Wanting to believe is the first of the two most powerful emotions involved in the success of a hoax or forgery. The second is greed. Greed is a harsh term, but in the end it is an accurate characterization of one of the motivations behind being duped by the forger or taken in by the hoax. Believing (the desire to believe what you hear or see) turns out to be the most powerful narcotic in causing people to accept forgeries and hoaxes. This is certainly true when it comes to the Shroud of Turin. Wanting to believe can cloud a person’s ability to think clearly and analytically. I have personally experienced several situations in which a forger has victimized an individual because the power of wanting to believe was stronger than all other rational thoughts. In several of the incidents where I was asked to pass judgment on a particular item, the victim sought proof only after having completed the purchase and paying out large sums of money, and with no provision to recover the money if the object proved other than authentic. Wanting to believe often dulls the mind.
My career as a scientist specializing in molecular biology and protein biochemistry exposed me to a wide variety of chemical and biological tests in the course of forty years of experimentation. Proficiency in spectroscopy, chemistry, and microscopy was essential to biomedical research. The public has come to learn that science and medicine can accomplish amazing things through the application of technology. The most common example today is that of DNA analysis, which has gained widespread attention in recent years, to the point where the average person has a reasonable understanding of what DNA is and of the power of DNA analysis in identifying individuals to nearly an absolute certainty. There are hundreds of biological and chemical tests in the scientist’s arsenal that allow the identification of materials with objective certainty. For instance, blood groups can be determined with 100 percent accuracy, as opposed to handwriting analysis, which is highly subjective and frequently demonstrates a level of accuracy well below 100 percent and often below 50 percent. But even the most precise testing can prove inadequate if not applied properly.
Napoleon Bonaparte had a rather cynical view of historians and history. He is quoted as having said in one of his more lucid moments, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” That may be true in certain instances, but for the major events of history it is not lies that historians agree upon, but rather an interpretation based on minimal information. The modern historian has become a storyteller, for stories are what the general public wants to hear, or read, and historians want very much to be read. The temptation to enlarge on the basic facts and put a personal interpretation on an event often colors history in an effort to make it more interesting and, therefore, more saleable.
Not too long ago, I was asked to critically evaluate a screenplay for historical accuracy. I was instructed to pay close attention to separating fact from fiction. It seems the script was to serve as the basis for a motion picture, and the producer’s primary goal was to recreate the historical event as accurately as possible rather than fictionalize it. The script was well written and interesting. Unfortunately, it bore little relation to historical truth. Having received my report, the producer assured me the author would be asked to rewrite the script, making sure to correct the errors and bringing the script into line with historical fact. The author went at it a second time and did, in fact, stay true to the actual event in most instances. It was a major improvement factually, and I was prepared to give my support as a technical adviser. The director, however, overruled the second version and rejected the revised script, choosing instead to stay with the original mythologized version of the story because, as he later said, the revised script lacked “snap, crackle, and pop.” Napoleon would be pleased.
The subject matter of this book is a series of hoaxes that for a brief moment in time became part of our history. Some, not all, remain fixed in many people’s minds as true history, while others have been successfully debunked. All, in my opinion, have “snap, crackle, and pop.” In “Oath of a Freeman” the skill of the forger was such that he easily fooled the experts, even those who were skeptical at first. Only when the forger panicked, forcing him to resort to murder, did his scheme collapse. In “Pearl Harbor,” intense dislike—bordering on hatred—of President Roosevelt was enough to sustain the fraud even to this day, despite evidence to the contrary. “The Shroud of Turin” and “Skullduggery: The Man Who Never Was” are excellent examples of wanting to believe for ideological reasons rather than greed. In these two instances belief trumps science. In “Hah Hitler! The Hitler Diaries,” we again see the seductive force of wanting to believe. The Hitler diaries represented a sea change in the history of World War II. While greed was a motivating factor, the desire to believe replaced reason. In the case of the Piltdown Man, an entire nation felt uplifted that they could now join Asia and the rest of Europe as a part of the dawn of man. After all, how could the nation that considered itself at the very top of the tree of mankind not have been among the earliest sites where modern man first lived? In “The Missing Pages from John Wilkes Booth’s Diary” we see conspiracists at their extreme. Here we find most of the elements of conspiracy run amok. Treason in the highest levels of government is accompanied by claims that defy logic. It is perhaps the first example of “the big lie.” Nazism and Communism taught us that the bigger the lie the more believable it becomes.
There are two kinds of myths that one finds in history: those that arise spontaneously, and those that are manufactured. The line between these two types of myths is extremely fine and can often become confused. In the end, if true history is to succeed with the public it must have “snap, crackle, and pop” or simply be ignored and soon forgotten. Of the incidents chosen for this work all have snap, crackle, and pop; the individuals behind the incidents saw to it that they did.