Two of the people who "outed" Voss were Robey Price (rowb) and eagl, both of whom followed up Voss' claims of (among other things) being an F-16 pilot in the gulf war. Not a single one of Voss's claims regarding military service could be verified. At that point the story pretty much degenerated into much with claims of CIA involvement and the mysterious disappearances.
What people don't understand is that Paul Hinds aka voss aka metatron actively fosters these "online personas" as if they were real virtual people. Each persona has a life that he is free to create as he wishes and when online he lives these virtual lives just as an everquest gamer lives their lives in the game world. To "Voss", the entire internet is one big game arena.
This is how he can post two completely different things under two different names, and since each post is consistent with the persona he has created for that name, in his mind it is the "truth" and he is being completely honest. He sees no difference between the fictional actions of his various personas and the real actions of a real person, and for whatever reason he has chosen to continue filling out the lives of these multiple online persona.
It's all a game to him. If he did this in "real life", it would be considered a multiple personality disorder. When it goes out over the internet, it's just a game, the virtual acts of an online persona, no different from when a D&D gamer puts on a gray cloak, walks to a friend's house, and pretends to be eindor the elven mage.
The point here is that any time you deal with any one of Paul Hind's personalities online, you must realize that everything he says is based on a creation in his own mind and has no basis whatsoever in reality beyond the online environment. If he says he is an F-16 pilot, it's because that particular online persona he assumes is a virtual F-16 pilot. If he says he owns a P-51, it's because the ficticious character he is playing online owns a ficticious P-51.
The fact that he throws in spurious real world names and events is merely an irritating distraction. Unlike some other people's online fantasies, at least Voss hasn't actually put real military personnel's lives in jeopardy by dragging real people into his made up world. His claims, if taken as "real" claims instead of the virtual fantasies they are, just happen to be fairly insulting to actual military members who are actually living the life his pretend characters say they live. Of course they can't be followed up, of course they can't be proven, because it's all a fantasy he has created.
I'm not sure what to think about how strictly he holds to his online personas, except that the single time I recall him slipping was when he admitted that his F-16 and P-51 were only models. Other than that, he's been nearly flawless in holding on to his fantasy lives. Is that sick, or merely irritating? I suppose that's up to each individual to decide. What is quite clear and proven years ago however is that no matter who he claims to be at any given time, Voss' claims of military service and game development are pure fantasy, nothing more.
MiniD's summary is fairly correct except that I actually saw the claims of military service and the rapidly degenerating spiral of counterclaims about various conspiracies that led to Robey and eagl doing some research into actual military records.
