By Chris Giblin
Early Tuesday morning, police swooped in on Nicolas Cage’s estate in Middletown, R.I., and arrested him after an anonymous tip alerted local officials about Cage’s elaborate plot to steal the Declaration of Independence. The plan also included kidnapping the president and breaking into the Statue of Liberty, police reported.
After initially ignoring urgent, serious phone calls from worried citizens, police slowly surmised that callers were not making prank calls in reference to Cage’s lead role as Ben Gates in the film series National Treasure. In truth, he was involving himself in a serious plot to wreak havoc on America’s most cherished historical documents and public officials.
“At first, we thought it was just a bunch of assholes tying up the emergency phone line. But as the calls and evidence mounted up, we slowly realized that people weren’t just making allusions to Cage’s involvement in the movie National Treasure, and that they were actually alerting us to a far more sadistic and elaborate plan to actually plunder America’s history that was all too real,” Middletown Chief of Police Kurt Gregor said.
“Apparently Cage, great actor as he is, has buried himself so far into the movie role of Ben Gates that he thinks he is Ben Gates,” Gregor added.
Police found several written plans and government building blueprints in the basement of Cage’s home after he was taken into custody. Officials were disturbed to find Cage had scrawled the name “Ben Gates” on several of the documents.
Speculation suggests Cage entrenched himself in the role of Ben Gates, only playing other movie characters as a front to finance his intricate plans. These characters include Johnny Blaze in the poorly received Ghost Rider and Joe in the critically-disdained Bangkok Dangerous. None of these roles required quality acting, allowing him to stay in the Ben Gates character.
“At first, I was amazed to be in Nick Cage’s house, and I was even more excited when he showed me some National Treasure movie memorabilia,” Justin Bartha, who played Riley Poole in the
film said. “I told him I loved working on that movie, but then he just frowned and he was like, ‘What movie?'”
In his plans, Cage cited his distrust of the government and his fear of British plunderers being quicker to the punch as reasons to seize celebrated American historical pieces. He also expressed his disdain for those who notified police after he divulged his plans to them.
“I thought I was only telling red-blooded Americans who believe in one thing: the truth. But really I was just wasting my time with those who don’t share my idea of American history that is crazier and more fantastical then anyone would ever imagine,” Cage said.
Cage’s plans also included stealing the Bill of Rights, George Washington’s wooden teeth, and several pairs of Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals. His plans also delved into the mythical and the fantastical, including taking the “Presidential Book of Secrets” and looting the “gold caves beneath Mount Rushmore,” which Cage thinks were filled by the Founding Fathers.
“There is no cave filled with gold underneath Mount Rushmore,” Mount Rushmore National Memorial Superintendent Gerard Baker said. “When the Founding Fathers were around there was no Mount Rushmore. In fact, they had no idea a state called South Dakota would ever come into existence.”
President Obama was unavailable for comment on the possible existence of the “Presidential Book of Secrets.”
Cage is being held in a cell at Middletown Police Station for the time-being, and a trial date is still being decided. Despite his wealth, Cage has reported he is going to refuse representation from a lawyer in court, saying he has faith in the citizenry to want to know the truth about our Founding Fathers.
Chris Giblin is a sophomore TV-R major.
E-mail him at cgiblin1[at]ithaca.edu.