It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Super Suit With Jet Lag!

--It’s a plane! It’s a bird! It’s a suit! That’s what flashed through the mind of John Pilcher when he saw the object floating down out of the sky near Raleigh, N.C. “I hesitated to tell anybody about what I saw,” said Pilcher, field sales manager for a Charlotte, N.C., chemical and dye company. “I guess they would have thought I’d been drinking early in the morning.” Pilcher added: “I’ve been traveling since 1964 and I’ve never seen anything like that.” The clothing belonged to lobbyist John R. Jordan Jr., who was flying in a twin-engine corporate jet when a rear window blew out. “It was just as though something had hit the plane,” he said. “There was a loud noise like an explosion. Wham! Then everything went flying out the porthole window.” The sudden decompression of the cabin sucked three suit and dress bags, business papers, coffee cups and magazines out the small window. The pilot landed safely at the Raleigh-Durham airport.

--Karen Cosentino, a grocery checkout clerk from Lodi, N.J., packed her way to victory in the Great East Coast Paper Grocery Sack Pack-Off in New York. Cosentino, 32, whizzed past 17 finalists to quality for the national pack-off against a West Coast finalist later this year.

--Like a Hells Angel from Wall Street, millionaire adventurer Malcolm Forbes roared into the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on his Harley-Davidson, bringing his whole roadshow, including two trucks transporting a giant elephant-shaped hot-air balloon. “We’re here to have a hell of a good time while we learn about this country,” said Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine. He plans to give balloon rides to government officials, but he also has business meetings scheduled. Balloonist Forbes, 65, said he chose the elephant-shaped balloon from his collection because “it’s a good-natured creature with a twinkle in its eyes and has a way of communicating with people.” Forbes will move on to the city of Johor Baharu Thursday, where he plans to meet with Sultan Mahmood Iskandar and offer him a balloon ride. “He might enjoy riding an elephant. I don’t think he’s done that before.” Forbes’ good-will tour also will take him to Singapore, Brunei and Thailand.