Science: Star on Alabama

The small town of Sylacauga, Ala., about 40 miles south of Birmingham, was enjoying its noontime peace under a blue sky. In the living room of her one-story frame house, Mrs. Ann Elizabeth Hodges, a pleasant, plump housewife of 32, was napping on a sofa. She was lying on her side, covered with two quilts, one hand resting on her hip. Her mother, Mrs. Ida Franklin, was sewing in the next room. Her husband, Hewlett, a telephone company tree surgeon, was away at work.

Suddenly, across the noonday sky from west to east, swept a...