Of Fakes and Impostors

By: Daniel Nardini

Sometimes the news seems to be unreal. Three cases in point. Old rusted copper tablets that were believed to have been early Christian records of the 1st Century A.D. were determined to be fake. The wording in them and other references were inconsistent with what is known in all other Christian writings from later periods. At an auction held in Paris, a Mayan statue was bought for a record $4 million. However, the Mexican government called the statue a “fake” and said that the statue does not conform with artwork of the time period. The French auction company said it is real. If I were the person who bought this piece, I would take it to a third party and spend a couple of ten thousand dollars to see who is telling the truth.

In another piece of news, a man named Randall Keyser from West Virginia tried to get work at a well-known company in Ohio. Among the things he listed on his resume was that he was a “general in the U.S. Army.” An FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) probe turned out that Keyser was lying and that he will be prosecuted for impersonating a military officer. Either this person in mentally ill, desperate to get work, or was trying to get a high paying job to get rich. Any way you look at it this person is in hot water. I must tell my readers that the U.S. Congress has passed laws making it a crime for anyone to claim or impersonate either being in the U.S. military or ever having served in the U.S. military or received medals they in fact did not.

And this is not the first story I have heard of that someone said they were in the military and won this or that medal. To such people I must give them a warning that this is easy to check out. Employers can and do check out things like this. The U.S. military has very thorough records who was in the military, and who received what medal(s) and honors. So faking this to get a job or benefits or more money is not only immoral but can lead to stiff fines and jail. There are those who of course are trying to “impress” people with something they are not. For those who try to do this, I say don’t. Oh yes, and for the record I was never in any branches of the U.S. military

In the case of finding out what is fake and what is genuine in this world…….it is extremely difficult to do. There are some material fakes that are so good they fool even a number of the experts in their fields of study. Sometimes it takes a team of experts to know when fakes come their way. The sad thing to all of this is that fakes and impostors just make things all that much harder for us all in life. These are among the many more attempts by certain people to turn a fast buck.

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