earwitness
A person who only hears the chaos but wasn’t there to see the disaster. They spread the word like it's gospel, even if they weren't there.
My sister told me the kid fell out of the tree. I asked if she saw it. She said, 'No, but I heard the crash.'
The kid said the teacher screamed at him. I said, 'You heard it, didn’t you?' He said, 'I didn’t need to see it. I heard it.'
My dad heard the whole thing from the next room. He said, 'I didn’t see it, but I heard it, and it was loud enough to wake the dead.'