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Helen Brooke

OXFORD BOOKWORMS 2
Helen Brooke

O xford Bookworm s
Factfiles

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce photographs:
Aquarius Picture Library p 18 (Independence Day/Twentieth Century Fox); Fortean Picture Library pp 5 (Hub Corn crash
site/Dennis Stacy), 8 (Socorro, New Mexico/Peregrine Mendoza), 9 (Roswell Army Air Field/Dennis Stacy), 13 (Heber,
Arizona/Peregrine Mendoza, Travis Walton/Dennis Stacey), 16 (Hoax UFO, Albuquerque UFO/Paul Villa); The Kobal
Collection pp 17 (Close Encounters of the Third Kind), 19 (Alien); Mary Evans Picture Library p 12 (Flying
Saucer/Michael Buhler); The Moviestore Collection pp 17 (E.T.), 18 (The X-Files); Popperfoto pp 7 (Major Jesse
Marcel/AFP Photo), 10 (De Havilland jet/KPS), 11 (radar operator), 15 (UFO with landing spheres), 16 (lights flying in
formation); Science Photo Library pp 1 (Sombrero Galaxy/NOAO), 2 (Tunguska damage/Novosti Press Agency),
3 (Meteor Strike/Victor Habbick), 4 (William W. Brazel and his wife/Peter Menzel), 6 (Roswell Incident/David Hardy),
9 (replica of an alien/Peter Menzel), 15 (Roswell aliens/Peter Menzel); Topham Picturepoint pp 9 (security
guard/Mulvehill, The Image Works), 15 (B-2 Stealth bomber).
1 UFOs and aliens
In 1897, something very strange
happened in the town of Aurora,
Texas. Children playing in a field
saw a strange ‘ship’ fly over and
then crash into a farm building.
Men ran to the crash and found
just one alien in the ship - dead.
They put the alien under the
ground - and, if the story is true,
he is still there, somewhere under
Aurora.
1

Since 1897, thousands of people


have said that they have seen
strange flying spaceships -
Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs.
Others say that they have seen aliens
from these UFOs, and a few people
even say that they have travelled in
UFOs. Are their stories true?
N obody knows. All we can do is
look at the stories. Read them and
decide for yourself if they are true.

•%.
2

2 Tunguska: meteor or UFO?


Other people heard,
or felt, the explosion,
too. The famous
Trans-Siberian
Railway, is more
than a thousand
kilometres away from
Tunguska. A train
y&x. driver heard the explosion
Tunguska: a photograph taken in 1910 and felt the ground move under his
train. People in the town of Irkutsk,
Siberia is one of the coldest and over twelve hundred kilometres
emptiest places on Earth. For away, also felt the explosion.
hundreds of kilometres there are M any people thought that the
only trees, rivers, and wild animals. explosion was a meteor. Hundreds
On 30 June, 1908, the people of of meteors come near the Earth
Nizhne-Karelinsk, a small village in every year. They usually burn up
Tunguska, saw a line of fire cut before they come down, but
across the sky. It was blue-white in sometimes they hit the ground. If
colour, and moved slowly down the explosion in Tunguska was a
the sky for about ten minutes. meteor, it was a very big one - and
When it hit the ground, they saw the Earth was very lucky. Nobody
black smoke, and then heard a died at Tunguska - the nearest
terrible noise. The ground moved, people were a long way away. If a
and they were very, very meteor like the Tunguska meteor hit
frightened. Nizhne-Karelinsk is Moscow, London or New York
three hundred kilometres from the millions of people could die.
centre of the Tunguska explosion. Tunguska was very difficult to get
to in 1908. Some
newspapers wrote about
the explosion, but no
scientists went there.
The first scientist to go
there was Leonid Kulik,
in 1927. He found
thousands of trees, lying
flat on the ground for
twenty or thirty
kilometres around If a meteor hit Moscow, London or New York . . .
the explosion.
Kulik also found some big holes There are some other strange
in the ground; perhaps pieces of things about the Tunguska
meteor made them. But after four explosion. M ore than a thousand
visits to Tunguska Kulik found people watched the line of fire in the
nothing in any of the holes. Was sky. M ost of them said that it fell
there a meteor? If not, w hat made tow ards Lake Baikal. Then it turned
the holes? and moved away from the lake.
In 1938, scientists flew over A meteor doesn’t turn when it is
Tunguska in an aeroplane. They falling.
wanted to find the big hole in the Scientists visiting the centre of the
centre, where the biggest piece of explosion also found that some of
meteor hit the ground. Like Kulik, the trees were growing very, very
they saw the trees lying on the fast. And they found some strange
ground, but also something very insects; there are insects living near
strange. In the middle of the dead the centre of the explosion that live
trees, there was no hole; the trees nowhere else on Earth.
at the centre of the explosion were Was the Tunguska explosion a
standing up - and they were alive. meteor? O r was it a very big UFO?
4

3 Roswell: the aliens arrive


Roswell is just a small About a hundred
town in New Mexico. kilometres north-west of
But it is also the centre Roswell is the small town
of perhaps the most of Corona; William
famous UFO story. The ‘M ac’ Brazel had a sheep
story begins in the ranch here. On the night
evening of 2 July, 1947. It of July 2, there was a
was a fine, warm, evening, terrible storm, and during the
many people were outside - and storm, Brazel heard an explosion.
several of them saw something very Perhaps it was thunder, perhaps not.
strange. Dan W ilmot was one of The next morning, after the
these people, and later storm, Brazel went out
he described what he to look around his
and his wife saw from ranch. He wanted to
their front garden. see his sheep; they can
They saw get very frightened in a
something big and storm. Brazel found
bright flying from the 'Mac' Brazel and his wife something very strange
south-east. It was many years after the crash that morning, in a field
round and bright, about eight kilometres
with light coming from the inside. south of his ranch house.
Wilmot thought it was perhaps five In this field he found hundreds of
or six metres across, and was flying strange pieces of metal. There was a
at about 750 kilometres an hour. It long hole, perhaps a hundred metres
flew over them, and then away to long, cut into the ground, and the
the north-west. Other people saw metal was in and around this hole.
something very like this on the Some pieces were long and thin,
same evening. others were larger, and flat, like
UFOs 5

paper - but all the pieces were very


strong, but light. Brazel could not
break or burn them. Some of the
long pieces had strange ‘picture
writing’ on them.
Brazel was very busy on the
ranch that day and Roswell was a
three hour drive away. He picked
up some of the pieces, but he did
not take them into Roswell until The crash happened here
Sunday, 6 July. Sheriff George
Wilcox looked at the pieces of
metal and decided that this was
something for the army.
There was a big army air base at
Roswell, and Wilcox thought that
if something came out of the sky,
it probably came from there. He
telephoned the base, and M ajor
Jesse M arcel came to look at the
debris. M arcel and another army Visitors to the crash site
man, Captain Cavitt, decided to go
back to Brazel’s ranch with him. television about the day. He
The three men arrived at the remembered that all the debris was
ranch late in the evening, and went very light and very strong, and, like
to see the field early the next Brazel, he remembered strange
morning. The two army men were ‘writing’. He was sure that the
surprised and excited when they debris did not come from an
saw the debris. Marcel died in aeroplane. For a minute he thought
1982, but in 1979 he talked on that perhaps it came from a
6 UFOs

weather balloon. The army sent night, but he woke up his wife and
these balloons very high up into son. Tie wanted to show them the
the air to look at wind and debris. His son, Jesse Junior, was
temperature, and they sometimes eleven at the time. He still
crashed near Roswell. But after a remembers the strange pieces of
few minutes, Marcel was sure that metal and the ‘picture w riting’.
this was not a balloon. ‘This came The American government had a
to Earth, but it did not come from ‘Foreign Technology Division’, in
Earth,’ he said. Dayton, Ohio. The scientists here
The three men put some of the looked at planes from other
debris into M arcel’s car and countries and tried to learn about
Cavitt’s Jeep, and the army men them. During the Second World War
returned to Roswell. Marcel the planes were often German or
stopped at home on the way to the Japanese. In 1947 they were usually
base. It was the middle of the Russian. For the people at Roswell,

An artist's drawing o f the Roswell crash


UFOs 7
the debris was certainly foreign. So to learn its secrets.
the army decided to send it to Before flying to Ohio, The B-29,
Dayton - the scientists there could carrying Marcel and the debris,
look at it. They put the debris on a landed at Fort Worth, Texas. Here,
B-29 plane. the army invited newspapers and
Newspapers and radio stations radio stations to see the debris.
all over the world were now General Ramey, the head of the
talking about the strange ‘saucer’ army in Fort Worth, explained that
in New Mexico, and somebody in the saucer story was a mistake.
the American government decided The debris was from a weather
that it had to stop. Nobody knows balloon. The newspaper men took
why. Perhaps the debris was from some photographs of M ajor
a new, and secret American plane. M arcel with the debris.
O r perhaps the debris was from a The debris in these photographs
UFO - and the government wanted was from a weather balloon, and
A newspaper
the newspapers believed Ramey.
photograph There were no more stories about
o f Marcel flying saucers.
with the
'debris'
M arcel was an expert in planes
and balloons. If the debris at
Brazel’s ranch was a weather
balloon, why did he say it was not
from this Earth? Why did he want
to take it to Dayton, Ohio?
After he left the army, Marcel
said that the debris in the Fort
W orth photographs was not the
debris he picked up near
Roswell. But where is the real
debris? Nobody knows.
8

4 Socorro: dead aliens?


In early June 1947, a group of
students, and their teacher, were
out in the Plains of San Agustin,
near Socorro. They were
archaeologists and they were
looking for things left by the
first people to live in New
Mexico, thousands of
years ago; but, if the
Socorro story is true, they found
something more modern.
M ost of the Roswell Like Brazel, they found
story is probably true. But debris on the ground. But
we do not know if the debris they also found a UFO - or
was from a secret American plane spaceship. The spaceship was on
or from an alien ‘saucer’. The the ground near a cliff. Perhaps it
Socorro story is different. M ost crashed into the cliff when it
people do not believe the story, but landed. N ear the spaceship were a
if it is true, it is certainly the number of dead aliens. They were
strangest UFO story of all. It is a small, like children, and had grey
story that ends at Area 51, which is space-suits.
at the centre of the famous film, After a few minutes some soldiers
Independence Day. arrived. They asked the
Socorro is about two hundred archaeologists to leave - and told
kilometres west of Roswell. It is them that they must say nothing
about a hundred kilometres from about the spaceship or the aliens.
Corona, where, Brazel found the But some people have talked
debris on his ranch. about w hat they saw that day. In
UFOs 9
some stories, the aliens were not
dead, but died soon after. (There is
even a film of one of the aliens;
but most experts believe that the
film is not real.)
The army took the aliens to
Roswell army base, and a number
of people say that they saw the
dead aliens there. If the story is
true, the aliens then went to Roswell army base:
Washington, where President did they take the aliens here?

Truman saw them, and they, and ears, and no teeth. They had no
their strange spaceship, then went hair, short legs and four fingers on
to Dayton. Certainly a number of each hand.
people who worked at the ‘H angar If the story is true, both the
18’ building at Dayton say that aliens and their spaceship are now
they saw the spaceship there. They at the secret ‘Area 51’ in Nevada.
also saw dead aliens. Some
people saw two, some
as many as thirty.
They were small
(about one metre
thirty centimetres
tall), thin, with
large heads and
large round eyes,
small mouths and
An artist's model
o f one o f the aliens
10

5 Bentwaters: UFOs in the air


In 1956, Bentwaters air base, in
Suffolk, England, was used both Bentwaters went to see w hat was
by the US Air Force and by the happening, but didn’t find
British Royal Air Force. The two anything. The strange objects
air forces used radar to watch the moved north, sometimes stopping
sky for about fifty kilometres and then moving on.
around the base. On 13 August, Then, a few minutes later, at ten
the Bentwaters radar saw o’clock, another object went
something flying very fast. It came across the radar screen - again at
onto the radar over the sea, more than 7,000 kilometres
about forty kilometres an hour. Then everything
from the base. In a few was quiet - for the next
seconds it was over the fifty minutes.
base, and after about At 10.55, another
thirty seconds it object went across the
disappeared to the west. screen at between 4,000
Airman John Vaccare was and 6,000 kilometres an
watching the radar all the time. hour. This time, people at the air
He noted a speed of 7,000 base saw a bright light go from
kilometres an hour - much faster west to east at about 1,000 metres
than any aeroplane. above the ground. The pilot of a
A few minutes later the C-47 plane flying near the base
watchers saw about fifteen strange saw the light go under his plane.
objects on the radar. This time the The Bentwaters radar operators
objects moved together slowly (at sent a message to Fakenheath air
about 150 kilometres an hour), base, nearly a hundred kilometres
from the south-east to the north­ to the north-west. They wanted to
west. An aeroplane from know if Fakenheath could see the
11

its own radar,


An RAF de Havilland Venom and by midnight the pilot could see
‘a bright white light’. It was not
UFOs. Sergeant Perkins, and four moving, and the aeroplane flew
other radar operators were nearer. Suddenly, the UFO
surprised, and did not really disappeared, only to appear behind
believe the Bentwaters operators. the Venom. For ten minutes the
But it was a quiet night, they had UFO followed the Venom, and then
nothing im portant to do, so they stopped again. Then the Venom lost
started to watch carefully. And at the UFO and returned to
11.05 things started to happen. W aterbeach. The Lakenheath radar
The first object was about forty operators followed the object north
kilometres south-west of for about a hundred kilometres
Lakenheath and it was not before it disappeared.
moving. After five minutes it
moved, at about 800-1,000 Radar operators
kph, to about thirty
kilometres north-west of
Lakenheath. Then it
stopped again. For about
half an hour it moved,
stopped, for three or four
minutes and then moved on
again. At 11.50 an RAF de
Havilland Venom took off
from Waterbeach air base.
Its job: to find the UFO.
The RAF Venom quickly
12

6 Visiting the aliens


A lot of people say that they have
seen UFOs. Other people say they
have been inside them. N ot all of
these stories are true; some of
them are probably dreams. But
some stories of meetings with
aliens sound true - although we
can never be sure. One of the best
stories is Travis W alton’s.
It was the early evening of 5
November, 1975, and Walton and
six other men were driving home
together to the small town of
Heber, Arizona. Suddenly, one of
the men saw a strange light
through the trees. At first they Travis Walton and the UFO:
thought it was a crashed a painting by one o f his friends

aeroplane, but when they stopped


they saw that it was a flying out of the UFO and hit Walton.
saucer. It was about six or seven He flew about three metres back,
metres across, and gave off a and fell to the ground. This was
strange light. enough for the other six men.
Walton jumped out of the truck, They drove off as fast as possible
and started to walk towards the in the truck.
saucer, hiding behind the trees as After a few minutes the six men
he walked. The other men stayed decided to return and help Walton.
in the truck, too frightened to When they got back, they saw the
move. Suddenly a green light came saucer fly off into the sky. They
13

The road
outside Heber: About midnight on 10
when Walton November (five days later) the
returned he
phoned home
telephone rang in Grant Neff’s
from here house. Grant was W alton’s
brother-in-law.
‘It’s me, Travis. Can you come
and get me? I’m at the Exxon gas
looked through the trees for some station in Heber.’
time, but Walton was not there so Grant, and W alton’s brother
they decided to go to the police. Duane drove to the gas station
The police, of course, did not and found Walton. He was tired
believe them. At first they thought and hungry - and he didn’t know
that Walton was dead, and that that it was five days later.
the six men were his killers. W alton’s story is a strange one,
Finally, the six men had to have but he, too, had a polygraph test.
a lie detector or polygraph test, After the green light hit him,
to see if their story was true. Walton went to sleep. He woke up
The polygraph said that it was. on a bed. For a minute he thought
The police looked in the forest that he was in hospital. Then he
for days, but they found nothing. saw that the walls were metal, and
UFOs

that the people around him were his head. W alton ran up to him,
not human. They were small talking and asking questions. The
(about 1.60 metres), with large man did not answer, but smiled
heads and no hair. He was not in a and took W alton’s hand. Then he
hospital but on a spaceship! took Walton back into the
Walton jumped off the bed; he passage. A door opened in front of
wanted to escape. He pushed into them and they walked outside.
one of the aliens - it felt very soft They were inside a very big
- and picked up a long piece of building. The man took Walton
metal. To his surprise, the aliens past two or three more flying
ran out of the room. saucers, and into a small room.
Carefully, Walton pushed open Here, there were two more human
the door and looked out of the men and a wom an, with the same
room. There was a long passage clothes and helmets. Again W alton
outside. He walked quietly along asked questions, and again nobody
the passage, looking for a door. answered. Instead they put him in
The first door went into a a chair. W alton was now very
circular room, about five metres frightened again, and he was more
across, with a high, round, ceiling. frightened when the woman
In the centre of the room was a picked up a black mask and put it
chair, and when Walton moved over his face.
towards it, the room got darker. When he woke up again he was
Now, on the walls and ceiling lying on the road outside Heber.
Walton could see tiny lights - like He could see the lights of the
stars. Perhaps this was a map of flying saucer as it disappeared into
the stars. the sky.
Suddenly there was a noise We can be sure, from the
behind him. He turned, and saw a polygraph, that Walton and his
tall human wearing blue clothes, friends believe their stories are
with a glass or plastic helmet over true. Can they really be?
UFOs

7 Are they real?


UFOs sell
newspapers, and
many newspaper
men w ant to use
UFOs in their
stories. Because of
this, some people One o f Adamski's photographs
have taken hoax
photographs of UFOs
to sell. M any
scientists think that a Lockheed
all UFOs are Stealth Bomber

hoaxes. Certainly
there have been There are also
some very clever photographs of aliens.
hoaxes in the last A hoax photograph M any of these are
fifty years. o f aliens probably hoaxes
It’s easy to make a as well.
photograph of a UFO. You need a Sometimes people see strange
small model of a spaceship. You things in the sky, and they think
photograph this once, and then that they are UFOs. When experts
take another photograph of the look carefully at them they
place where you w ant people to sometimes discover that they are
see the UFO. There are many aeroplanes, balloons or even
photographs of UFOs taken by a meteors.
man called George Adamski. In the 1980s, the American
M any people now believe that government was building a secret
these are hoaxes. plane - the Stealth Bomber. They
16

Is it real?

A hoax photograph o f a UFO.


The UFO is on the window glass!

UFOs - or a reflection
in the lens o f the camera?

wanted this plane to be invisible something in the sky. W hen they


from the ground - so it was black. look at the photograph later, they
They also wanted it to be invisible see a UFO. Often, this is a
to radar; it was carefully made so reflection of light in the lens of the
that radar could not see it. But camera. There are even
some people did see these planes, photographs taken on the moon
and thought they were UFOs. which show UFOs. These are
The government, of course, said probably just reflections, although
nothing - it wanted to keep its some people think that they are
secret. aliens watching the spacemen.
Other photographs of UFOs M ost experts think that most
look like flying saucers, but are UFO stories are not real; but there
probably just birds. are still a few stories - like Roswell
Sometimes people have taken a and Bentwaters - which are very
photograph of a building or of difficult to explain.
8 UFOs and Hollywood

Hollywood has always been interested


in aliens, and some of its most famous
films have tried to show them.
When Steven Spielberg was making
the film Close Encounters o f the Third
Kind (1977), he listened to and read
about many ‘meetings’ with aliens. A
specialist in alien meetings, Dr J. Allen
Hynek, Director of the Center for UFO
Studies, helped with the story and even
played the part of a scientist in the film.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind


The aliens in the film are like the like Scott’s ever visiting Earth.
aliens many people describe; and The aliens in Independence Day
so is their spaceship. Another of (1996) are also dangerous. Like
Spielberg’s films, E.T. (1982) also Close Encounters o f the Third
showed an alien. Again the alien Kind, this film uses some of the
is small, like a child, and has big most famous alien stories. In the
eyes. E.T. has to live on Earth for film, the American President visits
a time before returning home. Area 51 to see the spaceship and
Ridley Scott’s film, Alien aliens who landed at Roswell. The
(1979), showed an alien that is aliens in the film don’t look like
nothing like those that people the aliens many people have
have described on Earth. There are described - they are much more
no descriptions of dangerous aliens frightening. The film says that
Mulder and Scully Alien

scientists at Area 51 have


secretly studied the aliens and
their spaceship for fifty years.
M ulder and Scully, the two
main people in television’s The
X Files, also often meet aliens
in their stories. In the 1950s
there was a real Scully -
a newspaper man who wrote a
book about the Roswell aliens.
M any people believe the stories
in The X Files and other films.
Do you?
20

Exercises
A Checking your understanding

Pages 1-3 Write answers to these questions.


1 How many aliens died at Aurora?
2 Why did it take a long time for people to visit Tunguska?
3 Where did Kulik think he could find pieces of the meteor?
4 Can you write two strange things about the Tunguska explosion?
Pages 4-9 Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?
1 ‘M ac’ Brazel was the first person to see something strange on 2 June.
2 Brazel took the debris to Roswell the next day.
3 Marcel and Cavitt went to see the debris with Brazel.
4 Brazel went to Fort W orth with the debris.
5 There was strange writing on some of the debris.
6 The newspaper men believed the debris was from a weather balloon.
Pages 10-14 H ow much can you remember? Check your answers.
1 W hat time of day did Travis see the spaceship?
2 How many men were with him when he saw the UFO?
3 How big was the UFO?
4 Did the police believe Travis’s friends’ story?
5 How many days passed before Travis returned?
Pages 15-19 Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)?
1 Some UFOs are probably planes.
2 The Stealth Bomber was a UFO.
3 The alien in the film Alien is like the aliens people saw at Socorro.
4 M ulder and Scully were real people who worked at Area 51.
UFOs

B Working with language

1 Use these words to join the sentences together,


because but when where
1 Some people believe the Tunguska explosion was a UFO.
It turned before it hit the ground.
2 On Brazel’s ranch there was a long hole in the ground. The UFO crashed.
3 M arcel was very surprised. Fie saw the debris on Brazel’s ranch.
4 Some people believe that the soldiers found dead aliens at Socorro.
M ost people think it is not true.
2 Put these sentences in the right order. Then check your answer with page 14.
1 He turned, and saw a tall hum an wearing blue clothes, with a
glass or plastic helmet over his head.
2 In the centre of the room was a chair, and when Walton moved
towards it, the room got darker.
3 Perhaps this was a map of the stars.
4 Suddenly there was a noise behind him.
5 Walton went into a circular room, about five metres across, with a
high, round, ceiling.
6 Now, on the walls and ceiling Walton could see tiny lights - like stars.
C Activities
1 Which stories (or parts of stories) in this book do you think are true?
Why?
2 Which stories (or parts of stories) in this book are impossible to believe?
Why?
3 If you saw a UFO would you go near it, like Travis Walton, or run away,
like his friends?
D Project work
Find another story about a UFO or aliens, perhaps near where you live.
Describe the story. Do you think it is true or not?
22

Glossary

alien a ‘person’ who is not from hoax something which is not true
Earth insect a small animal with six legs
balloon a ball filled with gas invisible if something is invisible
which can fly you cannot see it
base a place where soldiers live lens the front, glass, part of a
and work camera
ceiling the top of a room lie detector a machine that says if
cliff a very steep hill of rock a person is telling the truth
debris damaged pieces that are mask something you put over
left after an accident your nose and mouth
disappear go out of sight operator the person who uses a
dream you dream stories when machine
you are asleep passage a long room
escape a prisoner escapes when he radar radar can ‘see’ things a long
gets out of prison way away
expert a person who knows a lot ranch a very big farm
about something reflection light which comes off
explosion a very big ‘bang’ like a something like a mirror
bomb screen the front part of a
felt past tense of ‘feel’ television or computer
found past tense of ‘find’ space-suits clothes to wear in
frightened afraid spaceships
gas station where you buy gas or temperature heat or cold
petrol for a car thunder the noise made by
helmet a strong hat to protect lightning in a storm
your head truck a small lorry
UFOs
The night is dark. Suddenly, a light
appears, m oving across the sky. Then
another. And another. They are
travelling quickly. Very quickly. Are they
aeroplan es, or m eteors, or are they
som ething very strange? H ave these
unidentified flying objects come from
another planet?

T h is book does not answ er these


questions, but it does look at som e o f the
m ost fam ous UFO stories. D o you think
that they are true?

OXFORD BOOKWORMS FACTFILES give


im portant and interesting information to
the reader, m oving enjoyably tow ards
real reading in English. Each book has
been carefully graded to help the learner.

Cover photo: Fortean Picture Library


(UFO by Andy Radford/Tara Molloy)

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

9780194232036

STAGE 'I 700 HEADW O RDS

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