Modern scholarship supports the view that the story arose from rumours circulating among troops and civilians in Belgium, and was not an invention of the British propaganda machine. It moved from rumour to apparent "fact" after the report in the "" appeared about a real cadaver-processing factory. The ambiguous wording of the report allowed Belgian and British newspapers to interpret it as proof of the rumours that human corpses were used. Philip Knightley says that Charteris may have concocted the claim that he invented the story in order to impress his audience, not realising a reporter was present. Randal Marlin says that Charteris's claim to have invented the story is "demonstrably false" in a number of details. However, it is possible that a fake diary was created but never used. Nevertheless, this diary, which Charteris claimed to still exist “in the war museum in London”, has never been found. It is also possible that Charteris suggested that the story would be useful propaganda in China, and that he created a miscaptioned photograph to be sent to the Chinese, but again there is no evidence of this.