Source type
Source type tells us where the account comes from, not how believable it is. It is not a grade. Documentation strength is recorded separately as a rating from A to E, and that rating judges the paperwork, never the witness.
- Firsthand — You were there and you are describing what you personally saw, heard, felt, or recorded. This is the most useful kind of report, because we can ask you follow-up questions.
- Secondhand — Someone else had the experience and you are passing it along. Please name who told you and your relationship to them in the secondhand account field. Reporting for a friend or relative who will not come forward is welcome.
- Historical — A documented case from the past rather than your own experience: an old newspaper account, a local legend with a paper trail, a known haunting or disappearance. Include sources or links where you can.
- Research — Your own investigation or analysis instead of an experience: records and archive work, site visit notes, photo or audio analysis, historical context, or a conventional explanation you have tested. Use this when you are adding to the record rather than reporting an event.
- Evidence only — You have a photograph, recording, video, or document but little or no story to go with it. You cannot say what happened, only what was captured. This lets the material enter the archive without anyone inventing a narrative around it.
Phenomenon tags
Tick every tag that applies. Most genuine reports touch more than one: a dark figure in a hallway that also panicked the dog and left a scratch is three tags, not one. Tags are how visitors find related files and how we group cases for the show, so accuracy helps more than tidiness.
- Apparitions & Spirits — Human-seeming figures, whole or partial. Covers full-body apparitions, transparent or solid forms, faces and torsos, recognizable deceased people, crisis apparitions at the moment of a death, repeating scenes that play out the same way, and shaped mists.
- Shadow Entities & Dark Figures — Dark, featureless humanoid shapes that seem to swallow light rather than reflect it. Separate from apparitions because there is no face, clothing, or detail. Covers shadow people, the hat man, dark masses in doorways, and figures at the edge of vision that are gone when you look straight at them.
- Physical & Poltergeist Activity — Anything that moves, strikes, or interferes with the physical world. Covers objects thrown or relocated, doors and cabinets opening, knocking and rapping, footsteps with impact, electrical and appliance interference, lights cycling, objects appearing from nowhere, and marks left on furniture or walls.
- UFOs/UAPs — Unidentified craft, objects, or lights in the sky, on the water, or under it. Covers structured craft, light formations, silent triangles, distant orbs, instrument and radar anomalies, close encounters, landing traces, and occupant sightings.
- Cryptids & Unknown Zoology — Animals that should not be there, or should not exist. Covers upright hominids such as bigfoot or sasquatch, dogmen and upright canids, lake and river creatures, thunderbirds and winged humanoids, out-of-place big cats, and physical sign such as tracks, hair, scat, or unusual kills.
- Auditory & Acoustic Events — Sound with no source you can locate. Covers voices and whispers, your name being called, footsteps in empty rooms, music or singing, unexplained booms and hums, phantom animal sounds, and anomalies captured on a recorder.
- Spatiotemporal Anomalies (Missing Time) — Distortions of time, distance, or place. Covers lost or missing time, a familiar drive that took far too long or too little, sudden dead silence, roads that repeat or refuse to arrive, rooms and doorways that do not match the building, abrupt displacement, and apparent slips into another era.
- Consciousness & Altered States — Experiences seated in perception and awareness rather than the room around you. Covers sleep paralysis and bedroom visitors, out-of-body and near-death experiences, precognitive or shared dreams, premonition and telepathy, and encounters during trance, meditation, or ritual.
- Physiological & Biological Effects — What the body recorded. Covers unexplained burns, scratches, bruises, or punctures; nausea, headaches, and nosebleeds; sudden cold or heat with no source; pressure on the chest; lasting illness or medical findings after an encounter; and animals in distress.
- Folklore & Cultural Encounters — Experiences that follow an established regional or cultural pattern. Covers fae and little people, black dogs, la Llorona, the wendigo, djinn, roadside and bridge legends, cursed ground and fairy paths, and seasonal or local traditions tied to a place.
- Religious & Spiritual Manifestations — Encounters understood in religious or spiritual terms. Covers angels and demons, possession and oppression, apparitions of Mary or the saints, weeping or bleeding statues, stigmata, healing, deliverance and exorcism, and experiences at sacred sites.
- Unclassified & Other — For anything that does not fit, or that you would rather not force into a box. Also the right choice when an experience spans several categories and none of them leads. An honest unclassified file is worth more to us than a confident wrong label.
Documentation rating
Every published file carries a letter from A to E. Staff assign it during review, so it is not something you choose when you submit. Read it carefully, because it is narrower than it looks: the letter rates the documentation, not the witness and not whether anything paranormal happened. A sincere, detailed account from one person with nothing to corroborate it still rates a D, and that is not an accusation. A well-documented hoax could rate an A on paperwork alone.
- A — Extensive evidence, useful to a researcher who has never spoken to anyone involved. Typically several independent witnesses plus original media, records, or measurements that can be examined on their own.
- B — Multiple witnesses, or one witness with substantial corroborating material such as photographs, recordings, contemporaneous notes, or documents that support the account.
- C — A single witness whose account comes with supporting documentation. One person, but there is something to examine besides the statement.
- D — A single witness account with little or no supporting material. The most common rating for a sincere personal experience, and a perfectly normal place for a file to sit.
- E — Incomplete or too thin to review meaningfully. Every new submission starts here until staff have read it, so an E often just means “not yet assessed” rather than “rejected.”
A rating can go up. If you send us follow-up detail, a photograph you found later, or a second witness comes forward, the file is re-reviewed and the change is recorded in its history.