Thanks to a commenter here for pointing me to this important news. Yesterday was a big day for birther Internet radio, with great stories of the Sheriff’s Kit from Mike Volin and an extended interview with Douglas Vogt on the Andrea Shea King show.
On the King show, Douglas Vogt discloses somewhat how he concluded the name of the person responsible for what he thinks is a forged Obama birth certificate. Here’s a transcript of the exchange (show time 44:28 ):
Vogt: The forger signed his birth certificate. Ask yourself if you’re a forger, and you’re doing the greatest forgery in history, one that you have a foreign agent to go, to become leader of the country, to destroy it from within. Wouldn’t you do some mark to sign it, that you could say you did this great work? And guess what? She did. That’s what happened.
King: And when she signed it with her mark, what was her mark?
Vogt: Oh, it was a mark. She literally spelled out every letter of her l– of her, I’m not going to say what part of the name, but a part of her name. You got it? She either added, damaged, or damaged every letter that makes up part of her name. You got it? … It’s every–She damages deliberately, and I’m not gonna say where, but most of it is in one location, and another letter she, she basically, she took a letter and she rotated it, which is impossible on typewriter. It’s a joke. And everyone, it spells her, part of one of her names. …
The sealed document [with the forger’s name] you’re not gonna see. It is sealed. It is only in the court. The judges have seen it and the clerk has seen it, but supposedly nobody else. But you can get a gist when you go into type letter part, the typewriter part, you’ll get the whole picture. When you get into the registrar’s stamp and the letters, the different letters, you’ll get a picture of what’s going on. … You’ve got some of the clues.
Now if I were a forger guilty of treason and the crime of the century, the last thing I would want to do is leave behind incriminating evidence. And if I really thought that someone’s life were in danger if sealed information became public, I wouldn’t be dishing out clues on the Internet. But hey, that’s just me, and I really don’t know anything about being an arch criminal, nor for that matter about being a birther.
I wrote “l—“ in the transcript because it really sounds like he was going to say a word beginning with “l,” which would have to be “last,” and a moment’s reflection suggests that the last name is the most likely part. “Jane” wouldn’t be much of an identification.
I will say that this one took me completely by surprise. My BS detector is just too keen for me to have come up with such an idea myself. I note immediately how subjective the process is, since “damage” to a letter is subjective to start with. I’ve looked at the document and I never saw any evidence of deliberate damage of any of the letters. I think we’re seeing the Obama certificate rear its ugly smiley face again.
Given that we can know with confidence that the birth certificate released by the White House is the image of an original document with only mechanical and algorithmic processing done to it, there are no intentionally damaged letters. Vogt is working with noise to start with, and of course humans readily see images in noise.
Click for larger image
Update:
Well it only took a little while for the Obots to follow the bread crumbs Vogt left on two talk radio interviews to reveal the name of the alleged forger. She’s a very private person and I can see why Vogt didn’t make it public, because she would very definitely have grounds for a libel suit.
AnitaMaria at The Fogbow figured it out. A couple of the “damaged” letters are ones birthers have talked about before, and Vogt tells us what letter is rotated in a second interview on the Hagmann and Hagmann Internet radio program on Blog Talk Radio. He gives another clue that pretty much seals the deal in the same interview when he says:
These errors are also on the forger’s birth certificate. She did the same thing on hers.
Vogt talked about the forger having a need to show how clever she is, even though it might imperil her life. Vogt is not talking about the imaginary forger—he is talking about himself. He’s got so much need to show everybody how clever he is that he gives clues which simply lead to an identity, an identity that if known (according to Vogt) could lead to her death. Somebody’s life is less important to Vogt than his own vanity.
OK, please, no hinting in discussion. There’s already a link to The Fogbow with the identification.
Update 2:
Orly Taitz weighed in and said that she had personally met “Jane Doe #2.” Taitz commented on this blog on July 28, 2012, that she had met the holder of a Hawaiian certificate that she thought was a “dry run” for Obama’s forgery and gave the first name of the person, which matches our identification.
Maybe this is Vogt’s version of the Bible/Torah Codes
Poor Vogt, all of it is much better explained by the Xerox workflow but he is seeing patterns… You’d be surprised what people can see in ‘random noise’…
That was what I thought of when Vogt first said that there were letters in the certificate.
“The forger signed his name.” “She did.” And, “Jane Doe.” A bit of confusion? Let’s assume it is the female forger’s last name that offers the clues. We also know from previous reports that the forger is from Hawaii. The clues are in the Registrar’s stamp and according to Vogt, the clues identify the female forger. Time to put on our collective thinking caps and go to work on this.
I wonder if Vogt knows that his affidavit contradicts Zullo’s affidavit to the Alabama Supreme Court? They have different certificate numbering schemes.
finding the forger of a real and verified certificate is not an easy task, what a colete idiot
Vogt was also on Hagmann & Hagmann show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cfp-radio/2013/12/05/douglas-vogt-exposes-obama-forgery
One of Vogt’s claims to fame is he unlocked the code to the Torah.
Which is why noone has heard of him?
Try as I might to think like a birther, I cannot imagine what Mr. Vogt thinks is a rotated typewritten character on the LFBC. As for the “damaged” letters, even looking for letters in the names of the women in Hawai’i that are likely candidates for Mr. Vogt’s alleged forger, I can’t see more than a couple of letters with obvious defects. It really makes me wish I could see the inanity on display in the sealed portion…
Vogt did another blogtalk interview on Wednesday night with a father-son wingnut team http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cfp-radio/2013/12/05/douglas-vogt-exposes-obama-forgery.
He names a few people and makes some pretty specific allegations about crimes they have committed. Every word of that is obviously defamatory because birferism is all lies and delusions with no grounding in reality. Is there nothing these innocent people can do to get this lying sack of crap to stop accusing private citizens of committing crimes that didn’t happen?
AnitaMaria seems to have done a much better job of following Mr. Vogt’s delusional reasoning over at the Fogbow.
This is only one step short of some numerological claim (which I tried for fun with the cert number but failed to come up with any meaningful connection to “forgery” or similar words).
Personally, if I had made the forgery of the century, I’d encode my name in a slightly more “nerdy” way, like encoding it to binary and injecting that as “jaggies” in the lines that make up the certificate form.
Encoding it in the letters alone would either not prove anything (anyone can claim “those five letters here and there and there make up ‘Jones'”) or would give my name away too easily (“rearranging all letters in that line yields ‘Hiyoko Mirukami Blabberington'”).
since vogt is very much a nobody instead of a somebody, he doesn’t even rise to the level of being merely annoying. because if you informed his targets of his antics, the unanimous response would be “doug who … ?”
vogt operates in a universe invisible to 99.999% of the people he imagines he is fighting for.
What about the letter ‘O’? Maybe that’s the first letter of the name? Who do we know with a last name beginning with ‘O’?
I thought it was interesting how is claim changed during the course of the paragraph:
So, it went from all of one name, to part of one name. If King had kept him talking a little longer, maybe it would’ve become just her initial. A monogrammed forgery. Nah: that’s the sort of thing a Republican would do.
btw, Doc, if your ears are burning, it’s because “Private Investigator Doug Hagmann” has “put you on notice”: http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/12/audio-private-investigator-rips-obot.html
That’s only a 4-minute clip, so you don’t have to wade through the whole cesspool to get to the squishy part.
And I’m with you on the nuttiness of wanting to sign a forgery. Not only would I not sign it, I’d have more layers of intermediaries than bin Laden to make sure even the client couldn’t find out whodunnit.
Check out the link in my previous post. I think that AnitaMaria nailed it.
Of course, you are right about this, but I see two problems nonetheless. A google search of the names of the people who Vogt is accusing might turn up his accusations. I can imagine that for some people, this alone might affect their reputation sufficiently so as to cause them harm. The other problem is that the 0.001% of the people who know who Doug Vogt is are really angry, really crazy people. Although he has said several times that the people involved in this non-existent conspiracy will some day be executed for treason, I don’t think Doug Vogt himself poses any danger to anyone. But I think some of the people who listen to his interviews do.
are you sure you’d want to work for someone who’d believe you forged the president’s birth certificate?
Vogt:
“When you get into the registrar’s stamp and the letters, the different letters, you’ll get a picture of what’s going on. …”
“She either added, damaged, or damaged every letter that makes up part of her name. You got it? … It’s every–She damages deliberately, and I’m not gonna say where, but most of it is in one location, and another letter she, she basically, she took a letter and she rotated it, which is impossible on typewriter. It’s a joke. And everyone, it spells her, part of one of her names. …”
Proving the non-forgery, a forgery using the DOH registrar’s stamp has always been a fascination with birthers. The most obvious letters that come into focus in the registrar’s stamp is the cursive capital “A” in the the name “Alvin.” Within the letter A can be seen what looks like a backward or rotated “3” or a cursive capital “E.” The word “THE” is spelled “TXE.” Considering only the letters and not the backward number 3, that gives us A, E, T, H, X. Considering only the the “damaged” letters in the registrar’s stamp that gives us “X” damages the “H” and the “E” damages the “A.” This gives us “X, H, E, A.” Eliminating “X” as an unknown quantity, that leaves us with the letters “H,E,A.” Who is the alleged female forger? Your guess is as good as mine. But, I’ll bet John knows.
If the job pays well and is what I like to do, I don’t give a hoot about how crazy my boss is.
I once had a boss who believed astrologists should be shot.
My girlfriend once had a boss who ran a motorcycle gang and ultimately went to jail for 4 years after almost beating somebody to death (which resulted in the bankrupty of the company).
Why would anybody refuse to work for a birther? (As long as that has no bearing on the job.)
Besides, you might want to apply for a job that requires a perfectly clean slate, i.e. not even wild allegations that might harm your business (I’m thinking of being spokesperson for a charity or something – “we want as many donations as possible so we can’t have people making allegations you forged anything, even if they don’t stand up to scrutiny”).
That’s why people resign even if they’re innocent, to protect the position.
So yes, I think there’s a good case, even if it’s “only” silly birthers damaging your reputation.
I don’t liken it to birthers trying to see images in clouds.
I liken it to birthers trying to find chocolate in a cespool.
I was gonna reply at BR, that I wasn’t worried but:
“RanTalbott: btw, Doc, if your ears are burning, it’s because “Private Investigator Doug Hagmann” has “put you on notice””
OMG!! DocC (and all “Obots”) are on notice!!
LOL
So I noticed.
If you notice this notice you will notice that this notice is not worth noticing.
On the topic of seeing what you want in the the clouds, I was bouncing over to BR to follow some of this, and I caught one of their links to an American Thinker article about the schizophrenia of Barack Obama.
I mention because the writer seems to be dealing with the cognitive dissonance of calling the President a fascist and a socialist at the same time by blaming it on the President! Yes, the President can’t decide which he is, that’s why he looks like both! Sheesh.
On a side note, how come such phrases as “American thinker” become so contaminated? If I’m just bouncing around the net and see that phrase, I find myself interested. American thought, hmmm, take a look. Then, gag. So many true and great American thinkers throughout history, and this is what we get? Of course, this also falls under the rubric of seeing what you want to see, as I suspect the writers on that site see themselves in the great tradition of american thinkers.
While I understand how this goes, sometimes I just feel so disoriented by such absurdity. The premises are so lost, it’s sometimes difficult to even imagine where to begin, if one wanted, to figure out how such “thinking” goes so far beyond any sense. And I am someone perfectly at home in the absurd, the avant-garde, and strange.
given the tally that we know of, no anti-birfer or so-called obot, from the president on down, has lost either job or job opportunity because of birfer accusations. the other side of the scoreboard however … that’s a whole ‘nother story. doc could probably start another list just of birfers who’ve lost jobs over this.
as a member of the reality-based community, i just can’t take such concerns seriously.
More Vogt and numbers
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20001007&slug=4046570
“AnitaMaria at The Fogbow figured it out. A couple of the “damaged” letters are ones birthers have talked about before, and Vogt tells us what letter is rotated in a second interview on the Hagmann and Hagmann Internet radio program on Blog Talk Radio.”
It looks like she withdrew her prediction about the “forger.”
I remain mystified about when Vogt thinks this forgery was committed.
And I guess I’d just be silly to wonder how Vogt thinks the State of Hawaii was convinced to back it up.
Just skimmed through his book “REALITY REVEALED – The Theory of Multidimensional Reality” (found it on Scribd; 5 raving reviews on Amazon that make you wonder if they came from other snake oil salesmen). Man, that was awful! If you want to know “how” Vogt “thinks” (loosely speaking), try it, it’s on Google’s page 2 when searching for
His loathing for science, even including mathematics, and explanations that are “too complex” is quite obvious from every chapter. He thinks tornados are “reverse particle accelerators” and basically says “because meterologists can’t predict the weather, my guess is as good as theirs” (which is dumb even if you ignore the false premise).
It’s handwaving dreck. And that from the guy who suddenly wants us to believe he used “scientific accuracy” when “investigating” typefaces.
One reference to his book by the defense and any Daubert hearing is over.
He already has his own version of those. That is how he allegedly found the “real” Mt. Sinai, which by the way is just a hill.
She withdrew her earlier speculation, and replaced it with the obviously correct one.
like every crank, vogt wants it both ways: he decries the scientific method because it doesn’t give him the answers he wants, but is desperate for the credibility that scientific rigor could grant him, if only it weren’t so much work.
Wow! One Amazon reviewer is convinced Vogt is “the real-life Morpheus”. Oh my.
Meaning he puts everyone to sleep? Or that he relies on Keneu Reeves to do all the work?
LOL!! I think it means they’re living in a fantasy world.
“What if I told you….”
http://t.qkme.me/3tby8y.jpg
Clear evidence that Vogt isn’t Morpheus. Maybe the Scarecrow but even he was more perceptive.
even better … (if i say so myself)
Not so much Bible Code as something akin to the ‘Shakespearean Ciphers” as exploded by William & Elizabeth Friedman ….
http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/friedman/shakespeare.html
… who were both code breakers (he was the head of the Army’s Cryptanalysis Division, she worked for the Navy and broke the Japanese ‘Purple Code’.
They applied their skills to evaluating previous attempts by various cranks who claimed that someone other than Wm Shakespeare had written Shakespeare’s plays and that secret hidden codes revealed the identity of the true author. Many of these notions involved typographic peculiarities of the First Folio – such as damaged or misaligned letters. Using the same theories but on more recent printings of Shakespeare, the Friedmans used the same methods to “prove” that Hamlet was written by Theodore Roosevelt, which, y’know, is proof enough for me.
Anyway, Vogt has targetted someone who is very capable of making him regret his accusation.
Got to correct you there – it was William who led the successful attack on the Purple cipher not Elizabeth.
it _does_ make sense to sign it.
Just not the way Vogt thinks it should be done.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
I suppose if someone wanted to sign evidence of a nefarious act, Stenography is the way to do it, but I think Vogt is projecting his own psychology when he believes that a forger wants to sign his work.
It makes some sense. Forgers are usually professional criminals. Makes sense for a criminal to be able to blackmail his client, just in case. Hiding some kind of “signature” may be a way to do it.
Vogt’s problem is that he suffers from pareidolia – the very purpose of a hidden signature is that it can’t be guessed (even if you know the signer’s name).
He, OTOH, is just looking for anything that confirms his bias (that a signature exists and that it shows the name XY, as opposed to looking for a signature and deducing the forger’s identity from that).
If you look hard enough, you’d probably find my name encoded somewhere in the $100 bill. Doesn’t prove me and my time machine forged it, though.
I guess you think of “Steganography”, a powerful tool to hide something in plain sight. Should have EAP in it’s name …
/ edited
Just saw that a foreigner was faster. I leave my comment to honor EAP.
/offtopic
to foreigner=gsgs
There is a windows tool for steganography, which works quite fine. Nothing like that for android / iOS. Could you do it ? Just to tackle the NSA a bit.
Whenever I read anything from Doug Vogt I am reminded of a scene from Joan of Arcadia…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oSJdSL8YOE
Doug: The marks! The marks on the document… that was a sign!
God: No… those are just marks on a document.
Doug: No… no! That was a sign.
God: No… that was just marks on a document.
Doug: Marks can’t just get there by themselves. They can’t. They can’t just get there by themselves.
God: True. Every event has an infinite number of causes so why choose one over another. There are many ways that marks can appear on a document.
Scene: A White House employee using a Xerox copier/scanner and coding crosses a screen producing an electronic document
God: Seems a perfectly valid explanation. But how about this one?
Scene: Ink does not even apply over a stamp causing distortions in the imprint and missing characters
God: But then again there are other possibilities.
Scene: A mother holding her newborn baby gives a hospital attendant information to the best of her knowledge in absence of the father who is not present.
God: Or perhaps even unusual.
Scene: A man identifies himself as “African” on a birth certificate.
God: And that is without counting the inexplicable.
Scene: A tired and weary federal employee completes a Social Security application and assigns a number that is not consistent with the zip code address.
God: Yet, from an infinite number of possibilities you had to pick this one.
Scene: A flash of scenes from a forger making marks on a document, complicity among many federal agencies, bought off and threatened judges, assassinated individuals, and a host of other conspiracy related actions resulting in a usurping and illegal President of the United States.
God: You didn’t see what was Doug. You saw what you wanted to see.