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The Lab
Study · the named and the unnamed

The most filed entities

1,254 alleged entities are named across the archive. Ranked two ways: by dossiers carrying the name, and by jurisdictions the same name appears in — a loose measure of how far a figure travels.

Most dossiers naming them

  1. 01The soldiers25 files · 15 states
  2. 02The miners23 files · 12 states
  3. 03The patients10 files · 7 states
  4. 04Lady in White9 files · 7 states
  5. 05The workers7 files · 4 states
  6. 06The prisoners7 files · 6 states
  7. 07The sailors7 files · 6 states
  8. 08The keepers7 files · 4 states
  9. 09The crew7 files · 5 states
  10. 10Woman in white6 files · 6 states
  11. 11White Lady6 files · 5 states
  12. 12The keeper6 files · 5 states
  13. 13Pele5 files · 1 state
  14. 14Bigfoot5 files · 5 states
  15. 15The children5 files · 5 states
  16. 16The valley dead5 files · 2 states
  17. 17Abraham Lincoln4 files · 2 states
  18. 18Lady in Blue4 files · 4 states
  19. 19The museum dead4 files · 3 states
  20. 20The internees4 files · 4 states
  21. 21Huakaʻi pō (night marchers)3 files · 1 state
  22. 22The bride3 files · 3 states
  23. 23Night marchers3 files · 1 state
  24. 24Mary3 files · 2 states
  25. 25Jesse James3 files · 2 states
  26. 26Joe Baldwin3 files · 1 state
  27. 27Lady in Red3 files · 3 states
  28. 28Rosie3 files · 2 states
  29. 29The settlers3 files · 3 states
  30. 30Annie3 files · 3 states

Filed in the most jurisdictions

  1. 01The soldiers15 jurisdictions
  2. 02The miners12 jurisdictions
  3. 03Lady in White7 jurisdictions
  4. 04The patients7 jurisdictions
  5. 05Woman in white6 jurisdictions
  6. 06The prisoners6 jurisdictions
  7. 07The sailors6 jurisdictions
  8. 08White Lady5 jurisdictions
  9. 09Bigfoot5 jurisdictions
  10. 10The children5 jurisdictions
  11. 11The keeper5 jurisdictions
  12. 12The crew5 jurisdictions
  13. 13The workers4 jurisdictions
  14. 14Lady in Blue4 jurisdictions
  15. 15The keepers4 jurisdictions
  16. 16The internees4 jurisdictions
  17. 17The bride3 jurisdictions
  18. 18Lady in Red3 jurisdictions
  19. 19The settlers3 jurisdictions
  20. 20Annie3 jurisdictions
  21. 21The Devil3 jurisdictions
  22. 22The girl3 jurisdictions
  23. 23The churchyard dead3 jurisdictions
  24. 24The colonial dead3 jurisdictions
  25. 25The villagers3 jurisdictions
  26. 26The museum dead3 jurisdictions
  27. 27The battle dead3 jurisdictions
  28. 28The dam workers3 jurisdictions
  29. 29Lydia2 jurisdictions
  30. 30The giant child2 jurisdictions

What the register actually shows

The most-filed entity in the archive is not a person — it is a category. "The soldiers" appears in 25 dossiers across15 jurisdictions; "the miners" and "the patients" follow. America's hauntings are plural and anonymous far more often than they are singular and named.

That is honest data about how haunting stories work: a battlefield does not produce one ghost, it produces a remembered crowd. Named figures — Lincoln, Bigfoot, a procession of night marchers — travel further but thinner. The unnamed collect at the scene; the famous commute.

One caveat before reading tea leaves: entity names come from sources, and sources use whatever label was lying around. "The soldiers" at two sites may share nothing but a noun — the dossier keeps each filing local.