[palmer]

I downloaded it and examined it in Illustrator where I could see the layers of how it was constructed and it was bizarre. No way that was a real birth certificate from 1961.

There was a real document sent from HI, not cooked up anywhere else. It was contemporary based on data on file. That real document was shown to some people in the press (all happened to be dumbasses). They saw the embossing, etc and there are pictures of them holding it and it is real.

Next they scanned the document, did partial OCR creating a couple layers and then flattened it. Then wrote out the file. That's what you saw, not the original JPEG from the scan. Nobody has that.

[Kevmo]

That sure sounds a lot like bullshiite to me. Where were you when we came up with the Certifigate keyword in 2007?

[higgmeister]

Next they scanned the document, did partial OCR creating a couple layers and then flattened it.

Why would anyone do an OCR scan instead of providing a photostat copy?   It's a document.   An OCR scan would not provide the proper format of the document's form.   That makes no sense.

Answer: the only reason anyone would do an OCR scan of a formatted document is to insert fake data different from the original form.