posted on Aug, 15 2008 @ 02:59 AM
Couple of observations.
1) Page 8 is torn and the torn part is heavily darkened by burning. It's not on the outside of the manual but an internal page.
2) Page 10 is also torn but the "tear" looks clearer/whiter than the rest of the page and not as "aged" as the rest of the paper.
3) Page 11, the folded insertion, is also torn in the upper right hand corner and, like page 10, is without burn marks.
The proximity of the pages within the interior of the manual to each other would suggest that if page 8 was heavily burned, then pages 10 and 11 would
at least be somewhat darkened. None of the pages before or after 8 show signs of fire or smoke damage except to the edges.
4) The most compelling observation that leads me to call this (as you suggested) "grade A bullcrap" is the front page. You said you had read it
prior to scanning it for our enjoyment, yet there is no crease where you had folded the pages back while reading. Since you obviously folded the
pages back to scan, there should now be a crease.
I've been reading since I taught myself to read at 3 years old and I can tell you that people who prize books as I do, do not fold pages back like
that, especially on "valuable" documents. It would be a simple matter to remove the staples, scan the individual pages for uploading, then restaple
if need be. And, as another poster pointed out, the staples are a bit shiney for an aged document that has undergone a fire hazard.
Other than these minor glitches, you obviously went to a great deal of effort to present a fairly well-constructed hoax. I think you have a future as
a collaborative writer on ATS and I look forward to more of your literary efforts. Keep up the good work.