Talk:Jasper Maskelyne

Relative accomplishment

A note: the ancestor JNM made one of the earliest (first?) proportional-spacing typewriters.[1] 142.177.19.171 17:38, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Article tone

so this guy became notable out of an act of media deception? the richard stokes stuff needs to be at the top and thenmaybe header syain soemtehkng like 'despite this became famous recetnly ' etc.. ? Tiksustoo 10:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Stage magic and military art both involve using a level of deception for success. No reason to decry its use. LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 17:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

On re-reading this page, the tone seems dismissive of Jasper's accomplishments, real or imagined. In fact, beyond a single photo of an inflatable M4 Sherman tank, there's no hint as to what he actually did, just a list of failed deployments and vague insults. At the very least one would assume the article to list what was done and during which operation. "in the African theatre" isn't really descriptive considering the theatre covered the area between Egypt and Tunisia, not to mention the amount of back and forth. Sturerotto (talk) 16:12, 1 January 2015 (UTC) (talk) 16:03, 02 January 20015 (UTC)

Which article are you referring to? The phrase "African theatre" doesn't occur here; and the article states exactly where he was employed while in Egypt. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:36, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

A far more critical account of Jasper Maskelyne's "accomplishments"

can be found at http://www.maskelynemagic.com --InsultComicDog (talk) 13:59, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Taking into account the rather well researched claims of that website we are going to need to rejig the article somewhat.©Geni 19:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The website offered contains possibly valuable information, but from original research. This, while potentially valuable, needs screening with a practiced eye toward its use and interpretation of primary resources. In other words, more time and attention is needed to process this before stating that it offers unassailable fact. (To be fair this is true of any source, mind you - pro and con Maskelyne.) LTC David J. Cormier (talk) 12:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As evidence accumulates, another look appears necessary. Nice catch! LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 19:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

A lot of the article still (October 2012) looks more like Maskelyne's smoke-and-mirrors than the truth. Could we indicate the difference between "M claimed that he had..." and what actually occurred? His wild claims are not without some interest, however. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The following paragraph is moved here for possible substantiation:

"His largest claimed illusion was to conceal Alexandria and the Suez Canal to misdirect German bombers. He built a mockup of the night-lights of Alexandria in a bay three miles away with fake buildings, lighthouse, and anti-aircraft batteries. To mask the Suez Canal he built a revolving cone of mirrors that created a wheel of spinning light nine miles wide, meant to dazzle and disorient enemy pilots so that their bombs would fall off-target." Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:37, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

That is described in The War Magician by David Fischer. RJFJR (talk) 17:27, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Er, that's exactly what people are worried about, as that source appears to be distinctly uncritical, and there now seems to be little doubt that Maskelyne exaggerated. If we are going to describe his exaggerations, we at least need to indicate that these are claims, and we probably need to balance them with critical sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

If it's in the book Fischer wrote is it a claim by Fischer or by Maskelyne? (I came back to make a note that the excerpted text above moved from the article about the Suez Canal lights doesn't quite match how I remember it being described in the book, but I'd have to review the book to check the details.) RJFJR (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Both, it seems: Fischer is responsible for what he wrote, but he appears to have taken M's tall tales at face value, and we simply can't do that given what we now know. It seems that nearly everything M claimed could (plausibly) have been made up.Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, try this

I've bitten the bullet and (almost) completely rewritten the article, with everything now attributable to proper sources. There is scope for careful embellishment with claims from his own book, and anything we can prove about his life in 1942 in particular. But I hope people will find this an improvement. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)