Alton One: Chapter One

Mike Androve looked fixedly at the monitor.  He re-read the first paragraphs, leaned back in the chair, shook his head and smacked his blood stained hand on his brow.  "This can't be possible."

He beamed at the Shoreline Daily News that sat on the floor to his right, and above the banner in big bold lettering read, “UFO Spotted over Shoreline?” 

"Homeland Security Secretary Barton Leflow has officially denied the object seen by hundreds of Shoreline residents above the Eastern Skyline of Shoreline Lake as that of an unidentified flying object (UFO).  “What looks like a precarious object is simply a weather balloon.  That’s all it is.  It’s been confirmed.”

Could this really be true? Mike thought.  Aren’t U.S. officials SUPPOSED to deny  UFO sightings? Yet if what he says were true, then Lance Goodman’s latest blog entry has less credibility than a kid who says, “I didn’t do it!” when caught with his hands in the cookie jar. 

Under the banner was a picture that took up the rest of the entire front page, with old man Jared Stevens, looking every bit of 100 years, with his brown cowboy hat and red and blue corduroy shirt, pointing at an object in the clear blue sky. 

The object, ominous in all its glory, clearly looked like the prototypical UFO described by so many. It was shady, white, and if you looked real close you could make out the little dark windows around its circumference.  Yet it’s just a weather balloon?

The perspicuous caption under the picture read: "Jared Scott Jezer points to the ominous object over the Eastern sky above Shoreline Lake early Wednesday morning.” 

He read the brief story and all the related ones inside on page three and eight, several times each over the past couple hours, and he read the latest blog entry by Lance about a hundred times.  What did this all mean? 

He looked back up at the monitor of his laptop, and it had gone to sleep.  He clicked the spacebar and the blog, Alton One, reappeared on the screen.  The same UFO Jezer was pointing at in the paper was now in the header of Lance’s blog.  THAT was not there two minutes ago, was it?  Was it? 

No.  He was sure the Blogger header Lance had created had just a plain “Alton One” etched across it – no picture.  Someone had changed the header, and he knew who did it.  The question lingering was:  Does this mean Lance is a killer, or is something more going on?