The Dark Knight Rises is still more than half a year from its release date, but that doesn't mean it's too early to start teasing, enticing, bedeviling and pretty much tormenting the public with maddeningly cryptic hints about the superhero film's contents.

An early indication of what viewers have in store arrived at Wired on Wednesday, in the form of a bogus CIA memo on Dr. Leonid Pavel, a Russian nuclear physicist who's gone missing and might possibly be seeking political asylum in the United States.

Given Dr. Pavel's expertise on nuclear fuel cycle technology and reactor designs there is concern that various militants in the region could be responsible for his disappearance ... Pavel is deemed a high-priority. As such, a search and extract operation is recommended immediately, the memo abruptly, and ominously, ends.

Could things be getting nuclear between Batman and Bane, his adversary this time out?

Could be -- and no doubt, Warner Bros. will be dropping other intriguing tidbits between now and July. Meanwhile, the Dark Knight Rises prologue -- which will play in front of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol in select IMAX theaters starting December 16 -- might also offer a few clues.