4TH January 1974. The control room at Vandenberg air force base in California. Technicians and officers gaze out tensely at a Minuteman missile ready for firing, Numbers light up on telemetric equipment. The radar is on. The count down is running ...3...2...1...0. The Minuteman lifts off. The stages ignite according to plan. Everything is functioning perfectly,. The figures tumble past on the digital countersign the control room, providing data on height, speed and the state of the missile. The experts relax and follow the flight on their radar screens. A laser tracking device is switched on. A couple of officers follow the flight path with their filed glasses...Now the last stage ignites. The Minuteman’s flight path dips, according to plan. Everyone sees it, including the technicians, and the radar team at their screens. But suddenly it’s no longer there. The Minuteman has gone. Vanished, disappeared without a trace. There’s an astonished silence in the control room. Finally a bewildered voice says: ‘I don’t believe it!’ It’s not possible! The thing can’t just vanish into thin air’. The missile turned up again-not until three days later but in precisely the same spot where it had disappeared seventy two hours earlier.