Separate the layers
Every file distinguishes the event, the official or conventional explanation, the alternate claim, and the later folklore that accumulated around it.
Editorial protocol / version 1.0
Curiosity needs
a method.
The Shadow Index is built for readers who can entertain an extraordinary possibility without pretending that possibility is already a fact.
Name the evidence level
Documented core, unresolved, contested, lore, and debunked are not verdicts on curiosity. They tell the reader what kind of ground they are standing on.
Preserve the counterpoint
A strong archive does not hide inconvenient evidence. The best conventional explanation belongs beside the strongest alternate reading.
Leave a trail
Case files end with links to primary records and credible reference material so readers can inspect the basis and form their own view.
A note on certainty
“Unexplained” is not a synonym for extraterrestrial. “Classified” is not a synonym for sinister. And “debunked” should never mean “do not examine.”
This is a living index. New records can change an assessment, expose a hoax, or turn a once-ridiculed suspicion into documented history. Labels should move when the evidence moves.
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