DHS Secretary Used Asteroid Scare for Real Estate Fraud, Mistress Claims

October 28, 2029—Homeland Security Secretary Marshall Lawe joined the scheme to fraudulently evacuate the planet in order to help enrich a California businesswoman with whom he was having an extra-marital affair, FU has learned.

Federal investigators have uncovered Lawe’s role in the scam after questioning Sela House, an Orange County real estate mogul who admitted beginning a romantic relationship with Lawe in 2027.  House admitted in an affidavit that she and Lawe volunteered to help NASA and the Pentagon perpetuate the asteroid-plummeting-toward-Earth hoax so that they could manipulate housing values. A copy of the affidavit was leaked to FU.

Lawe is the second top-ranking federal official to be implicated in the Apocalypse-gate scheme, joining NASA Administrator Cy Phiphan, who resigned under fire on Monday.  Republican lawmakers are calling on Attorney General Beau Biden to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the scandal.
 
According to the affidavit, Lawe and House knew the reports about the coming end of the world would send real estate prices plummeting as people abandoned the planet to avoid annihilation from what they were told was an incoming asteroid.  The lovers then planned to buy up real estate across the country, and wait for the value of those holdings to soar once NASA reported the asteroid scare as a false alarm.

Lawe declined comment on the matter.  A spokesman at the Homeland Security Department he is at home in Philadelphia asking forgiveness from his wife, Dee Vohrse-Lawe.

NASA Chief Resigns As Apocalypse Scandal Broadens

November 2, 2029—NASA Administrator Cy Phiphan resigned today as allegations mounted about his leading role in the end-of-the-world fraud scheme that sent billions of people fleeing the planet.

While denying that he engaged in any intentional conspiracy to defraud the world, Phiphan said he needed to devote full attention to clearing his name and wanted to avoid bringing down the presidency of Angelina Jolie.

“While it’s clear my earlier warnings about a massive asteroid approaching the planet were incorrect, they were based on innocent miscalculations on the part of NASA scientists,” he said. “I am guilty only of incompetence.”

Phiphan’s decision stems from an FU investigation showing that he spearheaded the massive government scheme to concoct the asteroid story in order to steer lucrative contracts to LockMartin Corp. for the construction of planetary evacuation ships.  LockMartin allegedly agreed to pay kickpacks to Phiphan and numerous government officials in exchange for the contract award.

President Jolie issued a statement saying she deeply regretted losing Phiphan as a member of her administration.

“Cy has been a devoted NASA leader, and had the planet’s best interest at heart throughout this crisis … which, uh, I guess turned out not to be a crisis after all … but if it were, we would have been in good hands,” she said. “He is a fine, albeit stupid, American.”

But FU has learned that the Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into the scandal, after confirming that the plummeting space rock caught on satellite video was in fact a LockMartin-constructed spacecraft built in the shape of an asteroid.  Documents leaked by a LockMartin whistleblower indicate that company executives conspired with NASA officials to build the ship so they had images to back up their story about the asteroid.  The FTC is investigating the matter because a Seattle-based space travel company charged consumers $100,000 per ticket to take tours aboard the disguised craft.

Apocalypse-gate Sparks Riots Worldwide

October 27, 2029—Law enforcement authorities and military troops are trying to quell rioting that has erupted in cities all over the world following news that Earth is in no danger of being destroyed by an asteroid after all.

Protests, street-fighting and looting have spread from Moscow to Los Angeles to Sydney as people demand that the United States account for what is now being called “Apocalypse-gate.”  Rioting also broke out on the Moon, where many people relocated to avoid annihilation by the asteroid.

“People are angry about being misled into thinking it was OK to make some reckless decisions,” said William Clubb, a London policeman.  “They drank and ate to excess, had unsafe sex and quit paying their bills because they figured they had nothing to lose.  Now that they know the world is safe, they have to actually account for those behaviors.”  

FU reported on Monday that top NASA, Pentagon and Homeland Security officials concocted the story about an asteroid heading on a collision course with Earth as part of a complex kickback scheme involving defense contractor LockMartin Corp.  Our investigation also revealed that the recent news about aliens entering our solar system was also false.

The asteroid scare has cost the world trillions of dollars, sent U.S. housing values tumbling below $0 and led to severe overcrowding in lunar refugee camps. About 65% of Earth’s inhabitants have left the planet.
 
The federal agencies late yesterday issued a joint statement denying the facts in the FU story, acknowledging that the planet is in no danger from asteroids or aliens, and that its earlier warnings were based on faulty—but not fraudulent—calculations.

“We simply mistook smudges on a telescope lense as being a plummeting space rock and an alien spaceship,” the agencies stated. “And we mistook some voice traffic between the Moon and Earth as a communique from approaching aliens.  It was all very innocent.”    

NASA officials had released what they said were images of the extra-terrestrials, who resembled the Geico insurance company’s gecko. But forensic analysis of those pictures have revealed them to be fake.

Meanwhile, Geico filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in federal against NASA, claiming the agency used its old spokeslizard without authorization.