The discovery of the association with normal galaxies of peculiar, high-redshift companions made it clear that most of the excess redshifts of these smaller galaxies must be of nonvelocity origin. In contemplating the staggering problem this raises, it occurred to me that the magnitude of these excess redshifts might extend down to rather small amounts. On a macroscopic scale nature should not be discontinuous. Where would we look for examples of these smaller excess redshifts? The obvious answer is: in the wellknown companions of large, nearby galaxies. Therefore, in 1970, I looked at the redshifts of the long-accepted physical companions of the nearest large galaxies like M31 and M81. The companion redshifts were systematically greater! I remember feeling a sense of wonder that this obvious effect had gone unnoticed, and a little awe that the high excess redshift phenomenon had been supported in such an unexpected and unequivocal way by these systematic small excess redshifts.

The reason that this systematic redshift could not arise from a velocity (Doppler effect) is that these companions had long been accepted by all astronomers as belonging to the dominant galaxies. In that case they should be in orbit around these central galaxies and we should see on the average as many coming towards us (relative blueshifts) as going away from us (relative redshifts). If their mean velocities were away from us then these companions would be drifting away from the central galaxy and always just in the direction we happened to be looking.