Jake peered at the thing in the crater. He wondered whether it could see him.

Two weeks before the crash, Jake was sitting at night in his lawn chair along Ludwig Road, swigging his vodka and orange juice in the summer heat, when he saw lights flickering over Smith Field. They were dim and bluish.

Jake once told his daughter that if she Googled “quiet resignation,” she’d find a picture of him. “I don’t know about the ‘quiet’ part,” she teased him.

The Allen County Homeland Security director made a point to drive past ITT Corp. around Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. ITT dresses up for patriotic holidays.

“Reporting for duty, sir,” the ITT engineer said with a smile. The base commander shook her hand. “Welcome to the 122nd Fighter Wing,” he said.

Chelsea had been sitting on the hood of her car in the parking lot at Northrop High School. She was tired, and her feet were sore; she wasn’t in marching band shape yet.

"Are these people nuts, or is there a flying saucer zipping around Fort Wayne?" The WOWO talk show host expected a flood of calls.

Not everybody was alarmed about UFO sightings over Fort Wayne. Bars and restaurants advertised alien specials on their signs. Radio DJs played the themes to “The X-Files” and “The Twilight Zone.

Jake’s phone rang. It was almost 3 a.m. He was still awake, of course, as always. He picked up the receiver, thinking it might be Cindy. She had been unnerved by the Parkview Field stampede.

The mayor knew he'd made a mistake booking his town-hall meeting at Anthis Career Center even before he saw the crowd. The auditorium holds 462 people, and every seat was taken more than an hour before the 6 p.m.

Jake turned off the broadcast of the town-hall meeting and asked his daughter to take him to the grocery store. Chelsea resisted at first, then gave in after inspecting the fridge.

The pilot of the F-16 Fighting Falcon radioed the base. He had spotted lights moving over Fox Island County Park. He was going in for a closer look. The plane swooped lower, and the lights rose higher.

Cars and trucks jammed Interstate 69, heading north and south out of town in a steady rain. Traffic was heavy on east-west routes, too.

National Guardsmen surrounded the barn off U.S. 24 east of Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne and Allen County police squads gathered behind them with bomb-sniffing dogs and an explosives ordnance disposal robot.

Cindy's ex-husband had suggested she stay at his house for a few nights. That way, she would be at Smith Field the next time the lights appeared.

Raymond sat on the edge of his bed. He recalled how excited he'd been when, as a child on Halloween, he saw the flying saucer in his grandfather's backyard on the south side of Fort Wayne.

Jake and Chelsea sat in lawn chairs in the driveway of his Ludwig Road home. They sipped lemonade. Yellow crime-scene tape stretched along the fences at Smith Field.