Winston Churchill once referred to Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. He could have said that about Howard Hughes, the titan who amassed a fortune and became the world’s richest man.

Hughes has been the subject of many biographies, each vying to capture his spirit and soul, but so elusive were they that one biographer simply manufactured the biography out of thin air. It was a hoax, but the subject was so mysterious that no one was sure—until the reclusive Hughes descended from Delphi and arranged a telephone conference with the nation’s leading journalists to denounce the fictional work.

In 1971, “60 Minutes” maligned Hughes, but painted a different portrait in 2005, one of a possible “patron of science.” Even today no one has a grasp of exactly who or what he was.