Did Todd Palin have an affair with a massage therapist named Shailey Tripp? The National Enquirer stops just short of saying "yes"—but claims "police have confiscated physical evidence that could tie Todd to an alleged extramarital affair."

Todd Palin? Unfaithful? Could it be? According to their online teaser—the full article will be in the paper on the newsstands—the Enquirer (which, given that it broke the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter affair, is worth paying attention to) began looking into the story on January 4, when it and other media outlets received an email from "thepalinmorals@hotmail.com":

"My sources reveal that a massage therapist and computer technologist, SHAILEY TRIPP, had an affair with Todd Palin that lead (sic) to her arrest March of 2010," claimed the anonymous e-mail. "According to the tenants in the building of her offices, they saw Todd come and go often and heard noises that sounded like someone was having sex. It was the same tenants who called the police on her."

And, naturally, they followed up. Here's what the paper's investigation found:

Documents showing that Tripp gave free massages to an anonymous person working on Sarah Palin's gubernatorial campaign.

A record of Tripp's arrest for prostitution last March.

The Enquirer also claims that there's physical evidence "that could tie Todd" to Tripp—but that it's been confiscated by the police.

Uh-huh. So what we've got is an anonymous email citing anonymous secondary sources who say they heard something that "sounded like" sex; proof that a massage therapist was giving free massages to someone on the Palin campaign; and proof that this same therapist was arrested for prostitution.

This sort of just sounds like "another day in Alaska" to me. But who knows! Maybe the Enquirer will turn up some real proof. Because what we really need is another news story featuring Sarah Palin.

[National Enquirer, image via Getty]