Down the rabbit hole
Other Flying · Whetstone Mountains, Arizona · 1890
7 documents · 1 independent account
7 documents tell this story. They trace back to 1 independent account.
The route
- One encounter the reported sighting this case is about
- 7 documents that tell it, as we collected them
- 1 independent account behind those documents
- 6 copies reprints or cross-posts of the same text: not extra witnesses
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
- 6 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 Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train and Other American D… & The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place, same day
- St. Paul daily globe & The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folkt…: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
- Idaho news & St. Paul daily globe: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quotes overlap; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- Idaho news & Tombstone epitaph: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quotes overlap; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train & The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folkt…: their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
- The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train and Other American D… & The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folkt…: their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
- Tombstone epitaph & The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folkt…: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quotes overlap; they describe the same details; same year
- Idaho news & The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folkt…: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quotes overlap; they describe the same details; same year
Every document, as a list
- Account 1 7 documents
- Earliest found Tombstone Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) Newspaper · Apr 26, 1890
Image 3 of Tombstone epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.), April 26, 1890 - Reprint St. Paul Daily Globe (Saint Paul, Minn.) Newspaper · Jun 2, 1890
Image 5 of St. Paul daily globe (Saint Paul, Minn.), June 2, 1890 - Reprint Democratic Northwest (Napoleon, Ohio) Newspaper · Jul 10, 1890
- Reprint The Kimball Graphic (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) Newspaper · Jul 11, 1890
- Reprint News And Citizen (Morrisville, Vt. ; Hyde Park, Vt.) Newspaper · Jul 31, 1890
- Reprint Idaho News (Blackfoot, Idaho) Newspaper · Oct 11, 1890
Image 7 of Idaho news (Blackfoot, Idaho), October 11, 1890 - Reprint The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folktales and a lumberjack, and a collection of large dead birds. Reddit post · Jun 15, 2022
- Earliest found Tombstone Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) Newspaper · Apr 26, 1890
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 - Other Flying · Napoleon, Ohio · 1890
Another trail, same creature: 6 documents · 1 independent account - Water Monster · Montgomery, Alabama · 1919
The next-deepest trail: 7 documents · 1 independent account
Every rabbit hole → · How we tell copies from independent accounts