For Shame, "Raymond V. Fretchild", Part II

"At 8:11 am on July 11, 2006, a person claiming to be "Raymond V. Fretchild" left the following comment in response to my post, "For Shame Raymond V. Fretchild."

Mr. Chintzibobs,

I happened to come across this posting after conducting a Google search of my name. Prior to my retirement in 1994; I was head of Astronaut Recruiting for the Lego Space Academy. I was a bit taken aback by your posting; I remember the letter you sent to me like it was yesterday. I was excited by your interest in the Lego Space Program; it was not often a person of your caliber applied for our space program. We always seemed to be the red headed step child to NASA. I am sorry you felt my letter was a vicious prank, however; I assure you it was legitimate. I anxiously awaited your application and deposit; checking my inbox daily. I worried night and day; hoping your application would arrive. I have to apologize to you as I lost your contact information in a tragic training accident resuting in a horrific explosion that destroyed my cubicle and I was unable to send you our followup package of Junior Astronaut Training Material. You would have then known; we were legitimate. Alas, the world will never know what a great astronaut you may have been; I believe you could have been the best of the best. Best of luck to you with the addition to your family.

Sincerly,

Raymond V. Frethchild

PS: The Polish Space Program does not require its Astronauts to be in perfect vision. In fact, we developed prescription lens for their helmets!

7/11/2006 8:38 AM

The last line is automatically inserted by blogger to show the time and date of the posted comment and is the key to unraveling the twisted truth behind the myth of Raymond V. Fretchild.

I must admit, the author of the comment weaves a compelling story, but it must be considered nothing more than another clever prank perpetrated on myself. How can I know that the story is a despicable lie? Granted, the spelling errors ("resuling" for resulting and "sincerly" for sincerely) are consistent with the original 1980 document ("Expierienced" for experienced, "traing" for training, "thre" for three, and "ad" for and). This only serves to suggest a link between the two documents; it does nothing to prove that "Raymond V. Fretchild" ever existed.
Evidence does, however, exist that fatally undermines the claims of the new Fretchild document from the very first line. The prankster claims that, "I happened to come across this posting after conducting a Google search of my name." This is demonstrably false. My hit counter logs every visit to this site. In addition it takes note of the time and date of every hit. It also records whether or not someone got to my site through a Google or other type of search. No one has ever reached my site through a search for "Raymond V. Fretchild" or any variation thereof. Worse, the only Google search to result in a hit on my site on the day in question (even within the week before it) was this one:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22dead."

Translated, this means that someone (in Longmeadow, Massachusetts no less) did a search for the phrase "dead animal" with the words "bury" and "prank". My site comes up ninth on such a search.

According to my hit counter, that search led to my site on and at "11th July 2006 07:48:25", a time only fifty minutes before "Mr. Fretchild" posted his comment!

I don't know what you might be planning next, Raymond V. Fretchild, but I have contacted the authorities and sincerely hope that your sick "pranks" never move beyond crushing the dreams of children and burying dead animals. You should seriously consider therapy (and a spell-checker) as most serial killers get their beginnings by mutilating pets and are poor-spellers. I have also contacted the Polish embassy to inform them that a prankster has been passing himself off as a high official in a fictional Polish governmental agency.

Peace