"...We received the number-three Dark Star from the Air Force Museum via a tremendous amount of help from Boeing Dark-Star engineer, Doug Buffett. I didn't know until today that Dark Star was a joint DARPA/Lockheed Martin/Boeing project.

"Dark Star arrived in the greater Seattle area on Friday, but we had to wait until this morning (08/23/04) to unload it. The trucker said it had to stay at a rest-stop in North Bend, WA, all weekend, and had so much fun telling all the dozens of curious on-lookers as to what it really wasn't. He told a good number of those who asked what it was, and where it came from; he said, "I believe it came from Roswell and one of them had crashed!". That really got the crowd going. Seattle's own UFO!

"The team, headed by Evan Elliott, Mark Smith, my son James (here on vacation), and a gaggle of other Museum staff, hauled the center-body up a flight-of-stairs (with the help of a big lift), and rolled it down to the "William and Moya Lear Gallery", where it will be displayed prior to being re-hung over the M/D-21. The wings were rolled in the front-door, and were attached via a lot of muscle-power. Doug said that the wings only weighed about 350 pounds, but most of us that lifted the wings would dispute that figure." -Jim