Man Who's Fooled Some Civil War Historians Since 1986 Comes Clean
"I didn't want to drop dead and carry that to my grave," the man said.
— -- A 50-year-old Georgia man who has been fooling some U.S. Civil War historians since 1986 is now coming clean after his brother's tragic suicide last month.
John Potter sent an image to the Georgia Historical Society (GHS) when he was 21, claiming it was a photograph of another photograph of the Confederate ironclad warship, the CSS Georgia, which he said he discovered at a yard sale but was unable to purchase.
Now, he's saying the whole thing was a hoax and that the image was something he constructed to see if he could fool historians to figure out if he had what it takes to be a Hollywood special effects artist.
"To be clear, GHS has never presented the image as an authenticated photograph of the CSS Georgia and have maintained such in our records and online findings aids database since the day that it arrive," the organization's president Dr. W. Todd Groce told ABC News today in a statement. "It is still regrettable that Mr. Potter chose to perpetrate this hoax but with clear evidence of the fraud we can now clearly label the photograph as inauthentic."
Potter said the photo was actually of a 2-foot long model boat he and his younger brother Jeffrey made using plywood and Styrofoam based on their grandfather's recollections passed by word of mouth.
Jeffrey "put on a coat and straw hat went out to a marsh with a cane fishing pole and Potter took a photo," the Associated Press reported. "He took another photo of the 2-foot model. He cut out the boat's image, glued it onto the photo of his brother, then used dirt and Elmer's glue to create the illusion of a photo faded by age and stained by water or chemicals."
Ever since Potter sent the image to GHS in 1986, historians have been trying to track down the original photo, which never actually existed.
The photo was even publicized by archaeologists earlier this year as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked on a $14 million project to salvage the CSS Georgia from the river it had sunk in.
But Potter wanted to come clean after his brother Jeffrey, who was the only other person who knew about the false photograph, killed himself at age 48 last month.
Potter reached out to the AP to reveal the hoax.
"I'm not in good health," he told the AP. "I didn't want to drop dead and carry that to my grave.
"Plus, I don't care anymore," he added. "What are they gonna do, sue me? You want to take my termite house in North Carolina and my 14-year-old Buick? Come and get it."
ABC News' attempts to reach Potter for additional comment today were unsuccessful.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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