Here is a summary of the main arguments that have been made to show
that The Beale Papers is a work of fiction:
The Gillogly strings are a strong argument that the codes are a hoax.
In his paper, How did TJB
encode B2?, Dr. Hammer, despite being a believer, makes several disparaging remarks
about the ciphers:
...seemingly lazy and inefficient process..
TJB was certainly not beyond making clerical errors
TJB went about his task rather sloppily to say the least
TJB was not a professional cryptographer
TJB botched his job rather badly
The C2/DOI solution only works when The Beale Papers version of the DOI is
used, with its known flaws. It is incredible that the original coder would have used a DOI
with the same identical errors.
Louis Kruh, in his articles in Cryptologia, has presented a strong argument
that The Beale Papers and the letters from T. J. Beale to Morriss were written by
the same person. If true, then the whole story is obviously false.
The genealogy of the Beale personalities on Page 20 explains how certain persons who
would have witnessed the events at Buford's Tavern were never heard from. Major questions
result about the whole story.
Many believe that C3, with 618 codes, is too short to contain the names of the 30
adventurers, their residences and their heirs.
How can 30 adventurers all disappear without trace? No bones found, no Indian stories
about a battle, no letters to relatives, no relatives looking for their inheritance.
In The Beale Papers Morriss says, "It was in the month of January, 1820,
while keeping the Washington Hotel, that I first saw and became acquainted with
Beale." That is impossible, as Morriss only opened the Washington Inn in 1823, per a
notice in the Lynchburg Virginian, dated 2 December 1823
In his letter of January 4, 1822 to Morriss, Beale used the words
"stampeding" and "improvised", but the earliest known printed source
for them is 1883 and 1837 respectively.
Thomas Beale died in New Orleans in September, 1820, well before he
was supposed to be still living in The Beale Papers.
The Hart Papers quote J. B. Ward as saying that the original papers from the iron box
were lost in "a print shop fire". The only fire reported in the news over those
years was the 1883 fire, two years before the booklet was released. How did the
information from the three ciphers and the three Beale letters survive those two years?
Were those pages already printed? If so, why didn't they burn also, and why wasn't the
book released sooner? From the author's memory? There were no living witnesses to the
existence of those papers, except Ward. What about the employees of the print shop?
Literally thousands of the world's best crytanalysts, working over several decades, have
been unable to solve the ciphers.
A large number of excavation expeditions in Virginia have not found the treasure.
Steven Stav reports a glaring error by the author:
Morriss states "The box was left in my hands in the
Spring of 1822..."
Yet, that box contained the letter dated January 4, 1822, which states "It was at
this time I handed you the box..."
The second statement is in the past tense, at a time before the event happened.
Comment
Clearly, the author of The Beale Papers made several
factual errors in weaving his complex tale.
