The Diary — Old Hoax or New or Not a Hoax at All?​

[Scott Nelson]

I remember a time when the Barretts were too dim to have created a document that had (supposedly!) "fooled the experts."

Now the Barretts were far too clever and cautious to pawn off such an obvious fake! Far too clever to request paper from the 1880s instead of 1850-1900 when they are trying to bamboozle us!

Hell, they didn't even fake Maybrick's handwriting! How could they have believed for one second that even an utter moron would take the diary seriously without faking the handwriting?

Yet here we are.

So, let's add Prof. Rubenstein, Peter Wood, and Colin Wilson to Herlock's long list of people insulted by this line of argument.

Hey, whatever happened to Peter Wood anyway?

[Kunochan]

[I]Provided that first it can be determined that they are in fact the initials F. and M. and not simply pareidolia. And of course then that would have to be followed by proving that the diary is genuine and written by Maybrick.[I]

A previous poster mentioned the Cottingley Fairies, which I point out because I am fascinated with fairy mythology and actually own Conan Doyle's book on the subject. The photos are so obviously of paper cutouts of fairy art that I can't believe anyone actually believed in them at the time.

I bring this up because the "FM" "initials are so obviously pareidolia that I can't believe anyone buys it. Aren't I correct in assuming that no one noticed these "initials" at the time? Isn't that weird? No it isn't, because there were no initials.

-Kuno

[Lombro2]

My point about the Cottingley Fairies was that debunkers love hoaxes. They're not going to debate letter pareidolia and ask everyone to do a Rorschach test over an incidental part, of a contested text, that is a matter of interpretation and therefore inconsequential and you therefore win no argument anyway but you keep trying to. Why? What is it about the Diary that brings out the yadda yadda nada.

[Lombro2]

Melvin Harris was labelled a Hoaxer in Ripperology, sometime after I found Roslyn D'Onston's plagiarism of Bulwer-Lytton. What's worse? Viper or Hoaxer?

His book was coming out on 94 with his 6 foot plus non-starter suspect but fascinating character with a life fabricated in his own imagination and that of Bulwer-Lytton. In 92, Harris immediately attacked the Diary that, if real, would destroy any chance his book had, sight unseen. So he came up with is famous three predictions that could easily work for a typical schizophrenic, cheap, skinflint, Scrooge serial killer. And went on the warpath to promote himself and the book and his suspect. If he was fair, he'd admit when one of the thousand and one things he threw at the Diary wall didn't stick.

Caz is a vindshield viper because the same gnats keep striking her windshield and they have to be viped off.