I'm guilty of thread drift here, but what makes people do this sort of thing?
It reminds me of the case of the guy who turned up at the floods they had around Tewkesbury in the UK last summer. He said he was a senior fireman from the Merseyside fire brigade and spent days organising defences, rescues etc.
He wasn't. He was just some nutter with a nicked uniform.
Is it a power thing?