explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:1864: City Nicknames

2017-07-24T14:25:58Z

Brandizzi:

I think "Castleopolis" is much more likely to be a reference to The Phantom Tollbooth (which I'm sure xkcd has referenced at least once before) than a *very* small town in Michigan. As I suggested in the table, The Phantom Tollbooth has castles and cities named Digitopolis and Dictionopolis, so this seems like the more likely reference to me. All open to interpretation of course! [[User:Erronius|Erronius]] ([[User talk:Erronius|talk]]) 23:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

For some reason I'm reminded of [https://xkcd.com/1759/ this comic]. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 11:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"Urban Orb" may refer to Boston, aka "The Hub". {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.220|12:17, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC)}}

Los Vegas may be sin city, but I'm pretty sure that Las Vegas is quickly becoming Skin City [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

My only guess as to "The Walled Garden": In the video game series ''{{w|Mass Effect}}'', the name of the homeworld of the Quarian species, [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Rannoch Rannoch], translates to "walled garden". Not something I really associated with xkcd, admittedly. [[User:PvOberstein|PvOberstein]] ([[User talk:PvOberstein|talk]]) 13:19, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

A guess at "Hamtown" instead of Hamburg would be "Hogtown", a common nickname for Toronto, Canada {{unsigned|Harebenj|13:27, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC)}}

The Mobius Strip is also a district in the fictional [http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Mobius_Strip Perplex City]. I'm sure I've seen it used in some cyberpunk-ish novel as well, but can't identify it off the top of my head. - [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 13:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Well Folk might be a variation on Wee Folk. [[User:Thaledison|Thaledison]] ([[User talk:Thaledison|talk]]) 13:48, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:I thought a similar thing, but about the Fair Folk. 17:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[[User:An Inside Joke|An Inside Joke]] ([[User talk:An Inside Joke|talk]])An Inside Joke

"Horse Rotary" could be referring to a traffic roundabout, which are called "rotaries" in some countries. [[User:Kbseah|Kbseah]] ([[User talk:Kbseah|talk]]) 14:02, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Some of these make me wonder if it might be easier to interpret if you connect adjacent ones. Seems to be easy to make the names of some real people/places/things by taking words from a pair of adjacent nicknames.
For Example: The Urban Orb - City of Angles - The Big Wheel - Bird City USA - City of Seven Crowns - Hilltopia
Could become: (...) - The Urban Angle - City of Wheels - Big Bird - Crown City - City of Seven Hills - (...)
All of which seem to be Things That Exist™. Maybe I'm overthinking it :S - [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 14:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think you are overthinking this. If you just try and make random word associations you get interesting combinations. If New Orleans can be called the "Big Easy" and Chicago can be called "Chi (Shy) Town" then why not the "Big Shy" to the "Shy Easy", like Black Hat is just spouting out random words associated with city monikers (demonyms) you get a pretty humorous connection [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Game of Thrones is based on the book series ''A '''Song''' of Ice and Fire'', not '''''Land''' of Ice and Fire''. Correction made in description. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

From my perspective from USA there is nothing more inherently funny than the names given to people in British cities. That someone from Liverpool is called a Liverpudlian makes me laugh every time I hear it. But then again the town I grew up is was referred to with the pejorative "Dreary Erie, the Mistake on the Lake" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Be proud though, not many cities can claim to have [https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63#.WWz0m4TythE set a river on fire]. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Agreed! Cleveland Rocks! Burn on, Cuyahoga, burn on. And a song to commemorate it [http://www.metrolyrics.com/burn-on-lyrics-randy-newman.html] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.88|108.162.219.88]] 18:08, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Random reader here... It may be familiarity bias since I'm from St. Louis, but this is the third (or fourth) comic to my memory that highlights St. Louis when it seems like any random city could have sufficed (I'm thinking of [[1321: Cold]], [[1368: One Of The]], and maybe [[1243: Snare]]) and I don't recall any other city getting name-dropped so often (at least outside of major metropolises). Have I just not paid attention as much when other cities are mentioned, or is the repeated use of St. Louis something worth including as trivia on these three/four articles? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.63|162.158.62.63]] 17:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Boston (New England) beat St. Louis in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVI Super Bowl XXXVI] and Randall just wants to keep rubbing it in maybe? [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:42, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

''The Auditors ... wanted to simplify the universe by destroying it.'' Not so. They merely wanted to destroy humans and humanity, which are unnecessarily complicated from their point of view. To quote George Carlin: The planet is fine. The '''people''' are fucked.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.154.70|172.68.154.70]] 18:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Space Moose - [https://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/rumple.gif Rumpleshithead]. NSFW, I guess, if you work somewhere stupid. :-D {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.34|19:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)}}

"The Kissing Kingdoms" Could be a reference to "The Kissing Kings," a common nickname for the two kings that are in the middle together in standard Bicycle new deck order. [[User:Dragonfiremalus|Dragonfiremalus]] ([[User talk:Dragonfiremalus|talk]]) 19:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"The Land of Trains and Fog" is obviously Britain (or some portion thereof), famous for fogs/rain, and where much of early railroading was developed. There is a quotation about this someplace, (I think Rowland Emett referenced it in one of his cartoons). I just haven't been able to dig up the source. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.70|108.162.245.70]] 22:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The names in this kind of remind of towns names in Dwarf Fortress. Just randomly combined words. {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.23|03:17, 18 July 2017}}

"The City of Seven Crowns" also makes me think of the Seven Kingdoms (ASOIAF/GOT). Admittedly that may be because I watched the season 7 premiere last night. {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.166|04:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)}}

Another reference for "The High City" as Denver could be the fact that Colorado has legalized marijuana, making it a place people go to get "high". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.95|108.162.238.95]] 09:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Hilltopia is also probably a reference to Zootopia, which also has been referenced before by xkcd regarding wikipedia discussion pages. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.11|13:37, 18 July 2017 (UTC)}}

Anyone else think this comic was made specifically to troll this site? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.154|108.162.210.154]] 15:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
:Not only for this site, and it's not the first one... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Could "Bloomtown" also be a reference to the fact that many cities (especially in the Midwest) have "Bloom(something)" names. There are multiple towns called Bloomfield, Bloomington, etc... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.232|108.162.237.232]] 16:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Thousand spires could also be a reference to Kredik Shaw from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. The name of the palace is literally supposed to translate as "Hill of a thousand spires". {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.150}}

Not sure how to edit, but Salinas, CA is nicknamed The Salad Bowl {{unsigned ip|162.158.255.82}}

Bit off-topic, but is our bot working? A new comic is out now. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]
: Maybe it's a bit slow? I ended up creating this page manually. [[1865]] did end up getting created by the bot eventually though. --[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 18:43, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
::My BOT was offline for a few hours. When this happens again please be patient or follow these instructions in the written order (because the manual creation was wrong and incomplete):
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::I have moved manually [[1864]] to [[1864: City Nicknames]] and more; check my edits from that time. I'm hoping this helps.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:02, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I've added Canberra to Meeting Place. It is really apposite to Canberra - but did Randall mean it that way? Some of these fancy labels are really generic! They could have come from almost anything. {{unsigned ip|172.68.254.102}}

I'm wondering if it might aid readability to have multiple rows in the table for some entries, where there's multiple interpretations. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 10:31, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

My first impression on reading the list of demonyms was that they all referred to some degree to the «Fair Folk». I believe some of the explanations given are a bit stretched, aren't they? Can't they all refer to basically the same thing?--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.17|188.114.111.17]] 13:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Isn't "Graveyard of Kings" a reference to "{{w|The Graveyard of Empires}}", i.e. Afghanistan? --14:23, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Talk:1864: City Nicknames

2017-07-24T14:23:42Z

Brandizzi: question

I think "Castleopolis" is much more likely to be a reference to The Phantom Tollbooth (which I'm sure xkcd has referenced at least once before) than a *very* small town in Michigan. As I suggested in the table, The Phantom Tollbooth has castles and cities named Digitopolis and Dictionopolis, so this seems like the more likely reference to me. All open to interpretation of course! [[User:Erronius|Erronius]] ([[User talk:Erronius|talk]]) 23:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

For some reason I'm reminded of [https://xkcd.com/1759/ this comic]. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 11:41, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"Urban Orb" may refer to Boston, aka "The Hub". {{unsigned ip|108.162.219.220|12:17, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC)}}

Los Vegas may be sin city, but I'm pretty sure that Las Vegas is quickly becoming Skin City [[User:Seebert|Seebert]] ([[User talk:Seebert|talk]]) 13:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

My only guess as to "The Walled Garden": In the video game series ''{{w|Mass Effect}}'', the name of the homeworld of the Quarian species, [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Rannoch Rannoch], translates to "walled garden". Not something I really associated with xkcd, admittedly. [[User:PvOberstein|PvOberstein]] ([[User talk:PvOberstein|talk]]) 13:19, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

A guess at "Hamtown" instead of Hamburg would be "Hogtown", a common nickname for Toronto, Canada {{unsigned|Harebenj|13:27, 17 July 2017‎ (UTC)}}

The Mobius Strip is also a district in the fictional [http://perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Mobius_Strip Perplex City]. I'm sure I've seen it used in some cyberpunk-ish novel as well, but can't identify it off the top of my head. - [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 13:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Well Folk might be a variation on Wee Folk. [[User:Thaledison|Thaledison]] ([[User talk:Thaledison|talk]]) 13:48, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:I thought a similar thing, but about the Fair Folk. 17:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[[User:An Inside Joke|An Inside Joke]] ([[User talk:An Inside Joke|talk]])An Inside Joke

"Horse Rotary" could be referring to a traffic roundabout, which are called "rotaries" in some countries. [[User:Kbseah|Kbseah]] ([[User talk:Kbseah|talk]]) 14:02, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Some of these make me wonder if it might be easier to interpret if you connect adjacent ones. Seems to be easy to make the names of some real people/places/things by taking words from a pair of adjacent nicknames.
For Example: The Urban Orb - City of Angles - The Big Wheel - Bird City USA - City of Seven Crowns - Hilltopia
Could become: (...) - The Urban Angle - City of Wheels - Big Bird - Crown City - City of Seven Hills - (...)
All of which seem to be Things That Exist™. Maybe I'm overthinking it :S - [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 14:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think you are overthinking this. If you just try and make random word associations you get interesting combinations. If New Orleans can be called the "Big Easy" and Chicago can be called "Chi (Shy) Town" then why not the "Big Shy" to the "Shy Easy", like Black Hat is just spouting out random words associated with city monikers (demonyms) you get a pretty humorous connection [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Game of Thrones is based on the book series ''A '''Song''' of Ice and Fire'', not '''''Land''' of Ice and Fire''. Correction made in description. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

From my perspective from USA there is nothing more inherently funny than the names given to people in British cities. That someone from Liverpool is called a Liverpudlian makes me laugh every time I hear it. But then again the town I grew up is was referred to with the pejorative "Dreary Erie, the Mistake on the Lake" [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 17:14, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Be proud though, not many cities can claim to have [https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63#.WWz0m4TythE set a river on fire]. [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Agreed! Cleveland Rocks! Burn on, Cuyahoga, burn on. And a song to commemorate it [http://www.metrolyrics.com/burn-on-lyrics-randy-newman.html] [[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.88|108.162.219.88]] 18:08, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Random reader here... It may be familiarity bias since I'm from St. Louis, but this is the third (or fourth) comic to my memory that highlights St. Louis when it seems like any random city could have sufficed (I'm thinking of [[1321: Cold]], [[1368: One Of The]], and maybe [[1243: Snare]]) and I don't recall any other city getting name-dropped so often (at least outside of major metropolises). Have I just not paid attention as much when other cities are mentioned, or is the repeated use of St. Louis something worth including as trivia on these three/four articles? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.63|162.158.62.63]] 17:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
:Boston (New England) beat St. Louis in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVI Super Bowl XXXVI] and Randall just wants to keep rubbing it in maybe? [[User:OldCorps|OldCorps]] ([[User talk:OldCorps|talk]]) 17:42, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

''The Auditors ... wanted to simplify the universe by destroying it.'' Not so. They merely wanted to destroy humans and humanity, which are unnecessarily complicated from their point of view. To quote George Carlin: The planet is fine. The '''people''' are fucked.--[[Special:Contributions/172.68.154.70|172.68.154.70]] 18:52, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Space Moose - [https://www.hackcanada.com/canadian/zines/spacemoose/rumple.gif Rumpleshithead]. NSFW, I guess, if you work somewhere stupid. :-D {{unsigned ip|162.158.63.34|19:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)}}

"The Kissing Kingdoms" Could be a reference to "The Kissing Kings," a common nickname for the two kings that are in the middle together in standard Bicycle new deck order. [[User:Dragonfiremalus|Dragonfiremalus]] ([[User talk:Dragonfiremalus|talk]]) 19:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

"The Land of Trains and Fog" is obviously Britain (or some portion thereof), famous for fogs/rain, and where much of early railroading was developed. There is a quotation about this someplace, (I think Rowland Emett referenced it in one of his cartoons). I just haven't been able to dig up the source. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.245.70|108.162.245.70]] 22:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The names in this kind of remind of towns names in Dwarf Fortress. Just randomly combined words. {{unsigned ip|108.162.246.23|03:17, 18 July 2017}}

"The City of Seven Crowns" also makes me think of the Seven Kingdoms (ASOIAF/GOT). Admittedly that may be because I watched the season 7 premiere last night. {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.166|04:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)}}

Another reference for "The High City" as Denver could be the fact that Colorado has legalized marijuana, making it a place people go to get "high". [[Special:Contributions/108.162.238.95|108.162.238.95]] 09:23, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Hilltopia is also probably a reference to Zootopia, which also has been referenced before by xkcd regarding wikipedia discussion pages. {{unsigned ip|141.101.104.11|13:37, 18 July 2017 (UTC)}}

Anyone else think this comic was made specifically to troll this site? --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.154|108.162.210.154]] 15:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
:Not only for this site, and it's not the first one... --[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 17:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Could "Bloomtown" also be a reference to the fact that many cities (especially in the Midwest) have "Bloom(something)" names. There are multiple towns called Bloomfield, Bloomington, etc... [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.232|108.162.237.232]] 16:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Thousand spires could also be a reference to Kredik Shaw from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series. The name of the palace is literally supposed to translate as "Hill of a thousand spires". {{unsigned ip|173.245.50.150}}

Not sure how to edit, but Salinas, CA is nicknamed The Salad Bowl {{unsigned ip|162.158.255.82}}

Bit off-topic, but is our bot working? A new comic is out now. [[User talk:AgentMuffin|~AgentMuffin]]
: Maybe it's a bit slow? I ended up creating this page manually. [[1865]] did end up getting created by the bot eventually though. --[[User:Quantum7|Quantum7]] ([[User talk:Quantum7|talk]]) 18:43, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
::My BOT was offline for a few hours. When this happens again please be patient or follow these instructions in the written order (because the manual creation was wrong and incomplete):
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::I have moved manually [[1864]] to [[1864: City Nicknames]] and more; check my edits from that time. I'm hoping this helps.--[[User:Dgbrt|Dgbrt]] ([[User talk:Dgbrt|talk]]) 20:02, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

I've added Canberra to Meeting Place. It is really apposite to Canberra - but did Randall mean it that way? Some of these fancy labels are really generic! They could have come from almost anything. {{unsigned ip|172.68.254.102}}

I'm wondering if it might aid readability to have multiple rows in the table for some entries, where there's multiple interpretations. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.76|141.101.98.76]] 10:31, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

My first impression on reading the list of demonyms was that they all referred to some degree to the «Fair Folk». I believe some of the explanations given are a bit stretched, aren't they? Can't they all refer to basically the same thing?--[[Special:Contributions/188.114.111.17|188.114.111.17]] 13:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Isn't "Graveyard of Kings" a reference to "[[w:The Graveyard of Empires]]" (i.e. Afghanistan)? --14:23, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

1501: Mysteries

2015-03-20T11:59:26Z

Brandizzi: /* Explanation */

{{comic
| number = 1501
| date = March 20, 2015
| title = Mysteries
| image = mysteries.png
| titletext = At the bottom left: The mystery of why, when I know I needed to be asleep an hour ago, I decide it's a good time to read through every Wikipedia article in the categories 'Out-of-place artifacts', 'Earth mysteries', 'Anomalous weather', and 'List of people who disappeared mysteriously'.
}}

==Explanation==

{| class="wikitable"
!Entry
!Weirdness
!Explainable
!Further Details
|-
|Who Carly Simon is singing about in ''You're So Vain''
|9%
|4%
|The lyrics of the song include "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you". This implies that the vain subject of the song is wrong in thinking that the song is about them, however they are the subject of the song. This sets up a paradox in which the song is and isn't about the vain person. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27re_So_Vain#Subject_of_the_song Wikipedia article describing possible interpretations of the songs subject]
|-
|Lindbergh Baby
|17%
|25%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_kidnapping Lindbergh baby kidnapping]
|-
|UVB-76
|40%
|23%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76 UBV-76 Number radio station]
|-
|Toynbee Tiles
|25%
|34%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles Toynbee tiles] are colorful ceramic tiles with cryptic messages that have been found embedded in asphalt in the streets of various midwestern-to-eastern cities.
|-
|Jimmy Hoffa
|10%
|42%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa] was an American labor union leader who disappeared in 1975. He is widely believed to have been murdered.
|-
|The WOW Signal
|55%
|20%
|A strong and clean radio transmission near 1420 MHz received by the Big Ear Radio Observatory at Ohio State University in 1977 that appears to have originated from interstellar space [http://www.universetoday.com/93754/35-years-later-the-wow-signal-still-tantalizes/]. This is the strongest evidence to date of extraterrestrial radio signals.
|-
|Mary Celeste
|70%
|43%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Celeste The ''Mary Celeste''] was a sailing ship found adrift, mysteriously abandoned yet otherwise undisturbed, in 1872. No explanation for these events has ever been determined. Its name has become a watchword for mysteriously abandoned ships.
|-
|DB Cooper
|76%
|20%
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper DB Cooper] Robber who jumped from a plane and was never found.
|-
|Salish Sea Feet
|96%
|31%
|{{w|Salish Sea human foot discoveries}}
|-
|Lead Masks Case
|99%
|12%
|Two Brazilian electricians were found dead on a hill top. No injuries. {{w|Lead Masks Case|Both were wearing lead masks.}}
|-
|MH370
|100%
|0%
|{{w|Malaysia Airlines Flight 370}}; disappeared on 8 March 2014
|-
|Voynich Manuscript
|35%
|68%
|The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system: {{w|Voynich manuscript}}.
|-
|Why I keep putting ice cream back in the fridge instead of the freezer
|0%
|96%
|Randal apparently frequently puts his ice cream container into the refrigerator rather than into the freezer.
|-
|JFK
|38%
|86%
|The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has inspired many conspiracy theories, beginning almost immediately after the event. The subsequent murder of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald added fuel to the fire by encouraging speculation that he was silenced to cover up the true story.
|-
|Oak Island Money Pit
|32%
|98%
|
|-
|Zodiac Letters
|62%
|62%
|A set of letters written by the so-called {{w|Zodiac Killer}}, a serial killer who was active at Califorina in the 1960s and 1970s. The letters are availabe at [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer_letters Wikisource].
|-
|Amelia Earhart
|56%
|74%
|Amelia Earhart tried to circle the earth at the equator in an aeroplane in 1937, but she, her navigator and the plane disappeared over the Pacific without any trace.
|-
|Lost Colony
|74%
|83%
|The {{w|Roanoke Colony}} was the first English attempt to establish a permanent settlement in the New World. The colony of over a hundred settlers disappeared some time in the late 1580s, with no signs of violence and no clear clues as to what happened other than the word "Croatoan" carved into a fencepost.
|-
|Bigfoot
|60%
|98%
|
|-
|Loch Ness Monster
|64%
|100%
|
|-
|Kentucky Meat Shower
|85%
|93%
|Chunks of meat fell from the sky in Kentucky in 1876; this was possibly projectile vomit from a vulture [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/2014/12/01/the-great-kentucky-meat-shower-mystery-unwound-by-projectile-vulture-vomit/].
|-
|Dyatlov Pass Incident
|93%
|96%
|On February 2, 1959, nine skiers in the northern Ural Mountains apparently fled their tents without taking time to put on winter clothing. They were found dead, some with physical injuries: {{w|Dyatlov Pass Incident}}
|}

The title text refers to Randall staying up late to read Wikipedia articles, which is apparently not very unusual for him and has an obvious explanation (following up on an idea that eventually led to today's cartoon).

==Transcript==

{{comic discussion}}