The Voynich Ninja

(20-11-2025, 11:15 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(20-11-2025, 10:38 PM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.This will be repetitive to many, but I think you missed it, Mauro, so I will briefly repeat myself

I was specifically answering to the (sub-)theory by @asteckley in post You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., not to the modern forgery theory in general (in any of its versions, including yours).

I see... thanks, and sorry I misunderstood the context. In my defense, my entire research and online staff went home early today, and I was left, again, to cope alone.

All the best,
Rich

IIRC Koen made a video about this specific hypothesis and essentially disproved it for good it seems. Are there more layers to this than I thought? I'd figured it just had been relegated to the dustbin of Voynich discussion.

I have to say I enjoy this thread very much, just don't have anything interesting to add to it. I definitely won't bet on VMS being a modern forgery, but I think it's less fantastic than many seem to believe. Certainly not in the flat earth category to me.

(20-11-2025, 09:24 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But then, why choose Bacon when he knew the imagery he used was ~200 years later? Yet again, given his expertise with rare books, he knew he was going to expose his fraud. Why not choose, say, a lost work of Pico della Mirandola, from the right time period? It's weird, Voynich could not be both intelligent and expert and dumb and ignorant, I think.

But this didn't expose the hypothetical fraud? Even though Voynich claimed this to be a Bacon's work, and some contemporary experts said it was more likely to be a later manuscript, I don't think there were any serious accusations of forgery?

I'm not an expert in forgeries, but to me the manuscript ticks a few points that could make it work well as a forgery. 

1) For starters - it is extremely vague and ambiguous in almost all aspects - which enables plausible denial. You can say it's Bacon, but if someone proves it can't be Bacon, you can say, ok, it's Pico della Mirandola, and if this doesn't work either you can just say you are stumped yourself.

2) Undecipherable text. I'm not sure it is very easy to fool experts by faking a completely new work of Bacon. You have to mimic the specific style, language and take into account what knowledge was available to Bacon and what not. If this is a "ciphered MS" which for some reason can never be deciphered, all the better.

3) Vague images, which seem to support many possible interpretations.

4) Provenance that both includes some famous figures (Kircher, Rudolf) and at the same time lacks specific details, which could be found in contradiction with one another.

The main thing that makes me think MFT implausible is that, as far as I understand, the experts say all parts of the MS look genuinely old (stitching, creases, trimmings, etc) and the McCrone analysis (even if vague in some aspects, as people say) doesn't seem to show any strong evidence of a modern work.

(21-11-2025, 10:28 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have to say I enjoy this thread very much, just don't have anything interesting to add to it. I definitely won't bet on VMS being a modern forgery, but I think it's less fantastic than many seem to believe. Certainly not in the flat earth category to me.

Same. I have always appreciated Rich's input and the resulting discourse. This thread is a good opportunity to learn.

(21-11-2025, 08:45 AM)Philipp Harland Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.IIRC Koen made a video about this specific hypothesis and essentially disproved it for good it seems. Are there more layers to this than I thought? I'd figured it just had been relegated to the dustbin of Voynich discussion.

Hi Philipp: Koen's video is very entertaining, and beautifully produced. And yes, while it covers various ideas which were not originated by me, some which came long before me, relating to a possible Voynich forgery (hoax, fraud, fake, prank, homage, W/E), the gist of that video is clearly aimed at the current state of my 1910 Modern Forgery theory.

The problems with it are that it does what any rebuttal of my theory needs to do, and leaves out many important, pertinent facts, and does not come close to accurately reflect the case against the Voynich being 1420 genuine. As I've contended here, and elsewhere, during the almost 15 years I've been working on my modern forgery ideas, in order to project the image that the Voynich "must be" 1420 genuine, leaving out all the problems with it, and all the alternate opinions, and stating positive opinions as though they were facts, are all absolutely necessary in order to make that case.

Koen's video does this extremely well. Of course I rebutted the video by pointing all of these omissions and alterations in the comments below the video, with timestamps to the portions in the video which they relate to. I am unclear if they would show for you, or anyone, but if you are interested you can search the comments for "proto57", where I have a three-comment rebuttal and explanation of what I just told you. "Proto57" is the name of my youtube account (containing an eclectic mix of subjects, such as setting a tire bead, watch repair, two models of Drebbel's perpetual motion machine [hint: It's NOT perpetual motion!], how to pull an automobile frame between two trees, my Roman Dodecahedron theory [picked up by Joe Scott!]... oh, and some Voynich stuff! But although I have over 1.5 million hits on my channel, I am nowhere as skilled as Koen is... and that voice! You have a very assured, melodious and appealing voice, Koen. I sound like Alvin the Chipmunk by comparison).

Here is a link to Koen's video for those who have not seen it: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. If my comments do not appear, below it, under proto57 (they appear to me, but may not to others, depending on the settings of the poster), I can upload and link a .docx of them, with time stamps. Also, Koen's pinned comment is, "For anyone interested in reading more, check Rene Zandbergen's opinion on the modern fake theory here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.". That linked page, by Rene, is also a rebuttal of my theory, and others similar I think, although I am not directly named. So I felt it fair to post the link to my rebuttal as a reply to that comment, but that has disappeared. For those interested, here is my rebuttal to Rene's "nofake": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

On youtube I do have the slide show which I presented at the NSA Historical Cipher Symposium at John Hopkins in 2017 (?) in my account, but it is not really an overview of my entire theory. The point is to suggest that people keep an open mind to the possibility of modern forgery, lest they ignore more modern cipher and code possibilities by thinking they are "too new" to try: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

But I do hope to post my own video, sooner than later, which I hope will cover all the known problems with the Voynich provenance, and describe the great many anachronisms and anomalies, which, while discussed by many experts of the past and present, including Yale's own, and McCrone, and so on. It would not be, exactly, a response to Koen's video, but the posting of that video has been a great incentive to me. I will warn you in advance, though, it will not be close the quality of production!

Rich

(21-11-2025, 10:28 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I have to say I enjoy this thread very much, just don't have anything interesting to add to it. I definitely won't bet on VMS being a modern forgery, but I think it's less fantastic than many seem to believe. Certainly not in the flat earth category to me.

I appreciate that, oshfdk, and thanks for keeping an open mind.

(21-11-2025, 10:28 AM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(20-11-2025, 09:24 PM)Mauro Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.But then, why choose Bacon when he knew the imagery he used was ~200 years later? Yet again, given his expertise with rare books, he knew he was going to expose his fraud. Why not choose, say, a lost work of Pico della Mirandola, from the right time period? It's weird, Voynich could not be both intelligent and expert and dumb and ignorant, I think.

But this didn't expose the hypothetical fraud? Even though Voynich claimed this to be a Bacon's work, and some contemporary experts said it was more likely to be a later manuscript, I don't think there were any serious accusations of forgery?

I'm not an expert in forgeries, but to me the manuscript ticks a few points that could make it work well as a forgery. 

1) For starters - it is extremely vague and ambiguous in almost all aspects - which enables plausible denial. You can say it's Bacon, but if someone proves it can't be Bacon, you can say, ok, it's Pico della Mirandola, and if this doesn't work either you can just say you are stumped yourself.

2) Undecipherable text. I'm not sure it is very easy to fool experts by faking a completely new work of Bacon. You have to mimic the specific style, language and take into account what knowledge was available to Bacon and what not. If this is a "ciphered MS" which for some reason can never be deciphered, all the better.

3) Vague images, which seem to support many possible interpretations.

4) Provenance that both includes some famous figures (Kircher, Rudolf) and at the same time lacks specific details, which could be found in contradiction with one another.

The main thing that makes me think MFT implausible is that, as far as I understand, the experts say all parts of the MS look genuinely old (stitching, creases, trimmings, etc) and the McCrone analysis (even if vague in some aspects, as people say) doesn't seem to show any strong evidence of a modern work.

I think you make good points. Even before I was fully committed to modern forgery, I had noted a similar things about the overall vagueness of every single aspect, and mused that it could be a "cover", to insulate a forgery from detection. It is often in the attempts, by a forger, to relate some genuine fact or facts by which they are discovered... such as the case of the Vinland Map, in which a readable Latin phrase (was one important clue which) belied the ruse. If that phrase had been written in indecipherable gibberish, though? And in a set of MesoAmerican leaves, written on period bark, the forger made errors in the calendar. It is always risky for a forger to try to emulate genuine cultural knowledge, language, histories, icons, because it is all too easy to make a mistake when doing so.

Along these lines, I had outlined the point you make with "it is extremely vague and ambiguous in almost all aspects", and suggested just how this seems to point to an intent to make it turn out this way. Think about it: How are the plants, writing, zodiac, marginalia, animals, and hundreds of other things, all "just almost" like something we know, but then "just wrong enough" to not be those things? Not one plant happened to... even accidentally... be "right"? It makes the whole thing vague enough to skirt identification, and to me, seems to imply it was intentional to do so.

Here was my 2010 post about it, "A Little Bit Like Everything, a Whole Lot Like Nothing": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Rich

(21-11-2025, 08:45 AM)Philipp Harland Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd figured it just had been relegated to the dustbin of Voynich discussion.

This rarely ever happens. 
- Cheshire still thinks it is proto-Italic
- The Ardic family still thinks it is Turkish
- Jules Janick still thinks it is Meso-American
- There is a whole list of relatively basic substitution cipher solutions by people who are still convinced about them

(22-11-2025, 01:08 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(21-11-2025, 08:45 AM)Philipp Harland Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd figured it just had been relegated to the dustbin of Voynich discussion.

This rarely ever happens. 
- Cheshire still thinks it is proto-Italic
- The Ardic family still thinks it is Turkish
- Jules Janick still thinks it is Meso-American
- There is a whole list of relatively basic substitution cipher solutions by people who are still convinced about them

What you say is true about those examples, Rene, but I do know of the opposite: There are a few people who have given up on a 1420 Genuine Voynich, and come to believe it is a fake. At least a half dozen or more. And a great many more than that have begun to think fake is a possibility, if not yet convinced of it, when they used to think it impossible.

I'm actually one of them, of course... having first believed the Voynich was a genuine notebook from the early 1600's.

And this is the usual pattern for most fakes: Discovery>Acceptance>Concerns>Challenges>Defense>Exposure That was the pattern of of the Vinland Map, the Howard Hughes Will, The Donation of Constantine, The Protocals of the Elders of Zion, Mussolini's Diaries, the Howard Hughes diaries, Lincoln's love letters, the White Salamander letter, Shakespeare's supposed play, "Vortigern", the Oath of a Freeman*, the list goes on and on. I personally think the Rohonc Codex will be added to the list someday, but I don't study it as closely as the Voynich (or the Vinland map), so I could be wrong.

All, like the Voynich, were accepted as genuine, for varying lengths of time, all had "problems", some more than others, all had people raising concerns, all were challenged, and eventually, all were exposed as forgeries/fakes/hoaxes or whatever.

There may be cases where people who thought the Voynich was fake at first, then changed their mind and thought came to think it was real, and old, but I haven't seen any yet.

Rich

* I think the Oath of a Freeman would still, to this day, be accepted as genuine, had the forger not accidentally blown himself up in his car. This example is, for me, a "Proof of Concept", showing us that a forgery can be made to pass all tests, and will not be revealed until and unless outside events cause it to be revealed. I'm sure there are a great many forgeries still existing in collections, which remain undetected, maybe even not questioned, because they are that good... it is just that the forger made it from cradle to grave without doing something stupid to draw attention to themselves.

(22-11-2025, 06:00 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There may be cases where people who thought the Voynich was fake at first, then changed their mind and thought came to think it was real, and old, but I haven't seen any yet.

You don't think that there are people who thought the Voynich was a modern fake prior to the carbon dating and then subsequent to the carbon dating changed their mind. I would have entertained the possibility that it might be a fake prior to the carbon dating, but subsequent to it I think it extremely unlikely.

(22-11-2025, 11:14 AM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(22-11-2025, 06:00 AM)proto57 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There may be cases where people who thought the Voynich was fake at first, then changed their mind and thought came to think it was real, and old, but I haven't seen any yet.

You don't think that there are people who thought the Voynich was a modern fake prior to the carbon dating and then subsequent to the carbon dating changed their mind. I would have entertained the possibility that it might be a fake prior to the carbon dating, but subsequent to it I think it extremely unlikely.

Hi Mark: Well I didn't know anyone, and you answered it. Perhaps there are many others. So you did think it was a fake, of course I didn't know that. I've been "around" since 2007 or so, and have of course read mailing list and BB traffic going back to the 90's, and I can't recall anyone else who seriously considered this. There were a couple of mentions on the web, but it usually was in the form of offhand musings. There is the 1989 article by Michael Barlow in Cryptologia, but he asks it as a question, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..*

On what bases did you think it was a fake, back before the testing? Was it the illustrations, writing, the provenance, or something else? Did you think it was a modern fake or an old one? Did you think someone had used modern parchment to make it? I mean, most forgeries are made from old materials anyway, and when the results came out people were surprised at the age of the parchment. What age did you think the parchment was, and where did you think they sourced it?

I'm genuinely curious what features made you think this, and how you feel about those same features now, and why the dating of the parchment caused you to change your mind about them?

Rich