Sources and Methodology – Countdown to Disclosure

Countdown to Disclosure covers a subject in which a genuine record, a sincere observation, and a confident interpretation can point in different directions. The method is designed to keep those layers separate. Readers should be able to identify the source behind a material claim, understand what that source can establish, see important alternatives, and submit a correction with better evidence.

Source weighting

Controlling and original records: enacted law, official hearing records, court filings, agency reports, archival files, datasets, original imagery, and full recordings. These carry the most weight for the limited fact they directly document.
Direct accounts and contemporaneous records: first-hand testimony, interviews, logs, correspondence, and reporting made close to the event. They establish the account and context, but not automatically its explanation.
Transparent scholarly or investigative analysis: work that identifies sources, methods, assumptions, and conflicts. It may resolve gaps or expose contradictions but should not replace the underlying record.
Discovery aids: books, indexes, summaries, databases, and later retellings used to locate stronger material.
Unverified material: anonymous claims, reposts, screenshots without provenance, clipped media, and circular citations. These may be reported as claims when newsworthy, but they cannot carry a factual conclusion by themselves.

Source type is not a guarantee of truth. An official file can preserve a false lead; a first-hand account can be mistaken; a later analysis can be better informed than a contemporaneous report. Weight depends on proximity, provenance, independence, method, completeness, and whether the source directly supports the wording used. The Primary Sources desk provides official repository routes.

Claim labels and attribution

Every material sentence should make clear who knows or asserts what. Documented means an accessible record directly establishes the limited fact stated. Plausible means an explanation fits known facts but remains unverified. Disputed means relevant sources or evidence materially disagree. Unresolved means the available public evidence cannot support a confident choice among live explanations. Contradicted means stronger evidence conflicts with the claim; the contradicting record and the part affected should be named.

These labels apply to claims, not people. Testimony establishes that testimony was given. A photograph establishes the existence of that image if its provenance is sound. A declassified memorandum establishes what the memorandum records, not the truth of every statement inside it. Terms such as unidentified, anomalous, classified, or unresolved never serve as shorthand for extraordinary origin. Use the claim-evaluation worksheet to test a specific assertion.

Corroboration rules

Trace repeated coverage to its earliest available source. Ten articles repeating one interview remain one evidentiary stream.
For a material claim without an accessible primary record, require two independent reputable sources whose knowledge does not derive from each other.
For current official status, law, leadership, program scope, or statistics, verify against the responsible institution immediately before publication.
When sources disagree, present the disagreement, compare their access and methods, and avoid silently selecting the more dramatic account.
When decisive evidence is unavailable publicly, state that limitation rather than using classification or secrecy to fill the gap.

Headlines, dates, and updates

A headline should identify the actor, event, and evidentiary status without converting an allegation into a finding. Numbers, quotations, and words such as confirmed or proven must be supported in the body. Search-oriented wording cannot overstate the record.

Event date, document-creation date, release date, publication date, and page-modified date are separate fields. If only a year or approximate period is known, the copy says so rather than inventing a day. Timeline records use the event date when known; briefings retain their publication date even when they discuss older events.

On current standard pages, the visible LAST_REVIEWED value is rendered from the WordPress modified timestamp. It shows when the saved page version last changed; by itself it does not prove that every linked source was revalidated on that date. A substantive review should record what was checked in the editorial handoff, and status-sensitive claims should carry an explicit as-of date in the text when readers could otherwise mistake them for current.

Images, video, and sensor data

Media is checked for creator, acquisition path, earliest available file, chain of custody, metadata, edits, compression, scale, viewing geometry, sensor mode, and ordinary alternatives. Illustrative art is labeled and must not be presented as documentation of an event. A clip can be authentic while a popular interpretation remains wrong. A multisensor claim requires evidence that the sensors were synchronized, independently informative, and understood well enough to compare. NASA’s UAP Independent Study is a useful official reference for data quality, calibration, and metadata limits.

Corrections, versions, and link preservation

Substantive errors in facts, dates, quotations, source identity, captions, or evidentiary characterization are corrected when the record supports a change. Minor spelling, accessibility, formatting, and link-maintenance edits may occur without a separate correction note. When a change materially alters what readers would conclude, the page should include a concise visible note stating what changed and when; the previous claim should not simply disappear without explanation.

Sources are cited with issuer, title, date, document or archive identifier, page or timestamp, stable URL, and access date. Link maintenance should prefer the issuing institution’s document page over a temporary download URL. If a link fails, locate the same record by identifier, check an official replacement, and preserve an archive reference without implying that an archived snapshot is the current page.

Corrections and stronger primary records can be sent through the Contact page. Include the affected URL, exact passage, proposed change, and evidence. Do not send classified information, private credentials, unlawfully obtained personal data, or material you are not authorized to disclose.

Conflicts, commerce, and automation

Editorial conclusions are separate from merchandise and commercial activity. Payment must not determine a factual conclusion or favorable treatment, and a relevant financial, personal, or organizational relationship should be disclosed when it could reasonably affect coverage. Advocacy language, institutional statements, and source interests are attributed rather than adopted as the site’s voice.

Automation and artificial intelligence may assist with transcription, document organization, formatting, metadata, duplicate detection, link checks, or a draft. Automated output is never evidence and is not authorized to publish by itself. Before publication or a substantive update, a human reviewer must open the cited sources, verify material claims, inspect uncertainty language, check for duplication and unsupported assertions, and approve the staging draft. The site’s daily news monitor is bounded to research and writer-task handoff; it does not auto-publish. These controls are described more broadly in the Editorial Policy.

How confidence changes

Documented: An official hearing page and recording establish that a hearing occurred and that a named witness gave specific testimony. They do not establish every underlying claim in that testimony.
Plausible: A distant light’s motion is consistent with parallax after geometry is reconstructed, but the original metadata is missing. The explanation is viable, not proven.
Disputed: A witness account and an agency assessment describe the same event differently. Both are attributed, and the disagreement remains visible while their evidence and access are compared.
Unresolved: A report contains too little calibrated data to distinguish among several ordinary and unusual possibilities. The gap is stated; no origin is inferred.
Contradicted: A claim about a bill becoming law conflicts with the official action history showing it was introduced but not enacted. The official legislative record controls that status claim.

Confidence can move in either direction. A newly released original record, independent corroboration, or reproducible analysis may strengthen a conclusion. Broken provenance, a retracted source, contradictory metadata, or a broader record may weaken it. The Timeline remains a finding aid even when an associated interpretation changes.