Down the rabbit hole
Water Monster · Willmar, Minnesota · 1900
3 documents · 1 independent account
3 documents tell this story. They trace back to 1 independent account.
The route
- One encounter the reported sighting this case is about
- 3 documents that tell it, as we collected them
- 1 independent account behind those documents
- 2 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
- 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:
- Devils Lake inter-ocean & Willmar tribune: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- Devils Lake inter-ocean & Warren sheaf: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
- Willmar tribune & Warren sheaf: the copy detector found the same text in both; their quoted passages are nearly identical; they describe the same details; same place; same year
Every document, as a list
- Account 1 3 documents
- Earliest found Willmar Tribune (Willmar, Minn.) Newspaper · Sep 26, 1900
Image 7 of Willmar tribune (Willmar, Minn.), September 26, 1900 - Reprint Warren Sheaf (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) Newspaper · Sep 27, 1900
Image 10 of Warren sheaf (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.), September 27, 1900 - Reprint Devils Lake Inter-Ocean (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) Newspaper · Sep 28, 1900
Image 2 of Devils Lake inter-ocean (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]), September 28, 1900
- Earliest found Willmar Tribune (Willmar, Minn.) Newspaper · Sep 26, 1900
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 · Vancouver Island, British Columbia · 1933
Another trail, same creature: 3 documents · 1 independent account - Other Canine · Michigan · 2020
The next-deepest trail: 3 documents · 1 independent account
Every rabbit hole → · How we tell copies from independent accounts