Profiles in Cowardice: "smithvi2003" (UPDATE: HE'S now known as "garscrappa")

Smitty and his gargantuan snoz, right

Today we launch our "profiles in cowardice" series, beginning with the least interesting but easily most annoying of the Big Three HHI poseurs: "smithvi2003."

Also known derisively as "Smitty" on Yahoo (where we think he's also probably "gldn_fleez," among other aliases), and as "satdiver" on HHI, he first began posting, we're certain not coincidentally, on May 18, 2007, the very day Odyssey announced the Black Swan (BS) find. He initially posted as a seemingly innocent, merely curious fellow. But in very short time, he launched attacks on Odyssey that, in retrospect, appear clearly to have been coordinated with other HHI negative posts, particularly those of Doc, aka Jim McManus.

It wasn't long after these first posts that Smitty began his infamous "follow the buckets" act, which he repeated ad nauseam until some Yahoo members were ready for murder in the first. He alleged, rather clumsily and stupidly, that Odyssey was faking the BS find, a charge loudly echoed by Doc (not surprisingly, this is part of Odyssey's libel allegations against him). Smitty was widely mocked and quickly debunked for his "theory's" inconsistencies and outright falsehoods. Based on our reading of Odyssey's court filing against McManus, we're amazed Smitty wasn't sued himself. (Perhaps he just seemed mentally incapacitated to Odyssey's lawyers?)

Public disdain and personal shame didn't slow down our Smitty, though. He hammered away at this "theme" for weeks. Mercifully, he was ultimately drowned out by the flow of facts released by the company and by members who took the time to pick apart his weak, inconsequential case. Eventually he stopped referring to it altogether, but not before his reputation as a sloppy, repetitive village idiot was firmly entrenched at Yahoo OMEX.

He disappeared on and off for several weeks at a time, and more recently appeared to be trying to establish a more reasonable, respectable reputation as someone who well understood the shipwreck/underwater salvage business. We've no idea why, but we suspect it may have had something to do with him realizing that his past posts spoke volumes about him personally, and that as he became identified as an aggressive opponent of Odyssey, his own words might come into play. And, low and behold, enter stage left, one of our kind readers entered at a most fortuitous time.

We've zippo interest in the mass of garbage posted by Smitty about Odyssey. Too many have had to endure that annoyance already. No, what we're interested in sharing is Smitty in his own words. We warn you: his Yahoo posts, a sampling of which are linked to below, are highly disturbing, even for the appalling level of cruelty and insensitivity that dominates much of the Internet today.

We can't post everything (after all, Smitty has posted 4,000 times on Yahoo), and besides, there's no need to -- anyone with the time, inclination, or cast-iron stomach, can just as easily read every post ever written by the deviant. Even still, the character that emerges from even this small, random selection of writings is a disgusting, highly disturbed individual. So, bear with us, hold your nose, and dive into some of the worst of "smithvi2003."

Smitty's Yahoo posts are characterized by significant patterns of crude abuse, including references to bestiality (1), incest (1), homophobia (1, 2), pedophilia (1, 2, 3, 4), sexism, creepy stalking (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), harassment (of a Vietnam vet to boot), and, believe it or not, even anti-Canadian sentiment.

We think you'll agree that what bubbles forth from this sewage is a revolting, bullying, exceptionally crude ignoramus who could as realistically handle Odyssey's role in the underwater exploration business as Charles Manson could competently occupy a Supreme Court seat. In reality, we doubt that "smithvi2003" could last even five minutes under circumstances of normal human interaction. We think this goes a long way toward explaining his deep personal antipathy toward, and conviction to anonymously (i.e. cowardly) destroy Odyssey, and obviously other innocent persons as well.

Unfortunately for him it was his own actions wielding the Internet as a weapon that chronicled his own character assassination. Ironic, huh?

Finally, thanks to our source, we're also fairly certain we know Smitty's personal identity. We see no point in outing him. As his own words demonstrate, he's nothing but a sad, sick, pathetic individual who's but an insignificant blip on the human radar. So, his name shall remain our secret. Unless the right people ask us for it, that is.

Coming up next: A Profile of HHI's "Solomon," aka John Bartram.

P.S. Several of the board that "smithvi2003" posted his vile offering to went out of business, primarily because he played penny stocks, but that did not stop us from backing up copies of his most vile posts, which are a history of his lack of character. Here they are, if you can stomach it: