Three investigators, two days, one Form 7-C, and a ‘Reason’ field that says ‘procedural’ and has apparently decided that is enough.

The three-person review team dispatched by the Missouri Anomalous Fauna Subcommittee submitted Form 7-C at 6:14 AM on Wednesday, two hours before their scheduled second entry window, from the parking area of a Pilot Travel Center eleven miles from the site. The ‘Reason’ field reads ‘procedural.’ There is no supplemental attachment. There is no footnote. There is a small mark in the upper left corner of the form that the Subcommittee’s administrative coordinator described to me as ‘possibly a thumbprint, possibly something else, we have not sent it for analysis and we are not going to.’

The site in question is a stretch of wooded bottomland along the Mississippi River corridor — the same general region that produced the original 1971 sightings that put what is now formally cataloged as the Missouri Monster on the national anomalous fauna map. The Subcommittee dispatched the team following a cluster of thirteen witness reports filed between late April and mid-May, all describing a large bipedal figure at or near the treeline, most of them filed by people who, as one Subcommittee member put it, ‘did not seem to be enjoying themselves when they called.’ The review team’s mandate was standard: document, photograph, take soil samples if conditions permitted, and submit a preliminary site assessment. They documented for approximately nine hours on day one. They submitted no photographs. They submitted no soil samples. They submitted Form 7-C.

Community Notice

What ‘Procedural’ Covers, And What It Does Not

I have reviewed the Subcommittee’s procedural guidelines. They are thorough. They cover equipment failure, jurisdictional conflict, weather delays, medical withdrawal, and what the document calls ‘encounters requiring escalated response protocols.’ What they do not cover, at least not explicitly, is a circumstance in which a team declines re-entry for procedural reasons without specifying which procedure applies. I asked the Subcommittee’s communications liaison about this. She said, and I am quoting directly from my notes written with a Pilot G2 fine point approximately forty minutes ago: ‘The form was filled out correctly. All required fields were completed. The team followed the process for requesting reassignment and the request has been approved.’ I asked what happens to the site now. She said the site remains categorized as active. I asked if anyone else would be sent. She said that question was above her pay grade. I thanked her and we both sat with that for a moment.

The form was filled out correctly. All required fields were completed.

— Missouri Anomalous Fauna Subcommittee Communications Liaison, declining to be named

I reached one member of the team by phone Thursday evening. He asked not to be named. He asked, before I said anything else, whether I had ever stood at a treeline and had the strong, specific, non-emotional sense that the correct procedural next step was to not be at the treeline anymore. I told him I had been in this business since 2009 and that I have stood at a number of treelines. He said: ‘Then you know.’ I did not confirm or deny this. I wrote it down. I asked him if the team would be filing a supplemental narrative report. He said he would have to check on the procedure for that. Then he ended the call.

Then you know.

— Field team member, speaking on condition of anonymity, from what he described as ‘far enough away’

The radio on my desk has been running about four cycles higher in pitch than usual since I started writing this. I have not been able to correlate that to anything. I am noting it here because I note things, and because it started specifically when I opened the Subcommittee file and has not stopped. The site is active. The treeline is where it is. The form says procedural. We will continue to follow this story, and when I say we, I mean I will be at this desk, which has been at this desk longer than I have, and the radio will be doing what it does, and I will be taking notes with a pen I trust, and drinking coffee from a percolator that should not work and does. That is, as far as I can determine, the appropriate procedural response.