I've loved this article for a long time. It's crazy and hits the exact note I look for in these existential dread articles. The anomaly is all-powerful and oppressive, and it makes you ask if the Authority are the bad guys for what they have to do to contain it. The images look great, and they're recontextualized to be more menacing.
The events log was what absolutely sold me, though, with its gross, demented, and horrific occurrences. It's impressive and all the more effective for how "real" it seems; without any explicitly stated layout, population, or demographics, and only concise bullet points of information, Wacousta County still feels like a place you could live in.
And despite being unpredictable, most of the events make sense. There's leeway for interpretation, but the majority of events can be attributed to either the town's effects or the entity within. For instance, the event on 4/8: could this be the phantom, or perhaps a victim of it (as the disappearance of Harvey Gulman retroactively indicates)? Perhaps something else entirely? It's hard to explain just how well put-together the mystery in this article is, but it's incredible. Then, there are a few events that are absolutely nuts, but the article is all the better for it (4/17, 4/27, 5/8)
Upon reanalyzing this article, I've noted that the final exploration seems to be the low point. It's not particularly bad, but it's an injection of the standard-fare "MST gets slaughtered" log. They find the corpse, see the ghost, and die one-by-one. That's it. It feels much lighter on interesting happenings than the rest of the article, especially when the previous section was chock-full of them. It's a bit funny that they brought a single CSD along; I don't quite understand the intent of it. Human sacrifice? Just in case?
I also find that the tone falters at some points, such as this awkward and informal sentence:
The bodies of affected individuals appear to reject any attempt to consume any type of food that is deemed "healthy" by modern standards.
It's also affected by bits of strange capitalization, like "Authority Personnel" and "North-East". For how small it may sound, tone is crucial, and the smallest thing really can offset the mood.
The weak conclusion may dampen my praise. I generally feel like the Authority's intervention in the situation could've been explored better, but this is still a phenomenal article. It makes you wonder what the hell is going on, and also makes meat seem pretty gross for a while. I'm retaining my perfect 5/5 vote.