Salamander Letter Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Salamander Letter was one of hundreds of documents concerning the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church; see also Mormon) that surfaced in the early 1980s. This document alleged that the Book of Mormon was given to Joseph Smith, Jr by a being that changed itself into a salamander, not an angel as Smith claimed. The document was later demonstrated to be a forgery.Produced by Mark Hofmann, who had been responsible for the discovery of many of these "new" documents, the letter was subjected to careful examination by experts, who at the time believed the letter to be real. Understandably, the LDS Church was interested. After reviewing the letter, Gordon B. Hinckley, acting President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, apparently took the advice of the experts and conceded that available evidence supported the letter's authenticity. He initially intended to purchase this document for over one million dollars, intending to add it to his organization's archives. However, this deal never happened, and the letter was instead sold to a private collector, Steven Christensen.
By this time, Hofmann drew suspicion for discovering so many astounding documents that others had missed, including the so-called "Oath of a Freeman", which he was attempting to sell to the Library of Congress. He was also struggling under massive debt, and with delivering on deals that he had made. In 1985, when he learned that the pedigree of the Salamander Letter was under investigation, he turned to making bombs. Two people were killed -- Christensen, the main target, and Kathleen Sheets, killed as a diversionary tactic. Hofmann himself was subsequently injured when a third bomb went off prematurely. The police investigated this wave of destruction, and during a search of his home found a studio in the basement where he could create counterfeited documents. Many of the documents Hofmann has sold were proven to be forgeries by a new forensic technique developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, chiefly to detect his forgeries.
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