Down the rabbit hole

Other Aquatic · Durban, KwaZulu-Natal · 1925

6 documents · 2 independent accounts

6 documents tell this story. They trace back to 2 independent accounts.

The route

Copies are not confirmations: thirty papers printing one story is still one account.

Each shape is one document; open it to go to where we found it. The same graph as a list is below.

4 copies: the copy detector found the same words in a later document, so it sits in the same row as the account it copies.
Why these documents are one case. The case matcher joined them because:
- Watauga Democrat & The Thermopolis independent: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- The broad ax & The Pageland journal: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- Watauga Democrat & The broad ax: a person reviewed them and joined them
- The broad ax & The Thermopolis independent: a person reviewed them and joined them
- The broad ax & The Ely miner: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year (though they were placed far apart)
- The Pageland journal & The Ely miner: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year (though they were placed far apart)

Account 1 3 documents
- Earliest found Watauga Democrat (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) Newspaper · Apr 2, 1925
- Reprint The Thermopolis Independent (Thermopolis, Wyo.) Newspaper · Apr 3, 1925
  Image 2 of The Thermopolis independent (Thermopolis, Wyo.), April 3, 1925
- Reprint Watauga Democrat (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) Newspaper · Jun 25, 1925
  Image 8 of Watauga Democrat (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.), June 25, 1925
Account 2 (Separate account) 3 documents
- Earliest found The Broad Ax (Salt Lake City, Utah;Chicago, Ill.) 1895-19?? Newspaper · Apr 25, 1925
  Image 3 of The broad ax (Salt Lake City, Utah;Chicago, Ill.), April 25, 1925
- Reprint The Pageland Journal (Pageland, S.C.) Newspaper · May 6, 1925
  Image 4 of The Pageland journal (Pageland, S.C.), May 6, 1925
- Reprint The Ely Miner (Ely, Minn.) Newspaper · Jan 15, 1926
  Image 4 of The Ely miner (Ely, Minn.), January 15, 1926

Time runs left to right by publication date. Very long empty stretches are cut short (the axis shows how many years were skipped); undated documents sit in their own column.
One row per independent account. A reprint, re-upload or cross-post carries the same text, so it stays in its account's row and never counts as a second witness.
Earliest found (ringed) is the earliest document we hold for that account. It is not proof of the first telling: an earlier one may exist that we haven't collected.
Arrows run from a document to a source it names. A dashed shape is a source a document cites that we haven't found yet; its link searches a public archive for it, and a hit there is a lead, not a confirmation.

Only documents we've collected are counted; retellings elsewhere on the web aren't counted yet.
Documents are matched by shared text and by the sources they name, by plain rules with no model in the loop. A match can be wrong; tell us.

Back to the case
its summary, sources and discussion
Back to the map
opened on this case
Other Aquatic · British Columbia, Canada · 1934
Another trail, same creature: 3 documents · 1 independent account
Other Flying · South Carolina · 2007
The next-deepest trail: 3 documents · 1 independent account