IT WAS A strange assignment.
I picked up the telegram from my desk and read it a third time.
NEW YORK, N. Y., MAY 9, 1949
HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATING FLYING SAUCER MYSTERY. FIRST
TIP HINTED GIGANTIC HOAX TO COVER UP OFFICIAL SECRET.
BELIEVE IT MAY HAVE BEEN PLANTED TO HIDE REAL ANSWER.
LOOKS LIKE TERRIFIC STORY.
CAN YOU TAKE OVER WASHINGTON END?
KEN W. PURDY, EDITOR, TRUE MAGAZINE
I glanced out at the Potomac, recalling the first saucer story. As a pilot, I'd
been skeptical of flying disks. Then reports had begun to pour in from Air
Force and airline pilots. Apparently alarmed, the Air Force had ordered
fighters to pursue the fast-flying saucers. In one mysterious chase, a pilot
had been killed, and his death was unexplained. That had been seventeen
months ago. Since then, the whole flying-saucer riddle had been hidden
behind a curtain of Air Force secrecy.
And now, an assignment from True magazine on flying saucers.
Twenty-four hours later, I was in Ken Purdy's office.
"I've had men on this for two months," he told me.
"I might as well warn you, it's a tough story to crack."
"You think it's a Russian missile?" I asked him. "Or an Air Force secret?"
"We've had several answers. None of them stacks up. But I'm positive one
was deliberately planted when they found we were checking."
;)
