How we rate claims
Every rating answers two separate questions — because mixing them up is how this subject usually goes wrong.
1 · The miracle meter
If the facts are true, could nature do this? Scored assuming every documented fact holds — even for hoaxes. Real fairy photographs would score high here; the hoax is the next bar’s job. For providence stories the question becomes: was the timing more than coincidence?
2 · The evidence bar
Did it happen as reported? Records, adversarial scrutiny, independent sources, named witnesses, contemporaneity — and direction matters. A confession or exposure drives this bar toward zero no matter how thick the file is.
The headline number
The two bars multiply: headline % = miracle meter × evidence. That product is exactly the probability a genuine miracle occurred here — it can’t be high unless both the event would defy nature andthe record says it really happened. No bonus points, no benefit of the doubt, never 0% or 100% — certainty isn’t earned in either direction.
The six tiers
A readable map of the two bars. Thresholds are published so you can check our work — and argue with it.
See the Gold-standard cases and both Top-10 boards →
Meter ≥ 70 and Evidence ≥ 70
Clearly miraculous if true, and strongly evidenced that it happened. The whole mission is making this list longer — honestly.
Meter ≥ 60 and Evidence ≥ 40
Clearly miraculous if true, but the record is thinner. Better documentation could promote it — these are our research priorities.
Meter 41–69 and Evidence ≥ 40
A decent record and a genuinely contested mechanism — the honest middle where serious people can disagree.
Meter ≤ 40 and Evidence ≥ 40
It happened — and nature accounts for it. These are not failures; many are the best good-news stories in the catalog.
Evidence 10–39
The record simply can't carry the claim in either direction. Most old legends live here, honestly labeled.
Evidence < 10
Confessed hoaxes, exposed frauds, and claims the evidence flatly contradicts. Publishing these is what makes the rest credible.
Worked example: a Gold-standard case
Antonietta Raco — primary lateral sclerosis resolved after a 2009 Lourdes pilgrimage, recognized as the 72nd Lourdes miracle in 2025. Miracle meter 72 (PLS has no documented spontaneous-remission mechanism — though rare PLS-mimicking conditions keep it short of certainty), evidence 88 (a 16-year inquiry, 17-of-21 vote by an international medical committee, the strongest documentation in the modern record). 72 × 88% ≈ 63% headline — Gold standard. High on both bars is rare: only four claims in the catalog manage it.
Worked example: the Cottingley fairies
The 1917 fairy photographs score a 75 on the miracle meter — genuine photographs of fairies would be extraordinary by any standard. They also score a 3 on evidence, because the photographers confessed: the fairies were paper cutouts. 75 × 3% ≈ 2% headline, Disproven. A high meter on a disproven claim isn’t a contradiction — it’s the system refusing to pretend fairies would be boring.
The full working rubric — sub-signals, anchors, version history — is maintained openly and revised as we calibrate. Spot an error in a rating? The evidence ledger on every claim shows exactly what the number rests on. More about the project →