CHAPTER I

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.