Why conjure up galactic spaceships when meteors were so common? — Robert Silverberg

The priest had once told Rosita Estancia that her younger brother Charley was a damned soul, and Charley had found out about it. In a way, he was rather flattered.

Evidently a lot of people were yelling “Flying saucer!” tonight, because the announcers were going to great pains to insist that it was nothing but a meteor.

If the Government was going to all this trouble to keep people calm, then there had to be something big to worry about. That much was axiomatic.