Corona del Mar’s student body has been gripped recently by rumors and allegations concerning the true nature and identity of one mysterious “Cassie Ryder”. I decided that I owed it to my friends and classmates to use my extensive journalistic credibility and fame to solve this case. Unfortunately my quest for the truth soon lead me to a dark and confusing place, where I couldn’t be sure what was real and who to trust. It left me with more questions than I had at the beginning. And it put me in great personal danger. Corona, writing this story nearly killed me.

"Well she smokes, so she seems pretty cool. Yeah, I'll accept her."

For those who don’t already know, “Cassie Ryder” is the name of a person that recently appeared on Facebook in the Corona del Mar High School Network, claiming to be a female student in 11th grade. There were, however, several things that stood out and caused suspicion:

• Her profile picture contained what could only be described as a forest fire-sized plume of smoke exiting her mouth
• She had no other photos of herself, no comments from anyone, and had been mass-friend requesting most of CdM’s student body. And she didn’t play Farmville, so obviously she’s not a real person.
• Her age wasn’t even close to correct for someone in the class of 2011.
• Through extensive photo-graphical wave form spectrum analysis, Trident’s own photography authentication expert Petersen Walrod came to the conclusion that “All her pictures were like, totally fake, and pretty obviously not even the same girl I’m pretty sure.”
• Lastly, and perhaps most importantly no one has ever actually met or even seen this woman in real life.

An artist's rendition of what "Cassie Ryder" may actually look like

After days of using complex hacking techniques to gain access to the necessary information, I discovered that her first “friend” was one Mr. Nelson Chen, a junior. I sent him several requests for information via Facebook. He did not respond to any of them. I had to wait outside his house for several days until I finally caught him. When I confronted him about the subject he said, “Alright. I admit it. I was Cassie’s first friend. I accepted the request because I thought she could breathe fire, which is, you know, like totally awesome and metal and stuff. But then I started looking at her other pictures…and…Dear God, I saw horrible things. Horrible, unspeakable things. But then she deleted them all. I don’t want to say anything more.”

Needless to say, this information only made me want to know more. The plot had thickened. For more information I turned to senior Brian Smith, a noted expert on Ryder. “Consider this,” he told me. “Cassie Ryder appeared on January 20th. You know what else happened on January 20th? That’s right. In 1320 Duke Wladyslaw Woikotek became King of Poland. And as I’m sure you know, he was an Illuminati Freemason.” At this point I realized I was actually talking to homeless man on the street, not Brian Smith. But I looked up what he said on Wikipedia, and it was totally legit.

Wikipedia: Allowing this man's opinions to be taken seriously, since 2001

I knew I was getting close to the heart of the mystery. I could sense that there was a huge, swirling conspiracy, with Cassie Ryder at it’s center. Some people, such as sophmore Oren Shaolin, have suggested that Cassie Ryder was created by the school administration to gain access to student’s Facebook pages in order to better enforce discipline on campus. But that’s obviously ridiculous. The administration would never do anything to violate our privacy like that, let alone suspect students of doing bad things. I mean come on.

Several days ago, I came into possession of  some absolutely incredible evidence that completely solved the mystery. Unfortunately I cannot tell you what it was, or where it came from. I was about to publish this article with this evidence when I received a phone call from an unknown number. A heavy male voice told me, “You’re getting in too deep Mulcaire. We know where you live. If you didn’t want anything bad to happen, don’t tell people who did Cassie Ryder.” I noticed a large suspicious van parked in front of my house.

If the van had said "Free Candy" on the side, I wouldn't have been suspicious at all. But it didn't.

I told the man on the phone that I didn’t care about his empty threats.

But then Monday happened. I’m sure you all know that there was a fire at Corona del Mar High School on Monday. The “official” explanation was that a bagel in a malfunctioning toaster set of the fire alarm. That is a lie. The bagel fire was an assassination attempt against me. Thankfully I was in the back parking lot at the time, and narrowly avoided the plot. After realizing what had happened, I was shaken to my core. Once the adrenaline rush passed, I had to sit back and face the possibility that I might never see my family and friends again. And for what? Some article? I didn’t know what to do. Later that day the man called again. “Do you have bagels in your home Jack?” he asked me. “Psh..no.” I was lying. “Well that’s good for you because if you did…we could make them catch on fire whenever we want to. Seriously. You’d be in a world of hurt if you were standing very, very close to your toaster. Think about that before you publish your article.”

They tried to kill me with this. And they nearly succeeded.

So, in the interests of my own health, and because I have a family to take care of, I have decided not to reveal Cassie Ryder’s real identity right now. One day though, the truth will come out.