Down the rabbit hole

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:
  • Evening star & Evening star: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
  • Evening star & The Searcy news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
  • Evening star & The Dermott news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
  • Evening star & The Searcy news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same year
  • The dispatch-news & The Searcy news: 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 Dermott news & The Searcy news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
  • Evening star & The Dermott news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place (though their months disagree)
  • The dispatch-news & The Dermott news: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place (though their months disagree)

Every document, as a list

1. Account 1 5 documents
   • Earliest found Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) Newspaper · Jul 22, 1926
     Image 1 of Evening star (Washington, D.C.), July 22, 1926
   • Reprint Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) Newspaper · Jul 24, 1926
     Image 6 of Evening star (Washington, D.C.), July 24, 1926
   • Reprint The Dermott News (Dermott, Ark.) Newspaper · Sep 2, 1926
     Image 3 of The Dermott news (Dermott, Ark.), September 2, 1926
   • Reprint The Searcy News (Searcy, Ark.) Newspaper · Sep 2, 1926
     Image 6 of The Searcy news (Searcy, Ark.), September 2, 1926
   • Reprint The Dispatch-News (Lexington, S.C.) Newspaper · Oct 20, 1926
     Image 4 of The dispatch-news (Lexington, S.C.), October 20, 1926

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

• Back to the case
  its summary, sources and discussion
• Back to the map
  opened on this case
• Water Monster · Lafourche Parish, Louisiana · 1914
  Another trail, same creature: 5 documents · 1 independent account
• Other / Unknown · Argentina · 1890
  The next-deepest trail: 5 documents · 1 independent account

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