The Danville Papers: Big Red Herrings?

[Any of N]

Whether the papers turn out to be real clues or not, there really is a common-enough phenomenon regarding false compelling evidence. Here is another interesting example: The Wow Signal.

In August 1977, the Ohio State University Radio Observatory picked up a radio transmission from the Sagittarius constellation that was so strong it inspired the astronomer who discovered it to write "Wow!" in the margin of the data printout. ...

At the time the signal was spotted, Ohio State's "Big Ear" observatory was specifically searching for transmissions that could be evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Based on the work of earlier astronomers, the team determined that a message of intelligent origin would most likely be transmitted at a frequency of 1,420 MHz – the electromagnetic frequency of hydrogen – and that the Big Ear would "hear" it for 72 seconds, since that's how long the observatory could focus on one specific point in space.

The Wow! signal was the first and only time exactly those criteria were met. Excited scientists tried training instruments on that region of space again, but the signal was never again recorded. Over the years, interference from Earth was ruled out, as were stellar bodies like planets, stars and asteroids. Aliens seemed unlikely, but tantalizingly, couldn't be ruled out.

Note that the signal was compelling but couldn't be verified. In other words, no context or identifying information. Until very recently, that is. It turns out that a comet, "266/P Christensen," was in the right place at the right time, and it carried a hydrogen cloud that emitted radio waves at the right frequency.

Whether the Wow! signal was caused by 266/P Christensen or another comet, it seems that one of the most enduring astronomical mysteries has been put to rest.

Has the 40-year old mystery of the "Wow!" signal been solved? New Atlas, June 7, 2017

[Any of N]

It occurred to me that I had not seen a pic of all the Danville Papers together, so I made one. Not useful for much other than to say, here's everything at a glance. A few sheets torn from a spiral notebook.
 


By the way, are there photos of the Mad Essay that are not cropped like this?

[Any of N]

My contention is that compelling-but-false evidence is a familiar occurrence in much-studied mysteries. I've presented two examples thus far: the Umbrella Man and the Wow Signal. Now here's a third that involves an illustration: the Minerva Britanna cover illustration, circa 1612.

Perhaps you've heard about the contested authorship of Willaim Shakespeare's plays and poetry. There's a contingent out there who doubt the commonly accepted attribution, and they come from a generations-old line of amateur sleuths. For a modern and rational summary, you may want to consult Diana Price's Shakespeare's Unorthodox Biography. Or not. This example doesn't depend on you taking that line of inquiry seriously. All you have to do is accept that it's a thing.

Now imagine you're looking for proof that someone other than the guy from Stratford Upon Avon wrote the works. You come across an old book of emblems by one Henry Peacham, poet, artist, and writer who was slightly post-contemporary to the traditional Bard. Tell me your head doesn't explode when you see this cover illustration.

You'll note the arm reaching out from behind the curtain with the hand holding a quill pen. The words written on the banner are the Latin MENTE VIDIBOR, or “in the mind I shall be seen.” How about that for a tantalizing suggestion?

But where's the information linking to Shakespeare or to another possible alternative claimant for authorship? Well, there isn't any, but that didn't stop researchers from improvising some. A few are summarized below.

• The curtain is attached to the proscenium arch of a theater.
• The Roman goddess Minerva is interchangeable with the Greek goddess of war Pallas Athena, known as the “spear shaker” and also a patron of the theater.
• Consistent with Peacham's other anagrams in the book, “MENTE.VIDIBOR” deciphers to “Tibi nom. de Vere” or “thy name (is) de Vere.” This then refers to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, an oft considered authorship candidate.

Except that it all falls apart. Early English theaters did not have proscenium arches. Pallas Athena was not known by the sobriquet “spear shaker” and was not a patron of the theater. The naming anagram is not at all like the others devised by Peacham, as it makes use of an abbreviation (nom. for nomen), requires a missing letter-I, and contains words other than the name or title of a person.

What about the hand reaching from behind the curtain? Based on actual context (other Latin mottoes on the cover, an accompanying commendatory poem) there's a straightforward argument that it refers to Peacham himself. The message is for the reader to focus on the meaning of the work, not on Peacham the man.

I could go on, and believe me there are even more false parallels in Minerva Britanna to the authorship issue, but I will spare you the pedantic details. So we're back to the situation of lacking context and identifying information regarding the mystery of interest. The book is filled with illustrations and commentary and nothing else refers to hidden authorship or Shakespeare. When the land looks fertile but is actuality barren, that's a sign of a big red herring. And if Minerva Britanna can be a big red herring, it's possible the Danville Papers are too.


Sources:

This post merely recycles the original research of others. Credit goes to the sources below.

Minerva Britanna Or A Garden Of Heroical Deuises, furnished, and adorned with Emblemes and Impresa's of sundry natures (1612). Henry Peacham. London, Printed in Shoe-lane at the signe of the Faulcon by Wa: Dight. Link to full document with illustrations on archive.org.

Nina Green's collections of Oxfordian Myths (OxMyths); links to two documents here and here. Green is convinced that Edward de Vere is the true author.

Ʈerry Ross on Minerva Britanna and Oxfordian Myths. Link here. Ross is longtime adversary of those who think anyone other than “Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.”

One argument in favor of Minerva Britanna representing a legit set of clues that are contrary to convention. Link here.

Bonus link: The Oxfordian blog of Stephanie Hopkins Hughes, politicworm. She also thinks it's Edward de Vere.

[bob]

That's an awesome find. 
I wrote a report once on Shakespeare's authorship. There's lots of great books on 'other authors.' I've never seen this book cover. Cute!  

Back to Danville. 

Someone dropped a notebook with no names on a Custer essay, a Mad rant, a tract map, and vague references to Snell et al. The only question is if EAR/ONS dropped it. And maybe he didn't. And nobody bothered to find the 6th grade teacher referred to in the paper, and look at his students. Was one of them EAR/ONS? Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe you are right and the Danville papers were stolen by him and dropped. Or maybe some kid dropped them, but in the 3-5 years they've been online, no one has said, "Hey, those are mine!"

So they need to follow the evidence to its conclusion, useful or otherwise. 

I hope they lead to EAR/ONS, or someone who loaned him a vehicle. But LE still need to follow the lead.


What do you believe is the most useful lead in the case?

[Any of N]

If I were the one who dropped the papers, I would never in a million years own up to it. Not with Paul Holes saying that the writer's mental state was deteriorating throughout the Mad essay. Maybe some poor kid was just pushing himself to finish the dang thing so he could complete the assignment. Maybe it had to be at least a page and half long, and maybe the kid had to check off the other requirements. What (check), why (check), how (check), where (check), and who (check). This was the rough draft; his name and the date went on the copy he turned in.

That's a good question about the "best" lead. My mind goes again to cars and license plates. You know, the dog that didn't bark in the night. The EAR-ONS apparently drove to many of his attacks, yet why couldn't a vehicle ever be traced back to him? As mentioned in other threads, that was the end of many a prolific serial offender. Quester looked into auto wreckers, but it didn't lead to anything and the theory didn't address some of the major questions. A junked license plate could get you pulled over. A stolen plate from a different make and model of car could get you pulled over. A legit plate could identify you. The seller of an old car could remember you. What the heck was going on?

[bob]

Quester and probably LE looked at auto wreckers, but I don't know how far away from Sac they looked, or if they ever looked at any auto wreckers in Visalia. Presumably he had a resource somewhere. I think that area could be looked at more.

[Any of N]

The 12-26-75 site has a podcast on The Danville Papers. I hadn't yet caught up to the series when I started this thread and didn't even know they had addressed the issue.

www.12-26-75.com/danville-%26-beyond

I'd say their discussion is balanced, with many skeptical points being raised. Such as the EAR being typically careful about not leaving materials behind. Nothing we know about this particular attack would suggest why several papers might have been  accidentally dropped.

[woofytreats]

IMO, you almost have to "ride the fence" or look at these papers in a balanced sense because their provenance brings as many questions as the actual documents. I don't know if LE has assigned as many things to these papers as we have but it appears that they're more interested in the map / diagram than the "Custer" and "Mad" components. According to Paul Holes, there are definitive components on the map / diagram that are specific to Stockton developments at the time and this was confirmed by a developer. Holes went on further to attempt to potentially tie the Stockton victim ( and her occupation ) to this map. I'm a little leery of how definitive these components are....and how directly these might relate to EAR/ONS...but if they ARE then that might be thought of as a big step forward.

The most tangible evidence in this case ( besides DNA ) that laymen are aware of is probably the car / license plate angle and the Danville Papers. I've always wondered what happened in 1978/79 with retrieving and investigating these papers and is there anything to be learned from that and NOT that they were pulled from a Contra Costa evidence file 30 years later and are somehow now more of the "Holy Grail" than they actually are....

[vivazapata]

Jul 13, 2017 15:14:36 GMT woofytreats said:

IMO, you almost have to "ride the fence" or look at these papers in a balanced sense because their provenance brings as many questions as the actual documents. I don't know if LE has assigned as many things to these papers as we have but it appears that they're more interested in the map / diagram than the "Custer" and "Mad" components. According to Paul Holes, there are definitive components on the map / diagram that are specific to Stockton developments at the time and this was confirmed by a developer. Holes went on further to attempt to potentially tie the Stockton victim ( and her occupation ) to this map. I'm a little leery of how definitive these components are....and how directly these might relate to EAR/ONS...but if they ARE then that might be thought of as a big step forward.

The most tangible evidence in this case ( besides DNA ) that laymen are aware of is probably the car / license plate angle and the Danville Papers. I've always wondered what happened in 1978/79 with retrieving and investigating these papers and is there anything to be learned from that and NOT that they were pulled from a Contra Costa evidence file 30 years later and are somehow now more of the "Holy Grail" than they actually are....

The components that you refer to are actually specific to the Village Homes development in Davis CA per Holes.

[woofytreats]

Jul 14, 2017 0:17:33 GMT vivazapata said:

Jul 13, 2017 15:14:36 GMT woofytreats said:

IMO, you almost have to "ride the fence" or look at these papers in a balanced sense because their provenance brings as many questions as the actual documents. I don't know if LE has assigned as many things to these papers as we have but it appears that they're more interested in the map / diagram than the "Custer" and "Mad" components. According to Paul Holes, there are definitive components on the map / diagram that are specific to Stockton developments at the time and this was confirmed by a developer. Holes went on further to attempt to potentially tie the Stockton victim ( and her occupation ) to this map. I'm a little leery of how definitive these components are....and how directly these might relate to EAR/ONS...but if they ARE then that might be thought of as a big step forward.

The most tangible evidence in this case ( besides DNA ) that laymen are aware of is probably the car / license plate angle and the Danville Papers. I've always wondered what happened in 1978/79 with retrieving and investigating these papers and is there anything to be learned from that and NOT that they were pulled from a Contra Costa evidence file 30 years later and are somehow now more of the "Holy Grail" than they actually are....

The components that you refer to are actually specific to the Village Homes development in Davis CA per Holes.

Sorry, my bad. I jumbled that up a bit. Holes said a "combination of features found in Davis and Stockton" but the specific components involved the Village Homes in Davis and apparently the diagram also exhibited "a knowledge of Stockton building codes"...that's what I'm referring to...The developments near the Delta JC in Stockton have been posted here before as possibly representing the map / diagram and Quail Lakes specifically looks the closest of anything I've seen. However, I'd probably agree with him that this map / diagram is a "bubble" diagram and not anything approaching a finished design. It's just more case synchronicity that the Stockton victim worked for a large developer in a visible capacity.

[floater]

Jun 22, 2017 5:25:23 GMT Any of N said:

This opinion won't be very popular with people who've spent a lot of time on the lead, but I think I see a familiar pattern. Here's a quick argument that the Danville Papers are merely red herrings.

The following three propositions should be safe bets:

One: The investigation of any unsolved mystery will yield items and data that initially appear to be relevant but in reality are unrelated. Sometimes this illusory/misleading/false evidence will seem quite compelling. This is the inevitable result of random chance.

Two: Typically false evidence is quickly eliminated, but occasionally it will lack sufficient context or identifying information. When compelling false evidence cannot be eliminated, the potential for error is obvious.

Three: The odds of encountering compelling false evidence are better than you might think. Mysteries have endless facets, leading to endless opportunities for coincidences to occur. It's a matter of cumulative odds.

The Evidence

We're all familiar with the story. Two bloodhounds separately trailed the scent of the EAR to a location a half-mile away from an attack on Liberta Court (12-09-1978). The scent ended where a car had apparently been parked. Nearby a criminologist found multiple sheets of paper that had been torn from a spiral notebook. The pages comprise what we often call the Custer Essay, the Mad Is the Word Essay, and the Punishment Map.

The linkage of this evidence to the EAR includes (1) the timing and location of their discovery, (2) one essay reading like an angry rant, (3) the map corresponding to the type of residential neighborhood that the EAR liked to prowl, and (4) the word “punishment” being scrawled on the back of the map. The EAR of course exhibited anger and was seemingly motivated by retribution.

The Problem with the Evidence

At first blush the Danville Papers look like a gold mine of opportunity filled with fantastic potential. Just pull out the clues that lead to the offender's identity and go solve the case. But not so fast. There are no names or dates on what appear to be grade school compositions. No artist's signature appears on the map, and there are no street names. Everything is obscure, with nothing leading to a specific person or place.^*

If the papers are really what they appear to be (the EAR's work that he truly left behind by accident), wouldn't we expect better clues? This takes us to another proposition:

Four: You know you might have a red herring on your hands when… the context and identifying information are conspicuously absent.

It has been pointed out many times on this message board -- we don't know for sure that the EAR dropped these papers. There isn't anything that definitively ties them to our offender. All that richness of information and so little to show for it. If something seems too good to be true…

Again, I think we've seen this pattern many times before with other mysteries, and I'm thinking of non-hoax events. My thought is to briefly describe a few examples in subsequent posts. If anyone would like to join in, please do.


^* The connection to Mr. Sato is tenuous. The best proposed locations for the map require much pulling, stretching, and rearranging.


EDIT:

For reference, see the summary of the "homework papers" made available by the Casefile Podcast, Case 53. PDF file here.

I could not agree more with this assessment. You crystallized my personal belief about the Danville Papers and their false significance.

The only way the Danville papers will hold significance is if the hand writing matches that of the "Affraid" or "excitement crave" letters; which I haven't found any posts about yet. Links please if I overlooked something.

[Any of N]

Thanks, floater. There are no other handwriting samples that are potentially from the EAR-ONS. At least none that are known publicly, and who knows what LE might be withholding.

[oldguy]

Aug 30, 2017 1:57:59 GMT Any of N said:

Thanks, floater. There are no other handwriting samples that are potentially from the EAR-ONS. At least none that are known publicly, and who knows what LE might be withholding.

I know the "Afraid" letter was alleged to have been destroyed. Maybe I missed it-but does someone have custody of the Danville papers? If so, can touch DNA analysis be used now?

[winters]

Dec 16, 2017 22:11:16 GMT oldguy said:

Aug 30, 2017 1:57:59 GMT Any of N said:

Thanks, floater. There are no other handwriting samples that are potentially from the EAR-ONS. At least none that are known publicly, and who knows what LE might be withholding.

I know the "Afraid" letter was alleged to have been destroyed. Maybe I missed it-but does someone have custody of the Danville papers? If so, can touch DNA analysis be used now?

The answer I got regarding touch DNA is that it hasn't been tried, and I don't know a lot about the subject but I do know that 40 years out it gets dicey. That's not definitive though... things change and maybe at some point it'll be done or it was done. My assumption is that the thinking goes like this: the Danville attack where the papers were found is one that's already connected to EARONS through DNA, and the dogs at the scene confirmed that the scent of the offender matched the scent found on the papers, so I think there's probably an assumption that they were indeed left by the offender and that there's nothing to learn from getting DNA off of the papers, which surely have been contaminated a few times by now.

[Any of N]

oldguy , they're the property of Contra Costa County LE. So Paul Holes, an old forensics guy himself, can go down that rout if he so chooses. The problem with touch DNA is that it's so sensitive. Those papers were handled by who-knows how many people before the advent of DNA testing. There must be so many genetic profiles intermingled on those papers by now that it would be impossible to disentangle them all. He's said before that they are utilizing all available technologies, so he might well have given it a try. If he had gotten a positive result, I presume he would have let everyone know.

EDIT -- I was typing this out while winters was replying above. lol