Static on Channel Nine

Eight minutes of static. A newsroom full of suspects. One inconvenient truth.

Era

Detroit, October 1974

Difficulty

Medium

Playtime

1h 30m

Rating

New

Detroit, 1974. A live news broadcast cuts to static mid-sentence. The anchor dies. The folder vanishes. The master tape is wiped. You have five suspects and fragments of evidence—now piece together what those eight minutes of silence were hiding.

Content advisory

Recommended 18+

Contains: depiction of homicide and crime-scene description · graphic violence and forensic detail.

Fictional case file · AI-generated and editorially reviewed

What is in the envelope

20–30 evidence documents

Police reports, witness statements, autopsy notes.

Period correspondence

Letters, telegrams, handwritten notes.

Pen-and-ink illustrations

Mugshots, crime scenes, evidence shots — period-appropriate.

5+ suspects

Each with motives, alibis, and red herrings.

A definitive solution

Sealed at the back — read only when you are ready.

What you will be solving

October 1974. The broadcast logs show it clearly: WJBN Channel Nine's six o'clock news begins at 18:00. Bert Halligan, the anchor, is live with a manila folder containing what he's promised will be an explosive story—a sitting councilman, river dock kickbacks, the kind of corruption that moves money and ruins people. At 18:08, the signal cuts to static. Fifteen minutes later, the studio doctor is calling it a coronary. But the evidence doesn't fit. The folder is gone—not lost, gone. The teleprompter operator abandoned his post and left through a side exit. Someone accessed the station's master tape and erased it, which means someone knew exactly what needed to disappear. The councilman Halligan was about to name has an alibi. Everyone else at WJBN that night—five people in or around that studio—does not. You're opening the cold case file now. Studio schedules. Witness statements. The fragment of what was recorded before the signal died. A newsroom where someone had motive, access, and eight minutes of static to hide behind. The pieces are here. Find what they're hiding.