Faked alien spaceship crash... Identify the book?

[silentbrown]

Trying to remember the title/author of a book I read in the late 70's at a rough guess.

USA is having serious riots and in danger of civil war. President decides country can be united against a "common enemy", so team of engineers/scientists is secretly assembled to fake a crashed alien spaceship and remains of occupants.

I can't remember much more than that, except the book ended with the team flying off for some well-earned R&R in a plane that's been sabotaged or carrying a bomb...?

Any ideas about title/authors?

[951TSE]

Here's a very similar sounding question on another forum. Is this what you're thinking of?

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166024/b...

TL:DR 'Wild Card' by Raymond Hawkey and Roger Bingham 1974

[silentbrown]

951TSE said:

Here's a very similar sounding question on another forum. Is this what you're thinking of?

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/166024/b...

TL:DR 'Wild Card' by Raymond Hawkey and Roger Bingham 1974

Blimey. That's the one - Thanks!

I had a feeling there was more than one author credited... Now to try and find a copy! Plenty used on amazon for a couple of quid, shipped.

Edited by silentbrown on Tuesday 30th July 17:49

[silentbrown]

Definitely a blast from the past, as I last read it 30+ years ago.

It's quite fun reading a book like that with the internet as way to verify some of the "out-there" stuff presented as fact. Some of the best nuggets of information casually dropped in appear to be true!

In particular. in WWII the USA developed a bomb full of bats carrying timed napalm devices, which accidentally burnt a USAF hangar ti the ground!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

...and McConnell's flatworm memory experiments:

"McConnell fed bits of trained flatworms to their untrained brethren. As a result, McConnell claimed, the untrained flatworms performed behaviors that the trained flatworms had previously learned"

https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8225321/memory-...