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132 A monitoring/surveillance system extensive enough to do this kind of job had to be very expensive, and spending at this level (at least in those days) implies an exceptionally important purpose. It could not have been created overnight, on a whim. Obviously, something powerful must have convinced the presi- dent of the United States (Harry Truman or even Franklin D. Roosevelt) that it was absolutely essential to achieve total control of any new UFO crashes before word leaked out to the public. A few sightings reported in the newspapers or on radio, especially those from ordinary citizens, could hardly have led to the creation of such a system (though they might have activated one already in place). Nor could some sightings by airline or military pilots have catapulted government offi- cials straight from gross ignorance to total acceptance, be- cause the first flying saucer wave was barely two weeks old. For much of that time, the average citizen had been snickering over the reports, and sophisticated national leaders were no doubt laughing out loud. It had to be something much more tangible, more specific, and more impressive that convinced the Pentagon and the White House that instant action was vital. Something like an earlier crash whose wreckage had been recovered and studied by government scientists. Or proof of the unique and important nature of the World War II foo fighters, no official report of which has ever been released. Or some- thing discovered during the 1946 Swedish ghost rocket sight- ing wave. Remember, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle played a role in the American part of both these "proto-UFO" waves. As one of the most respected men in American official and scientific life, (he received the first Ph.D. in aeronautics) his opinions and advice would have carried great weight. And he had direct access to the White House. Whatever it was that impressed a lot of otherwise pretty blase high government officials with the unprecedented nature of what was flying around, it must have been hardware, bodies, or something else equally unambiguous. Some thick, hard-to- CRASH AT CORONA