A word to describe an incident or event that may or may not have taken place


Is there any word that can be used to describe an incident or event that may have taken place but people are not sure if that event actually took place because there is a lack of comprehensive evidence.


For example many people believe that the Roswell Incident is actually true, however others believe that such an incident did not take place.


Another example is an event from an Eastern religion called Mahabharat that is considered to be true by many people, however others differ suggesting that there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that this event actually took place.



Answer




purported - said to be true or real but not definitely true or real



If things are more certain, you can bump the status of a purported event up to putative:



putative - generally believed to be something



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