PawCRYPTID BOARDDocument the weird. Investigate the unknown.New

Down the rabbit hole

Water Monster · Nahant, Massachusetts · 1833

3 documents · 1 independent account · 2 cited sources we haven't found yet

3 documents tell this story. They trace back to 1 independent account. 2 cited sources we haven't found yet.

The route

  1. One encounter the reported sighting this case is about
  2. 3 documents that tell it, as we collected them
  3. 1 independent account behind those documents
  4. 2 copies reprints or cross-posts of the same text: not extra witnesses
  5. 2 cited sources named in the documents: 2 not found yet

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

Rabbit hole: Water Monster · Nahant, Massachusetts · 18333 documents tell this story. They trace back to 1 independent account. 2 cited sources we haven't found yet. Each independent account is one row; time runs left to right. The earliest document we hold in each account is ringed. A full list follows the picture.Account 13 documents · 2 reprintsTIME (when each document was published) →Jul 7, 1833Jul 14Jul 21Jul 28Aug 4Reprint · The Daily Cincinnati Republican, And Commercial Register (Cincinnati, Ohio) · Image 2 of The Daily Cincinnati Republican, and commercial register (Cincinnati, Ohio), July 18, 1833 · Newspaper, Jul 18, 1833The Daily Cincinnati Re…Reprint · The Arkansas Advocate (Little Rock, A.T. [Ark.]) · Newspaper, Aug 7, 1833The Arkansas Advocatecited, not yet found · Portland Evening Advertiser · Newspaper, Jul 6, 1833 · search for itPortland Evening Adve… · not yet foundcited, not yet found · New Orleans Louisiana Advertiser · Newspaper, undated · search for itNew Orleans Louisiana… · not yet foundEarliest found · Daily National Intelligencer (Washington City [D.C.]) · Newspaper, Jul 12, 1833EARLIEST FOUNDDaily National IntelligencerNewspapersame text (reprint)Earliest foundcited, not yet found

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

Why these records are connected

  • 2 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:
    • The Daily Cincinnati Republican, and commercial register: one document describes it twice
    • The Daily Cincinnati Republican, and commercial register: they describe the same details; same place, same day

Every document, as a list

  1. Account 1 3 documents

How to read this

  • 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.

About the numbers

  • 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.

The deepest rabbit holes →

Where next

Every rabbit hole → · How we tell copies from independent accounts