Shane Murtagh looked off-camera at 11:43am Tuesday and the story ate itself — we sent Greg to look into it and now we have two stories

There are stories that report themselves, and then there are stories that consume the reporter whole and keep going. Tuesday’s live cross from a paddock approximately eighteen kilometres outside Longreach, Queensland, is firmly in the second category. Shane Murtagh, ABC Rural’s Western Queensland correspondent and a man I personally know to always triple-knot his boots before a field assignment, was mid-sentence — mid-sentence, people — explaining to anchor Denise Farraday that at least four of his ABC Rural colleagues had vanished without explanation in the preceding three months, when he stopped, turned his head approximately forty-five degrees to the left, and ceased to exist on camera. The feed ran for another eleven seconds, showing nothing but dry grass, a fence post, and what several witnesses have described as ‘a shimmer.’ Then the segment cut back to the studio and Denise said ‘technical difficulties’ in a voice that suggested she did not believe that.

The Story Was Literally About This

I want to be precise here because precision matters in cryptid journalism, and also because the irony is so structurally perfect that I am professionally obligated to document every layer of it. Murtagh had been assigned to investigate the disappearances of rural ABC correspondents. His investigation concluded — and I use that word loosely — with him becoming one. His final recorded words, captured on the broadcast feed and subsequently shared approximately forty thousand times on social media under the caption ‘the universe has jokes,’ were: ‘…and what concerns me most, Denise, is that each of these reporters vanished while actively reporting on —’ and then: nothing. Gone. Eight witnesses were present in various capacities at the remote outside broadcast location. All eight reported seeing Murtagh turn to look at something. Not one of them can describe what it was. Three have since taken extended leave. One has transferred to the weather desk.

Community Notice

He turned, and his face did something I haven’t got a word for. It wasn’t fear exactly. It was more like — recognition. Like he’d been expecting it and had decided, just then, that was okay.

— Brendan Kowalczyk, ABC Rural sound technician, one of eight witnesses

WTC News Network dispatched our intern, Greg Holloway, to the site Wednesday morning with a voice recorder, a borrowed telephoto lens, and strict instructions to text me every thirty minutes. Greg texted at 9:00am (‘on the highway, found a servo with good pies’), 9:30am (‘just passed the Longreach turn-off, very flat out here’), and 10:00am (‘nearly at the paddock, can see the fence post from the road, something smells like ozone’). The 10:30am check-in did not come. Nor the 11:00am. I have attempted to reach Greg seventeen times. His phone rings out to a voicemail message that he clearly recorded himself, which says ‘Hey, you’ve reached Greg, I’m probably just researching something important, leave a message.’ I have left six messages. They are increasingly less professional in tone.

The Pattern ABC Is Not Officially Commenting On

I reached out to Dr. Patricia Dune, a folklorist at the University of New England who has spent eleven years documenting what she calls ‘recursive vanishing events’ — cases where the investigation becomes part of the phenomenon it investigates. She did not seem surprised. She seemed, if anything, tired. ‘This is a known pattern,’ she told me, over the phone, from what sounded like a very small room. ‘The thing, whatever it is, appears to be aware of attention. It doesn’t just take people. It takes people who are looking for people it took. It’s almost elegant, if you can get past the part where people are gone.’ I asked her if she had a name for the entity responsible. She paused. She said: ‘We did have a researcher working on that.’ I did not ask a follow-up question.

I’ve stopped telling people what I’m researching before I go into the field. I just tell my husband I’m ‘going for a drive.’ He thinks I’m having a nice time.

— Dr. Patricia Dune, folklorist, University of New England

At time of publication, the paddock outside Longreach has been cordoned off by Queensland Police, who have listed the site as an ‘active missing persons scene’ and have declined to comment on whether the cordon includes instructions not to report on it. Shane Murtagh’s camera equipment was recovered on-site. The footage on the card ends three seconds before the broadcast cut out, which means whatever caused the shimmer was not captured on recording, which is, in my eleven years of cryptid journalism, genuinely one of the more unsettling technical details I have encountered. WTC News Network will continue to cover this story. I will be covering it from the office. I will not be going to the paddock. I am not going to the paddock. I just want to be transparent with our readers about that particular editorial decision and the completely rational reasons behind it. Greg, if you’re reading this: text me back, mate. I’ve still got your good pen.