Click here for a special offer. Click here for our free newsletter. They are trained to do stunts that make onlookers gasp. But last week it was air traffic controllers who watched in amazement as the Air Force's famed Thunderbird precision-flying pilots produced momentary chaos in the skies over the nation's capital. As their eight F-16s departed Andrews Air Force Base after an air show, the last four planes lost track of the first four.
Controllers think two invaded restricted airspace over the vice presidential mansion.
Controllers quickly told the pilot to climb to 6,000. Finally, over Virginia, the controllers herded all eight jets together for the remainder of their flight to Nevada. The cradle of Western civilization, scholars have long thought, developed 5,500 years ago. It was then, in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys of what is now Iraq, that villages evolved into the cities of Mesopotamia, the likes of Ur and Uruk. But last week came evidence that the cradle may be even older.