Crippled Pelican

The Crippled Pelican is a story of a fishing trawler that mysteriously burns and sinks sixty miles off the Florida east coast with women and children aboard. The Coast Guard was to pick up only one survivor from the vessel, claiming that he was the one that burned the boat and was hopelessly insane, isolating him in a state mental institution for ten years, until an inquisitive newspaper reporter began checking into the government's story after a visit from a widow of one of the crew who was aboard the Coast Guard boat that picked up the lone survivor of The Crippled Pelican. She told the reporter that her husband said that the man they pulled from the sea that day wasn't insane and the government wanted him put away so the real story of the sinking would never be told. So begins one of the most bizarre tales ever told.