KIRK THIS WHY YOU GOTTA FILL OUT THE LOG

I’ve heard the theory that Kirk’s logs just get circulated round headquarters for lulz before being dumped in the circular file as obvious fabrications by someone bored with a frontier posting.

“Hey, have you seen this one? He says he fought Apollo.”

“What, the old earth probe?”

“Try the old earth GOD!”

“Hilarious! Classic Kirk! That’s better than the time when he was transported to an evil dimenison.”

The reason why in The Naked Now it was Riker who remembered that the previous polywater infection had happened is that he’s the sort of person who would read The Hilarious Adventures of Captain Kirk for fun.

I especially like this idea because of the implication that all the other captains in Starfleet are reporting perfectly ordinary experiences like visiting a space station, dropping off supplies at a colony, bit of a stand-off with some Klingons in disputed space but got out of it unscathed - and then there’s Kirk all, “sorry guys we’ve been off course this week because my first officer seriously needed to get laid (LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA MY NECK STILL HURTS)” and “let me tell you about the Chicago Gangster planet” and “WHIPPED AND THROWN IN JAIL BY SPACE NAZIS.”

I actually really like the above explanation

“So wait, they stole his first officer’s brain?”

“What do you MEAN he just stumbled upon earths most notorious war criminal and just…LEFT HIM on a random planet”

“That’s what it says here

And then the rest of it is just ‘KHAAAAAAAAAAAN’ written across two sheets of A4″

“You need to tell Kirk to stop making this nonsense up”

In one of the New Frontier books, it IS actually apparently a subject of debate at 24th century Starfleet command how accurate Kirk’s logs can be considered because of how outlandish they are. Admiral Jellico (yes, THAT Jellico) told Captain Calhoun how he had a hard time believing him when he said a bird hatched out of a planet (just roll with it). Calhoun responded that Kirk witnessed weird crap like this all the time, Jellico responded that it was suspected that much of Kirk’s logs (including the giant space amoeba fight) are a fabrication.

“Hey sir we just got a bunch of reports and logs from Captain James Kirk, what should I do with it?”

“Throw it in the Crank file I’ll read it later when something to laugh at.”

Shatner wrote a series of books where the Borg bring Kirk back to life to fight Picard in the Aftermath of Star Trek Generations. 

If you take into account both of these things… That means the borg got a hold of Kirk’s logs, and where the first to actually believe him. 
This also leads to the funny imagery of several Star Fleet Captains laughing when they find this out. 

“The Borg seriously believed that Kirk fought God?”
“Oh, next be believing he went back in time and had to kill his girlfriend before she let the Nazi’s win WW2.”