Response from a handwriting expert:

Subject:  Re: [Religion] Fatima release a forgery?
Posted At:  6/27/00 4:40:53 pm 
 

Well Marden,

Having examined, and manipulated the items offered, it does seem as though the conclusion of forgery is valid, assuming that the handwriting offered in all cases is as warranted. 

The hand that penned the presumed forgery appears to have left traces of the effort in the writing. Great care was taken in that article in that the 'weight' of the stroke is almost flat, relative to the plane of the paper, throughout the whole document. Humans don't as a rule write that way. As an expert on legibility (among other things), I can state with some confidence that except for persons trained in the ritual art of copying or caligraphy, humans leave impressions in the act of writing which betrays things like how the body was held at the time of writing. Such things as whether there is something to act as a wrist brace and how far away from the writing surface, all leave impressions in the act of writing.

The offered document has none of these apparent. In fact the absence of normal human writing 'quavers' (as they are known in the trade) suggests with some certainty that this person was trained to penmanship as an adult. Such people are rare these days, except in the catholic and orthodox (russian/greek) churches. I discount caligraphers even amateurs as their styles are not so clearly roman.

So maybe a forgery. At least the writing is totally inconsistent from one to the next.