The Archive Classification System
The Archive Classification summarises what the evidence supports about a report’s central question. As we update the collection, each report will carry one classification. The badge describes the state of the evidence, not how strange a case feels or whether a paranormal explanation is possible.
A classification is not a verdict on every detail in a case. A particular photograph might be explained while other testimony remains unresolved. We assess the central claim of the report and explain the limits of the evidence in the report itself.
We use five classifications:
Authentic / Unresolved
The object or event itself is real and well documented. What is missing is an explanation for its cause, purpose or authorship. The question is not whether the object exists or the recorded event took place, but what it means.
Evidentially Limited
A report or tradition has a genuine place in the historical record, but the evidence for its central claim is too indirect, incomplete or late to establish what happened. The story may preserve something true. The surviving material cannot confirm it.
Contested
The central claim is subject to a specific, substantial dispute. Credible evidence or argument exists on more than one side, and the surviving record does not currently settle the question. This is more than general uncertainty: the competing accounts or interpretations can be identified and examined.
Unsupported
The popular version of the case makes a claim that the available evidence cannot support. Something may still have happened at its core, but the specific conclusion repeated with confidence goes beyond what the record establishes.
Debunked
The report’s central, testable claim has been directly shown to be false—for example, through an admitted hoax, a conclusive identification or a demonstrably fabricated document. An explained detail within an otherwise unresolved case does not, by itself, make the whole case Debunked.
What the Classification Is Not
It is not a belief score, and the five labels are not a ranking from least to most mysterious. Contested is not “more mysterious” than Authentic / Unresolved; it describes a different kind of uncertainty.
A classification is not permanent. If new evidence changes what a case can support, we will revisit the report, update its classification where necessary and explain why it changed.
The classification is a discipline we hold ourselves to as much as a guide for readers. Before assigning a badge, we need to be able to say what the report’s central question is, what the surviving evidence establishes and where that evidence runs out.