This document contains Angell's notes from a meeting of the American Archaeological Society in St. Thurston then recounts the second part of Angell's manuscript, noting that only Angell, not Wilcox, knew the true import of Wilcox's dreams. He also finds news clippings that record instances of worldwide hysteria and unrest on March 22nd. On the night of March 22nd, Wilcox becomes feverish and deliriously imagines 'Cyclopean cities' and a gigantic monster 'miles high.' Thurston finds addenda to the manuscript that prove that Angell started recording the dreams of other participants at this time, finding poets and artists to be the most likely to have experienced the same visions as Wilcox. Wilcox once showed up in Angell's office with the sculpture, speaking of strange dreams he had after an earthquake on March 1st. In the first part of Angell's manuscript, Thurston learns how a sculptor from the Rhode Island School of Design named Henry A. Among Angell's possessions, Thurston finds a locked box that contains an odd clay bas-relief, and a two-part manuscript entitled 'CTHULHU CULT.' Thurston studies the bas-relief sculpture, which features the outline of a figure that looks like an octopus, dragon, and human combined. Thurston informs the reader that he is the executor of his late grand-uncle's estate, a retired professor at Brown University named George Gammell Angell.

The title announces that the speaker of the story, Francis Wayland Thurston, has perished, and that what follows has been found among his papers.

The call of cthulhu and other stories