Overview

The Salamander Letter is a forged document that briefly reshaped debate over early Latter-day Saint history in the mid-1980s. Presented as an 1830 letter from the early Mormon figure Martin Harris, it described Joseph Smith's recovery of the golden plates in the language of folk magic, replacing the angel of the traditional account with a white salamander that "transfigured" itself. Its apparent age and provenance were persuasive enough that it was taken seriously, acquired by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and widely discussed. It was in fact fabricated by the dealer and forger Mark Hofmann.

When Hofmann's frauds began to unravel he committed two murders in 1985, and the ensuing investigation exposed the letter and much of his other Mormon-history material as forgeries. The site records the letter as debunked; the physical object still exists, now understood as evidence of one of the most consequential forgery cases in American religious history.