After a series of bright, meteorlike objects had shone in Middle Western skies, and cops picked up a 20-lb. piece of hot steel on a quiet Wisconsin street, word got out that a Soviet Sputnik had broken up above the U.S. The steel was rushed to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge. Mass., where a 6-lb. piece was cut off. The rest went to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico to be tested for radioactivity. Last week, skeptics, who had all along suspected a hoax, got an official disappointment: the steel really came from a Sputnik.
First report was from Los...
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