Document transcript

Game Hammer (AI5-BE)

BACKGROUND:

The Smiley Carnival traveled throughout the eastern United States during the 1950s. Beginning in 1956, young men in the towns visited by the carnival became plagued by a strange form of leprosy originating in the hands and swiftly moving up the arms. As the death toll climbed, newspapers named the disease "Farmer's Rot".

Rumors began circulating that the carnival itself was to blame. In November of 1959, the townspeople of [REDACTED], Georgia took it upon themselves to raze the carnival to the ground, believing the entertainers to be servants of the devil.

Bureau agents had been monitoring the carnival while while investigating the odd disease. Posing as [REDACTED], agents confiscated all carnival property that survived the flames. At a field office, stray [REDACTED] were placed in rooms with individual pieces of the carnival equipment. The game hammer was identified as the cause of the disease. The remaining property was incinerated, along with the infected [REDACTED]. The carnival owners were told they had been carrying a dangerous pathogen in their equipment.