History Main / ApocalypticLog

See also LostInTransmission, DistressCall, LateToTheTragedy, ActionSurvivor, AlmostDeadGuy, HarbingerOfImpendingDoom, SendInTheSearchTeam, IgnoredExpert, UndeadAuthor, PosthumousCharacter, PosthumousNarration, ThatWasTheLastEntry. See also VideoWill, the various times when the CassetteCraze applies to disappearances, and some of the less pleasant cases of MessageInABottle. FoundFootageFilms are movies that use this as their framing device. DeadlineNews is a related trope where the very bad thing happens to the TV news crew reporting live on it; UnintentionalFinalMessage is another related trope where the doomed sender doesn't know they're about to die.

* ''[[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Journal_of_Kith The Journal of Kith]]'' chronicles one dwarf's ill-fated quest to re-discover [[VideoGame/DwarfFortress the ruins of an (in)famous dwarven fortress]] -- {{LetsPlay/Boatmurdered}}.

!!Examples:

* ''Skull Island: The Birth of Kong'': This ''Franchise/MonsterVerse'' graphic novel's supplementary materials includes the detailed notes of ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' character Bill Randa on the titular island and its inhabitants, which were evidently written during his time on the island before he met his eath by a Skullcrawler.

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084541/chapters/66133225 Something WIcked This Way COmes,]] a ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' fanfic has an Apocalptic Captain's Log by the captain of a ship that went through an EldritchLocation in space - the log begins complaining of widespread space sickness among the crew and goes downhill from there, getting more nad more incoherent as the captain undergoes serious SanitySlippage. Kirk and the Enterprise crew finds the ship empty of everything but corpses... [[EldritchAbomination or so it seems, to begin with]].
-->"I can sense them" Neill had recorded in one of his later entries. "They are in our dreams, looking in. they are in the corners where the shadow falls on them. They know who we are."
* ''Fanfic/AmongYou'': A large portion of the ''and they say murder can't be a bonding activity'' - whats been released of it so far, anyway - consists of Orange reading White's data log, documenting experiments involving Minis and Impostors, how she got her Mini, and how she came to work on the Reliant.
* ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/620340 A Statement in the Ice]]'', a one-shot ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}''/''Franchise/CthulhuMythos'' crossover which uses the concept that [[spoiler:Adrian]] called down a ''real'' EldritchAbomination rather than had one customized.
* ''[[http://featherfish.livejournal.com/196763.html#cutid1 The Baker Street Record]]'', a ''Literature/SherlockHolmes''/''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' crossover, is one giant Apocalyptic Log.
* Dr. Brainstorm records something similar to one while his lab is ablaze in ''Fanfic/CalvinAndHobbesTheSeries''.
* ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod'': The prologue consists in Gendo and Fuyutsuki listening to the "Transcript of the Last Transmissions of the Long-Smith Expedition", recorded by two scientists while they were exploring a network of caverns. The log abruptly ends up when they are found by an EldritchAbomination.
* "[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/136972/daring-done Daring DONE!]]": Parodied. Ponies repeatedly send letters through a magical dragon even when they really should have better things to do, or shouldn't be physically capable of sending letters. It starts with the relatively tame example of [[ItMakesSenseInContext Twilight Velvet sending letters to her daughter while the princesses are tearing her house apart, and then escalates to the Royal Guard desperately sending letters to her husband Night Light while she's fighting them]].
-->'''Night Light:''' Twilight Velvet is whipping you and you still send me a letter? I don't really understand how that works, but Princess Celestia can be proud of her Royal Guards' dedication.
* In the fanfic-of-a-fanfic, ''Literature/TheDarkPast'', the boys exploring an ancient alien spaceship discover the final log recording made by the only remaining relatively able-bodied crew member [[spoiler: right before he killed himself]]. The recording gives them enough clues to understand what happened and also provides some plot exposition.
* ''Fanfic/FalloutEquestria'', like its [[VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}} source material]], is full of these. Much of the backstory of before the war is explained through computer logbook entries and [[TransferableMemory memory orbs]] scattered about.
* The ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' DarkFic ''Fanfic/SodorFallout'' is told through Sidney’s (Edward’s driver) notes and logs he writes in his journal.
* In ''Fanfic/FleetOfTheHomewardBound'', The International Space Station keeps a constant feed and broadcast trained on the three Ha'Taks in orbit even though she is well aware that her orbit is about to carry her into their presence, at which point they'll probably vaporize her, in the hopes that [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture somebody on Earth can use the information to stop them]]. This is subverted when Normandy alters her orbit with a Mass Effect field to put her out of immediate danger.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14143326/1/The-Frozen-Terror The Frozen Terror]]'' is an ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' fic about a young Brandon, Ned, and Lyanna finding a journal hidden in Brandon the Shipwright's tomb detailing his failed journey across the Sunset Sea. It's revealed that they were actually successful in reaching eastern Essos that way, but on return they ran aground on an iceberg, where a mysterious creature began hunting the crew each night. It ultimately turns out to be [[spoiler: one of the crew, cursed into a werewolf while in Asshai. By the time this is discovered, most of the crew is dead and Brandon has been infected; he sequesters himself in the iceberg before he can turn and sends the few survivors back to Westeros with his journal as a warning, which is what led his son to burn the North's fleet so no one could ever risk finding him and spreading the curse]].
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10383987/1/The-Ghost-of-the-North The Ghost of the North]]'' is mostly a story about a mysterious, incredibly powerful figure (the Ghost) that gives certain tips to the nobles of the North, and later all of Westeros, to prevent certain problems and prepare the Seven Kingdoms for the Long Night, the last chapter is about a centenary Jon Targaryen (son of Rhaegar and Lyanna, who married some time after Elia dies in childbirth) reading one such log. [[spoiler:Written by canon Jon Snow, it tells of how the Others felled the Wall and marched south while most nobles stupidly continued to play the game of thrones. The Others eventually took over Westeros, which not even Daenerys and her dragons were able to prevent, and the last survivors of the Seven Kingdoms took refuge in Essos. While the Others struck at the slaver Free Cities, Jon crossed back to Westeros and made his way north to find Bran, who told him the war was lost, but that he could yet change things: he would send Jon back in time to change history, but he would have to leave behind his identity... becoming the Ghost of the North.]]
* In ''Fanfic/TheGospelOfMalachel'', the captain of a merchant ship sends a distress right before his vessel is destroyed by an EldritchAbomination.
-->The deck shook under his feet and the bow of the ship tilted downwards, throwing him against the console. The ground had a distinctive slope and the ship began to slide forward, picking up speed.\\
"Mayday! Mayday! This is the transport vessel ''Malheureux''! We're currently--!" His voice stopped as the ship suddenly cleared the edge of the ground. He could see the sea very far below, glittering in the sunlight. "--airborne," he squeaked as the ship tilted forward and began the long fall towards the water.
* The ''Fanfic/HalloweenUnspectacular'' anthology series has a few examples:
** "Dead Gods" is a final message from [[WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddparents AJ]], recording how he was part of an expedition to study a [[Franchise/MassEffect Reaper]] found buried under London. It ended up [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Indoctrinating]] most of the expedition members, who then killed the rest. AJ states his intent to [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled shoot himself before it happens to him too]], but not before warning whoever finds his message to destroy the Reaper, even if means destroying London as well.
** "Project [=ReGenesis=]" is presented as a series of reports and security footage of the titular project, dedicated to creating a PhysicalGod... and how it [[GoneHorriblyRight succeeds]], resulting in the deaths of everyone involved.
** "Cairo to the Cape" is a series of journal entries by AJ, [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius Jimmy]], and [[WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom Jazz]], who are all part of a recreational expedition from Cairo to Cape Town which gets hopelessly lost after crossing Lake Victoria. SanitySlippage is on full display as they begin suffering from low supplies and disease. [[spoiler: The final entry is by [[WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants Mr. Krabs]], who reveals that he and [[WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys Eliza]] deliberately led the group astray as part of a HumanSacrifice.]]
** "Sea Dogs" opens with an entry in the personal log of a sea galleon's captain, recounting how his ship became lost at sea, and overwhelmed by a mysterious illness, which the main story eventually reveals to be [[spoiler: werewolves]].
* In the first episode of ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' fanfic ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', [[EvilCounterpart Satan Girl]] assaults a starship. The crew has time to send a message right before being destroyed.
-->Within seconds, she was in outer space. Her course was set to intercept that of a massive United Planets patrol ship.\\
A message was shortly received at the headquarters of the United Planets. It was the last one they would get from that particular starship.\\
The message stated that their craft was being destroyed by an unarmed woman. It was cut off before the end.
* The ''Fanfic/HiddenFrontier'' season 1 episode ''Perihelion'', in a manner similar to the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode ''Night Terrors'', features an excellent cameo by Gabriel Köerner, in logs which show him deteriorating under the constant pressure of hallucinations, system failures and mutiny.
-->'''Köerner:''' I think I may have to kill my Chief Engineer.
* In ''Fanfic/JerichoMLP'', surprisingly given the setting, but also downplayed. The most exact events of what's going on are told from a little girl's diary, and so it's not explicit at all what's going on. While it's not a normal example of an apocalyptic log, since the end hasn't technically happened in them, they do tell a story of things getting worse, but, at the times Jericho arrives, the dark events ''aren't over yet''.
* The ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' DarkFic, ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5251546/1/Log_of_the_End_of_the_World Log of the End of the World]]'', is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what you'd expect it to be]]. Although there are a few chapters where it goes out of the log format, the majority of the fic is written as journal entries written by the surviving [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Nations]] after [[spoiler:a nuclear war kills millions around the world, including Nations like Russia, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, (South) Korea, Taiwan... The list truly ''does'' goes on]].
* ''Fanfic/LostToDust'': On the day she was killed, Ilia Amitola made a recording on her scroll in case she didn't make it. After explaining that someone was killing everyone in her unit, she declared her love for Blake Belladonna and said she was planning to find her so that they could run away together. Then she was killed. Unfortunately, the recording doesn't show the face of her killer.
* The ''Franchise/DragonAge'' fic ''Fanfic/MiddleOfNowhere'' is written as a diary. The narrator occasionally gets into enough trouble that other characters have to step in and complete his entries.
* In "How Things Smurf" from Raven Child's ''Fanfic/TheSmurfetteVillage'' series, Brainette finds Tattlerette's last Daily Report in the Smurf Village which recorded that Smurfette's final words about what went on during the time the SyntheticPlague spread through the village.
* ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'': Should anyone but the owner pick up Kyril's journal, they would find the contents incomplete and scrambled in no particular order, yet they document a tale about [[DarkAndTroubledPast his experience in Yharnam]], including: [[ResurrectiveImmortality one of his deaths]], his initial hopefulness, the deaths of all the people he befriended, and other mind-shattering ordeals and monstrosities.
* The Music/{{Aviators}} song "One Last Letter" is set in a BadFuture [[WhatIf where the Mane Six failed to stop Discord]] and centers on [[TitleDrop Twilight writing a final letter to Celestia]] before [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie being completely discorded herself]].
* ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'' has a sidestory titled "Shadows of the Jungle". It's written in the form of journal entries from a Pokémon Researcher named Gideon Knowles, following him and his colleagues in an expedition to Guyana in search of a Legendary Pokémon. [[spoiler: The team loses members one after another as they go deeper into the jungle, attacked by vicious swarms of Bug-type Pokémon, until the final entry has Knowles writing how he was taken to an underground lair, and the one controlling turned out to be not a Legendary Pokémon, but a human girl, a bloodliner who acts as their HiveQueen. Knowles ends up placed in a pit to be devoured alive, and somehow his journal ends up in a completely different place, where search parties sent by Giovanni (who funded the expedition) retrieve it.]]
* The ''Fanfic/PonyPOVSeries'' has two examples, both of which somehow ended up in the possession of [[spoiler: [[MysteriousWatcher the Interviewers]]]], who eventually saw them end up in Twilight's possession.
** The first is Razzaroo's book, containing every last detail of the G3 world and the ponies living there [[spoiler: as the Alicorns and Draconequi [[CosmicRetcon erased it all from existence]].]]
** G2 Bon Bon's diary, containing accounts from herself and the other G2 Mane Cast on the [[ApocalypseHow/{{Class2}} collapse of G2 society]] [[spoiler: and their G3 incarnations' reactions to the above mentioned erasure.]]
* The second chapter of ''Fanfic/PowerRangersClockwork'' focuses on the heroes finding a series of journals belonging to Asgaut Velothi, chronicling his family's life in Urverk Castle, going from the construction to experiencing tragic events such as a worker dying and then revived in a suit of armor temporarily until a fire mage killed him again. The final journal documents on Aricin's illness from his poisoning, and then Asgaut suffering the same effects and being suited into armor, only it took years for him to finally die, and it was all done for the family to reach immortality, instrumented by Brynja.
* ''Art/RealisticPokemon'': [[https://www.deviantart.com/arvalis/art/What-Lies-in-the-Cerulean-Caves-447504505 What Lies in the Cerulean Caves]] is presented as the POV of a [[FoundFootage doomed trainer's camera.]]
* The short (one chapter) fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3476162/1/Shadow-Realm-Blasphemy Shadow Realm: Blasphemy]]'' is an Apocalpyptic Log written by Kozaky (well, ''a'' Kozaky, there's lots of them) who is commissioned to translate a tablet. [[spoiler:The journal starts off like a typical research log, but the writer starts showing signs of exhaustion, then obsession, then questionable sanity. Eventually, the log makes it clear that the tablet itself is cursed, and details a dark ritual that, if performed correctly, will restore Ruin, Queen of Oblivion and Demise, King of Armageddon, and the still-sapient vestiges of both are trying to control him in order to compel him to do so. Eventually, he has a brief moment of lucidity, convinces a courier to bring the tablet to the ocean and bury it on the seafloor, and after writing the final entry on the fireproof journal as a warning to anyone who goes looking for it, activates a bomb that kills him and destroys the translations.]]
* ''Fanfic/StarlightOverDetrot'' had the diary of High Spirits, a teacher whose efforts to fix his school's leaky boiler [[GoneHorriblyRight worked a little too well]]:
-->As I made to get up, I bumped the book. It fell open, passed the section we'd been reading, and the diagrams, to the last several pages.\\
In jagged, slashing strokes of the pen, there was a single word written again and again across every inch of the paper and on both sides. It packed the corners and was circled dozens of times.\\
Late! Late! LATE!''\\
I hesitated before easing the book shut again with one toe.\\
"In fact, If nopony has any objections... I'd like to leave this place right now."
* In ''Subject 014'', a ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' fanfiction, Anko is in an abandoned base and is reading one of these and the last entry sudden trails off the clipboard. Anko then checks the date. [[OhCrap the last entry was written seventeen minutes ago]].
-->'''Anko:''' Fuck!
* In ''Fanfic/SweetiesMansion'', Sweetie Belle finds torn pages of a shared journal by Madame Fleur and Spector that explains about how they lived before they were turned into ghosts and clues about the mystery of the mansion itself.
* The Franchise/MarvelUniverse fan film [[https://vimeo.com/79697570 #TRUTHINJOURNALISM]] is basically ''Film/ManBitesDog'' with the twist that the camera crew realizes that they're becoming accomplices to a scumbag and try to back out. [[spoiler: Venom]] doesn't take it well...
* In an {{homage}} to the ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' example, the ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' fic ''Fanfic/AVoiceInTheWilderness'' has an away team from USS ''Bajor'' investigate a partially assimilated Preserver installation and discover a recording of a Preserver admitting to [[spoiler:having accidentally created the Borg and imprisoning its ArtificialIntelligence after they had taken over the planet, then being assimilated himself]].
* ''Fanfic/ThereWasOnceAnAvengerFromKrypton'': The first entry in ''[[AllThereInTheManual Sapient Species Codex]]'', rather than being auto-written by the Altean species-monitoring system, was written by Alteans who survived the Galra purge and were determined to leave behind a record of their species, which they were convinced was too devastated to survive.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' fanfilm ''The Message'', the FinalGirl is woken from cyrosleep to find the crew dead and a message for Weyland Yutani left by the captain who was ordered by the Company to land on [=LV426=] and investigate rumors of the alien spaceship. The recording is [[ThatWasTheLastEntry interrupted by the xenomorph killing him]] and the MasterComputer wants permission to transmit it to Weyland Yutani, but she orders it deleted and sends her own. "To the people who sent us here: FUCK YOU!" Unfortunately, it's not enough to deter the Company from [[Film/{{Alien}} sending another spaceship.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
%%* Both the ''Film/TheZombieDiaries'', and ''Film/DiaryOfTheDead'' have this for the ZombieApocalypse.
* The style of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' is meant to evoke found footage, even though the film itself doesn't fit the category. Aside from shooting on relatively inexpensive DV cameras and using odd angles to mimic a "found footage" look, several scenes were deliberately staged to resemble photographs from the genocide and war in Bosnia.
* ''Film/TheAgeOfStupid'' is a 2009 pseudo-documentary that is created as one. The various clips we see are old recordings from our time, viewed by a sole archivist played by the late Pete Postlethwaite, living in an arctic repository in the mid-21st century where damage from climate change has driven humanity to extinction. The man attempts to create a film showing why humanity didn't save itself when it had the chance. [[{{Anvilicious}} It takes a certain view of climate change]].
* ''Film/AlienAbductionIncidentInLakeCounty'' (a remake of ''UFO Abduction'' a.k.a. ''The [=McPherson=] Tape'') predates ''The Blair Witch Project'' and involves a family celebrating Thanksgiving in a secluded cabin when the power goes out. When searching for the source of the outage, the family stumbles on a UFO and a group of aliens who start terrorizing the family. Besides the typical "shaky cam" effect, suspense is added by the fact that the aliens are never shown in detail, as their very presence somehow causes the camera to pixelize. The aliens also possess some sort of PsychicPowers, allowing them to mind control the family. There are two endings: one involves the family members disappearing one-by-one, with the boy holding the camera finally dropping it when coming face-to-face with one of the aliens; the other has the aliens simply walk into the dining room, the family marches out under mind control, and an alien switches off the camera. The director's original intent was to make it as realistic as possible, ending the video abruptly. However, ExecutiveMeddling has resulted in ending credits being added, dispelling the mystery by showing who played the aliens.
* The titular journal in ''Film/AntarcticJournal'' clearly wants to be an Apocalyptic Log, but since the guys who find it don't really read much of it, and the pictures are vague, it fails in its attempt.
* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' starts with Tony Stark using a helmet of his to record a log, which given the ship's AlmostOutOfOxygen and with supplies depleted, he intends for it to be his final message. Luckily, he ends up saved soon after.
* Some of the footage used in ''Film/TheBay'' is this, like the videos left by Dr. Abrams, head doctor who must deal with the outbreak at the local hospital, and Jennifer, a young girl who records the progress of her infection via a Skype/[=YouTube=]-like web app.
* ''Film/BlackWake'': The whole movie in a nutshell is presented as a series of video logs chronicling people being attacked either by strange individuals, and/or becoming hosts for a parasite.
* ''Film/TheBlairWitchProject'' (1999) [[TropeCodifier brought the found footage genre into the mainstream]]. It comprises footage shot by an ill-fated documentary film crew researching the Blair Witch urban legend. The film was marketed as real found footage, causing some confusion amongst more gullible viewers.
* ''Film/BloodBags'': Petra finds some notes in an upstairs room of the mansion detailing how a family's baby has been diagnosed with [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7376977/ Gunther disease]].
* Ultimately averted in the 1975 movie ''Film/{{Bug|1975}}''. Parmiter makes an audio log of his study of the hybrid bugs, but they deliberately destroy it, so his findings can never be discovered.
* The infamous exploitation film ''Film/CannibalHolocaust'' is split into halves, the first being the recovery of an ApocalypticLog filmed by a documentary crew observing Amazonian tribes, and the second being the log itself. Because the film was made way back in 1980, this makes the found footage genre OlderThanTheyThink.
* ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'' is a "worm's eye view" of a {{Kaiju}} film in which a man records himself and a group of survivors struggling through New York City during a monster attack. Bumpers added to the footage identify it as from a tape discovered by later investigators.
* ''Film/ClownMotel'': One of the girls finds a journal in their hotel room that belonged to a police officer named "Jane Doe". She details how her partner disappeared after going beyond the cemetery, and how she found a mine, [[HopeSpot which gives the group hope they can use it to escape]]. [[spoiler:It just goes right back to the motel.]]
* ''Film/ColorOutOfSpace2020'': Local hermit Ezra leaves a rather haunting one in the form of his audio logs, which continue playing in his hut after he's evidently died from the titular BrownNoteBeing[='s=] effects, broadcasting his thoughts and speculations about the Color.
* Subverted in ''Film/TheCore'': Zimsky records his thoughts on his impending death... until he realizes the tape recorder's going to die with him and bursts out laughing. His final words are "What the fuck am I doing?"
* ''[[Film/{{Creep2014}} Creep]]'' plays with this. The setup is that the filming starts off as a video log to be passed to the unborn child of the terminally-ill subject, but as the movie goes on we learn there's something terribly off about him, the tables turn, and it becomes a chronicle of the cameraman's final days.
* ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'':
** The DVD extras have a video log of Andy's last days right up until he became a zombie. The log also had a short clip of what appears to be his family, which he partially recorded over.
** Another DVD extra is an in-universe news broadcast about the opening stages of the ZombieApocalypse, starting with initial reports about riots in the Midwest, continuing through clips and reports of the spreading zombie outbreak and various responses to it in both the US and abroad, and ending with the news anchor in an increasingly abandoned studio telling his wife that he's coming home as he walks out and the station goes to emergency broadcasting.
* The pseudo-remake of ''Film/DayOfTheDead2008'' had the survivors come across a scientist's video-log in a underground medical facility (which was very reminiscent of ''Film/ResidentEvil2002''). The log also shows the scientist turning into a zombie.
* In ''Film/DesHommesEtDesDieux'', the final voiceover consists of [[spoiler:Christian's testament, describing his view on the dangerous situation.]]
* As the rescue team enter the deserted Glasgow in ''Film/{{Doomsday}}'' we're treated to excerpts of Kane's log, detailing his frantic attempts to survive in a barricaded hospital as civilisation outside crumbles and burns in the aftermath of the [[TheVirus Reaper virus]] outbreak.
* In ''Film/{{Eli}}'', the title character finds a series of medical files showing [[spoiler: the deterioration of Dr. Horn's patients. The page for Treatment 1 shows a picture of the child looking healthy. On the page for Treatment 2, they look weak and sunken-eyed. The page for Treatment 3 shows them dead on the operating table]].
* A very abbreviated version can be found in ''Film/EventHorizon'', wherein the salvage crew finds the ship's logs. The first portion shows the ambitious crew getting ready to perform the experimental hyperspace jump, but it cuts out at the moment of entry, to be replaced by horrific images of what happened to the crew after [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace the trip]]. The last coherent line recorded on the log is [[spoiler:"Libera te tutemet ex inferis", or "Save yourself from hell".]] The last part is actually a plot point, as the original audio recording was garbled and made it seem as if [[spoiler:TheCaptain was asking for help ("Liberate me" -- "save me"), when, in fact, he was warning people to stay away]].
-->'''Captain Miller:''' ''[turning off the video]'' We're leavin'.
* The ''Franchise/EvilDead'' trilogy uses this trope as the catalyst for its plot, as Professor Knowby, the researcher who first unearthed the [[TomeofEldritchLore Necronomicon]], kept an audio journal chronicling his battle with his [[DemonicPossession demon-possessed]] wife Henrietta, and his failed attempt to survive the night. Unfortunately, he'd also recorded the recitation of the demon summoning spell that'd accidentally caused the mess to begin with, meaning that anyone who listens to the whole tape ends up going through the exact same thing.
* ''Film/FoundFootage3D'', an AffectionateParody of the genre, refers to this as "the first rule of found footage" -- the "found" part comes from the fact that nobody was left alive to bring the footage back, and it was only recovered later by the search party. The film revolves around the [[TroubledProduction production]] of ''[[ShowWithinAShow Spectre of Death 3D]]'', "the first 3D found footage film", which plays this trope straight; the fact that Derek is trying to [[WagTheDirector rewrite the script]] so that his character lives to the end is a sign of his growing [[ThePrimaDonna diva behavior]]. [[spoiler:The film itself is also a straight example, ending with a possessed Amy [[CallBack referring to "the first rule of found footage"]] before she kills Mark.]]
* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}''
** The original 1954 ''Film/Godzilla1954'' featured a reporter giving a blow-by-blow description of Gojira's destruction of Tokyo, ending with his description of the monster's attack on the tower he was broadcasting from.
** ''Film/ShinGodzilla'' has an Apocalyptic Log that serves as a major plot point. An abandoned yacht owned by a man named Goro Maki is found and the characters piece together what happened: Maki discovered Godzilla in a larval state and began researching him, keeping journals and jotting down data. Excerpts of the notes are given, explaining how Maki was shunned and mocked by academia, had his work censured by the United States government, and eventually crossed the DespairEventHorizon after his wife died of improperly treated radiation sickness. Pushed past the breaking point, he left behind all his notes (including a method to destroy Godzilla) for others to find, with a final entry saying "do what you will". [[NothingIsScarier We never find out what happened to him after that]]; all the authorities find are some personal belongings left on his boat. [[spoiler:The ending heavily implies that he may have been assimilated by Godzilla, judging by the disturbingly humanlike growths seen on Godzilla's tail after he's frozen.]]
* ''Film/GraveEncounters'' is this. It's supposed to be the footage the titular ghost-hunting show takes when they go into an abandoned mental hospital to film an episode. Obviously all of it was supposed to be fake (as shown by the spokesman of the show paying a custodian to say he saw something creepy), but, of course, the ghosts soon turn out to be real, and very, very nasty. It seems to switch between the in-universe cameras and regular ones, though (probably so the whole film wouldn't be in slightly grainy green-light)
* Timothy Treadwell's tapes in ''Film/GrizzlyMan'' constitute this, even to the point of recording Tim and his girlfriend being eaten by a bear (although with audio only).
* ''Hell House'' series
** ''Film/HellHouseLLC'' starts as a documentary about a haunted house attraction in upstate New York where fifteen people, including most of the crew, die in an unknown accident. The bulk of the film consists of footage shot by the haunted house crew during setup showing how [[FromBadToWorse everything went off the rails.]]
** ''Film/HellHouseLLCIITheAbaddonHotel'' picks up eight years after the events of the original in the same style.
* Such log in Creator/LucioFulci's ''Film/TheHouseByTheCemetery'' leads to TheReveal regarding the Freudstein House's CreepyBasement.
* ''Film/IAmLegend'' is a variation on the typical setup, as its the main character keeping the log of his continuing research into the plague, almost three years after the [[ZombieApocalypse Vampire Apocalypse]].
* ''Film/IslandOfTerror'' had such a log, explaining how anti-cancer research resulted in the creation of the bone-eating Silicates.
* In ''Film/ItCameFromHollywood'', Creator/DanAykroyd narrates the section about alien {{B Movie}}s as "Colonel Dan Diamond" dictating the events of an AlienInvasion for future generations.
-->"Yeah, the aliens came in all shapes and sizes. Short, tall, thin, fat...[[MarsNeedsWomen horny]]."
* In ''Film/TheKillerShrews'' (which was featured on a ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode), there is a {{Narm}}ful scene where a scientist, having just been bitten by one of the title monsters, sits down at a typewriter and records the process of his body succumbing to the shrew's poisonous saliva. Based upon the real-life incident of herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt (see folder "Real Life", below).
* ''Film/TheLastBroadcast'' (1998) is a pseudo-documentary featuring found footage from a disastrous cable-access paranormal program. The film pre-dates the vastly more successful ''Blair Witch Project'' by a short time, causing many viewers to mistake it for a rip-off.
%%* There is also the 70s b-movie, ''Film/TheLegendOfBoggyCreek'' about bigfoot.
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing'': When the Fellowship reaches the Mines of Moria, next to Balin's tomb they find Ori's journal which reads: "They have taken the Bridge and the Second Hall. We have barred the gates, but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes... Drums. Drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A shadow moves in the dark... We cannot get out... ''They are coming''." This isn't exactly what Tolkien wrote, but it's chillingly effective, and even shows the journal with the final scrawled entry trailing off down the page.
* The film ''Lost Signal'' is based on a story of a Nebraska couple, [[https://www.copronason.com/meth.htm Janelle Hornickel and Michael Wamsley]], who tried crystal meth at a New Year party, crashed their car and decided to walk while making continuous 911 calls. Part of the real-life tragedy is that they assumed they were much closer to home than they really were and kept giving misleading directions to dispatchers.
%%* ''Film/ManBitesDog'' is also an example that predates the ''Blair Witch Project''.
* ''Film/TheMonsterClub'': Whilst in the church, the director discovers the skeleton of TheVicar and a long document he wrote before dying that explains the terrifying truth of Loughville; centuries before, a swarm of ghouls invaded the village, mated with the humans, and made their nest there.
* From ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': This is actually a humorous subversion. [[spoiler: "Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh" is actually the name of the castle where the Holy Grail is being kept]].
-->'''King Arthur:''' ''(about the inscription on the rock)'' What does it say, Brother Maynard?\\
'''Brother Maynard:''' It reads, "Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the holy grail in the Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh..."\\
'''King Arthur:''' What?\\
'''Brother Maynard:''' "The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh".\\
'''Sir Bedevere:''' What is that?\\
'''Brother Maynard:''' He must have died while carving it.\\
'''Sir Lancelot:''' Oh, come on!\\
'''King Arthur:''' Look, if he was dying, he wouldn't have bothered to carve "Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh" into the rock. He'd just say it.\\
'''Brother Maynard:''' Well, that's what's carved on the rock.\\
'''Sir Galahad:''' Perhaps he was dictating it.\\
'''King Arthur:''' Oh shut up!
* The titular OutlawCouple in ''Film/NaturalBornKillers'' always SpareAMessenger at the scene of their [[SpreeKiller killing sprees]] in order to tell the story of what happened and [[FameThroughInfamy build their legend]]. The lone exception comes at the end, when they realize that, because [[spoiler:the [[{{Paparazzi}} tabloid hack]] Wayne Gale filmed their interview]], they can easily kill him and let the camera serve as the lone witness. Mickey describes it as not just the end of [[spoiler:Wayne's career and life]], but a metaphorical end to everything the man represented as well as the end of his and Mallory's killing spree.
-->'''[[spoiler:Wayne Gale]]:''' Don't Mickey and Mallory always leave somebody alive to tell the tale?\\
'''Mickey Knox:''' We are. Your camera.
* The remake of ''Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet2010'' has one from an AsianAndNerdy video blogger. We see several video entries about his dreams of Freddy... and then we see one with him asleep. He then suddenly slams into the camera and the screen blacks out.
* In the cult classic ''Film/NightOfTheCreeps'', James Carpenter "J.C." Hooper leaves a audio recording for his friend explaining how the alien leeches get into your head and incubate. They then create more "brain slugs" before they kill you and reanimate your corpse. His voice is clearly changing, due to the fact he's slowly turning. It's one of the few things in this Horror/Comedy hybrid film that's played bone chillingly straight.
* In ''Film/OverdrawnAtTheMemoryBank'' (another from ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000''), there's one of these for the process the heroine uses to try to save Fingal's mind.
* The ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' series is presented as footage taken by people who encounter the titular paranormal activity. [[spoiler:In all cases, every single protagonist ends up dying.]] In the first film, it's made pretty obvious that the protagonist putting up a camera has only made the demon more active -- and angry. [[TooDumbToLive This doesn't deter him in the slightest]].
* ''Film/PlanetOfTheApes2001'' has this, explaining how the crash of Leo Davidson's ship turned the desolated planet into a simian dystopia. A non-canon book expands on this and reveals that the apes were deliberately engineered to be smart in order to help fight off the local InsectoidAliens. After the apes won, their leader Simos decided that they didn't need to obey humans anymore.
* ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'': At the PCL ruins, Tim and Pikachu replay holographic diary entries made by Dr. Laurent detailing the experiments done there with Mewtwo [[spoiler: including the creation of R and the Neural Link completed]], leading up to the Mewtwo's escape and [[spoiler: Laurent's [[AssholeVictim death]]]].
* ''Film/ThePossessionOfMichaelKing'' starts as a documentary by Michael to disprove the supernatural, and ends up being a warning left to not meddle with such forces.
* ''Film/{{REC}}'' and its American remake ''Film/Quarantine2008'' are found footage recorded by a female reporter and her camera man while trapped inside an apartment building with zombies. There's also a subversion of the trope when they discover a dictation machine in a RoomFullOfCrazy. You'd assume that the machine would hold an Apocalyptic Log about the zombie virus's origins, but the batteries are dead, so [[TheUnreveal the message is incomprehensible]].
* Part of the plot of ''Film/{{Resolution}}'' is that Michael starts finding a series of these with the medium ranging from records to projector slides to books to photographs to [=DVDs=]. Eventually, they start to be about him...
* ''Film/RobotWorld'': In [[spoiler: a small shed]], the astronaut find [[spoiler: an old film reel of a family having a party when a huge attack occurs]].
* In ''Film/{{Serenity}}'', the crew of the eponymous ship head to the planet of Miranda and come across a lot of dead folks who had apparently lain down and died with no explanation. When they come across a video log from a rescue mission, they find out what happened to the planet: [[spoiler:the Alliance had seeded the planet's air with an experimental drug called the Pax, which was intended to curb violent tendencies. [[GoneHorriblyRight It worked too well]], resulting in nearly everyone on the planet laying down and dying. Even worse, the drug had the opposite effect upon a small portion of Miranda's population, turning them insane and psychopathically violent, resulting in the creation of the Reavers that we know and fear]]. The crew also see what happened to the rescuers. [[GoryDiscretionShot We don't see]], [[SoundOnlyDeath but they do]].
* At the end of ''Film/{{Superhost}}'', Claire records and uploads a final video to her vlog attempting to warn that [[spoiler:Rebecca is a psychopathic murderer, shortly before Rebecca kills her. Problem is, Claire and Teddy's Website/YouTube channel had such a bad reputation for clickbait that [[CryingWolf everybody thinks it's another stunt]].]]
* The BBC docudrama ''Supervolcano'' has a group of people watching the logs of a dying scientist, who documents the conditions of the U.S. after the eruption of Yellowstone. Subverted, in that [[spoiler:the scientist actually survives, and is one of the people watching the logs]].
* ''Film/TheThing1982''. Helicopter pilot [=MacReady=] leaves an Apocalyptic Log to warn the eventual rescuers about the title monster.
-->'''[=MacReady=]:''' I'm going to hide this tape when I'm finished. If none of us make it, at least there'll be some kind of record...
* George Pal's version of ''[[Film/TheTimeMachine1960 The Time Machine]]'' in the form of the talking rings that explain how a nuclear conflict created two separate species of humanoids.
* ''Film/TheWidow2020'': The rescue team finds a phone in an underground tunnel. On the phone is a video of Nikita and his little brother being kidnapped by the Lame Widow.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TwentySixSixtySix'': Ansky's journal depicts how he got caught up in the Great Purge.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessional_poetry confessionalist school]] of poetry frequently deals with themes of mental illness and suicide. Perhaps its most famous member is Creator/SylviaPlath, whose collection of poems ''Literature/{{Ariel|Plath}}'' and semi-autobiographical novel ''Literature/TheBellJar'' chronicle her slide into clinical depression and, ultimately, suicide.
* In ''Literature/AndromedaNebula'', the starship ''Tantra'', making emergency landing due to lack of fuel, discovers another starship, ''Sail'', which was lost decades ago. There they find a log describing how ''Sail'' was forced to land, and how its inhabitants were killed one by one by some unknown creatures which always attack from the dark.
* The novel of ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' is interspliced with entries from a journal written by Barbara Gordon/Oracle chronicling everything from when Gotham City is split off from the United States to its readmission into the Union. It was obviously done in this vein just in case.
* ''Literature/TheBooksOfEmber'': In ''The City of Ember'', a journal from one of the first residents of Ember is found [[spoiler:as Lina and Doon find their way out of the city]]. In the prequel, ''The Prophet of Yonwood'', this log is shown to be the work of [[spoiler:an elderly Nickie, the protagonist of ''Yonwood'']].
* In ''Literature/BoredOfTheRings'', Tim Benzedrine leaves a note for the boggies the morning after they stay with him in which he enters a drug flashback ''while writing''.
* The heroes of ''Literature/BridgeOfBirds'' find one of these carved into the wall of an ancient ruined city, describing the monster that ruined it.
* ''Literature/ACanticleForLeibowitz'': The papers found by Brother Francis in the fallout shelter detail a man with the initials I.L.'s attempts to find a plane to bring his wife to their fallout shelter before America is decimated by nuclear war. He suspects that this man might his long-dead patron saint, Isaac Leibowitz, which is confirmed when he finds a number of Leibowitz's blueprints for the very devices that ended human civilization and killed his wife.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoWalksThroughWalls'' is written in first person and framed as Richard writing his memoirs. The final {{Cliffhanger}} is written as a recovered journal recording, without revealing to the reader [[spoiler:whether Richard survives or not]].
* ''Literature/ClassicSingaporeHorrorStories'': One of the stories in this anthology, ''Message In A Bottle'', is about a [[MessageinABottle message recovered in a bottle]], which comes from a World War II-era submarine which mysteriously dissappeared during the war. As it turns out, the crew had a run-in with a vengeful sea hag after stealing a cursed locket, which results in all their deaths.
* The second half of ''Literature/TheCollector'' starts out as the secret diary of the captive and ends up a chronicle of [[spoiler:her slow death from pneumonia as she becomes delirious with fever and begs God not to let her die. The narrative resumes from the POV of her captor, who reports that at that point she had fallen into a coma, then succumbed]].
* ''Literature/{{Devolution}}'': Kate's diary entries form the main body of the novel, and serve to chart Greenloop's fall from a high-tech "village of the future" to a devastated, burnt-out wreck due to attacks by an angry Sasquatch troop.
* ''Literature/TheDiaryOfAYoungGirl'' is that of Anne Frank, whose family stayed in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdan, who unusually for this trope never lost hope even in the horrific shadow of death. It becomes a DownerEnding once the Franks were caught in 1944 and sent to various concentration camps; Anne died at Bergen-Belsen in early 1945.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** ''Literature/AHatFullOfSky'' quotes a few passages from a book recording a wizard's attempts to contain and control a Hiver, a mind-controlling monster that gradually turns whatever creature it possesses into a pathological id. To drive the point home, the last few pages degenerate into "Those ''fools!'' [[TheyCalledMeMad I'll show them!]] I'll show them ''all!!!!!''" ranting, and finally completely incoherent random letters.
** ''Literature/{{Thud}}'' has the numerous, disjointed, seemingly-random-numbered notes left by the painter of ''The Battle of Koom Valley'', who slowly went mad (including thinking alternately that he was being chased by a giant chicken and that he ''was'' a giant chicken). The last one -- only known to be so because it was found under his dead body -- read "It comes! ''It comes!!!''" He was found with his throat full of chicken feathers. [[spoiler: Much, ''much'' more soberly, the same novel also features the dying declarations of the troll and dwarf kings from the original Battle of Koom Valley, who recorded their final words of peace on the story's Macguffin. Everything in the book happens due to fanatical dwarf troll-haters' attempts to suppress this politically-stunning message.]]
** In ''Literature/GuardsGuards'', the last few ''intact'' pages of the Library's copy of ''The Summoning of Dragons'' detail, in nervous handwriting, the author's intent to put his dragon-summoning spell into practice. The rest of the pages have been badly scorched, demonstrating that this didn't end well.
* One ''Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse'' novel features a Cyberman-obsessed researcher recording her experiences for future references as she is gradually converted into a Cyberman. Unusual, in that no one gets to discover it -- once she's converted, her original personality is wiped away and she no longer recognises the logic in recording it, and so destroys the recording.
* ''Literature/DoubleIndemnity'' consists of entries from the main character's diary leading up to his SuicidePact with the [[StarCrossedLovers star-crossed]] love interest. In the film, the story is told from the mortally wounded protagonist's recording on his Dictaphone.
* ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'' is assembled from several of these logs (including a captain's log)(, with a few newspaper articles thrown in.
* The introduction to the {{novelization}} of ''Film/DrStrangelove'' says that the manuscript was found under a rock in the Great Northern Desert by aliens.
* The titular character in ''Literature/EdenGreen'', an amateur biologist studying the alien needle symbiote that has infected her best friend, creates an in-universe document of 'important information', of which snippets are shown.
* The [[FictionalDocument fictional memoir]] that makes up the backbone of ''Literature/{{Julian}}'' ends as the titular character invades Persia. The rest is told in diary entries and field dispatches, which become increasingly harried as the campaign goes south.
* In the last ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' book, Sean and friends find an ancient digital diary documenting the fall of society on that planet, [[spoiler:as the general populous went mad from listening to the dwindling hyperspace transmissions of the Fourth Imperium as a loose bio-weapon killed '''everything''' on '''every''' other world, turning against technology as the source of the disaster]].
* John Collier's "Evening Primrose" is an account of how poet Charles Snell decided to move into [[BrandX Bracey's]] and discovered entire colonies of people living there and at other major department stores before he, Ella, and the night watchman were KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade.
* An in-story example for ''Literature/ExtremelyLoudAndIncrediblyClose''. [[spoiler:Oskar comes home from school early on the morning of September 11, 2001 and finds to the voicemails his father, who works in the WTC, has left on the answering machine. When he calls again, Oskar freezes and listens as his father's last words go to voicemail. He hides the tape out of shame and panic and never tells anyone, but listens to it by himself at times.]]
* Played with in ''Literature/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'' in the entry on Lethifolds. Because Lethifolds attack the sleeping and leave nothing behind, it's near impossible to get an accurate tally of people who have been killed by them. It is significantly easier to get a tally of people who have tried to fake their death by Lethifold, as in the case of one man who supposedly left a note as he was being devoured "Oh no, a Lethifold's got me, I'm suffocating!", but was later found to be living with a mistress a few miles away.
* One edition of ''Literature/FlowersForAlgernon'' was specially written to look as if the Progress Reports were actually handwritten by Charlie. The chicken scratch from the start of the book slowly improved as the story progressed, and Charlie's spelling also improved as well. However, take a look at the end and the last sentence:
-->''[[spoiler:"p.p.s. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bakyard..."]]''
** At the end of the sentence, a long, messy line trails off of the "D" and moves off of the page, indicating that [[spoiler: Charlie died while he was writing his last request. However, on other copies of the book, extra pages after this request are deliberately left blank, leaving open the possibility that Charlie may have regressed to the point of extreme illiteracy instead of death.]]
* W.J. Stuart's {{novelization}} of ''Film/ForbiddenPlanet'' has an excellent example of the Apocalyptic Log, in which "Doc" Ostrow, having had a taste of the mental powers provided by the UpgradeArtifact, suggests the answer to the question of how the incredibly advanced Krell {{Precursors}} could have been wiped out in an instant: by unleashing [[EnemyWithout invincible monsters from their subconscious minds]]. As he feared, the [[MySkullRunnethOver effects]] of the UpgradeArtifact kill him before he can explain any further.
* ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' may or may not be one of these, depending on whether or not you think the sea captain who narrates the FramingStory will rescue his ship from the Arctic ice.
* Creator/ArthurConanDoyle's short story "The Horror of the Heights" details the adventures of an intrepid aviator who flies above 40,000 feet and encounters an "air jungle" -- an entire ecosystem of atmospheric beasts. He barely escapes from a predatory creature on his first flight, and records his intentions to go back up later and explore more thoroughly. The framing story reveals that the aviator's plane was found crashed and the aviator himself missing. All that was found in the plane was a torn, blood-stained journal. The last words are hastily scrawled: "Forty-three thousand feet. I shall never see earth again. They are beneath me, three of them. God help me; it is a dreadful death to die!"
* In "Literature/TheHoundsOfTindalos", a police officer investigating a writer's sudden death finds a few scraps of paper he had written on, the last of which was apparently scribbled as he was attacked and killed by the titular monsters. "The Hounds of Tindalos" deserves extra credit for the doomed writer literally transcribing his dying scream:
-->'''Chalmers' notes:''' Their ''tongues''--ahhhhh--
* ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'' is ''three'' apocalyptic logs, embedded within each other; reading the story keeps driving people over the edge.
* ''Literature/TheHouseOnTheBorderland'' consists of a brief FramingStory and this.
* ''Literature/HowNOTToWriteANovel'' features one example, "'And One Ring to Bind Them!' Said the Old Cowpoke", wherein a young woman's bubbly ''normal'' diary morphs suddenly into an Apocalyptic Log about [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext lizard-men taking over the world]].
* Creator/DanSimmons seems to really enjoy these. In ''Literature/{{Hyperion|Cantos}}'', the trope is {{subverted|Trope}} as we get to read the journals from the character as he goes insane from sickness and then as he gets better. In ''Literature/TheTerror'', it's much nastier, as the journal appears through out the book slowly becoming more and more hopeless until in the final entry, when [[spoiler:he tells us how he finally managed to kill the people who captured him as he dies of starvation, scurvy and freezing cold]].
* Mentioned in ''Jag Lever Pappa'' ("I live, daddy") by Siri Marie Seim Sønstelie whhich describes the Utøya massacre, where on July 22, 2011 a gunman Andreas Breivik killed 69 people on the Norwegian island Utøya, most of them teenagers, and wounded many others. Siri Sønstelie, a survivor, remembers that while most people caught in the shooting switched their phones off to avoid discovery, others continued to talk and / or send texts, even as they were shot at.
* In ''Film/JasonX: Planet of the Beast'', a space station crew manages to acquire a few of the logs of the ''Blackstar 13'' (a shuttle Jason had gone on a rampage in) before it crashed into a nearby planet. The last log was made by the ship's hiding and rambling cook, and ends with Jason bashing through the door and horribly murdering him.
* In ''Literature/KilnPeople'', several of the disposable clones of private detective Albert Morris get to describe their own demise in first person. As a {{lampshade|Hanging}}/{{justifi|edTrope}}cation, Albert is used to them being unable to return to him for inloading, so he deliberately orders blanks fitted with voice recorders and a compulsion to recite.
* Creator/StephenKing:
** "The End of the Whole Mess", found in the collection ''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes''. Like ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'', this one is a variation in that the entire story is the Apocalyptic Log and the reader is the one discovering it.
** "Survivor Type", included in the collection ''Literature/SkeletonCrew'', follows a similar tack, with the survivor of a shipwreck recording his time on a tiny rockpile of an island where there's pretty much no local wildlife or edible plants. The spelling and grammar steadily deteriorate as he descends into madness. He eventually resorts to [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalizing]] ''[[{{Autocannibalism}} his own body]]''. [[spoiler:"Lady fingers they taste like lady fingers."]]
** "1922", from the collection ''Literature/FullDarkNoStars'', turns out to be this. In somewhat Lovecraftian fashion, the writer apparently continues to write even as [[spoiler:the supernatural rats that have stalked him since he murdered his wife finally get around to devouring him]]. Of course, it's possible that he's just insane... [[spoiler:The epilogue indicates that the manuscript was devoured along with the man, subverting the trope.]]
** This is also in ''Literature/TheStand'', in the form of Fran's and Harold's diaries--though Fran doesn't die at the end of hers.
* All three books of the ''Literature/LifeAsWeKnewIt'' trilogy are like this though minus the death ending.
* ''Literature/LordsOfNight'' has the framing device of TheChosenOne telling a story about how the Locust People escaped from the Atlantis exhibit at the Smithsonian and ended the world. Later, AfterTheEnd, he writes about he and his associates tried to put it right.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'':
** In ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', the Fellowship go into the Mines of Moria, but find out that all the dwarves of Moria had died. They discover a chronicle of Balin's doomed attempt to recover the mines of Moria in the Chamber of Mazarbul. Gandalf finds the log, of the last siege by the orcs; some sections are illegible, but it's enough to convey the gravity of what they were facing.
--->'''Log:''' We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the Bridge and second hall. Frbr and Luni and Nbli fell there [...] went 5 days ago [...] The pool is up to the wall at Westgate. The Watcher in the Water took Oin. We cannot get out. The end comes, and then drums, drums in the deep. They are coming.
** Gandalf notes that the last three words are written "in a trailing scrawl of elf-letters". The fairly obvious implication is that the author (most likely Ori) wrote these final words just as the last line of defense was breached.
* Creator/HPLovecraft loved these. Many of his stories consist almost entirely of Apocalyptic Logs, usually ending with the narrator in an asylum or clearly about to be eaten by something.
** Including, but not limited to, the seminal "Literature/TheCallOfCthulhu".
** "Literature/TheTemple" is supposed to be the log of a German submarine commander found in a bottle washed up on the Yucatan peninsula.
** "Literature/{{Dagon}}" and "Literature/TheThingOnTheDoorstep" are even better examples. As referenced in the page quote, "Dagon" (and a number of other tales) end with the author writing something ''as the horror is entering the room''. Why he actually ''writes'' his final despairing scream is a question only Creator/MontyPython can answer.
** "The Hound", a short story about two grave robbers coming under a strange curse, ends with the final lines revealing that [[spoiler:the entire story was a suicide note -- the narrator could no longer cope with the unfathomable terror]].
** ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness'' could be considered a variation of sorts. It's written as an account by one of the surviving members of the expedition regarding just what the heck happened, but it still serves a similar function. Lake's report on his discovery would be closer to a straight example, though it doesn't record the actual horror that he experiences. Also in a weird, twisted sense, the artwork which tells the story of the rise of the ancient empire of the Elder-Things, and their fall at the hands of the Shoggoths.
** "Literature/InTheWallsOfEryx" is the recordings of the final days of a space explorer and prospector trapped in an invisible maze on the planet Venus, running low in oxygen and water.
* ''Literature/MaroonedInRealtime'': The diary of the person marooned in real time, while the rest of the survivors of the Singularity used stasis fields to leap forward in time. Decades long record of attempting to change the appearance of the surface of the planet enough to trigger the observation satellites. The hero has to be sedated after reading it.
* Played with in ''Literature/TheMartian''. There are several moments in the story when Mark Watney ''believes'' he's writing one of these, but they always end up followed by a second log entry explaining the feat of [[{{MacGyvering}} desperate improvisation]] and [[{{Determinator}} sheer bloody-minded will to live]] that he used to get himself out of whatever predicament he'd been in beforehand.
* In the historical novel ''Mila 18'', one person decides to keep a log of his starving to death as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He figures that since he is starving, he might as well contribute to science with full logs of all the effects. That is not the only instance of Apocalyptic Log, as other Jews also record the atrocities and their resistance for posterity. [[DownerEnding This is not a happy book]].
* The ''Literature/MiriamBlack'' novel ''Blackbirds'' has [[spoiler:Miriam's diary]], intended to be one in the making, until [[spoiler:Ingersoll intuits her intentions, and Harriet subsequently tries to get her to go through with it. The one thing that stops Miriam from killing herself? Realizing that Harriet was eagerly listening in on the other side of the door, waiting]].
* The Lord Ruler's personal log from ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' is a strange {{inver|tedTrope}}sion. It wasn't apocalyptic for the writer, [[TheBadGuyWins so much as it was for everyone else]]. It's more than a thousand years old by the time the heroes find it.
* ''Literature/TheMothDiaries''. [[spoiler:Or, you know, it might not be that at all.]]
* "[[https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/msfndg.htm M.S. Found in a Bottle]]" by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, also a MessageInABottle. The protagonist states that he's writing the account for posterity, and that if he is about to die or suffer some other fate that would render him incapable of finishing the story, he will put it in the titular bottle and throw it in the sea. He apparently does so when he goes down a whirlpool on a ship full of [[TheUnintelligible old men with a nonsensical language]]...
* ''Literature/{{Neverwhere}}'': Not a scientific log, but a video recording left by Door's father, as he is increasingly fearing for his life, that ends with his almost on-screen death.
* ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'': Near the end of ''Feed'', [[spoiler:Georgia's last blog-post]] begins very coherently but slowly degrades as zombie-fication nears completion. The writing stops mid-word when the author is [[MercyKill shot]].
* ''Literature/NinaTanleven'': In ''The Ghost Wore Gray'', Captain Gray kept a diary of his journey to New York, which Nine and Chris find in a secret compartment of the chest he'd used to carry the treasure he'd been entrusted with. The last entry is his requesting writing supplies so he can make a map and a will; Nine and Chris later find, via a book about Samson Carter, that Captain Gray had to be hidden from his enemies on the same day of that last entry, and died in his hiding place.
* Creator/RobertBloch wrote a story ''titled'' "Notebook Found in a Deserted House", which is basically a 12-year-old boy writing down everything that happened to him in a notebook while he's hiding from the horror that's literally just outside his house. It suddenly ends mid-sentence just as he's found.
* In the ''Literature/OldKingdom'' novel ''Sabriel'', the heroine discovers a magical recording of the last moments of a soldier's life.
* The ''Literature/OlogySeries'' features several among its installments, usually featuring the alleged author of the book and the tragic end of their research expedition. (''Egyptology'', ''Pirateology'', etc.). One exception that formula is ''Mythology'', where the log is of a man who borrowed the book and wrote notes in the margins.
* ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' has a very short, but no less creepy, variation, found by the protagonist after a devastating global pandemic:
-->''Beside a vase of withered flowers and a framed father-and-son snapshot -- the child was a boy then, seven or eight -- there's a telephone scratch pad. Scrawled across the top page are the words GET LAWN MOWED. Then, in smaller, fainter letters, ''Call clinic''... The ballpoint pen is still on the paper, as if dropped from a slackening hand: it must have come suddenly, right then, the sickness and the realization of it both.''
* In ''Orphans in the Sky'', a hidden log found by the original crew's remote descendants details the mutiny that led to their spaceship being lost in space and its inhabitants forgetting that there ever was anything Outside the Ship.
* ''Literature/{{Otherland}}'' uses this trope in a rather interesting way by having the narrative point of view occasionally shift to Martine Desroubin's subvocalized journal entries. The segments are thus effectively an apocalyptic log in the progress of being written. They're doubly intriguing because she is blind and is therefore writing solely from her own experiences and perspective. Later, her journals are recovered from Otherland and she spends time reading them to analyze her own CharacterDevelopment.
* Don Tumasonis' horror story "The Prospect Cards" is a sales catalog of very odd postcards. The back of each card has a fragment of the log from an expedition intended to milk an isolated tribe of all their wealth, while the front has a picture that hints at each expedition member's fate. [[spoiler:The pictures aren't reassuring.]]
* The end of ''Literature/{{Rant}}'' subtly implies a strange {{subver|tedTrope}}sion of this. The interviews that make up the story are from a world that doesn't exist, but only because the events of the story caused it to cease existing. What's worse is that the story not only fails to tell the reader how to avert this "apocalypse" from happening again, it states that it can't be stopped, that it '''will''' happen again, and that nobody will ever notice except for the twisted degenerates that figured out how to pull this trick. Except for the few people who have become gods through murder and rape, reality is one big LotusEaterMachine.
* In ''Literature/RatmansNotebooks'', the titular character's diary has become this by the end of the story.
* "The Raw Shark Texts" begins with the main character having no recollection of himself, slowly reconstructing his history from an Apocalyptic Log he left for himself before the incident that resulted in his amnesia. At least, this might be what is happening -- much like ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves'', the boundaries of reality and the text are somewhat thin.
* ''Crisis Report'', found in ''Red Planet & Other Stories'' by Kevin Griffis, is an apocalyptic ''report'' clinically detailing the collapse of civilization. Corpse piles, indeed.
* ''Literature/TheRedTree2009'' is the diary of a woman who committed suicide and details the supernatural ([[UnreliableNarrator maybe]]) events that destroyed her sanity and led to her death.
* ''Literature/SeptimusHeap'': Syrah Syara's diary ends with her reminding herself who she is while succumbing to the Syren's possession.
* In ''Literature/TheSisterVerseAndTheTalonsOfRuin'', several documents detail an ill-fated experiment to open a black hole for an EldritchAbomination, so that it can enter the world and ascend humanity. Any subsequent logs describe the world-ending results of that decision.
* John Barnes' ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_So_Big_and_Black The Sky so Big and Black]]'' is set in a solar system where they're {{terraform}}ing Mars for living room. They can't use Earth any more, because it's inhabited by a HiveMind united by a behavioural meme, Resuna, which is aggressively trying to spread itself to the rest of humanity (it just wants to help!). The novel is the log of a psychiatrist going over and adding to his notes of his latest patient, plucky ActionGirl Teri, and is one part her adventures terraforming, one part a discussion of exactly how memes work to take over a person, and one part, well, where these two things intersect. The psychiatrist catches the meme off Teri, and the entries in his log show his mind going.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** In ''Literature/AStormOfSwords'', Sam's messages to Castle Black during an attack by wights take this form, as they start out informative but become terrified and hasty as the battle turns against them.
** ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire'' records the events of the "Tragedy at Summerhall" but a "ink mishap" led to much of the account unintelligible except for a few sentences.
--->''the blood of the dragon gathered in one ...\\
... seven eggs, to honor the seven gods, though the king's own septon had warned ...\\
... pyromancers ...\\
... wild fire ...\\
... flames grew out of control ... towering ... burned so hot that ...\\
... died, but for the valor of the Lord Comman ...''
* ''Literature/TheSoundAndTheFury'' has a depiction of one character's breakdown that works in many of the modern conventions, including using worsening punctuation and capitalization to show the character breaking down, a blackout that starts abruptly mid-sentence, and said blackout is filled with a just barely comprehensible, completely unpunctuated or attributed flashback about the source of the character's trauma, followed by a sudden, temporary jerk back to the present, in which we get to find out what happened while he blacked out.
* ''Literature/TheSouthernReachTrilogy'':
** The lighthouse in [[EldritchLocation Area X]] contains whole piles of apocalyptic logs: all expedition members keep a notebook of their experiences, and the notebooks of expeditions which never return always find their way to the lighthouse. By the time the biologist finds it, the pile has become alarmingly large.
** In ''Acceptance'', the lighthouse keeper's journal details odd jobs and animal sightings around the lighthouse but gradually degenerates into apocalyptic babbling and unintelligible scribbles.
* In the ''Literature/SpaceMarineBattles'' novel ''Malodrax'', Lysander manages to obtain ''Being A Description Of Malodrax And Its Foulness'', written by a heretic Inquisitor as he was dying on the planet. It's useful both as a source of information and [[ThrowTheBookAtThem as a weapon.]]
* ''Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries'': In ''2010'', while approaching Jupiter space, the ''Leonov'' picks up a transmission directed at it from the surface of Europa. It's a taikonaut describing the fate of a Chinese mission to the moon in the spirit of "let the next guy know what killed you" and [[spoiler:claim credit for discovering life on Europa]]. The ship destroyed, no rescue in reach, and without the equipment to record a log or know if he was being received, he just kept repeating his message over and over until his suit's life support gave out.
* "Literature/TheSpider1908" features a hotel room which guests always end up hanging themselves, and it mostly consists of the journal of Richard Bracquemont, a medical student who offers to investigate.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':
** ''Literature/TheIllustratedStarWarsUniverse'': the Dagobah chapter features a Republic survey team led by Halka Four-Den being sent to study the planet, only to end up being stranded there long past their pickup date thanks to the confusion kicked up by the rise of the Empire. With increasingly hostile wildlife beginning to resist the team's presence, Halka records the death of several team-mates over the final weeks as she tries to call for help. By the time a passing ship responds to the distress call, Halka and her remaining teammates have long since vanished and are presumed dead.
** In ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'', a visit to Dagobah uncovers the malnourished and uneducated offspring of a survey team which had been left stranded on the planet - heavily implied to be the team featured in the previous book. By now, the original team-mates are all dead of fever, animal attacks, or starvation, though the last adult left a datapad behind, with longer and longer gaps between entries as the item's power ran out. The last entry has the last adult (heavily implied to be Halka Four-Den herself) on her deathbed, weeping as she confesses that they've been forced to [[spoiler: [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty feed dead parents to their starving children]].]]
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' has an Apocalyptic Log in the form of [[spoiler:Dalinar's visions]]. Since the Apocalyptic Log is [[spoiler:from God]], they're actually a sort of interactive simulation, intended to give the recipient information about the Desolations. In the later books when [[spoiler:Dalinar bonds with the Stormfater, he can enter the visions at will, as well as bring other people along]].
* ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' has Dr Jekyll give the narrator his Apocalyptic Log in the final chapter.
* ''Literature/StrangeObjects''
** Half the novel is taken up by the serialized journal of Wouter Loos, one of two convicted killers marooned on the western coast of Australia in 1629. At first a straightforward record of Loos and his "friend," Jan Pelgrom, attempting to seek shelter with a local tribe, the journal slowly becomes more and more supernatural -- especially with the introduction of a mysterious ruby ring that Pelgrom wears. However, the truth of this particular matter is never quite resolved, as the most overt record of anyone displaying magical power is in the final chapter -- by which time, Loos is [[UnreliableNarrator delirious]] and barely coherent in his last pages.
** Being a ScrapbookStory, ''Strange Objects'' also includes diary entries written in 1986 by the scrapbook's "compiler," Steven Messenger. The diary begins with Messenger's accidental discovery of a small cache of artefacts that once belonged to Loos and Pelgrom: though most of them are quickly handed over to the authorities, Messenger succeeds in taking one -- a small jewelled ring, which he keeps on a necklace. As the months pass, he begins to experience a feeling of BeingWatched, and frequently mentions encountering a silent "double" of himself. Eventually, Steven begins wearing the ring on his finger; according to the epilogue, he vanished from his home soon after and was never seen again.
* ''Literature/TheTaking'' features an audio recording from the International Space Station, wherein the astronauts discuss how a strange craft seems to have docked with them, and whether or not the inhabitants might be peaceable, right up until an entity boards the station. The audio ends with [[spoiler:the painful death of each astronaut and a message from said entity]].
* ''Literature/TheThirdWorldWar: August 1985'' includes excerpts from the emergency logs of three communities during the war and pulls this twice. The first log ends when the building it is in is destroyed by a bombing raid (with a statement that the book was found in the ruins), but resumes with the backup copy describing the situation. The second, from an area in central Birmingham, ends with [[spoiler:the warning of Birmingham's imminent nuclear destruction being received, stopping mid-word. A statement follows that its charred remains were found in the destroyed building]].
* ''Literature/TillWeHaveFaces'' has Orual break off in mid-sentence, followed by a section (in italics) saying that she had been found dead with her head on the book. Unusually, she was not writing about her impending death; once she commented at the beginning of Part II that she wished she had time to do it over, but since time is short she will just go on, she never again alludes to knowing that she hasn't got much time.
* ''Literature/TheTomorrowSeries'': The book ''Tomorrow, When the War Began'' includes a letter to one of the main characters from her father, early in the text. The sentiment is something like, "I'm going home to destroy this letter as soon as possible, so if you find this letter, I'm right and something is very, very wrong. ''Go bush''."
* ''Literature/TufVoyaging'': The beginning of the (chronologically) first story, "The Plague Star", is a diary left by the last survivor of diseases sent by the title object, a biowar seedship of the Terran Ecological Engineering Corps. It describes how the plagues killed the alien inhabitants of the planet, his wife, and finally himself.
* There's an article in a 1982 issue of ''Twilight Zone'' magazine, [[https://lovecraftzine.com/2013/09/25/thoughts-on-silly-mythos-endings-by-robert-m-price-and-a-writing-contest-with-prizes/ "Thoughts on Silly Mythos Endings"]], that delineates the best of these and offers a contest to see who can come up with more.
* The short story "Twitterings from the Circus of the Dead" by Creator/JoeHill takes the form of a teenager's Twitter account, which she updates while on a road trip with her family. When they stop by at [[CircusOfFear the titular circus]], which turns out to have real zombies that the staff sic on the unsuspecting audience, it quickly turns into this as she tweets about most of her family being killed and how horrific it is. [[spoiler:However, the ending leaves it {{ambiguous|Ending}} whether it was an [[AlternateRealityGame ARG]] promoting the circus or whether the former is just a cover-up so the circus staff can continue killing people unmolested.]]
* The Australian novel ''Underground'' is essentially a set of memoirs written by Leo James -- washed-up property developer and brother to the [[PresidentEvil tyrannical Australian Prime Minister]] -- during his imprisonment in the near-abandoned Parliament House. In these memoirs, he records the events that led to the permanent state of emergency, his unwanted travels up and down Australia's east coast, his capture and the weeks of torture and imprisonment that followed. The memoirs and the novel end with the moments before Leo's execution:
-->'''Leo:''' I hear marching footsteps in the hall outside. Orders yelled. I think the fuckers are actually going to shoot me in ''here''. And God help them, they sound Australian.
* In ''Literature/{{Wander}}'', the titular character and Dagger find a diary written by a woman named Doreen. [[spoiler:In it, she mentions befriending a man named Temple, someone Wander has prior experience with, so she immediately puts two and two together and realizes she was murdered.]] Doubles as ThatWasTheLastEntry, especially from Dagger's point of view.
* ''Literature/WhenTheStormCame'': The story is a personal account of events by a small town citizen telling of their town being destroyed by a very abnormal freak storm, which [[CosmicHorrorReveal turns out to be a sentient monster beyond description]].
* Played with in ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', which is an oral history of a narrowly-averted ZombieApocalypse.
* ''Literature/TheYellowWallpaper'' is meant to be the journal of a woman losing her sanity.
* The protagonist of ''Literature/TheZombieAutopsiesSecretNotebooksFromTheApocalypse'' writes until he falls victim to the zombie virus.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* On ''Series/The100'', the [[NukeEm nuclear apocalypse]] was initially believed to have been a political conflict, but Murphy stumbles across a series of videos by the people who built A.L.I.E., [[AIIsACrapshoot an artificial intelligence that hacked the world's nuclear arsenal and started the war]]. The videos end with one of the people involved killing himself.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/BigWolfOnCampus'' when Merton has been turned to stone, and Tommy and Lori find a series of post-mortem tapes left by Merton [[CrazyPrepared detailing how to cure pretty much any ailment he could have come down with from fighting the supernatural]]... except for petrification. The tapes end with a rather somber "In case you can't cure me" message where Merton tells Tommy [[Sugarwiki/HeartwarmingMoments that he was the first, best, and only friend he ever had and how much he meant to him]], and then goes on to [[MoodWhiplash chastize Lori for picking Tommy over him as he is "ten times the man Tommy will ever be"]]. Tommy is mortified, while Lori finds it funny as hell.
* Played for laughs ([[GallowsHumor sort of]]) in [[Recap/BlackadderS4E6Goodbyeee the final episode]] of ''[[Series/{{Blackadder}} Blackadder Goes Forth]]''. Darling is preparing to go over the top to his death.
-->'''Darling:''' Made a note in my diary on the way here. It simply says... "Bugger."
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS4E2Power Power]]", a literal BattleOfTheSexes is taking place between the primitive male Hommiks and the technologically advanced Seska. Tarrant finds a video log by a Seska detailing how they're [[MenAreStrongWomenArePretty losing the war]]. It ends when a large axe slams down on the table in front of her.
* ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'', episode "Space Vampire". The title creature (called a "Vorvon") is being tracked by a man named Helson (possibly from "Dr. Van Helsing", as a ShoutOut to ''Literature/{{Dracula}}''). Helson's drone makes a recording of him confronting the Vorvon: it ends with him being killed. Buck discovers the monster exists by watching the tape.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric The Curse of Fenric]]" features the runic inscriptions of a Viking who made the mistake of stealing a flask [[SealedEvilInACan containing Fenric, Evil Incarnate]].
--->'''Viking:''' I am the only one left now. I raise these stones to my wife, Astrid. May she forgive my sin. The day grows dark, and I sense the evil curse rising from the sea. I know now what the curse of Fenric seeks: the treasures from the Silk Lands in the east. I have heard the treasures whisper in my dreams. I have heard the magic words that will release great powers. I shall bury the treasure for ever. Tonight, I shall die, and the words die with me.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E8SilenceInTheLibrary "Silence in the Library"]]: The Doctor and Donna listen to a recorded message (censored "for tone and content") on a data-terminal in an abandoned library. "Message follows: Run. For God's sake, run. Nowhere is safe... We can't -- Oh, they're here. Argh. [[SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud Slargh. Snick.]] Message ends."
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E11TheGodComplex The God Complex]]": The episode opens with a young policewoman writing an account of her final moments as she succumbs to brainwashing that seems to befall everyone who arrives in the "hotel". The Doctor and the others later discover this.
* In the Season 7 episode "Karma" of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Robin temporarily moves into Marshall and Lily's house in the suburbs and spends most of her time writing and narrating on a diary as if she is an anthropologist being captured by natives and [[GoingNative fearing she is becoming one of them]].
* ''Series/Jericho2006'' does this in the first episode with an answering machine. Doubles as one heck of an OhCrap moment, as we quickly find out that [[spoiler:the message originated in a totally different city than the one that the characters and viewers knew had just been nuked, meaning that the disaster was not just local.]]
* ''Series/LandOfTheLost1974'' had the Marshalls tracking down installments of a diary by a predecessor to the land. Eventually, they enter a cave full of dormant Sleetaks and find his long-decayed corpse and his final entry in a small section. They read that he never found a way home and was doomed because of being trapped in the cave with the Sleetaks awake. Suddenly, the Marshalls heard the sound of the Sleetaks waking up, take the hint, and barely manage to escape themselves.
* This happens in an episode of the ''Series/LogansRun'' series. The protagonists discover an ancient bunker from [[AfterTheEnd before the end]] holding a few HumanPopsicle survivors (the best and brightest) from the ancient civilization devastated by a plague. There is also an Apocalyptic Log from a man dying from the disease, but holding out long enough [[spoiler:to reveal he discovered that one of the hibernated people is an impostor (and potentially a murderer).]]
* ''Series/LostTapes'' does this at times: the episode ''Devil Dragon'' starts with a man documenting his attempt to survive in the Australian rainforests for a television show, but turns into an Apocalyptic Log when he is bitten and stalked by a megalania. It even ends with him [[spoiler:sending a message to his wife and daughter before making one last desperate break for safety, only to be caught by the megalania and dragged off, never to be seen again]]. Others are much shorter examples where a person tries to get out of danger until the very end of the episode when they realize they will never escape from the monster chasing them and make a last minute attempt to warn people that it's out there before they are attacked and killed.
* One episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' has something of one when one of the 4077's new nurses accidentally wanders into the camp's minefield during a late night walk. Hawkeye volunteers to deliver her eulogy since she was his latest girlfriend, but no one in camp, Hawkeye included, knows much about her since she was quite aloof and anti-social. Then Father Mulcahy finds her diary in her personal effects and gives it to Hawkeye for inspiration. While we only get a summary from Hawkeye (mostly how she was so anti-social because she looked up to each and everyone there and was too shy to approach them), we do get to hear her last entry, which weighs pretty heavy on Hawkeye: ''"I can't sleep tonight. My head's just so full of Hawkeye right now. I think I'll take a walk."''
* The TV adaptation of ''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes'': "The End of the Whole Mess" is basically this trope. Being more specific it is filmmaker Howard Fornoy's video diary explaining his scientist brother Bobby's project that brought unmitigated world peace [[spoiler:and its unintended side-effect because "DidNotThinkThisThrough" has been Bobby's accidental life-long motto: the possible extinction of mankind (or certainly unmitigated ruin) because the chemical has the side-effect of causing accelerated Alzheimer's on anybody who is exposed to it.]] Howard, [[spoiler:who already gave his brother a MercyKill]], is using his last moments before he himself succumbs to ask forgiveness for his brother to anybody who eventually finds it, if ever.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S6E4MainfestDestiny Manifest Destiny]]", the UFS ''Mercury'' medical officer Dr. Will Olsten's record of the BoardingParty from his ship exploring the UFS ''Rhesos'' is one.
* ''Series/PlanetOfTheApes'': In "The Legacy", in the ruins of UsefulNotes/{{Oakland}}, Virdon and Burke discover a holographic message recorded by a scientist centuries after their time. In this ancient message, the scientist states that various repositories of scientific knowledge were hidden in different locations around the world in anticipation of the apocalypse. It was hoped that humanity would eventually be able to use this knowledge to rebuild its civilization.
* The ClipShow episode of ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'' featured an Apocalyptic Log that the TeenGenius left in case they lost the RobotWar. It provided a brief character summary and log of the fight, but most of it focused on the [[strike: merchandise toys]] weapons and equipment they'd been using all season that the prospective finder of the log would find nearby, the general impression being "if you've found this, we lost our war of attrition. You are now one of the last humans alive. Here's what you have to work with- now take up our fight". An odd case of seeing the Apocalyptic Log as a caution of what might happen if they lose, rather than a means of figuring out how they lost.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** Parodied in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIPsirens Psirens]]". While investigating a derelict ship, the crew find a flight recorder showing a fear-crazed astronaut munching a burger as he documents the horrible fate of his crew. A hideous insectoid monster approaches as the astronaut backs away in terror. A spray of red splatters across the screen...
--->[[spoiler:'''Astronaut:''' You've squeezed all the ketchup out of my burger!]]
** There's also this, from Holly: "Three million years from Earth, the mining ship Red Dwarf. Its crew: Dave Lister, the last human being alive; Arnold Rimmer, a hologram of his dead bunkmate; and a creature who evolved from the ship's cat. Message ends. Additional: As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"
* One of the challenges in season 1 of ''Series/ScreamQueens2008'' has the contestants filming these, ''[[Film/TheBlairWitchProject Blair Witch]]''[[FoundFootageFilms -style]], in order to test how well they can act on their own without co-stars to prop up their performances.
* ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'':
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'':
*** The Atlantis expedition finds an Apocalyptic Log in the {{pilot}} episode:
---->'''Melia:''' In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form. Then one day our people stepped foot on a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivaled our own. In our overconfidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon defenseless human worlds like a great scourge, until finally only Atlantis remained. This city's great shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons, but here we were besieged for many years. In an offer to save the last of our kind, we submerged our great city into the ocean. The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy, and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home. There the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return.
*** Also happens in "The Daedalus Variations". Sheppard and Co., aboard an empty ''Daedalus'', find a video log left by the captain before the ship was abandoned.
** ''Series/StargateUniverse'' uses a variation of this concept in the episode "Time" -- the difference is the log is created by Eli in an alternate timeline then sent into the past through a wormhole. This wound up being recursive: at the end of the episode, Matt records a second Apocalyptic Log explaining what had been discovered the first time 'round, so that when the crew found it the next time, they'd have a leg up. At least two loops and logs were required to ensure the crew's survival, but for all the viewer knows, there were three, or [[FridgeHorror three hundred]].
* ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Several episodes in several series feature the crew discovering the logs of the last folks to encounter the disease/NegativeSpaceWedgie/villain of the week.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''
*** In the second pilot "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E3WhereNoManHasGoneBefore Where No Man Has Gone Before]]", the crew discovered the log of the last people to encounter the AGodAmI effect of passing through the barrier at the edge of the galaxy. It ends with the ship's captain giving a self-destruct order.
*** "[[{{Recap/StarTrekS3E17ThatWhichSurvives}} That Which Survives]]". The last survivor of a colony leaves a computer message for any of her people who might find it.
---->'''Losira:''' My fellow Kalandans, welcome. A disease has destroyed us. Beware of it. After your long journey, I'm sorry to give you only a recorded welcome, but [[DeadManWriting we who have guarded the outpost for you will be dead by the time you take possession of this planet]]. I am the last of our advance force left alive. Too late the physicians discovered the cause that kills us. In creating this planet, we have accidentally produced a deadly organism. I have awaited the regular supply ship from home for medical assistance, but I doubt now whether it will arrive in time. I will set the outpost controls on automatic. The computer will selectively defend against all life-forms but our own. My fellow Kalandans, I, Losira, wish you well.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''
*** One especially notable case: in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion Contagion]]", the ''Enterprise'' downloads one of these from the USS ''Yamato''. Unfortunately, the log had hidden in it the computer virus that caused the ''Yamato'' to blow up and threatens to do the same to the ''Enterprise''.
*** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E17NightTerrors Night Terrors]]" has a chilling log from the Captain of the ''Brittain'', who is going steadily insane.
---->'''Captain:''' First officer Brink and his men were behind it. They got to the engines, they don't work anymore. Had to eliminate Brink!
*** In at least two episodes ("[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E13TimeSquared Time Squared]]", "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E18CauseAndEffect Cause and Effect]]"), the ''Enterprise'' crew receive an Apocalyptic Log out of a NegativeSpaceWedgie... from themselves.
---->'''Picard:''' All hands, abandon ship! Repeat, all hands, abandon—
*** Also nicely subverted in "Aquiel" where it turns out the person who made the log is still alive, and quite upset that the crew was watching her video diary.
** At least one appears in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', specifically in "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS02E026TheExpanse The Expanse]]". Perhaps the most disturbing example of this trope in all of ''Trek'', this one had to have been inspired by ''Film/EventHorizon'': [[spoiler:a collection of grainy imagery featuring the crew of the subject (Vulcan) starship slaughtering each other in an overwhelming display of uncontrolled emotion (remember they're Vulcans) and insanity, all from passing through a specific region of space.]]
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' has "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E17CourseOblivion Course: Oblivion]]", in which one of these is recorded by ''Voyager'' crew which turns out be [[spoiler:bio-mimetic duplicates, which, as the title implies, are doomed to oblivion.]]
--->'''Janeway''' / '''Harry Kim''': We've lost 63 crewmen, and our systems are continuing to fail. Though we're still five weeks away from the Demon planet, we haven't given up hope. ... ... Our situation's getting worse every day. More than eighty percent of the ship is uninhabitable. Most of the crew are gone. It seems less and less likely that the few of us left will reach our destination.
** In "One Small Step...", ''Voyager'' finds the ship of a long-lost 21st century Earth astronaut, Lt. John Kelly, with the crew discovering his last log entries before his death, with accompanying flashbacks.
* The first episode of ''Series/{{Threshold}}'' has the team discover a video camera on the ship visited by the alien vessel. Playing it back reveals it was used to record the encounter with the vessel. Unfortunately, it also caught the alien signal that either turns humans into [[TouchedByVorlons superpowered aliens]] or disfigured corpses and partially infects Molly, Cavanaugh, and Lucas.
* In Season 3 of ''Series/TheUmbrellaAcademy2019'', when Five takes a look at the Infinite Switchboard, he finds a recording [[spoiler: in which Herb explains that there's been "a rip in the space-time continuum" that's swallowing everything, including multiple members of the Commission, and that he could not find a way to prevent the timeline from collapsing. The video ends with Herb himself being consumed by the Kugelblitz.]]
* Dr. Jenner of the CDC is making an ongoing video log in ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'' when the group of survivors comes across the CDC. Several of his entries are shown in the episode "Wildfire".
* ''Series/WarOfTheWorlds2019'': In Season 2, one is found left by a young Englishman (after his corpse is discovered). Unlike many such cases though, it's not used to explain what happened (that's known already) and it doesn't show how he died exactly (though it's implied as a possible suicide). It takes the form of video diaries.
* An episode of ''Series/WaywardPines'' is a flashback montage of Mitchum waking up every 20 years from 2014 to 4014 to spend a day monitoring the outside world and making sure the Ark was running smoothly. The first several times, he monitors the global situation deteriorate through TV and radio broadcasts, with more and more stations shutting down, until all he gets is static, proving that Pilcher's predictions were true in this respect - humanity did indeed destroy itself. Also, in season 1, Theresa finds a bunker with video recordings of expeditions sent out by Pilcher to determine the status of various American cities. In particular, she finds the last video log made by Adam Hassler, her husband's Secret Service boss. Hassler shows the remains of San Francisco and mentions that no other humans have been found. He then hurriedly says that he's the last survivor of his party and cuts out to the sound of approaching [[HumanoidAbomination Abbies]]. [[spoiler:He actually manages to make it back to the town, learning much about the Abbies]].
* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E08Ice Ice]]" shows the first and last videos of the sequence. At first, the tidy, cheerful and well-lit scientists of an arctic research base report digging ice cores from record levels; the second is gloomy and shaky, with one disheveled man saying "We're not... who we are... we're not... who we are..." before being attacked.
** "[[Recap/TheXFilesS02E19DodKalm Død Kalm]]" also includes the Apocalyptic Log. This episode is about an ill-fated ship which had the supernatural effect of rapidly aging its passengers. Scully keeps a journal of their misery, stating "Agent Fox Mulder lost consciousness at approximately 4:30 this morning, the 12th of March. There is nothing more I can do for him, or for myself. Supplies are exhausted, no food or liquid consumed for over 24 hours."
** The seventh season episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS07E12XCops X-Cops]]" starts with a homage to ''Series/{{Cops}}'' (where a cameraman follows a sheriff's deputy check up on some disturbance), when they are suddenly attacked by something that stays ''just'' out of the camera's view all the time.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The prologue to the ZombieApocalypse game ''TabletopGame/AllFleshMustBeEaten'' has a scientist, just bitten by a zombie, discuss the transformation from human to infected cadaver in a truly disturbing series of logs. The last few are ''after'' his death, as the brain is the last thing to go... and the final one has him reduced to groaning that the hunger is all he has left.
* The recent "Jihad" series of ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' sourcebooks feature a number of these, usually from victims of the Words frequent use of [=WMDs=]. Probably the most distressing are the [[spoiler:cries for help from Alarion; the population are dying from a bioweapon attack, but claim there are uninfected children]].
* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''
** ''Shadows of Yog-Sothoth'', adventure "The Warren". When the {{Player Character}}s enter a room sealed by rubble, they find a skeleton and a piece of paper with the last words of the victim. It describes how he heard cult members chanting, a bolt of lighting striking the house and finding the door blocked. [[ThatWasTheLastEntry His last words were "I am sitting now waiting for rescue. It has been eight hours."]]
** Also, in the adventure "Horror on the Orient Express," the ''player characters'' keep Apocalyptic Logs to allow replacement investigators to join a very long, detailed investigation fully up to speed.
** Supplement ''Cthulhu Companion'', adventure "The Mystery of Loch Feinn". Professor Gibbson's journal details his investigation of the Water Horse and his run-ins with the [=MacAllans=] -- the Cthulhu cultists who eventually killed him.
** ''Fearful Passages'', adventure "Armored Angels". Professor Powell's notes give information on his plan to open a gate to the planet Yuggoth. The last page of his diary give a horrifying account of the invasion of Mi-Go and a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath through the gate.
* ''Chivalry & Sorcery'' 3rd Edition adventure ''Stormwatch''. The {{PC}}s can find the log of an old expedition that was destroyed by a disease. Because the members did not die on holy ground, they were not properly laid to rest are were condemned to become undead.
* Not a tabletop RPG, but a ''letter-writing'' RPG, the out of print [[CosmicHorrorStory Lovecraftian]] game ''De Profundis'' was presented wholly as a collection of letters from someone gradually going insane after having a dream about a book that laid out the game's rules. Part of the supernatural insanity gripping the "author" involved writing down and sharing the game to try to spread the insanity.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''
** A ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' supplement contained, as FlavorText, the diary of an explorer describing his journey around the Concordant Plane of the Outlands. The diary takes on a distinct tone of encroaching madness after he set foot into the Caves of Thoughts, the domain of the mindflayer deity Ilsensine the Great Brain. It doesn't end well.
** Module S4, ''The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth'', had a diary left by a previous expedition into the title dungeon. It had vague hints of what was to come, with several sections with [[LostInTransmission vital information being smeared and smudged]]. It ended with the party meeting the FinalBoss of the dungeon.
** The ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' adventure ''Tome of Strahd'' is something of a half-journal/half-manifesto written by [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Count Strahd von Zarovich]], which details in his own words the night he made his pact with Death and sacrificed his younger brother in exchange for immortality and the love of his brother's fiancée. Said fiancée, consumed with grief, flung herself from the castle walls rather than live without her love. The Tome's final words reflect Strahd's anguish at seeing her being constantly reincarnated by the Dark Powers only to be lost to him time and time again.
*** Plenty of other ''Ravenloft'' supplements use excerpts from victims' diaries, journals, and literal ships' logs as flavor-text.
** ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' module [=DL12=] ''Dragons of Faith''. A page from a ship's log tells of the destruction of the ship and the fate of its crew.
** Module [=DA1=] ''Adventures in Blackmoor''. In the Comeback Inn the {{PC}}s find a parchment scroll written by Hepath Nun. It tells the story of how his adventuring party searched for, found and entered the Inn. It further tells of how they were trapped inside, couldn't find any way out and eventually went through the Gate in the cellar. Only Hepath Nun decided not to go, because he was too scared. The {{PC}}s find his body hanging from a chandelier near the scroll.
* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' has one of these as a magic item detailed in the ''Grimoire of Grimoires'' supplement -- the Hildebrand Recording, an attempt at capturing a seance with a ghost on tape. The poor researcher got an EldritchAbomination instead, which proceeded to toy with his psyche before ripping him to shreds. It's just as bad as you think it is.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Normality}}'' can pretty much be described as Apocalyptic Log from start to finish, [[spoiler:insofar as it makes any sense at all.]] Extra points for [[spoiler:having the [[AuthorAvatar ''authors'']] die in-game]] halfway through though.
* ''The Morrow Project'' adventure R-002 ''Project Damocles''. In the BackStory, a group of scientists create an artificial intelligence but a nuclear holocaust begins while they're testing it. They try to escape the underground area where they're working but the AI (named Damocles) malfunctions and won't let them out. One of the project members, William Lezrow, records the events that led up to the disaster and the fate of each of the team members. The {{PC}}s can find it and read it as they explore the area.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Rolemaster}}'' campaign setting ''Shadow World'', supplement ''Norek: Intrigue in a City-State of Jaiman''. A powerful crystal inside a mine causes radiation poisoning in the miners. They think it's a plague and seal off the mine to protect the outside world. After the effects get worse, the miners seal themselves in their rooms to await death. One of the miners leaves a diary of the events that the {{PC}}s can find.
* The free solo RPG [[http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/swords-of-the-skull-takers Swords of the Skull Takers]] on 1km1kt.com is about the player creating an apocalyptic log, unless they win. Even then, Diabolic Victories can get even more disturbing.
* Many of the cards one can draw on the Forbidden Island in the ''Touch of Evil'' expansion "Something Wicked" detail an exploration party gradually succumbing to a lycanthrophy curse. Several other cards can ''inflict'' lycanthopy on the exploring player.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'': The Traveller News Service during the later part of the [=MegaTraveller=] line and in the ''New Era'' supplement ''Survival Margin'' is basically a chronicle of the destruction of the Third Imperium. The last few entries are frantic warnings to disconnect all computers from the network, with the entries getting increasingly garbled and finally deteriorating to gibberish computer characters as the TNS servers are taken over by Virus.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''
** The background book ''Xenology'' turns out to be one drawn-out example of this, written by an Inquisitor examining another's work at gathering and studying various alien beings in a hidden facility. [[spoiler:It turns out the "Inquisitor" who set up the facility is actually a Necron Lord who established it to study other organic races, and once he was finished, he lured the other Inquisitor to the facility to study ''him''.]]
** We never get to read it, but the galaxy-sized locust swarm that is the Tyranid race was named because of the Apocalyptic Log that was left behind, buried 1000 feet underground, on the planet Tyran. Most of the Tyranid Codexes -- combinations of backstory and rulebook -- contain detached descriptions of Tyranid attacks that read like an encyclopedia entry based off an Apocalyptic Log as well.
** Similarly, the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' background book ''Liber Chaotica'' is written as an in-character study of the Chaos Gods. As the book goes on, the author starts having more and more ominous visions and making less and less sense as he descends into madness. At least half of the quotes in the Necron, Tyranid, and Dark Eldar codexes fit this trope.
* There's at least three examples along these lines from the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' magazine ''White Dwarf'', although two are merely dealing with attacks by vampires and Necrons respectively.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has one in the episode "Holly Jolly Secrets". Finn has found an old set of VHS tapes that contains a video diary of the Ice King. [[spoiler: The last tape is the diary of a human, Simon Petrikov, as he slowly loses his mind and humanity, until finally becoming the Ice King.]] Bonus points for the apocalypse taking place in the background over the course of said log.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTimeFionnaAndCake'': The episode "Jerry" has an accidental example. Fionna and Cake are watching one of the Ice King's video diary tapes in a universe where everyone (except BMO) has mysteriously disappeared. All of it is normal Ice King shenanigans up until [[FreezeFrameBonus the last millisecond]] before it cuts out, when [[spoiler:Ice King and Gunter are suddenly turned into skeletons]]. It's revealed near the end of the episode that this universe is the one where [[spoiler:[[OmnicidalManiac the Lich]] succeeding in wiping out all life, and the tape caught the exact instant it happened]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Heart of Ice," Batman does some sleuthing around [=GothCorp's=] facility and finds a videotape inside Viktor Fries' case file. The videotape has him documenting on a revolutionary process that he developed of cryogenesis that he is placing his terminally ill wife, Nora Fries, in until he can develop a cure for her. Suddenly, Ferris Boyle bursts in and demands that he shut down the experiment due to his stealing money from him to commit the experiment. Viktor attempts to reason with and eventually is forced to point a gun at Boyle to stop him from halting his experiment. Boyle then tries to reason with him, before promptly kicking him into some vials containing chemicals relating to the cryogenic process, causing a biohazard, with Fries also visibly deteriorating from the accident while calling Nora's name in a lamenting manner as the tape ends.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'' the funeral of [=BoJack's=] old friend Herb includes a reading of the tweets he made leading up to and immediately after his fatal car accident. The main cause of the accident was that he was distracted on Twitter while driving.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodeLyoko'' features a rather unique and disturbing take on this trope, as Franz Hopper (a.k.a. Waldo Schaeffer), the creator of [[{{Cyberspace}} Lyoko]], uses the supercomputer's "Return to the Past" function to create a GroundhogDayLoop, while preserving a video file of his attempts to avert his and Aelita's impending abduction by government agents during that looped day. By the time the entry for "day 1000" rolls around, his sanity seems to be hanging by a thread (and there are still a thousand more entries to go). Meanwhile, as far as his daughter and the outside world are concerned, no time has actually passed at all.
* ''WesternAnimation/DuckDodgers'': After ''"Of Course You Know This Means War And Peace Part 1"'' ends with Dodgers in his ship being pulled via tractor beam towards a [[ConveyorBeltODoom conveyor belt leading to a giant garbage crusher,]] part 2 begins with Dodgers calmly writing in a book, "Captains log, final entry: [[SuddenlyShouting HEEEELLLLP!!!]]"
* Parodied on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. Peter gets a birthday card from Cleveland of the "record your voice" sort. The recording starts out as Cleveland just saying happy birthday, than comically spirals into [[PoliceBrutality a violent run in with a racist cop]].
-->'''Peter''': ...Ah, I'm sure he's fine.
* MemeticMutation has turned JustForFun/CandleJack from ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' into a perpetual generator of exam
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', the Planet Express team, on their way to the hive of giant space bees, a.k.a. "deadly, deadly bees," on a quest to gather space honey, discover the wrecked ship of their predecessors, who were killed whilst undertaking the same mission. They discover the black box recording, which recorded a conversation between a nervous underling suggesting they turn back because it's too dangerous, and the over-confident captain insisting they press on to glory. And then recorded the sounds of their horrible, horrible deaths moments later. Leela, who has been taking the role of "over-confident captain" in the current team's efforts, is particularly keen to pretend they never found it.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', Dipper reads in Journal #3 that the author needed to hide the book away from someone before it trails off. [[spoiler: Season 2 and ''Literature/GravityFallsJournal3'' reveal that the author, Stanford Pines was hiding it from Bill Cipher after learning his true colors.]]
** In the Season 2 episode "Society of the Blind Eye", [[spoiler: the main cast and Old Man [=McGucket=] find that the Society of the Blind Eye uses a device to remove memories of paranormal activity. They recover Old Man [=McGucket=]'s memories of inventing the device, and his descent into insanity by repeatedly wiping his own memories.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'' Classic
** In "The Invisible Monster" the Quests find Isaiah Norman's notebook, which tells Doctor Quest how Norman accidentally created the title monster.
** In "The Sea Haunt", the ship captain's log tells of how the title monster was captured, escaped and attacked the crew, causing panic and disaster.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has the sports announcer discussing everything going on in the Pro-Bender arena. Then the Equalists invade and he continues narrating the events. "One of the masked men has currently broken into this booth and is about to electrocute me. I am currently wetting my pants" in the same announcer's voice without emotion.
* Toward the end of Season 7 of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Star Swirl the Bearded's journal is discovered fortuitously among a "blind buy barrel" at an antique shop. It chronicles the story of Star Swirl and his companions, the Pillars of Equestria, up to the day of their disparition -- a mystery that had stayed unsolved for a thousand years, even Celestia having no idea what happened to them. The journal proves to be a vital clue in solving said mystery, [[spoiler:subverting the trope somewhat with the fact that the Pillars are still alive]].
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTales'' episode "Birds of a Feather", several characters get lost in the woods. Bon Bon thinks they are doomed and starts recording everything in her diary in the hopes that one day, it will be found and future generations will know who they were. Everyone else thinks she's being melodramatic. Indeed, they are only lost for a few hours.
* Seen in the multipart episode "Notes From The Underground" in the 2003 ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|2003}}'' series, and actually called in advance by Michaelangelo, who is a sci-fi aficionado. Later on used again in the episode "The Trouble With Augie", recording the destruction of an interdimensional culture by their seemingly-benign visitors.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** In the episode "King of the Hill", Grandpa tries to talk Homer out of climbing the Murderhorn, telling him how, in 1928, he was nearly killed when he and his partner C.W. [=McAllister=] tried to climb it, only for [=McAllister=] to betray him, steal all the supplies, and shove him off the mountain, then continue on his own. Later, when Homer is making his own attempt and is too tired to go further, he finds [=McAllister=]'s frozen body and Apocalyptic Log, detailing a very different story: Abe had been the betrayer, and had even tried to eat [=McAllister=]'s arm after stealing the supplies. Presumably, [=McAllister=] shoving Abe off the mountain had been self-defense, but he could only crawl into a nearby cave where he likely died of altitude sickness after writing the last entry of the log. The last sentence was, "Tell my beloved wife that my last thoughts were of her... blinding and torturing Abe Simpson. Cheerio."
** Another episode has Lisa read a letter from her pen pal who lives in a country about to be taken over by a dictator. The letter goes from a desperate plea narrated by a child to self-glorifying propaganda narrated by a grown man.
* Parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode 'Pandemic', as Randy's incessant camcordering of the disaster gets on Sharon's nerves. And it turns out he didn't have a tape in it.
* A classic ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhost'' episode, "The Energy Monster", features a posthumous recording by the scientist who created it.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Beyond the Farthest Star". 300 million years ago a member of the crew of the dead ship left a warning message telling what happened to them and why they decided to destroy their own ship.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'': Superman kept records that served to memorialize the encroaching threat later in "The History Of Doom".
* In ''WesternAnimation/SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperforceGo'', the Alchemist had one telling of how he created the Monkey team, [[spoiler:with a final entry showing him becoming Skeleton King]].
-->" Now, the Dark Ones... [[ThatManIsDead take my soul!]]"
* Done in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}}'' series by a character who actually lived, but thought he was going to die and didn't get to finish his entry. Didn't help when he said that the item that he (wrongly) believed would solve the problem plaguing the jungle was "hidden inside the p-", leaving Tarzan and Jane to run around the hut exploring every item they could find beginning with "P" (it was the phonograph machine, [[AccidentalPun for the record]].)
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', Doc uses a submersible bodysuit in an attempt to salvage a 40-year old spacecraft wreck in the Sargasso Sea, and records his progress with a handheld tape recorder. However, he quickly steps into a giant clam that eats the suit's legs. Until he actually finds the wreck he's pretty much resigned to his fate. "I've taken refuge in the forward compartment and am now running on reserve power. Mobility hindered... morale low... no radio contact. Oh, yeah, I lost my locator. And yes, I realize the irony of that."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* OlderThanPrint: Here's a 1349 [[https://www.tota.world/article/207/ report of the Black Death]]:
-->''I, Brother Clyn of the Friars Minor of Kilkenny have written in this book the notable events which befell in my time ... so that notable deeds shall not be lost from the memory of future generations I, seeing many ills, waiting for death till it come, have committed to writing what I have truly heard; and lest the writing perish with the writer, I leave parchment for continuing the work, if haply any man of the race of Adam escape this pestilence and continue the work which I have begun.''\\\
[in another hand] ''Here it seems the author died.''
* The message that [[https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Coulthard-146#A_Lonely_Grave William Coulthard]] scratched on his empty canteen as he lay dying of thirst in the Australian desert in 1858. "My tongue is sticking to my mouth ... My eyes dazzle, my tongue burns, I can't get up."
* "June 3rd 1864, Cold Harbor Virginia, I was killed." The final entry of a Massachusetts volunteer in the Army of The Potomac in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar.
* Charles Gordon kept a detailed diary of the [[UsefulNotes/TheRiverWar Siege of Khartoum]], ending prophetically: "If the expeditionary force... does not come within ten days, the town may fall; and I have done my best of the honor of our country."
* UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant completed his autobiography five days before succumbing to throat cancer in 1885. His notes concerning the progress of his cancer were reportedly required reading in medical schools for many years.
* For 33 years, the fate of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._A._Andrée%27s_Arctic_balloon_expedition_of_1897 S. A. Andrée's Swedish Arctic balloon expedition of 1897]] to the north pole remained a mystery. In 1930, the remains of the three expedition members, their camp and a large number of photos and diary entries were found at Kvitøya island. In these, the men had recorded in extraordinary detail how their balloon crashed after just three days on July 14, their increasingly desperate attempts to get back to Svalbard the following three months and their ultimately doomed battle against cold, hunger, disease and exhaustion. Andrée ended the last coherent diary entry, from early October, with the words: ''"With such [[TrueCompanions comrades]] as these, one ought to be able to manage under practically any circumstances whatsoever."'' All the members of the expedition are believed to have perished just a few days later.
* Scott's diary from the 1912 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition Terra Nova Expedition]]. Quite depressing reading.
-->''I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.\\
It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.\\
R. Scott.''\\
[Scrawled]\\
''Last entry. For God's sake look after our people''
* The ''RMS Titanic'''s radio operators kept putting out emergency messages in Morse code as long as they could. The quality and range of the messages declined as the ship lost more and more power. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic One of the last intelligible radio messages]]: "We are sinking fast passengers being put into boats". The final message was sent at 2:17 A.M, around three minutes before the ship went under. Of the two Wireless operators, only one lived to tell the tale.
* Vince Coleman, train dispatcher who died in the 1917 Halifax Explosion (the largest man-made explosion ever prior to the atomic bomb): [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Coleman_(train_dispatcher) "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode.]] [[FaceDeathWithDignity Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys."]]
* On the night of the 25th of November 1936, a Nebraska proctologist named Edwin Katskee injected himself with a large dose of then-legal cocaine. He was found dead in his office the following morning, having written out his symptoms as he experienced them. As the night went on, the handwriting of his entries became increasingly erratic, with the final entry simply detailing "paralysis", then a swirling scrawl that ends heading to the floor where his corpse was discovered. Nobody is quite sure what the purpose of this was, as his family stated it was an experiment gone wrong, citing an antidote nearby that Katskee had either decided not to use or was unable to do so. Others contend that it was a suicide, and that he decided to detail his symptoms as a means of leaving behind something for his fellow physicians to utilize. If the later theory proved true, it was sadly for naught. [[ShootTheShaggyDog The physicians who later examined his "death diary" found the entries too erratic and illegible to be of any scientific use.]]
* The entirety of UsefulNotes/TheHindenburg disaster was caught on film and narrated by radio presenter Herbert Morrison, who was audibly overcome with grief and horror until he could no longer bear to continue. On seeing the gigantic airship burning, and people falling from the passenger decks, he coined the famous aghast phrase: "OhTheHumanity" Despite the shocking power of the explosion, amazingly, [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat about two-thirds of the passengers escaped alive.]] The other one-third died mainly because they panicked and jumped out of the cabin before they hit the ground. (Even some of the jumpers survived ''and were interviewed by Morrison''.)
* Creator/HPLovecraft kept a record as he was dying of intestinal cancer. The last entry was written four days before his death in 1937. The ''New York Times'' ran an article about it, "Writer Charts Fatal Malady" a couple of days later.
* A number of soldiers of the Soviet garrison of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Brest_Fortress Brest Fortress]] held out in the basements of the old fortress for over a month after it was overrun in the early days of Operation Barbarossa, where the Nazis had some success, though things quickly turned sour when the winter came rolling in. One carved into a wall: "I'm dying but I won't surrender. Farewell, Motherland. 20.VII.41"
* The heartbreaking nine-page diary of twelve-year-old Tanya Savicheva, in which she systematically recorded the deaths of her entire family, one death per page, during the Siege of Leningrad. The final entry reads, in a childish scrawl: "The Savichevs are dead. Everyone is dead. Only Tanya is left." Tanya was eventually rescued, only to [[DownerEnding die age fourteen in an orphanage]].
* The 1942 siege of Corregidor, Philippines, and the [[http://www.angelfire.com/nc/n4nck/n4flw.html final radio message sent by Sergeant Irving Strobing]]. "They are piling dead and wounded in our tunnel. Arm's weak from pounding key, long hours, no rest, short rations, tired. I know how a mouse feels. Caught in a trap waiting for guys to come along and finish it up."
* Herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt did one of these in 1957, after being bitten by a small boomslang (a venomous snake); he believed it wasn't large enough to be dangerous, so he did not take antivenin, but did type a running log of his symptoms through the night and into the next morning; he was found dead later that day.[[note]]Not helping the case was that it was discovered later that boomslang bites caused delayed symptoms.[[/note]]
* The transcript of the recording from ''Apollo 1,'' the crew of which died when a fire started in the cockpit during a test in 1967.
-->'''Ed White:''' Fire!\\
'''Gus Grissom:''' I've got a fire in the cockpit!\\
'''Roger Chaffee:''' I'm burning up!\\
[screams]\\
[silence]
* Donald Campbell's final transmissions from his Bluebird boat as he tried to break his world water speed record and died when his craft somersaulted over and crashed in 1967.
-->"A hell of a bloody row in here. I can't see anything... I've got the bows up. I've gone. Oh..."
* The increasingly irrational log entries of amateur sailor [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst Donald Crowhurst]], whose mental state gradually deteriorated to the point of suicide during a solo round the world sailing race in 1969.
* The Balibo Five, a group of TV reporters from Australia and New Zealand who travelled to UsefulNotes/EastTimor in 1975, shortly before the [[UsefulNotes/IndonesiansWithInfantry Indonesian military]] seized control of the territory. Three days before he was killed--suspected to be the work of Indonesian militants--one of the reporters, Greg Shackleton, recorded a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojS0B2WRS3o film newsreel]] about the local villagers and their impending plight in the face of military aggression.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentich_disappearance disappearance of Frederick Valentich]] in 1978. While flying his light aircraft from Melbourne to King Island he reported to ATC that he was being harassed by an unidentified "aircraft" that he presumed was an Air Force jet of some kind, but none were operating in his area, nor were any civil planes in the vicinity. In his final transmission he comes to a frightening realisation:
-->"That strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again." (open microphone for two seconds) "It is hovering and..." (open microphone for one second) "[[OhCrap ...it's not an aircraft.]]" [[labelnote:*]]One of the less supernatural, yet no less disturbing theories is that, due to Valentich's lack of experience flying at night and becoming disoriented in a cloud bank, he was flying ''inverted'' without realizing it. (You'd think you would ''know'' if you were upside down, but thanks to the concept of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graveyard_spiral Graveyard Spiral]] and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_illusions_in_aviation various sensory illusions that can occur while flying]], it is actually harder than it seems to determine orientation when flying in the dark...) The "lights" he saw would have been his own, reflecting in the water ''above'' him as he descended closer and closer. While considerably more mundane than alien abduction or a prelude to ''War of the Worlds,'' it's still disturbing when you consider that if it was like this, the poor guy was rapidly advancing upon his own violent death and likely never even realized what killed him.[[/labelnote]]
* The Jonestown massacre in 1978 had so many victim's testimony and evidence from several sources remained:
** The last speech that UsefulNotes/JimJones gave to the residents of Jonestown was recorded for posterity. In it, you can hear him direct the older members of the community to help the younger children, and for them to "not worry about the children's crying; [the punch] is just a little bitter. It's not painful." Makes for some [[http://www.archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16 chilling night time listening]]. The effect of listening to it is enhanced by eerie "ghost" music heard throughout (an inadvertent effect of Jones taking an old audiotape of pop music recorded at high speed and taping over it at low speed).
** [[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35667 The Edith Roller journals]]. A former college professor, she kept a detailed log of her daily life in Jonestown. She never came home.
** The footage of Congressman Leo Ryan's visit to Jonestown collected by NBC News cameraman Bob Brown, which [[http://holtz.org/Library/Images/Social%20Science/Jonestown/Jonestown%20airstrip%20shooting.mp4 abruptly ends]] just as gunmen from Jonestown open fire on Ryan's delegation on a Guyanese airstrip; both Ryan and Brown were killed.
* Tammy Mathre did this in 1978, keeping a diary in her checkbook. She was a nursing student who'd become depressed and increasingly focused on God and what the Bible says about death and dying. She went camping alone in the Big Horn Mountains. A year later a few fragments of her bones were found. The diary proved she hadn't killed herself; she'd been injured and couldn't leave.
* The eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state in 1980 was something that was both seen coming due to the increase in volcanic activity, drawing scientists and journalists, and happened suddenly and explosively, which caught several victims with essentially no chance to escape:
** David A. Johnston's last message: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Johnston "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"]]
** An amateur radio operator named Gerry Martin also radioed to Vancouver to report the eruption. His last recorded words were "Gentlemen, the uh, camper and the car sitting over to the south of me (this was Johnston's camp) is covered. It's gonna get me, too. I can't get out of here..."
** A subversion occurred with photographer Reid Blackburn, another victim-- [[http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0VZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OfkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2330,1530433 his camera was recovered after the eruption]], but the heat had ruined the film inside.
* The final transmission from RNLB Solomon Browne, the lifeboat involved in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penlee_lifeboat_disaster Penlee lifeboat disaster]], as it attempted to rescue the crew of the MV Union Star in hurricane force winds. Both vessels were lost with all hands.
-->[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yeIX0VnUMKo#t=2365s ...We've got four off at the moment, male and female. There's two left on board... *loud noise, followed by dead air*]]
* In 1988, Ivan Lester [=McGuire=] went skydiving and recorded his dive. Partway through the video, he appears to be looking for his ripcord, which he can't find, since he'd forgotten his parachute. At this point the camera goes spinning until the video glitches out, as footage of the final stage of his descent was destroyed on impact.
* ''Any'' detailed, candid diary writing by a person in the grips of depression or similar can read like one of these. Things are going great, then one starts going downhill. For example, the last words Kenneth Williams wrote in his diary before his apparent suicide in 1988 were, "What's the bloody point?"
* Christopher [=McCandless=] kept a diary of his time in the Alaskan wilderness, which documented his eventual death by starvation in an abandoned bus on the 112th day of his Alaska excursion, August 1992. Notably, this also appears in literature and film as ''Film/IntoTheWild''.
* Music/{{Bjork}} once had a stalker by the name of Ricardo Lopez. He had planned to kill her with a letter bomb which would launch a discharge of corrosive acid upon opening, and he kept a video diary detailing the process of his plans. During the course of the diary we can clearly see Lopez' mental health erode, culminating in the final entry in September 1996 with him shaving his head, painting his face, and blowing his brains out with a revolver, on camera.
* In the days before committing mass suicide in 1997 several members of the Heaven's Gate cult recorded [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-s1oqIIfN4 final]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhYrSF3ubBc exit]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKQ2a7tQLd4 statements.]] The morning after the suicide the tapes with the recorded statements were delivered to a surviving member.
* The [[UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} Columbine High School shooting]] produced two of these.
** The killers themselves recorded a large number of home movies in which they planned and discussed their future killing spree. Many of the "basement tapes", as these videos are sometimes known to TrueCrime followers, are still held under lock and key by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, who claims to have had them destroyed in 2011 (though this has been disputed), and have only been shown to a select few people, including the families of some of the victims and survivors. That said, [[https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/columbine_basement_tapes_1.0.pdf partial transcripts]] have been released. The final tape, recorded thirty minutes before the shooting began, had the both of them apologizing to their parents for what they were about to do and saying that [[IfYouDieICallYourStuff their friends Chris Morris and Nathan Vanderau could have their stuff]] if they survived.
** During the shooting itself, a library phone line was left open by a teacher who called 911 before the shooters' entrance forced her to leave the phone to go hide. The open line caught and recorded the sounds of students being killed and injured, the dialogue of the shooters to their victims and each other, and after the shooters leave, the surviving students being told to quickly flee out a nearby door, then dead air. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HsYMgn9aHs The first five minutes of the call]] were released, in which by listening carefully under the conversation of the teacher and 911 operator, several things can be heard. Including a bomb going off, the shooters cheering and after entering the library shouting at the students to get up, and three shots being fired (two of the shots were fatal).
* There are a number of appropriately awful accounts from the submarine world, notably the brief log kept by the survivors of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Kursk_explosion Kursk]] "after her sinking. And, even worse, the audio recording from "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_%28SSN-593%29 USS Thresher]]'s" underwater telephone. The captain kept up a narrative as the submarine sank, totally out of control, and passed crush depth. Utterly horrifying.
* The September 11th attacks provide several examples:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppAeMWFCqC8 Kevin Cosgrove's last phone call]] from an upper floor in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. As he describes the situation, he suddenly shouts, "''Oh, '''God!'''''" and screams as the building collapses around him.
** Aboard United Flight 93 was Todd Beamer, who used an on-plane telephone to recount what had happened on board and a plan to take back control of the plane: "Are you guys ready? Let's roll." The "rolling" was for a snack cart that was used as a battering ram on the door to the cockpit; UA 93 was eventually crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania, well away from any major US landmarks.
** And on AA Flight 11, attendant [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Ong#Phone_call Betty Ong desperately tried to inform ground operations]]. Between difficulty breathing (the hijackers had sprayed mace) and repeated requests for her name and seat number, and then operations specialist Nydia Gonzales getting the same requests when she tried to relay the information, precious seconds were wasted, but it was Ms. Ong's call that led to the grounding of every plane flying through American airspace.
* The onboard video camera was recovered from the wreckage of Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' after its 2003 disaster and the last few minutes were played, although it stopped before the actual disintegration.
* Christa [=McAuliffe=] was recording her experiences of takeoff in Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' during its 1986 launch, no doubt for classroom material. When her tape recorder was later recovered, it confirmed that the seven on board had survived the initial explosion.
* Amateur documentary filmmaker and bear enthusiast [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell Timothy Treadwell]] accidentally left a camera recording (audio only) on the 2003 night he and his girlfriend were fatally attacked by a starving grizzly bear. While the tape has never been released (for obvious reasons), according to those who have heard it, it's completely terrifying. The documentary ''Film/GrizzlyMan'' showed Creator/WernerHerzog listening to it and becoming increasingly freaked out in lieu of playing it.
* After the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004, a tourist victim's camera was recovered with the memory card still readable. Photos of the wave were published, one of them shot just a few seconds before the guy was pulled under.
* On a lighter note: [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jun/23/wimbledon-2010-tennis-live Xan Brooks of the Guardian liveblogged the Isner-Mahut match at Wimbledon in 2010]], which went down in the record books as the single longest tennis match in history. The blog reached full-on ZombieApocalypse proportions in a couple of places.
-->'''7.30pm:''' Let it end, let it end, it's 46-all. It was funny when it was 16-all and it was creepy when it was 26-all. But this is pure purgatory and there is still no end in sight. John Isner has just struck his 90th ace. Nicolas Mahut, poor, enfeebled Nicolas Mahut, has only hit 72. Maybe we should just decide it on the number of aces struck? Give the game to Isner and then we can all crawl into our graves.[[note]]The match finally ended in its ''third'' day, having twice been suspended due to darkness, with Isner winning the final set 70-68. Brooks did not return to live tweet the next day, presumably for mental health reasons.[[/note]]
* Jessica Gawhi posted a twitter post on her wall regarding a visit with her mom. [[http://twitpic.com/a9vfbk It was taken just a few minutes prior to Jessica's death during the 2012 Aurora theater shooting.]]
** [[http://twitter.com/sully_2003/status/226179758357110785 #TheDarkKnightRises oh man one hour till the movie and its going to be the best BIRTHDAY ever]] - Last tweet of theater shooting victim Alex Sullivan.
** And the reply from a friend of his:
--->'''@pikachudiamonds:''' i hope you're okay :(
* While the streamer in question survived, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuP9qt2AIMk getting caught by the 2014 Iquique earthquake in the middle of a stream]] has to count for something (link in Spanish, with English subs).
-->''"...and the floor is shaking quite a bit... we are live with a quake here, must be magnitude 6... 7... [[ThisIsGonnaSuck now it's up at 8]]...earthquake, earthquake, guys! It's moving quite-'' '''*sounds of rattling furniture* ''' '''''I'M GONNA DIE, I'M GONNA DIE!'''"''
* The black box of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_El_Faro SS El Faro]]'' documents the activities of the bridge crew as she sails into Hurricane Joaquin. It starts out mundane enough, with idle conversations and shooting the bull, before it begins into more sober comments about the deteriorating weather and the ship's attempts to weather the storm. Soon enough, it becomes clear that the ship is foundering and the captain gives the order to abandon ship. The last words on the recording are that of the captain trying to assist a panicked crew member out of the bridge as the ship capsizes. Sadly, no one from the ''El Faro'' survived.
* During the 2016 Fort [=McMurray=] wildfire in Alberta, Canada, one resident witnessed the destruction of his home via the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTlGFsP4JeQ living room security camera feed]] streamed to his iPhone.
* The diary of Linda Bishop, the '[[https://nypost.com/2001/12/14/homeless-angel-a-blessing-at-ground-zero/ Homeless Angel]]' of Ground Zero after the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Sept. 11, 2001 attacks]], who had been diagnosed as bipolar, a judgment she rejected. After her release from a mental hospital she moved into an abandoned farmhouse and recorded her experience in a notebook. Intending to live independently to prove that she could, she planned to stay only a few days, but worried that her unkempt appearance would attract unwanted attention if she went into town. Figuring she'd wait for divine inspiration for her next move, she lived on nothing but apples scavenged from a nearby orchard and melted snow for over three months. It was one of the coldest winters on record. When her apples ran out, she documented the process of her slow starvation--"35th day w/out food"--until her death. All the while she was close to occupied homes, and had a plan to leave and get help; but her eyesight failed due to starvation and she knew she'd never make it. ''[[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/30/god-knows-where-i-am God Knows Where I Am]]'' is a documentary of her story, which was released in 2017.
* The mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Nov. 5, 2017 was captured on video almost in its entirety, as the church recorded its sermons every week in order to post them on Website/YouTube. The cameramen were among the first to be shot when the gunman broke in, and no one was able to turn it off, so the camera kept rolling as the congregation was massacred.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEhcD0VomKE This video]] of the abandoned headquarters of the defunct Ames department store chain, accompanied by ghostly PA system voice-overs, concludes with the company's [[ThatWasTheLastEntry final voicemail]] to employees.
* During the early jet age, ejection seats would not operate until the cockpit canopy was jettisoned (today they can punch through the glass). A British pilot test-flying a Hawker-Siddeley Sea Hawk had his controls jam while in a moderate descent over open ocean. His canopy would not jettison, so he could not egress the doomed plane. He calmly narrated the last moments of his flight and his efforts to recover control so that later pilots might learn from what happened. The transmission was cut off at impact.
* This is sort of the whole reason they have black boxes on airplanes. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) records everything said in the cockpit and over the radio on an aircraft, and the device is made of highly durable material that's unlikely to be destroyed in a crash. (And as for the old {{Stock Joke|s}} about "why don't they just make the whole plane out of that material?"...well, such a plane would be too heavy to fly, and it wouldn't protect passengers from the impact anyway.)
-->[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Airlines_Flight_261 ALA 261 First Officer]] - I think if it's controllable, we oughta just try to land it --\\
ALA 261 Captain - you think so? ok let's head for LA.\\
ALA 261 - [''thump'']\\
ALA 261 First Officer - you feel that?\\
ALA 261 Captain - yeah.\\
ALA 261 Captain - ok gimme sl-- see, this is a bitch.\\
ALA 261 First Officer - is it?\\
ALA 261 Captain - yeah.\\
ALA 261 - [''[[KineticClicking 2 clicks, then an extremely loud bang]]'']\\
ALA 261 Captain -[[DistressCall Mayday]]!
** The most common last word on black box recordings is "[[OhCrap Shit!]]" (or its equivalent in the pilot's native language). This is rendered as "Unintelligible" when said recordings are broadcast on the news. Probably the second most common is "OH MY G*... [static noise]"[[note]]Note: Muslim pilots saying "Allah Akbar (God is Great)" before a plane crash is not an indication that the crash was intentional; Muslims believe that these should be their last words if possible. It's no more indicative of ill intent than a Jew saying the "Sh'ma", or a Christian saying the "Our Father" or 23rd Psalm.[[/note]]
** Occasionally, a pilot who knows he or she is going down and likely about to die will intentionally call out a message to a loved one, intending for it to be picked up by the CVR in hopes that the person it's directed to will eventually hear it. For instance, the pilot of a PSA plane that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSA_Flight_182 crashed in San Diego]] yelled "Ma, I love you!" just before his plane hit the ground.
** The ''other'' black box serves as one for the aircraft itself. The flight data recorder logs pretty much everything that happens to an airplane, including instrument readings, mechanical data, and control inputs. Flight data recorders are often vital to the task of determining the cause of a crash.
* There are plans by the U.S Department of Energy to leave one of these in nuclear waste storage facilities for future civilizations to uncover. The way they outline what message they want to convey [[https://www.damninteresting.com/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor/ sounds more like]] they're warning whoever comes near not to unleash the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Shambler locked inside the facility]], or something. One of the lines in the message was used for the {{Epigraph}} of one issue of ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'':
-->"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."
* UsefulNotes/TedTurner, upon the launching of CNN, vowed that the channel would never sign off, even to the point of becoming one of these. Luckily, it hasn't happened yet.
-->"We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event... and when the end of the world comes, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEARQ5Q60UM we'll play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee' before we sign off]]."
* In 2004 cave diver Dave Shaw [[https://youtu.be/LQdDvvageSM recorded his final moments]] when he became entangled and drowned during an attempt to recover the remains of fellow diver Deon Dreyer from Bushman Hole, where he had perished a decade earlier.
* Another unfortunate diver, Yuri Lipski, was diving at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(Red_Sea) the Dahab Blue Hole]] when something went horribly wrong and he uncontrollably sank to his death, his camera recording [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRj0lymMMGs the entirety of his fatal descent]].
* Website/FourChan's Bunker Map project is an attempt at tracking down and recording the locations of [[TheElitesJumpShip billionaire apocalypse bunkers]] like [[Creator/ShiaLaBeouf LaBeouf]]'s flag. [[FilkSong Leslie Fish's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKT1r-8viHk Digwell Carol]] is mentioned in terms of motivation.
* The last recorded message from the ''Star Dust'', the Avro Lancastrian airliner involved in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_BSAA_Avro_Lancastrian_Star_Dust_accident 1947 BSAA Star Dust Incident]], was "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC" transmitted via Morse Code to the radio operator at Santiago airport; the last word, "STENDEC", was not recognized by the operator, who asked for clarification. In response, he recieved "STENDEC" again twice, before contact was lost with the plane. Rumors abound as to what ''exactly'' STENDEC means, though one prevailing theory is that it is an old World War II era term for an aircraft about to crash due to hazardous weather, translating to "[[FunWithAcronyms Severe Turbulence Encountered, Now Descending Emergency Crash-landing]]", a theory backed up by the fact that all members of ''Star Dust'''s crew were WWII veterans. Critics, however, point out that the first part of the message was a routine estimated time of arrival, which would not have been transmitted if the aircraft were in distress.
* One piece of evidence that the Bronze Age Collapse was partly caused by the rampaging Sea Peoples is a letter by Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit, describing an army laying waste to his city.
-->My father behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka?...Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.
* The Victory Point Message of Franklin’s Lost Expedition counts as one. Consisting of two messages left a year apart, the messages detail the expeditions path through the Arctic, initially making great progress before being entrapped in the ice above King William Island. For the next two years, the ships would remain trapped in place, eventually loosing 24 of their number to sickness, including the expedition’s commander. On the third year, the survivors would attempt to escape on foot to the nearest British outpost, over 800 miles away. Although the details remain foggy, it is believed to be unlikely that they survived more then a few years after the message was left, dying due to factors like starvation, exhaustion, sickness, and the cold.
-->28 of May 1847 H.M.S.hips Erebus and Terror Wintered in the Ice in Lat. 70°5'N Long. 98°.23'W Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in Lat 74°43'28"N Long 91°39'15"W After having ascended Wellington Channel to Lat 77° and returned by the West side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the Expedition. All well Party consisting of 2 Officers and 6 Men left the ships on Monday 24th May 1847.—Gm. Gore, Lieut., Chas. F. Des Voeux, Mate\\
25th April 1848 HMShips Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues NNW of this having been beset since 12th Sept 1846. The officers and crews consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier landed here—in Lat. 69°37'42" Long. 98°41' This paper was found by Lt. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831—4 miles to the Northward—where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in May 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not however been found and the paper has been transferred to this position which is that in which Sir J. Ross' pillar was erected—Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.—James Fitzjames Captain HMS Erebus F. R. M. Crozier Captain & Senior Offr And start on tomorrow 26th for Backs Fish River
[[/folder]]

** ''The Illustrated Star Wars Universe'' does this with a research team on Dagobah.
** Maybe it's the same team, maybe it's not, but in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'' the protagonists, heading to Dagobah, find the malnourished and uneducated grown children of a survey team which had been stranded, and all of them were dead of one thing or another. The last adult left a datapad behind, with longer and longer gaps between entries as the item's power ran out. Fever, wild animals, and starvation were the threats. The last entry has the woman on her deathbed, weeping as she confessed that they had started to [[spoiler: [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty feed dead parents to their starving children]].]]

* A hilarious example from Website/{{Tumblr}}:
-->'''mamayuuma:''' my parents bought me this rly shady bottle of Coke from mexico should i drink it\\
'''mamayuuma:''' [[TemptingFate i'm gonna drink it]]\\
'''mamayuuma:''' [[{{Foreshadowing}} update: apparently it's supposed to be the original recipe it tastes kind of weird]]\\
'''mamayuuma:''' EVERYTHIG NIS VER Y FUNN Y AND I AM V ERY AW AYKE ALRIGHT [[DeterioratesIntoGibberish LA LRHAIGTH LARIGHTAL RIGHT LALTH IRHTALTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA]]\\
'''spoopyhahanonoseeren:''' [[spoiler:[[WhamLine didnt the original recipe have cocaine]]]]

* At least half of ''Strange Objects'' by Gary Crew is taken up by the serialized journal of Wouter Loos, one of two convicted killers marooned on the western coast of Australia in 1629. At first a straightforward record of Loos and his "friend," Jan Pelgrom, attempting to seek shelter with a local tribe, the journal slowly becomes more and more supernatural- especially with the introduction of a mysterious ruby ring that Pelgrom wears. However, the truth of this particular matter is never quite resolved, as the most overt record of anyone displaying magical power is in the final chapter -- by which time, Loos is [[UnreliableNarrator delirious]] and barely coherent in his last pages. Being a ScrapbookStory, ''Strange Objects'' also includes diary entries written in 1986 by the scrapbook's "compiler," Steven Messenger. The diary begins with Messenger's accidental discovery of a small cache of artefacts that once belonged to Loos and Pelgrom: though most of them are quickly handed over to the authorities, Messenger succeeds in taking one -- a small jewelled ring, which he keeps on a necklace. As the months pass, he begins to experience a feeling of BeingWatched, and frequently mentions encountering a silent "double" of himself. Eventually, Steven begins wearing the ring on his finger; according to the epilogue, he vanished from his home soon after and was never seen again.

* On a lighter note: [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/jun/23/wimbledon-2010-tennis-live Xan Brooks of the Guardian liveblogs the Isner-Mahut match at Wimbledon]]. The blog reached full-on ZombieApocalypse proportions in a couple of places.

** The original 1954 ''Film/{{Gojira}}'' featured a reporter giving a blow-by-blow description of Gojira's destruction of Tokyo, ending with his description of the monster's attack on the tower he was broadcasting from.

* Dr. Jenner of the CDC is making an ongoing video log in ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' when the group of survivors comes across the CDC. Several of his entries are shown in the episode "Wildfire".

* In the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' fanfilm ''The Message'', the FinalGirl is woken from cyrosleep to find the crew dead and a message for Weyland Yutani left by the captain who was ordered by the Company to land on LV426 and investigate rumors of the alien ship. The recording is [[ThatWasTheLastEntry interrupted by the xenomorph killing him]] and the MasterComputer wants permission to transmit it to Weyland Yutani, but she orders it deleted and sends her own. "To the people who sent us here: FUCK YOU!" Unfortunately, it's not enough to deter the Company from [[Film/{{Alien}} sending another spaceship.]]

** ''Boa Constrictor'':

** ''The Slithery Dee'':

* Website/FourChan's Bunker Map project is an attempt at tracking down and recording the locations of [[TheElitesJumpShip billionaire apocalypse bunkers]] like [[Creator/ShiaLaBeouf LaBeouf]]'s [[Series/HeWillNotDivideUs flag]]. [[FilkSong Leslie Fish's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKT1r-8viHk Digwell Carol]] is mentioned in terms of motivation.

* UsefulNotes/TedTurner, upon the launching of Creator/{{CNN}}, vowed that the channel would never sign off, even to the point of becoming one of these. Luckily, it hasn't happened yet.

* "June 3rd 1864, Cold Harbor Virginia, I was killed." The final entry of a Massachusetts volunteer in the Army of The Potomac in the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar.

* The original ''Series/LandOfTheLost'' had the Marshall's tracking down installments of a diary by a predecessor to the land. Eventually, they enter a cave full of dormant Sleetaks and find his long-decayed corpse and his final entry in a small section. They read that he never found a way home and was doomed because of being trapped in the cave with the Sleetaks awake. Suddenly, the Marshall's heard the sound of the Sleetaks waking up, take the hint and barely manage to escape themselves.

--> I can sense them" Neill had recorded in one of his later entries. "They are in our dreams, looking in. they are in the corners where the shadow falls on them. They know who we are."

--->As I made to get up, I bumped the book. It fell open, passed the section we'd been reading, and the diagrams, to the last several pages.\\

-->''It is not too late...\\

--> "I have never kept a journal before, but I figured that the occasion of moving into that house where that occult-inspired mass suicide happened 30 years ago was an excellent time to start."

--> '''Ed White:''' Fire!
--> '''Gus Grissom:''' I've got a fire in the cockpit!
--> '''Roger Chaffee:''' I'm burning up!
--> [screams]
--> [silence]

--> "A hell of a bloody row in here. I can't see anything... I've got the bows up. I've gone. Oh..."

--> [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yeIX0VnUMKo#t=2365s ...We've got four off at the moment, male and female. There's two left on board... *loud noise, followed by dead air*]]

--> '''@pikachudiamonds:''' i hope you're okay :(

--->My father behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka?...Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.

---> 28 of May 1847 H.M.S.hips Erebus and Terror Wintered in the Ice in Lat. 70°5'N Long. 98°.23'W Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in Lat 74°43'28"N Long 91°39'15"W After having ascended Wellington Channel to Lat 77° and returned by the West side of Cornwallis Island. Sir John Franklin commanding the Expedition. All well Party consisting of 2 Officers and 6 Men left the ships on Monday 24th May 1847.—Gm. Gore, Lieut., Chas. F. Des Voeux, Mate
---> 25th April 1848 HMShips Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22nd April 5 leagues NNW of this having been beset since 12th Sept 1846. The officers and crews consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier landed here—in Lat. 69°37'42" Long. 98°41' This paper was found by Lt. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831—4 miles to the Northward—where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in May 1847. Sir James Ross' pillar has not however been found and the paper has been transferred to this position which is that in which Sir J. Ross' pillar was erected—Sir John Franklin died on the 11th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths in the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.—James Fitzjames Captain HMS Erebus F. R. M. Crozier Captain & Senior Offr And start on tomorrow 26th for Backs Fish River

* Ultimately averted in the 1975 movie ''Bug''. Parmiter makes an audio log of his study of the hybrid bugs, but they deliberately destroy it, so his findings can never be discovered.

* In ''Film/TheKillerShrews'' (which was featured on an ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode), there is a {{Narm}}ful scene where a scientist, having just been bitten by one of the title monsters, sits down at a typewriter and records the process of his body succumbing to the shrew's poisonous saliva. Based upon the real-life incident of herpetologist Karl P. Schmidt (see folder "Real Life", below).