Subject: Off-topic stuff, please ignore if you don't care (was Re: Crater on Venus) Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 16:21:58 +0200 From: Rene Zandbergen To: voynich@rand.org Denis wrote:, > Was W Voynich born in the Ukraine ? And if so was he a native > Ukranian speaker ? If so perhaps John Stojko's decipherment is > right and was a piece of Fiction constructed by Mr. and Mrs. Voynich !!? > Perhaps we should be looking for some hidden Boolean Algebra also. I think Wilfrid Voynich was a Russian Jew. I also vaguely remember that he managed to escape from a camp on two different occasions. Perhaps Jim G. can confirm/deny. This led me to my ultimate conspiracy-theory (to which Denis also seems to be hinting on a smaller scale). Those who don't care for this sort of thing, do not read on :-) Voynich died in the prison camp. The man who escaped was a spy/agent, who was sent to the UK and later the US, to sabotage the incumbent cryptographic services of the two countries, by occupying the experts designated to set them up. In the US this was the apparently innocent expert in cryptography: Newbold. Voynich succeeded because this bureau/service only got started near the end of the decade. A fake letter quoted in the Kent book was a feeble attempt to explain away Newbold's expertise in cryptography and mask the success of the Bolshevik plot. The Voynich Ms was composed by Russian experts. It contains Russian glossolalia in a 36-character alphabet (!) which looks like Ukrainian because all Slavionic languages are similar. Stojko received no support in Russia because they 'knew' the VMs does not exist, but they couldn't say so. Miss Nill was a second Russian plant, unkown to Wilfrid, to keep an eye on him and on what happened with the VMs. When Newbold hit upon the real truth, he suddenly fell ill and died within days. Poisoning must be suspected. Miss Nill became the guardian of the VMs and made sure only important cryptographers could get access to it (further distracting them from their real work). Hence Strong's lack of success getting access. Mrs Voynich became aware of what was happening and wrote a novel about a Russian agent. The clue was too thin to be understood. She was henceforth kept out of circulation by Miss Nill. When the VMs was sold to Kraus, she came with it. The NSA has always had a great interest in the VMs because they have been suspecting most of the above conspiracy. They also make sure no reputable scientists are allowed to be interested in the VMs. How did it all start? The Ms was supposedly found in the Jesuit college of Villa Mondragone, when its library was transferred to the Vatican upon the death of the General of the order. He died in 1896 (give or take a few years). The VMs was supposedly found in 1912! Furthermore, Voynich supposedly managed to convince a few key people that some books should not be transferred to the Vatican, but sold to him instead. Obviously, it would be impossible for him to obtain more books in the same manner much later, as they would by then be in the Vatican. Yet he used this excuse to keep the location where he found it a secret for many years. I have not found out how many, but this could be as much as ten years (corrections welcome), as articles written in the early 20's never mention the Mondragone. The secret of the location was needed to make sure none of the planted false trails (catalogue entries such as found by Ruysschaert) could be checked. I'm sure it's all false, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence here... Cheers, Rene Subject: Re: Silly fraud theory, odd facts Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 17:27:54 +0200 From: Rene Zandbergen To: voynich@rand.org I should know better than to pursue this thread :-) > I think that another weak spot in the "Soviet Plot" theory > is the lack of a convincing motivation. True enough, but.... > The impact of the VMs "distraction" on the productivitiy of > American military cryptographers has been insignificant, and > I can't believe that the Soviets would expect otherwise. We don't know what would have happened in the early years after 1910, if Newbold had not been distracted by the VMs. There is of course no evidence that Newbold had anything to do with cryptography in those days, but the fact is that cryptographic services only started in 1917 or so. Perhaps the Russians gained 5 years? Perhaps, also, the VMs completely failed to so what it was supposed to do? After all, Voynich first shopped it around Europe (France?) providing only piecemeal copies. Anyway, I fully agree that this is indeed all very implausible, but I am sure weirder things have been done!! > it seems that W. Voynich tried hard to "sell" Roger Bacon > as the Vms author---a proposition that would have increased > the book's value enormously. It is hard to belive that he > was being sincere,... As with his statement that he only saw the Marci letter after he had concluded himself that Bacon was the author. It could be true, but again a bit hard to believe. And another incongruity: it has been stated that the letter was attached to the cover (which would make sense), but Voynich said he found it between the pages.... > I think it is quite possible that Voynich himself removed > any pages that clearly contradicted the Bacon theory... Hmm, a rare book dealer cutting in an old Ms? At least we know that any pages lost after the stay in Prague will not have contained any key. > Perhaps that is why the book was already lacking a title > page when the folios were numbered... There was a cover... should that have been numbered? Perhaps there was no title page in the modern sense of the word? Don't Mss not often just start with plain text such as 'Liber nnn' or 'Kitab xxx'? Cheers, Rene Subject: Re: Silly fraud theory, odd facts Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 14:09:46 -0500 (EST) From: Dennis Stallings To: VOYNICH-L On Tue, 16 Dec 1997 Rene Zandbergen wrote: > you may remember my silly theory that the VMs is the > product of a Russian (Sowiet?) plot perpetrated at the > turn of this century. I managed to construct a story > which would explain quite a few odd facts, where for > two of them this explanation was a bit thin. > Note that I hope and believe that this theory is in fact > not true, but no solid evidence against it exists. One thing I wonder about. W. Voynich found the VMs in 1912, but the Communists didn't come to power until 1917 in Russia. Perhaps the Bolsheviks had a master cryptographer with idle time. He fabricated the VMs for fun and released it, knowing it would disrupt some bourgeois society that the Bolsheviks disliked. He was killed before long in one of the many Communist purges. Now that KGB archives are being opened in Russia, perhaps we should look there for evidence... ;-) Dennis Subject: RE: Silly fraud theory, odd facts Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 17:31:27 -0700 From: Don Latham To: "'Dennis'" , VOYNICH-L One thing I wonder about. W. Voynich found the VMs in 1912, but the Communists didn't come to power until 1917 in Russia. Perhaps the Bolsheviks had a master cryptographer with idle time. He fabricated the VMs for fun and released it, knowing it would disrupt some bourgeois society that the Bolsheviks disliked. He was killed before long in one of the many Communist purges. Now that KGB archives are being opened in Russia, perhaps we should look there for evidence... Dennis: Might not be a bad idea at that! the KGB had long arms and a wide range of activity... best, Don