Research Papers Now Cite Sources That Do Not Exist. This Is Accelerating.

Researchers submitted papers with citations to articles that were never published. Peer reviewers checked that the citations were formatted correctly. Nobody checked whether the sources existed. The papers passed. They are now in the permanent record.

This is the third documented wave of this pattern. Each time the rate increases. Each time reviewers report they are checking citations the same way. The infrastructure that would catch this costs money. The infrastructure that formats citations costs nothing. We have chosen our efficiency metric.

More papers will cite sources that do not exist. They will be cited by other papers. The citations will become real through repetition. This is already happening. It is not accelerating. It has already arrived.