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Clifford's subsequent report listed certain facts upon which all eye-witnesses to the Swedish "ghost rockets" had agreed: 1) the objects were shaped like cigars; 2) orange or green flames shot out of their tails; 3) they traveled at an altitude of between 300 to 1,000 meters; 4) their speed was about that of an airplane; 5) they made no noise, except, perhaps, a slight whistling. It may have been an Air Force officer who remembered the "foo fighters" who gave that order on July 26, 1952 to "Shoot them down!" when dozens of UFO's suddenly converged on Washington, D.C. Several prominent scientists, including Dr. Albert Einstein, protested the order to the White House and urged that the command be rescinded, not only in the name of future inter-galactic peace but also in the name of self-preservation. If Washington was about to host a group of extra-terrestrial space creatures, who had the ability to travel through space, they would certainly look upon an attack by primitive jet firepower as a breach of the universal laws of hospitality. The "shoot-'em-down" order was withdrawn on White House orders by five o'clock that afternoon. That night, official observers puzzled over the objects both on radar screens and with the naked eye, as the UFO's easily outdistanced Air Force jets, whose pilots were ordered to pursue the objects but to keep their fingers off their triggers. Although the Air Force was flippantly denying the Washington, D.C. flap within another 24 hours and attributing civilian saucer sightings to the usual causes of hallucinations, planets, and stars, the national wire services had already sent out the word that for a time the Air Force officials had been jittery enough to give a "fire at will" order. On May 15, 1954, Air Force Chief of Staff General Nathan Twining told his audience at Amarillo, Texas that the "best brains in the Air Force" were trying to solve the problem of the flying saucers. "If they come from Mars," Twining said, "they are so far ahead of us we have nothing to be afraid of." Somehow, the general's assurance that an ultra-ad-advanced culture would automatically be a benign or an uninterested one did little to calm an increasingly bewildered and alarmed American public. Then, just when important people were beginning to demand that the Air Force end its "policy of secrecy," the much-discussed Air Force Regulation 200-2 was issued to all Air Force personnel.