The Diary—Old Hoax or New?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I must be mad, mentally deficient, and have more than just loss of short-term memory.

Maybe I have a disease that causes "severe memory impairment, particularly problems forming new memories (anterograde amnesia) and recalling past events (retrograde amnesia)."

Korsakoff!!! Oh no!

Could be, eh? Some diagnoses go undiagnosed, don't they.

No? Then I must not have it than because I haven't been diagnosed. But that could be my disease talking. Help me! Help me!

Just so that you are aware, Lombro. The claim made on 10th March 2025 in #482 of the "google ngrams" thread was that: "Barrett was diagnosed with the syndrome." If you're saying that Korsakoff Syndrome was undiagnosed in Mike Barrett, that directly contradicts what we were told.

[Lombro2]

Undiagnosed at the time that you specified for reasons unknown unless it's to make us appear to have Korsakoff syndrome and are great confabulators.

Bad lawyers, yes. Great Korsakoff Confabulators with Baron Munchhausen, no.

[C. F. Leon]

There's no FM? Am I seeing things? Am I going crazy? Am I insane? Did I really see a cloaking Sasquatch or did I imagine the whole thing? Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Plenty of people saw a face on Mars until better quality images became available several years later. Or random letters scattered around the Mars (and Venus) landers.

And no, there is no "Man in the Moon". Or at least, YET. Give us a few more years (if EM and the Donald don't f*ck things up TOO badly!)

And I can't speak about you going crazy or imaging things. Maybe you should ask your Therapist. Or, better still, your wife (if you are married)?

Oh, BTW, thanks for the definition of "gaslit" (above).

[Iconoclast]

Plenty of people saw a face on Mars until better quality images became available several years later. Or random letters scattered around the Mars (and Venus) landers.

I can't let this go without qualification because many will be misled by it.

Your example is inappropriate here because it consists of something being believed to be somewhere and then subsequently being shown to not be there.

In the case of the 'FM' on Kelly's wall, the exact opposite process occurred: something which no-one had ever commented upon before (including Simon Wood, note) and therefore was not believed to be somewhere was subsequently shown to have been there all along, hiding in plain sight. Check out Dan Farson's 1973 paperback which contained a very early and very clear rendition of those shapes-which-look-like-initials on Kelly's wall which no-one commented upon until Martin Fido identified them whilst compiling a report on the Maybrick scrapbook for Shirley Harrison in late 1992. Paul Feldman subsequently had the photograph professionally analysed and that analysis was first published in (as I recall) in Harrison's seminal first edition in October 1993.

You will say that better technology will eventually show those shapes to be something else entirely (and therefore that your comment is appropriate here) but - until that time arises - your comment is inappropriate. We can't make arguments using proofs which haven't yet emerged.

Ike

[Herlock Sholmes]

I can't let this go without qualification because many will be misled by it.

Your example is inappropriate here because it consists of something being believed to be somewhere and then subsequently being shown to not be there.

In the case of the 'FM' on Kelly's wall, the exact opposite process occurred: something which no-one had ever commented upon before (including Simon Wood, note) and therefore was not believed to be somewhere was subsequently shown to have been there all along, hiding in plain sight. Check out Dan Farson's 1973 paperback which contained a very early and very clear rendition of those shapes-which-look-like-initials on Kelly's wall which no-one commented upon until Martin Fido identified them whilst compiling a report on the Maybrick scrapbook for Shirley Harrison in late 1992. Paul Feldman subsequently had the photograph professionally analysed and that analysis was first published in (as I recall) in Harrison's seminal first edition in October 1993.

You will say that better technology will eventually show those shapes to be something else entirely (and therefore that your comment is appropriate here) but - until that time arises - your comment is inappropriate. We can't make arguments using proofs which haven't yet emerged.

Ike

Ike, if you're going to make a post which is supposed to avoid people being misled, it's important that you do so accurately but, unfortunately, this isn't the case.

In the first place, as Roger has already told you, the photograph of the Kelly crime scene first appeared in Dan Farson's 1972 hardback, so why you continually refer to the 1973 paperback is a pure mystery. Just because you've not seen it yourself doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Secondly, what you call Martin Fido's "identification" of FM "on Kelly's wall" was no such thing. When he first spoke to Shirley Harrison about the initials in 1992, Fido wasn't commenting on whether there was in fact anything on the wall, he was only commenting on what could be perceived to be on the wall in the published photograph. As to that, he told Shirley that Simon Wood had once theorized that there might be some initials visible which could explain the diary's vague mention of 'an initial here an initial there'. As Fido explained in 2001: "In the earlyish days of my acting as 'advisor' to Shirley, I mentioned Simon's observation to her, since I knew that 'an initial here an initial there' and such things were proving puzzling. I also remarked that I couldn't myself detect the letters Simon saw (which may have been in a different position) but I did think I could see an M and an E. Before long the E was an F....'. So what Fido actually thought he could perceive in 1992 was "EM" which, undoubtedly to match it to the initials of Maybrick's wife, became "FM". That is not in any sense an "identification" of those letters in the photograph, let alone on the wall (in 1888).

When Fido subsequently put his observation in writing in his "Fido Diary Report" in November 1992, he wrote: "I can make out a quite definite M above Mary's right arm in the photo of her corpse, and could persuade myself that the preceding smudge was an F if pushed." Once again, two things are clear. Fido was writing about what he could see in the photograph. He wasn't claiming anything was actually on the wall. Secondly, there was no positive identification of the letter "F" in what he described as a "smudge"for which he needed to persuade himself that it was the letter "F" but only "if pushed".

Begg's response to Fido in January 1993, found in his annotated transcript, which you fail to mention, was only that he could see an "M". He made no indication of being able to see an "F" but thought he could see "a very clear 4 followed by what could be 8 or 0" (see Keith Skinner's message at #7299 of the thread "One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary").

Thirdly, there was no "analysis" of the photograph published in Harrison's 1993 first edition. All one finds in that book is an "enlargement" of the photograph held at Kew about which it was claimed by Harrison that the letters "FM" were shown "more clearly". It's astonishing that you continue to rely on your imperfect memory when purporting to set out the facts of the matter.

Fourthly, in Paul Feldman's account, he only saw the initials "FM" after having the original photograph from Scotland Yard's Crime Museum, which had been loaned to him by Bill Waddell, examined using computer technology at Direct Communications in Chiswick. He said he was "stunned" to see those marks produced by that technology. This raises the question of why he was unable to see the initials with the naked eye when looking at the original photograph, something you don't mention at all in your post.

Worst of all, though, is your misleading statement that the letters FM were "shown to have been there all along". Nothing could be further from the truth. All that we have is a perception by you and a small number of others that those letters can be seen in the photograph. When I asked you to trace over the letters "FM" you couldn't do it without adding in lines which are not visible on the photograph. That is called manipulating the evidence.

What is clear, and demonstrated by the recent poll, is that most people can't see the letters "FM" and do not believe they are there. To see them is nothing more than the well known effect of pareidolia. C.F. Leon's comparison with seeing a face on Mars was most apt and bang on point. There was no need for your faulty "qualification".

[Lombro2]

I always knew the face on Mars was pareidolia because you have to imagine the hidden half. There’s no pareidolia with the M or FM unless you say I’m failing to imagine what’s beneath the line of the bed.

Everything else is just agenda, as say promoting a one-off, illiterate, bumbling stumblebum theory.

[rjpalmer]

I always knew the face on Mars was pareidolia because you have to imagine the hidden half. There’s no pareidolia with the M or FM unless you say I’m failing to imagine what’s beneath the line of the bed.

That's exactly what you are doing, Lombro.

If we pretend for a minute that Jack the Ripper wrote a secret message on the wall, and that these lines aren't mildew, cracks on the wall, etc., we can't see what he wrote using the 'Farson' version that you and Ike rely on because a relevant part of the wall is obscured by a reflection of a flash bulb.

The other, better version of the photo shows the whole wall. You're literally relying on half of the monkey's face to see the alleged "FM."

[Lombro2]

Since you picked out an entirely new splotch I never saw as your F, I fail to see how you fail to see. Or are you seeing two flash reflections?

I don’t rely on the letters on the wall. The hitched up legs again form an M and I think I saw one carved on her leg. What’s it to you?

[John Wheat]

There is no F or M it is random blood spatter.

[Geddy2112]

The hitched up legs again form an M and I think I saw one carved on her leg. What’s it to you?

Surely that only applies from one particular angle, that being the angle the photo was taken. So if the killer wanted to display poor Mary with her legs as an 'M' then how did he know which angle the photo was going to be taken from AND if a photo was going to be taken at all?

[rjpalmer]

I don’t rely on the letters on the wall. The hitched up legs again form an M and I think I saw one carved on her leg.

Ah, I see. So, is it fair to say that your theory about the initials is off the wall?

But it's hard to keep up, Lombro. The last time I thought you cllaimed there was at least one initial on the wall in order to spite those who "like to impose their Socratic authority." (Which I thought was one of the more candid admissions ever made by a Diary supporter).

Note to self: I wonder if any of the puzzles Barrett wrote for Look-In were open to multiple solutions?

Cheers.

[Lombro2]

• 3 victims had hitched up legs - M
• there was a torn letter with an M
• there were inverted Vs - M
• one letter was “signed” M(ishterLusk)
• not to mention Mary’s room, there might be an M

Doesn’t it make you want to go “Mmmmmm”?

[Yabs]

• 3 victims had hitched up legs - M
• there was a torn letter with an M
• there were inverted Vs - M
• one letter was “signed” M(ishterLusk)
• not to mention Mary’s room, there might be an M

Doesn’t it make you want to go “Mmmmmm”?

So we’ve established it’s easy to find the letter M if we want to find it.
It’s on woodgrain patterns for a kick off,


But M isn’t “her initial”
Maybrick of the diary claims M as HIS initial.
Her initial would be F which is vague at best on the wall