The Paranormal Investigations
Introduction to the Paranormal Investigations
By Emory Holt, Archivist of The Arkham Examiner
It began with a locked drawer.
Not one from my own desk, mind you, but one inherited—salvaged from the shuttered backroom of a secondhand bookshop in Arkham, formerly located on Whitcroft Street. The drawer was jammed. Heavy. Lined with velvet that smelled faintly of sea brine and ozone. Beneath it: a false bottom. Beneath that: a bundle of folded papers, scorched along the edges. Notes in a cipher I’d come to recognize far too well.
Nathaniel Crowe. His script. His hand.
That drawer has never quite closed properly since.
And so began what I now call The Paranormal Investigations—a series of case reports, field documents, recovered testimonies, and journaled encounters that span more than a decade of Nathaniel’s work. Work that stretches far beyond Arkham’s borders. Work that pulls at the seams of what we call possible.
Each investigation you will find here has been pieced together from Crowe’s private logs, his ciphered marginalia, and occasionally from the accounts of those who survived what he did not. Some arrive bundled with sketches or coded diagrams. Others include sound recordings, faint and distorted, their origins uncertain. Some documents are too dangerous to publish in full. Others I have reproduced here as faithfully as I am able—with context provided, where it can be safely given.
What These Investigations Are
Let us be clear: these are not ghost stories. Not in the common sense.
They are forensic reconstructions of unexplained phenomena, assembled from primary sources that the institutions of science and society have refused to acknowledge. They involve ancient symbols, recurring dreams, mass disappearances, subterranean structures, and rituals older than human memory. Some take place in derelict mansions. Others in salt-flooded tunnels, forgotten by the maps. A few—more than I care to admit—occur in places you might pass every day.
The nature of these chronicles is not to frighten, though many are unsettling. It is to preserve, to warn, and to prepare.
Each volume is a capsule of dread and clarity. A record of how far the human mind can go before it begins to fragment. A study in what happens when you press too hard against the veil—and find something pressing back.
A Unique Form of Immersion
Each chronicle is presented in its entirety—unabridged, unfragmented, and free from editorial omission. These are not serialized teasers or episodic amusements. They are full-length accounts drawn directly from Nathaniel Crowe’s journals, offering the reader a single cohesive window into one investigation at a time.
How you choose to engage is left to your preference. For some, the experience is best taken in through the written page—a solitary reading in low lamplight, perhaps, when the wind rattles faintly through the windows. For others, there is the audio narration, faithfully rendered in a tone that mirrors Crowe’s own cadence and observational style—delivered in a voice that carries both the weight of what is known and the dread of what cannot be explained.
But be warned: this is not passive listening. These investigations are immersive. Once entered, they are difficult to leave behind. The details linger. The symbols stay in the mind. Some readers report dreaming of settings described in the chronicles. A few have written to say the voices in the recordings continued after the audio stopped.
However you choose to proceed—read, listen, or both—know this: the chronicles are not just stories. They are experiences. And they do not forget their listeners easily.
Why These Investigations Matter
We publish these investigations not to entertain, but to preserve. To catalog events that do not fit within the margins of conventional explanation. These are not the whispers of folklore or the tricks of faulty memory. They are documented encounters with forces older than scripture, places that exist between maps, and phenomena that leave behind physical traces—ash, symbols, inexplicable injuries.
The world Nathaniel Crowe explored is not elsewhere. It is beneath, behind, and between—hidden not by distance, but by fragility. Our understanding of reality is a fragile veneer, and these investigations reveal the fractures that run just beneath its surface.
These chronicles matter because the patterns are beginning to repeat. The symbols return. The names re-emerge. Certain phrases have appeared in multiple, unconnected cases—often from individuals who never met. The same sigils show up scratched into floorboards in Arkham and painted on rocks near Aylesbury. Some entries in Crowe’s journal are dated years apart but describe the same event—from different perspectives.
You are not reading fiction. You are reading a warning system. A record of the unnatural—compiled by the one man who dared to write it down and the archivist who dares now to release it.
Your Invitation to the Archive
With your subscription to The Arkham Examiner, you will receive one complete investigation every month—a full-length chronicle drawn from Crowe’s journals and personally reconstructed by me. Each story stands on its own, but together, they chart a rising pattern. A convergence.
I publish them in the order I’ve come to understand them. Not always by date. Sometimes by recurrence. Sometimes by significance. Occasionally, by request—when a name appears twice in different volumes, or when an incident in Dunwich echoes something from Innsmouth six years prior.
Each chronicle adds a new layer. A new glyph. A new footprint in the fog.
And for those not yet initiated, the first chronicle is made freely available—fully written, fully narrated. You’ll find it just below, in the section marked: Descend into the Vault
—Emory Holt, Archivist, The Arkham Examiner
Descend Into The Vault
Chronicle 1: The Shunned Cellar
When a sealed cellar is unearthed in Arkham, paranormal investigator Nathaniel Crowe uncovers a buried terror that predates memory itself. A cosmic horror tale.
The first chronicle is available without a subscription. Sign up to discover new horrors every month!
Chronicles That Follow
Below is a glimpse of the chronicles awaiting you—each a complete and harrowing account drawn from the journals of Nathaniel Crowe. With your subscription, you’ll receive one new investigation each month, faithfully reconstructed and preserved for your eyes alone.
Whispers from the Esoteric Order
In Innsmouth, strange sermons lure townsfolk toward the sea. The Order rises.
The Watchers Beneath
A crypt in Kingsport begins emitting low vibrations and unsettling dreams.
Voices on Sentinel Ridge
In Dunwich, spectral lights and disembodied voices haunt a circle of ancient stones.
The Staircase in the Dream
Crowe is drawn repeatedly into a dream of stairs spiraling through the void.
The Sunken Marsh
An investigation into a drowned village uncovers something not meant to be found.
The Howling Watchtower
An investigation into an abandoned shrine uncovers something not meant to be found.
The Forbidden Chapel
An investigation into a vanishing cult uncovers something not meant to be found.
The Silent Scripture
An investigation into a cursed heirloom uncovers something not meant to be found.
You are cordially invited to join our list of correspondents with a subscription to the chronicle if you would like to receive a personal notice upon the release of the next installment in The Paranormal Investigations of Nathaniel Crowe. Subscribe with the Sign Me Up link above, and await further communiqué from the offices of The Arkham Examiner Presents—where the curious and the uncanny are never far apart.