MONTIGNAC, FRANCE—Stressing that they had been as astonished as anyone to learn the hideous creatures actually lived and congregated in the real world, a team of anthropologists from Oxford University who discovered the existence of goblins reportedly decided this week to just let the coronavirus thing die down before making their announcement. “Frankly, we assumed that goblins were creations of pure fantasy and I would have dismissed any evidence of them outright had my entire team not seen and verified their reality with their own eyes, which is why we’re just going to sit on this until the whole pandemic fiasco goes away,” said lead researcher Dr. Arthur Worcester, who indicated that he had been dumbstruck after stumbling onto hundreds of tiny enchanted hammers and golden trinkets during a routine excavation of the Lascaux cave complex before witnessing the fanged, cape-wearing beings gathering in a stone hollow for some sort of mischievous festivities, but that none of this changed the core fact that there were more pressing issues for most people. “We also found dozens of perfectly intact skeletons that appear to be preserved through some sort of goblin magic. All of this would confirm centuries of folktales and legends about these monstrous tricksters in a way that could frankly transform how humanity understands the physical world. I mean, Jesus Christ—goblins. Honestly, the fact that I have a few of them locked up in a cage in my office alone would probably make me one of the most influential scientists in human history. But we want this to get the airtime it deserves, and there’s this whole Covid-19 problem, so...I guess, we’ll just wait? Honestly, what else do you do here?” At press time, Worcester had advised his team that they could try submitting a few of the photographs of the goblins performing sorcery this summer to Nature or Science, but that he doubted they would gain any real traction given the current state of things.

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