Hollowfield
The founding
Eleven people met above a hardware store in Hollowfield, Washington, in the winter of 1953. Most of them had seen something they could not explain, and every one of them had been told to stop talking about it.
So they built somewhere to write it down.
Seventy years later the Institute holds the largest independent archive of its kind in the country. It takes no government funding and never has. It is supported by its members, it has never claimed to have proved anything, and it has never thrown a report away.
From the catalogue
Forty entries of genuine American folklore, each one credited to where the story actually comes from. Including the several that turn out to be documented hoaxes, which the Institute writes up in as much detail as the rest.
The Hodag was invented outright in 1893 by a man who admitted it, and the town put it on the water tower anyway. The Jackalope was built in a Wyoming taxidermy shop in 1932 and holds a business licence. Every Chupacabra ever sent to a laboratory has come back a coyote.
The founders
Hollowfield Grade School, 1938 to 1971. Called the first meeting.
Owned the building. Never saw a thing.
Hollowfield exchange, night shift.
Korea, 1950 to 1952. Blackrock Ridge lookout, 1953 to 1961.
General practice, Hollowfield, 1949 to 1984.
Tulalip. The account that was left out of the report.
Wrote hers down the same night.
Thirty years on the water. Boat kept at Everett.
Sixteen years old. The only founder who had not seen anything.
Joined the Institute in the winter it was founded. Never filed a sighting.
Present at the first meeting. Name withheld at their request.
And one machine
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