Down the rabbit hole
Other Flying · Darlington County, South Carolina · 1888
5 documents · 2 independent accounts
5 documents tell this story. They trace back to 2 independent accounts.
The route
- One encounter the reported sighting this case is about
- 5 documents that tell it, as we collected them
- 2 independent accounts behind those documents
- 3 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
- 3 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:
- Sacramento daily record-union & The Indianapolis journal: they describe the same details; they name the same witness; same year
- The Indianapolis journal & Shenandoah herald: they describe the same details; they name the same witness; same place, same day
- Sacramento daily record-union & Shenandoah herald: they describe the same details; they name the same witness; same year
Every document, as a list
- Account 1 3 documents
- Earliest found Sacramento Daily Record-Union (Sacramento [Calif.]) Newspaper · Jun 1, 1888
Image 2 of Sacramento daily record-union (Sacramento [Calif.]), June 1, 1888 - Reprint The Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis [Ind.]) Newspaper · Jun 1, 1888
Image 1 of The Indianapolis journal (Indianapolis [Ind.]), June 1, 1888 - Reprint The Clifton Clarion (Clifton, Graham County, A.T., Ariz.) Newspaper · Jun 13, 1888
- Earliest found Sacramento Daily Record-Union (Sacramento [Calif.]) Newspaper · Jun 1, 1888
- Account 2 (Separate account) 2 documents
- Earliest found Shenandoah Herald (Woodstock, Va.) Newspaper · Jun 8, 1888
Image 2 of Shenandoah herald (Woodstock, Va.), June 8, 1888 - Reprint The Big Horn Sentinel (Big Horn, Wyo.) Newspaper · Jun 16, 1888
- Earliest found Shenandoah Herald (Woodstock, Va.) Newspaper · Jun 8, 1888
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.
- Our case matcher counts 1 independent account here: some of these accounts quote the same words, so they may be one telling.
Where next
- Back to the case
its summary, sources and discussion - Back to the map
opened on this case - Other Flying · Newton Abbot, England · 2014
Another trail, same creature: 2 documents · 1 independent account - Water Monster · Lake Champlain, Vermont · 1929
The next-deepest trail: 6 documents · 3 independent accounts
Every rabbit hole → · How we tell copies from independent accounts