The Honest Lie

The role of memory in investigations

I’ve been trying to solve something, and it hasn’t been easy.

Accessible records don’t paint a very clear picture, governing bodies holding more information haven’t played particularly nicely, and batting your eyelashes with a charming, “Come on, just hand ‘em’ over, I promise it’ll be fine” doesn’t go too far these days.

When the ability to dig through open sources is reduced to white pages with large black squares of redactions, grainy old newspapers and the same 23 seconds of archival footage, you’re left with one real thing: human beings.

Folks were vetted, interviews were lined up. I considered my questions and then reconsidered them. Between you and me, I felt prepared. I wasn’t just ready to have these conversations, I was ready to understand the reality of this very murky landscape.

This thing I’m trying to solve, I’m doing it because I want to, because it’s a passion project, because I hope that one day, if I can do the right thing with it, it could end up in the hands of the people who have the power to rectify a decades-old fuck-up. If I get nowhere with it, nothing happens. That is to say, there is no material weight to the information I can gather—not yet, at least. I’m not playing the role an investigator or law enforcement might play in a case. More than anything, I’m a convenient observer with a chip on my shoulder that sometimes propels me to do.

The first interview was nothing short of a delight.

We had a good rapport and an easy sense of trust. We spoke at length about the matter and several other tangentially related and unrelated themes. My ears buzzed as she spoke. She told me of her memories with such conviction, I didn’t question them. But something she shared was important. It was a detail not included in any of the records we’d uncovered and, if true, could be quite damning. I didn’t push her on it—she flowed into the next thought and the moment left us.

The next day, another interview.

They had this calm, easy confidence. This was a person who knew what they were saying and did it with poise. I didn’t doubt them. What they shared, the details they could recall, directly conflicted with what I had been told the day earlier.

In the next interview, with yet another dependable source, I heard a story that shifted everything in a completely different direction.

I don’t think anyone is lying.

This is why memories are so tricky. We tend to think of our minds and memories like a camera, capturing the world as it happened. But memory is more like a steam or fog—shifting, reshaping, and sometimes swallowing up details altogether.

Our memories are not recordings; they’re reconstructions.

The human brain is not designed to store perfect records of the past. Instead, it rebuilds the memory each time we recall it, filling in the gaps with assumptions, emotions, and outside information we’ve picked up over the years.

Psychologists have long studied the memory and its fallibility.

American psychologist Elizabeth Loftus pioneered The False Memory Experiment in the 1970s and 1980s, delving into how easily memories can be distorted or fabricated through suggestive influences.

Participants were presented with a series of slides depicting a simulated car accident. After viewing the slides, they were asked questions about the accident, some of which contained misleading information.

“How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” compared to “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” The phrasing of questions significantly affected their recollections, with participants estimating higher speeds when the word “smashed” was used compared to “hit.” Loftus found that participants exposed to misleading information were more likely to report seeing things that were not present, such as broken glass at the accident scene.

Now, imagine stretching that effect over a decades-old recollection.

The Change

One person told me a story from a key night in our case. They remembered the air, the way voices carried, a moment that felt important. Another person, who was there too, saw it differently—the setting wasn’t quite the same, the words weren’t spoken the way they remembered. A detail that was vivid for one seemed to slip away entirely for the other.

So, who was right? Maybe one of them. Maybe neither.

Not because anyone was being dishonest but because memory shifts. Details sharpen and blur. The past is never recalled exactly as it was—only as it’s settled in the mind over time.

The Problem

This is why human sources are both valuable and frustrating. Whether you’re a journalist, an OSINT researcher, or a detective, dealing with eyewitness testimony is a game of probability, not certainty.

Even when people have the best intentions, they remember things through the lens of their own experiences. Trauma can make memories sharper—or blur them beyond recognition. Repeated storytelling can solidify details that were never there to begin with. Social and cultural influence can shape what people think they remember, especially in high-profile cases where media coverage or public consciousness and recollection fill in the blanks.

It’s no wonder wrongful convictions happen based on faulty eyewitness testimony.

The Truth

If memories are unreliable, does that mean they’re useless? No. But they’re sort of like puzzle pieces out of a box that’s so faded you can’t be entirely sure what image you’re building. If you’re too beholden to one pattern your eye has made out, you may slot that misshapen piece in the wrong spot. Here are a few ways to bring together clarity:

Reconcile reality - Understand that humans are fallible, memory is imperfect.

Compare multiple perspectives – The truth is often found in the overlap between conflicting stories, not in a single account.

Look for the tangible – Though they can still be misinterpreted, recordings and physical evidence tend not to lie.

Be aware of emotional bias – The way someone feels about an event often shapes how they recall it. Strong emotions don’t necessarily mean accuracy.

Consider how often the story has been retold – The more someone repeats a memory, the more they unconsciously refine and reshape it.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say with 100% certainty what happened.

Though we can take on the challenge of learning to navigate it, the fog of memory will always be there.