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He is not waffling. Would a doctor diagnose you by looking at 5th or 6th generation non-digitalized x-rays? He is being prudent, as I would be. He is heavily leaning toward forgery. But he cannot say at this point with absolute certainty.

Would a doctor diagnose you by looking at 5th or 6th generation non-digitalized x-rays? He is being prudent, as I would be. He is heavily leaning toward forgery. But he cannot say at this point with absolute certainty.

The x-ray allusion is a false analogy because there are plenty of things that can definitively be known here apart from the copy-induced fuzziness. Certain fonts or classes of fonts can be definitively ruled in or out. That's diagnostic. The language that is used (the date, address, abbreviations, titles, names) written in a way not used by the military and that is clearly legible regardless of the sharpness of the letters is a definitive diagnostic. The form in which the language appears on the page is definitive and does not depend upon the sharpness of the individual letters to be diagnostic of forgery. The presence or absence of letterheads, the appearance of someone already retired at the purported time of composition, is diagnostic and doesn't rely on sharper letters.

What we have with this expert is something like the following: Someone has already identified an animal as being a beaver based on many different features, but a beaver hair expert is saying he can't conclusively identify the creature as a beaver unless he can have a hair sample to tell whether it's C. canadensis or C. fiber.

Doug, I for one am glad to see Dr. Bouffard sticking to his guns re accuracy. There has been entirely too much emotional energy involved in this already. As a doctor, I can appreciate your analogy. Not only do I want the original radiograph if possible, but I'd kinda like to do a curb-side consult with the on-duty radiologist befor committing myself to record.

But he cannot say at this point with absolute certainty.

It has been pointed out that he will NEVER be able to say with absolute certainty that they are forgeries. Killian may have gone to a professional printer and had them typeset, just happening to match MS Word format PERFECTLY, so that if they were found Killian himself could say they were forgeries and deny any knowledge of them.