Down the rabbit hole
Water Monster · Oakland, Maryland · 1887
5 documents · 1 independent account · 1 cited source we haven't found yet
5 documents tell this story. They trace back to 1 independent account. 1 cited source we haven't found yet.
The route
- One encounter the reported sighting this case is about
- 5 documents that tell it, as we collected them
- 1 independent account behind those documents
- 4 copies reprints or cross-posts of the same text: not extra witnesses
- 1 cited source named in the documents: 1 not found yet
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.
Why these records are connected
- 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:
- The Bossier banner & The Republican: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; they name the same witness; same year (though they were placed far apart)
Every document, as a list
- Account 1 5 documents
- Earliest found East Providence Eagle (East Providence, R.I.) 1882-191? Newspaper · Jan 26, 1887
- Reprint South Branch Intelligencer (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) Newspaper · Feb 4, 1887
- Reprint The Republican (Oakland, Md.) Newspaper · Feb 5, 1887
Image 2 of The Republican (Oakland, Md.), February 5, 1887 - Reprint The Bossier Banner (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) Newspaper · Mar 3, 1887
Image 1 of The Bossier banner (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.), March 3, 1887 - Reprint The Colfax Chronicle (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) Newspaper · Apr 9, 1887
- cited, not yet found N. Y. Post (Newspaper) · named in The Republican (Oakland, Md.), Feb 5, 1887 search for it ↗
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.
Where next
- Back to the case
its summary, sources and discussion - Back to the map
opened on this case - Water Monster · Alexandria, Virginia · 1845
Another trail, same creature: 5 documents · 1 independent account - Other Aquatic · 1837
The next-deepest trail: 5 documents · 1 independent account
Every rabbit hole → · How we tell copies from independent accounts