Thirteen witnesses, physical evidence, and no one currently assigned to any of it.

The tracks are still there. That is the first thing I want to establish, because in the course of reporting this story I found that a remarkable amount of institutional energy has gone into the question of who is responsible for looking at them, and I did not want that energy to obscure the fact that what prompted all of this — a set of prints consistent with Mapinguari activity, pressed approximately four inches into compacted red clay along the Cuiabá tributary access road, observed by thirteen separate witnesses — has not moved, degraded significantly, or been explained. The tracks remain. The committees, plural, are another matter.

The first committee was convened on a Tuesday. It was dissolved the following Thursday. WTC has been unable to confirm the names of its members, the precise scope of its mandate, or the specific reason for its dissolution, because the office responsible for those records has indicated, in writing, that it cannot locate the office responsible for those records. What we do know is that the referral to a second committee — unnamed, as yet uncontacted, and described in the documentation only as ‘the successor body’ — was processed and logged before the first committee had formally concluded any findings. I have read the paperwork three times. The radio picked up something low and long when I finished the third read. I am not assigning significance to that. I am noting it.

Community Notice

What Thirteen People Saw

Thirteen witnesses is not a small number. In sixteen years at this desk I have covered incidents with fewer witnesses that received considerably more institutional attention, and incidents with more witnesses that received considerably less, and I have not yet worked out a formula that predicts which way these things go. What I can tell you is that the thirteen witnesses in this case are consistent with one another on the core details: the size of the impressions, the gait pattern, the odor described by eight of the thirteen as resembling a combination of wet soil and something else they could not name but agreed upon when presented with comparative samples. Six of the thirteen have prior experience with wildlife track identification. None of the six believe these are wildlife tracks, in the conventional sense of that phrase.

The first committee asked us to submit written statements. We submitted them. Then we were told to resubmit them to a different address. Then that address stopped responding. The tracks haven’t gone anywhere. I go and check.

— Witness, name withheld at source request, track site vicinity

I want to be fair to the process, because I think fairness requires me to say that committees dissolve, referrals happen, and bureaucratic continuity in cryptid investigation is not something any of us should take as given. I have covered enough of these cases to know that the machinery moves the way it moves, and that pressing too hard on why tends to produce responses that are either uninformative or, occasionally, informative in ways that take several weeks to fully process. I wrote this story by hand before it went to the teleprompter, the way I write all of them. I used most of a pen. The box in my desk drawer is getting low. Staff will handle that. They always do.

When you ask me what the second committee is doing, I can tell you it has received the referral. Beyond that I’d be speculating, and we try not to do that here.

— Unnamed spokesperson, office of the successor body

The tracks are still there. We will continue to update this story as the second committee either identifies itself, takes action, or is itself dissolved in favor of a third. WTC has submitted requests for comment to the successor body, to the office that processed the dissolution of the first committee, and to the laminated sign. We have heard back from none of them. The radio, when I turned off the studio lights last night, held a single sustained note for approximately four seconds and then returned to its usual frequency. I stayed at the desk for a while after that. The coffee was still hot. I considered that, and then I considered the tracks, and then I went home. Twelve minutes. Mrs. Petrova had left something in the hall. I have not yet had time to return the container. I will.