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135 picked up the story from newspapers or the wire services, resulting in broadcasts such as the one heard by Hughie Green and one of the authors. In the aftermath of the crashes, studies were begun by the U.S. Army Air Forces which were aimed at learning if the saucers were real and, if so, what they were, where they were from, who was flying them, and so on. But if wreckage (not to say bodies) had already been retrieved and seen to be so far from the norm that their extraterrestrial origin was obvious, why was anyone bothering with studies that had already been superseded? The Eisenhower briefing paper suggests an answer, as does the fact that the matter would unquestionably have been very highly classified. "These [flying saucer] reports resulted in in- dependent efforts by several different elements of the military to ascertain the nature and purpose of the objects," the paper says. Could it have been that while the supersecret "saucer crash office" was fully aware of the nature of the saucers, it had to keep its information secret even from other parts of the Army Air Forces? The next indication of Washington's awareness of and con- cern for what was happening came on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 8. At Eighth Air Force Headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, the phone rang in the office of Col. (later Brig. Gen.) Thomas J. DuBose, chief of staff to Eighth Air Force Commander Gen. Roger Ramey. At the other end was Gen. Clemence McMullen, calling from Washington. He ordered Colonel DuBose to tell (not to ask) General Ramey to send some of the material imme- diately to Washington and to hush up any stories about the army recovering a crashed flying saucer by concocting a cover story to "get the press off our backs." "Do you understand me, Colonel?" "Yes, sir!" DuBose replied. DuBose quickly passed the word to his boss, General Ramey, and as soon as the four-engined bomber arrived from Roswell Army Air Field with its load of debris ("about half a B-29 full," according to Maj. Jesse Marcel), Ramey took over. He ordered THE GREAT COVER-UP