's public records. Both transports apparently were deployed only upon orders from the administrator's office. The third oversized C-5 once had a red "CL" on its tail, and supposedly was used by the Central Intelligence Agency. All three C-5s may have been retired in recent years, according to a NASA contractor.

CRITICS ARGUE that there was never enough money hidden in intelligence and military budgets to fund a small fleet of spaceplanes and carrier aircraft. However, those who worked on the system's development at several contractor sites say they charged time-and-materials costs to a number of well-funded programs. Lockheed was the lead contractor for Blackstar orbiters being fabricated at McDonnell Douglas in the early 1990s, and workers there typically logged their time against a specific Lockheed charge number associated with that project. But their time might also have been charged to the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) and the Navy's A-12 fighter accounts, they say. Both multibillion-dollar programs were canceled with little but technology development gains to show for massive expenditures.

"At first, [supervisors] said we were working on NASP, but this thing never looked like anything the public was shown," a McDonnell Douglas technician who worked in the company's "black hole" facility said. "Later, we were just told, 'Clock it to NASP and don't ask questions.' We never did anything that was really NASP--and money was never a problem."

Whether the Blackstar system was ever declared operational or not is unknown, but several orbiters may have flown over the years. A former program manager at a major aerospace company once declared, "There's no question; Lockheed is flying a two-stage space vehicle."

Interestingly, after both Lockheed and Boeing pulled out of the NASP competition (or were "eliminated") in the 1980s, they may have collaborated to develop the two-stage-to-orbit Blackstar system under a highly classified "fast-track" program. However, many other contractors' "deep-black" teams probably also were involved in order to bring the nation's best expertise to bear on what must have been daunting technical challenges.

The bedrooms of 9-year-old twins Adam and Jared couldn't be more different. Jared's room is decked out with camouflage, airplanes, and military toys, while Adam's room sports a pastel canopy, stuffed animals, and white horses.

When Stahl came for a visit, Jared was eager to show her his G.I. Joe collection. "I have ones that say like Marine and SWAT. And then that's where I keep all the guns for 'em," he explained.

Adam was also proud to show off his toys. "This is one of my dolls. Bratz baby," he said.

Adam wears pinkish-purple nail polish, adorned with stars and diamonds.

Asked if he went to school like that, Adam says, "Uh-huh. I just showed them my nails, and they were like, 'Why did you do that?'"

Adam's behavior is called childhood gender nonconformity, meaning a child whose interests and behaviors are more typical of the opposite sex. Research shows that kids with extreme gender nonconformity usually grow up to be gay.

Danielle, Adam and Jared's mom, says she began to notice this difference in Adam when he was about 18 months old and began asking for a Barbie doll. Jared, meanwhile, was asking for fire trucks.

Not that much has changed. Jared's favorite game now is Battlefield 2, Special Forces. As for Adam, he says, "It's called Neopets: The Darkest Faerie."

Asked how he would describe himself to a stranger, Jared says, "I'm a kid who likes G.I. Joes and games and TV."

"I would say like a girl," Adam replied to the same question. When asked why he thinks that is, Adam shrugged.

"To me, cases like that really scream out, 'Hey, it's not out there. It's in here.' There's no indication that this mother is prone to raise very feminine boys because his twin is not that way," says Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern University and a leading researcher in the field of sexual orientation.

Bailey says he doesn't think nurture is a plausible explanation.

Psychologists used to believe homosexuality was caused by nurture - namely overbearing mothers and distant fathers - but that theory has been disproved. Today, scientists are looking at genes, environment, brain structure and hormones. There is one area of consensus: that homosexuality involves more than just sexual behavior; it's physiological.

Bailey and his colleagues set up a series of experiments in his lab at Northwestern University. In one study, researcher Gerulf Rieger videotaped gay and straight people sitting in a chair, talking. He then reduced them visually to silent black and white outlined figures and asked volunteers to see if they could tell gay from straight. The idea was to find out if certain stereotypes were real and observable.

Based on physical movement and gestures of the figures, more often than not, the volunteers in the study could tell a difference.

"So, is the conclusion that gay people do in fact move differently?" Stahl asked Rieger.

"Yeah, absolutely," he replied.

It's not true 100 percent of the time; it is true on average. The researchers also studied the way gay and straight people talk, and they found differences on average there too.

This research is controversial. Some say it is reinforcing stereotypes. But to Bailey, the stereotypes suggest there's a feminizing of the brain in gay men, and masculinizing in lesbians. Ironically though, when it comes to their sex lives, he says gay and straight men actually have a lot in common.

"Straight men tend to be shallow in terms of focusing on looks. Gay men are shallow, too. Straight men are more interested than straight women in having casual, uncommitted sex. Gay men are like that, too," says Bailey.

"One has the impression that gay men are much more inclined toward casual sex than straight men," Stahl said.

"They're just more successful at it, because the people they're trying to have sex with are also interested in it," Bailey explained.

"But don't you find this interesting that the one big area where gay men are more like straight men is in sex? I mean, that is…both amusing and odd," Stahl said.

"It suggests that whatever causes a man to be gay doesn't make him feminine in every respect. There must be different parts of the brain that can be feminized independently from each other," Bailey replied.

But how and when does this feminizing occur? If the differences were already apparent in childhood, that would point to an early, perhaps even genetic origin - and that's what Bailey and Rieger are testing in a new study using childhood home movies.

In the study, volunteers were asked to rate each child's femininity or masculinity. Stahl took the test and rated two girls highly feminine.

When shown video of a toddler girl running a truck off of a table, Stahl observed, "She's really not girly. Isn't that interesting? She's not girly."

She also observed differences in two boys, one of whom would grow up to be straight, while the other is now gay.

If you can spot a child's future sexual orientation before the child even knows he or she has one, doesn't that prove it's genetic? Studies have shown that homosexuality runs in families. So genes must be the answer. But then the researchers tell you identical twins can have different sexual orientations.

60 Minutes found identical twins Steve and Greg Lofts in New York. They had the same upbringing, have the same DNA - and yet Greg is gay and Steve is straight.

When people meet the twins and find out one of them is gay, Greg says people have asked if he's sure, and how it can be. "Everyone is curious about that," he says.

There were signs, even when they were little kids. Their mother told Stahl that Steve loved sports and the outdoors while Greg liked helping out in the kitchen. But it wasn't until high school that Steve became convinced Greg was gay.

Asked if he said anything to his brother, Steve says, "I did actually. And I think the way I worded it was something like, 'You know, Greg, if you're gay, it's OK with me. And I'll still love you the same.' And he gave a very philosophical answer. He said something like, 'Well, I love the soul of a person and not the physical being.' And in my mind, I was like, 'Yep, he's gay.'"

"I wasn't ready just yet," Greg added.

Does this prove that it's not genetic?

"What it proves is it's not completely genetic. They have the same genes," says Bailey.

Asked if that brings us back to the mother and the father, Bailey says no.

"But that's environment," Stahl said.

"That's environment. But that's not the only environment. There's also the environment that happens to us while we're in the womb. And scientists are realizing that environment is much more important than we ever thought it was," Bailey explained.

A newborn rat pup in the lab of Dr. Marc Breedlove at Michigan State University, may, oddly enough, hold important clues to what happens in the womb.

Dr. Breedlove says he can take a male rat and make it behave like a female for the rest of its life, and vice versa for a female, just by altering the hormones it's exposed to at birth. Because rats are born underdeveloped, that's roughly the same as altering a third-trimester human fetus in the womb. But first, he said, Stahl would need a crash course in rat sex.

Dr. Breedlove explained that male rats, including one he showed Stahl called "Romeo," will mount any rat that comes their way. In the mating process, the female performs something called lordosis, where she lifts her head and rump.

If Romeo goes after a male, Dr. Breedlove says the male will seem profoundly indifferent.

But Breedlove says he can change all that. He gave a female rat a single shot of the male sex hormone testosterone at birth. Now grown up, she will never perform lordosis.

But a male rat did. He was castrated at birth, depriving him of testosterone.

"So you created a gay rat?" Stahl asked.

"I wouldn't say that these are gay rats. But I will say that these are genetic male rats who are showing much more feminine behavior," he explained.

So the answer may be that it's not genes but hormones.

"That's exactly the question that we're all wondering. This business of testosterone having such a profound influence. Does that have some relevance to humans?" Breedlove said.

While biologists look at hormones for answers about human sexuality, other scientists are looking for patterns in statistics. And hard as this is to believe, they have found something they call "the older brother effect."

"The more older brothers a man has, the greater that man's chance of being gay," says Bailey.

Asked if that's true, Bailey says, "That is absolutely true."

If this comes as a shock to you, you're not alone. But it turns out, it's one of the most solid findings in this field, demonstrated in study after study.

And the numbers are significant: for every older brother a man has, his chances of being gay increase by one third. Older sisters make no difference, and there's no corresponding effect for lesbians. A first-born son has about a 2 percent chance of being gay, and the numbers rise from there. The theory is it happens in the womb.

"Somehow, the mother's body is remembering how many boys she's carried before," says Breedlove. "The favorite hypothesis is that the mother may be making antibodies when she sees a boy the first time, and then affect subsequent boys when she carries them in utero."

"You mean, like she's carrying a foreign substance?" Stahl asked.

"And if you think about it, a woman who's carrying a son for the first time, she is carrying a foreign substance," Breedlove replied. "There are some proteins encoded on his Y chromosome that her body has never seen before and that her immune system would be expected to regard as 'invaders,'" he added.

It's still not a proven theory and it gets even stranger.

"One of the things we've only found out lately is that older brothers affect a boy only if the boy is right-handed," Breedlove said. "If the boy is left-handed, if his brain is organized in a left-handed fashion, it doesn't matter how many older brothers he has, his probability of being gay is just like the rest of the population."

You can give yourself a headache trying to apply all the theories to real people. Greg and Steve Lofts both are right-handed, and they do have an older brother, so maybe that's why Greg is gay. But they also have several gay relatives, which suggests it could be in the genes, except where does that leave Steve?

Adam and Jared, fraternal twins, have older brothers, but they're ambidextrous.

Then there's the question of how something in the womb could affect one twin but not the other. There are many more questions at this point than answers, but the scientists 60 Minutes spoke to are increasingly convinced that genes, hormones, or both - that something is happening to determine sexual orientation before birth. Adam has come up with his own theory.

"I was supposed to be a girl in my mom's stomach. But my mom wished for all boys. So, I turned into a boy," Adam explained.

Asked if he wished he was a girl, Adam nodded.

"Do you think there was anything that you could have done that would have changed Adam?" Stahl asked Adam and Jared's mom Danielle.

"I could have changed Adam on the outside to where he would have showed me the macho boy that I would want as a boy. But that would not change who he is inside. And I think that would have damaged him a lot more," she said.

Stahl asked both boys if they are proud of the way they are, and both boys gave her big nods.

"Yup," Adam replied.

A useful basic typology of scientists can be found at pp. 258 - 260 of "Politicking and Paradigm Shifting: James E. McDonald and the UFO Case Study", a 1975 Phd. thesis by Paul McCarthy (doctor of philosophy in political science). It is, like Ann Druffel's Firestorm, a must-read for anyone interested in the serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon in general, and McDonald in particular (it can be found online here, courtesy of Project 1947).

The relevant excerpt:

"TYPES OF SCIENTISTS

Let us begin by assuming that not all scientists are equally political. For purposes of discussion they can be differentiated on the basis of the amount of political behavior they engage in, the issues they study, and the political tactics they use. This will enable us to talk about different types of scientists, issues, and tactics. Although this conceptual breakdown is lacking in precise operational determinants, it nonetheless is useful in taking an initial look at the phenomenon I am calling the personal politics of science.

It is assumed that all practicing scientists are political and that the apolitical scientist is a myth. This does not mean that all scientists are as political as McDonald, but it does imply that each in his own way initiates behaviors which are not part of the scientific method and yet are intended to further the scientists' research activities. If we are to accept the apolitical scientist concept we must believe that scientists exist who do not consider the social implications of their research and do nothing to foster their own professional interests except their work -- trusting solely in the community of scholars to reward them on the basis of merit. Because this entire line of reasoning appears counterintuitive there is no further discussion of such hypothetical individuals here.

TYPE I

However, three different types of scientists are suggested. The first type engages in average amounts of political behavior. That is, he is the normal scientist who does not attempt to wheel and deal in his discipline or pursue revolutionary breakthroughs. [1] He does his research on normal issues and where necessary employs normal political tactics to achieve his ends.

TYPE II

The second type of scientist takes part in above-average amounts of political behavior. He is one of the prolific members of his discipline and/or a scientific statesman. The former requires that he always has a book or an article "in press" and the latter that he sits on and organizes associational panels in his discipline and functions on the editorial boards of journals. In either case he is constantly tending to his own upwardly mobile interests within the scientific community. This individual gravitates toward "fashionable" topics of research that exist on the periphery of paradigms but which do not threaten the assumptions of the paradigms themselves. In so doing he utilizes considerably more in the way of normal political tactics to achieve his ends than our Type I scientist.

Within this category there is a subgroup which because of my value orientations I will call the "reactionary extremists." They are successful Type II scientists who take it upon themselves to use extreme tactics to do battle with Type III scientists over potentially revolutionary issues.

TYPE III

The Type III scientist, "the progressive extremist," unable to obtain satisfaction through labor in the vineyards of "normal science," is attracted to potentially revolutionary research areas. He focuses an enormous amount of political behavior on these topics and does not hesitate to bring extreme tactics into play. For the sake of a breakthrough he will venture to the borderlands of science in the hope of returning with a new view of reality.

The scientists of both polar persuasions, then, share several characteristics which seem aberrant and justify the label of extremist. Both the "progressive" and the "reactionary" are attracted to borderland areas of research. The former as an active iconoclast and the latter as an upholder of authority. Each in his own way exhibits traits which Rokeach has called dogmatic. Lastly, both groups are willing to substitute political tactics for the process of verification."

James McDonald, clearly, was a "progressive" Type III scientist. So too are people like Colm Kelleher, Stan Friedman, and Jacques Vallee. Eventually, J. Allen Hynek moved from being a Type II scientist to a Type III.

Stan's old classmate Carl Sagan was a Type II scientist using this model. I think the SETI leaders could also be described in this way, as could scientists like Michio Kaku, Peter Sturrock (photo at left) and Stephen Hawking.

Edward Condon was a type II scientist, but of the "reactionary" sub-group identified by McCarthy.

The point is that "Science" is not the monolithic entity that some within ufology like to portray it as being. While the majority of scientists probably fall into the Type I category, there are still plenty of Type II and Type III scientists around from whom a core group dedicated to the serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon could emerge - should a leader come forward with the vision of a James McDonald, the communications skills of a Carl Sagan, and the realism of a J. Allen Hynek. All three are needed in order to move forward.

This month, The Center for Inquiry and The Tallahassee Skeptics are seeking creative photographers and computer artists who can concoct the most convincing UFO photo that uses a Tallahassee landmark or building as a backdrop. The winner will receive $250 in cash. The faux-UFO photo also will be published in the Tallahassee Democrat.

It's one contest that actually encourages faking it.

"Nowadays, with Photoshop and other computer programs, it's really pretty easy to come up with credible-looking photos that are completely fake," said Bruce Thyer, a Florida State University professor and member of the Center for Inquiry. "We want (the contest photos) to look seamless - not a couple of kids with a fishing pole and a hubcap."

The Tallahassee Center for Inquiry and the Tallahassee Skeptics are interlocking groups that seek to expose hoaxes, quackery and urban legends.

Thyer used the example of a photograph that circulated on the Internet almost immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. The image depicted a smiling, waving tourist on top of a World Trade Center Tower at the moment the hijacked jets were crashing. It later proved to be a Photoshop-ed sham.

"There was a whole story going around about how they found a camera in the ashes and processed the film," Thyer said. "It was very touching at the time but ... none of it was true."

The UFO competition is intended to be more lighthearted.

"I thought it could be a fun way for a Boy Scout troop or a fraternity to pick up a little extra money," Thyer said.

The deadline to submit an 8-by-10-inch copy of the bogus photo via the U.S. Postal Service is April 1.

"That date was deliberately chosen," Thyer said.

Contestants are asked to write and sign a letter explaining how they set up, carried out and manipulated the UFO photo.

For an entry form, e-mail bthyer@fsu.edu or visit www.centerforinquiry.net/tally/

Thyer recommends visiting www.csicop.org/si/2003-09/faking-ufo-photos.html for tips on fooling the viewer.

In one memory test, long-time uses remembered seven of 15 words, on average. Non-users remembered 12 of 15. On a decision-making test, those who had rarely smoked pot had impaired performance 8 percent of time, while long-term tokers had 70 percent impairment.

The results are detailed in the March 14 issue of the journal Neurology.

The study involved 64 people age 17 to 49 selected from a larger study group. They were split into three groups: those who had smoked four or more joints per week for more than 10 years; those who'd been smoking for five to 10 years; and those who had smoked at least once but not more than 20 times and not at all in the past two years.

The middle group consistently scored in between the other two.

"We found that the longer people used marijuana, the more deterioration they had in these cognitive abilities, especially in the ability to learn and remember new information," said Lambros Messinis of the Department of Neurology at the University Hospital of Patras in Patras, Greece.

A separate study in Neurology last year found higher blood flow velocity in the marijuana users even a month after they stopped smoking. Researchers said the change could help explain other studies that have revealed memory problems in pot smokers.

A Harvard Medical School study in 2003 found lasting memory impairment in people who had started smoking marijuana before age 17, when the brain is still forming.

And research published in November indicated that heavy marijuana use might put adolescents who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia at greater risk of developing the brain disorder.

Some 3.1 million Americans age 12 and older use marijuana daily or almost daily, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In 2004, 5.6 percent of 12th graders reported daily use of marijuana.