List of premature obituaries
Encyclopedia
A premature obituary is an obituary
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
published whose subject is not actually deceased. Examples of premature obituaries range from that of arms manufacturer Alfred Nobel
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...
, whose premature obituary condemning him as a "merchant of death" may have caused him to create the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
, to black nationalist Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
, whose actual death was apparently caused by reading his own obituary.
This article lists the recipients of incorrect death reports (not just formal obituaries
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
) from publications, media organisations, official bodies, and widely-used information sources such as the Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
; but not mere rumours of deaths. People who were presumed (though not categorically declared) to be dead, and joke death reports that were widely believed, are also included.
Causes
Each premature obituary listed below has one of the following causes (where the cause is known):- Accidental publication: accidental release of a pre-written obituary, usually on a news web site, as a result of technical or human error. The most egregious example was when, in 2003, CNN accidentally released draft obituaries for seven major world figures.
- Brush with death: when the subject unexpectedly survives a serious illness or accident which made them appear to be dead or certain to die.
- Fraud victim: many people from Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
have been registered dead by officials who are bribed by relatives who want to steal the victim's land. The ensuing legal disputes often continue for many years, with victims growing elderly and sometimes dying in reality before they are resolved. (See Association of Dead People.) - HoaxDeath hoaxA death hoax is a deliberate or confused report of someone's death that turns out to be incorrect and murder rumors. In some cases it might be because the person has intentionally faked death.-Celebrity death hoaxes:...
: when a death is falsely reported, as a prank. - ImpostorImpostorAn impostor or imposter is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often to try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering, but just as often for purposes of espionage or law enforcement....
: when an ordinary person who for years has passed himself off to family and friends as a retired minor celebrity dies, it can prompt an erroneous obituary for the real (but still-living) celebrity. - Misidentified body: when a corpse is misidentified as someone else, often someone who was involved in the same incident or who happened to go missing at the same time.
- Missing in actionMissing in actionMissing in action is a casualty Category assigned under the Status of Missing to armed services personnel who are reported missing during active service. They may have been killed, wounded, become a prisoner of war, or deserted. If deceased, neither their remains nor grave can be positively...
: soldiers who go missing in war are sometimes incorrectly declared dead if no body is found. In particular, a number of Japanese soldiersJapanese holdoutJapanese holdouts or stragglers were Japanese soldiers in the Pacific Theatre who, after the August 1945 surrender of Japan that marked the end of World War II, either adamantly doubted the veracity of the formal surrender due to strong dogmatic or militaristic principles, or were not aware of it...
thought to have died in World War II in fact survived – typically hiding in remote jungle for years or even decades, believing that the war had not ended. - Misunderstandings: such as when a Sky NewsSky NewsSky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
employee thought that an internal rehearsal for the future death of the Queen MotherElizabeth Bowes-LyonElizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
was real. - Name confusion: where someone with an identical or similar name has died. Usually the subject of the obituary is famous; the deceased person is not.
- PseudocidePseudocideA faked death occurs when an individual leaves evidence to suggest that he or she is dead in order to mislead others. This may be done for a variety of reasons, such as to fraudulently collect insurance money or avoid capture by law enforcement for some other crime.People who fake their own deaths...
: when the subject fakes his own death in order to evade legal, financial, or marital difficulties and start a new life.
A
- Alan AbelAlan AbelAlan Abel is an American prankster, hoaxter, writer, mockumentary filmmaker, and jazz percussionist famous for several hoaxes that became media circuses.- Education and early career :...
reported his own death in a skiingSkiingSkiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
accident as an elaborate hoax on New Years Day, to get his obituary published in The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
- Ali Hassan al-MajidAli Hassan al-MajidAli Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti , , was a Ba'athist Iraqi Defense Minister, Interior Minister, military commander and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service...
was supposed dead in , after BritishUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and USUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
officials reported that he had died in an air strike in BasraBasraBasra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...
; al-Majid had been seen going into the building that was attacked, and corpses of his bodyguardBodyguardA bodyguard is a type of security operative or government agent who protects a person—usually a famous, wealthy, or politically important figure—from assault, kidnapping, assassination, stalking, loss of confidential information, terrorist attack or other threats.Most important public figures such...
s were positively identified, though there was less certainty about the identity of al-Majid's supposed corpse. After obituaries of the Iraqi general, politician and first-cousin of Saddam HusseinSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
were published in many newspapers, reports then circulated that he had escaped by boat, and subsequently been seen joking with staff in a hospital in BaghdadBaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. Al-Majid was captured several months later, and sentenced to death in for war crimes. He was hanged on 25 January 2010. - Anthony John AllenAnthony John AllenAnthony John Allen is a British man who, in a widely reported case, was convicted in 2002 of having murdered his wife and children in 1975....
, a serial criminal, faked his own suicide by drowning off Beachy HeadBeachy HeadBeachy Head is a chalk headland on the south coast of England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 m above sea level. The peak allows views of the south...
(Britain's most notorious suicide spot) in to escape prosecution for theftTheftIn common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
, presumably resulting in his being declared dead. He in fact swam around the coast, retrieved dry clothes that he had hidden, and took up a new identity. However, his crimes continued, including further thefts and bigamy. In he was jailed for life for having murdered his wife and children in 1975. - Rex AlstonRex AlstonArthur Rex Alston was a leading sports commentator for BBC radio on cricket, rugby union, athletics and tennis from the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s....
, the retired BBC sports commentator, garnered the unusual distinction of having his marriage announced in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
after his obituary when that paper updated the sportsman's internal obituary file and accidentally published it in . Alston, who was 84 at the time, lived for another nine years until his actual death in 1994 at the age of 93. - Nnamdi AzikiweNnamdi AzikiweBenjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe , usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe and popularly known as "Zik", was one of the leading figures of modern Nigerian nationalism who became the first President of Nigeria after Nigeria secured its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960; holding the...
, first president of NigeriaPresident of NigeriaThe President of Nigeria is the Head of State and head of the national executive. Officially styled President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The current President of Nigeria is Goodluck Jonathan.-History:On October 1, 1960, Nigeria gained...
, was declared dead almost twenty years before he finally died. The Daily Times of NigeriaDaily Times of NigeriaThe Daily Times of Nigeria is a newspaper with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria.At its peak, in the 1970s, it was one of the most successful locally owned businesses in Africa....
had an elaborate issue with a bold "ZIK IS DEAD" banner on its front page.
B
- William Baer, a New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
professor, was declared dead by his New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
obituary in May 1942 as a hoax by his students.
- Luca BarbareschiLuca BarbareschiLuca Barbareschi is an Italian- Uruguayan actor, television presenter and politician, member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies....
was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered while making the 1980 horror film Cannibal HolocaustCannibal HolocaustCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Filmed in the Amazon Rainforest and dealing with indigenous tribes, it was cast mostly with United States actors and filmed in English to achieve wider distribution...
. The film was so realistic that shortly after it was released its director, Ruggero DeodatoRuggero DeodatoRuggero Deodato is an Italian film director and screen writer, best known for directing violent and gory horror films. Deodato is infamous for his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust.- Biography :...
, was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff filmSnuff filmA snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual death or murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation. For-profit snuff films are generally regarded as an urban legend, whose...
, and the court was only convinced they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof. - Edward BartlettEdward Bartlett (cricketer)Edward Lawson Bartlett was a West Indian cricketer who played in West Indies' inaugural Test tour of England in 1928.He was born in Flint Hall, St. Michael, Barbados....
was reported in the 1934 edition of Wisden Cricketers' AlmanackWisden Cricketers' AlmanackWisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
to have died "about February" the previous year. In fact, he lived until . - John BasedowJohn BasedowJohn Basedow, born in New York City, New York, is a TV fitness personality, model, author, and motivational speaker best known in the United States for his Fitness Made Simple video series.-Biography:...
was reported by PRWeb to be have died in Thailand due to the tsunamiTsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake2004 Indian Ocean earthquakeThe 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
; the story was quickly retracted. - Lal BihariLal BihariLal Bihari is a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, India who was officially dead between 1976 and 1994. He founded Mritak Sangh or the Association of the Dead in Uttar Pradesh, India...
, Indian founder of the Association of the DeadAssociation of the DeadThe Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People is a northern Indian pressure group that seeks to reclaim the legal rights of those falsely listed by the government as being dead....
, an organisation which highlights the plight of people in Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
who are incorrectly declared dead by relatives in order to steal their land, usually in collusion with corrupt officials. Bihari himself was officially dead from 1976 to 1994 as a result of his uncle's attempt to acquire his land. Among various attempts to publicize his situation and demonstrate that he was alive, he stood for election against Rajiv GandhiRajiv GandhiRajiv Ratna Gandhi was the sixth Prime Minister of India . He took office after his mother's assassination on 31 October 1984; he himself was assassinated on 21 May 1991. He became the youngest Prime Minister of India when he took office at the age of 40.Rajiv Gandhi was the elder son of Indira...
in 1989 (and lost). He was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace PrizeIg Nobel PrizeThe Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The stated aim of the prizes is to "first make people laugh, and then make them think"...
in 2003 for his 'posthumous' activities. - Osama bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
had been reported as killed or having had died of natural causes on several instances prior to his actual death in May 2011. - Paul Blais, a US Air Force serviceman, was listed as one of 19 people believed killed in a 1996 Saudi bombing. However, it transpired that he was alive, though in a coma, having been confused with another airman who had died.
- Lucien BouchardLucien BouchardLucien Bouchard, is a Canadian lawyer, diplomat, politician and former Minister of the Environment of the Canadian Federal Government. He was the Leader of Opposition in the Canadian House of Commons from 1993 to 1996, and the 27th Premier of Quebec from January 29, 1996 to March 8, 2001...
: the former QuebecQuebecQuebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
premier (who had been seriously ill) was reported dead by CTVCTV television networkCTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
in September 2005. The network began broadcasting a live tribute to the politician, but cut it short with a sheepish confirmation that he was in fact alive, blaming Radio-CanadaCanadian Broadcasting CorporationThe Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
for the error. CTV and Radio-Canada continued to blame each other thereafter. - Zach BraffZach BraffZachary Israel "Zach" Braff is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, comedian, and director. Braff first became known in 2001 for his role as Dr. John Dorian on the television series Scrubs, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and three Golden Globe Awards.In 2004, Braff made his...
(TV actor) In 2007, a webpage was set up by a Scrubs fan announcing that Zach Braff had committed suicide. It was an attempt to fool some friends and film their reactions, however he neglected to take the web-page down and it became a Facebook and Twitter sensation. - Peter BoylePeter BoylePeter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
(TV and movie character actor), was briefly and incorrectly declared deceased in 1990, a few weeks following a massive stroke where he was nearly paralyzed and could not move or speak for nearly six months. His incorrect lifespan of 1933-1990 is listed in the book Cult Movie Stars by author Danny Peary (ISBN 0-671-74924-2). Boyle made a complete recovery and continued acting despite multiple and persistent health problems. He died in December 2006. - James BradyJames BradyJames Scott "Jim" Brady is a former Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary under U.S. President Ronald Reagan...
, White House Press Secretary, was shot in the head in the 1981 assassination attemptReagan assassination attemptThe Reagan assassination attempt occurred on Monday, March 30, 1981, just 69 days into the presidency of Ronald Reagan. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr...
on President Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. Three hours later, amid confusion about the extent of his injuries, all three U.S. broadcast TV networks erroneously announced that Brady had died, triggering an on-air outburst by ABC NewsABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
anchor Frank ReynoldsFrank ReynoldsFrank James Reynolds was an American television journalist for ABC and CBS News.He was a New York-based anchor of the ABC Evening News from 1968 to 1970 and later as the Washington D.C.-based co-anchor of World News Tonight from 1978 until his death in 1983...
when the information was revealed incorrect. This led to greater subsequent caution about issuing death reports during rapidly-developing situations. - Bob BarkerBob BarkerRobert William "Bob" Barker is a former American television game show host. He is best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running daytime game show in North American television history, and for hosting Truth or Consequences from 1956 to 1975.Born...
(former American television game show host) was reported in 2007 to have died (He retired in 2007). Since then, his death has become a YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
sensation. - Rodger BumpassRodger BumpassRodger Albert Bumpass is an American character actor and voice actor, who is noted for his long-running-roles as Squidward Tentacles on the hit series SpongeBob SquarePants, and The Chief from Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?. He also voiced Professor Membrane on Invader Zim...
(voice actor), reported in August 2006 to have died during heart surgery, by Jonesboro, ArkansasJonesboro, ArkansasJonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
station KAITKAITKAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas is the ABC affiliated television station for Northeastern Arkansas and Southeastern Missouri, offering a mix of news and syndicated programming and local broadcasts. Its transmitter is located in Egypt, Arkansas.-History:...
, the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
, and Arkansas State UniversityArkansas State UniversityArkansas State University is a public university and is the flagship campus of the Arkansas State University System, the state's second largest college system and third largest university by enrollment. It is located atop on Crowley's Ridge at Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA...
's newsletter. This was apparently due to confusion with the 2005 death of a (differently spelled) Roger Bumpass. - Pat BurnsPat BurnsPatrick Burns was a National Hockey League head coach. Over 14 seasons between 1988 and 2004, he coached in 1,019 games with the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, and New Jersey Devils...
(NHL Coach), reported on September 17, 2010 by the Toronto star. He died the following November 19. - Steve BurnsSteve BurnsSteven Michael "Steve" Burns is an American entertainer. He is best known as the original host of the long-running children's television program Blue's Clues.-Early career:...
Host of children's show Blues Clues, was rumored to have died from a drug overdose in 1998. Burns went on The Rosie O'Donnell ShowThe Rosie O'Donnell ShowThe Rosie O'Donnell Show is an Emmy Award-winning American daytime television talk show hosted and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2002...
to debunk those rumors. - George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, or George H.W. Bush, when the moving banner headline on South African television's ETV News read "George Bush is dead". A technician who was testing the banner accidentally pressed the "broadcast live for transmission" button, according to the BBC.
C
- Janelle Cahoon: in December 2005, the Duluth News TribuneDuluth News TribuneThe Duluth News Tribune is a newspaper in Duluth, Minnesota. It is published by Forum Communications, which bought it in 2006 after The McClatchy Company acquired the News Tribunes previous owner, Knight Ridder.The present incarnation of the newspaper is the outcome of the merger and takeover of...
claimed that the BenedictineBenedictineBenedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
nun'sNunA nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
funeral had been shown in a 1999 documentary. The mistake caused much amusement at her monastery, with some sisters asking her what heaven was like, and others referring to the incident as "Dead Nun Walking". - Carlos Camejo, a Venezuelan man declared dead in September 2007 after a traffic accident, revived during his autopsy. After making an incision in his face, examiners realized something was wrong when he started bleeding. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said.
- Graham Cardwell, a LincolnshireLincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
dockmaster who disappeared in September 1998 and was assumed drowned. Eight months later he was discovered living in secret in the West MidlandsWest Midlands (county)The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
. He claimed he had thought he was suffering from cancer (though had not sought medical attention) and wanted to spare his family the trauma of it. - Feliberto Carrasco: this 81-year-old Chilean man woke up in his coffin at his own wake in January 2008. His family had found his body lying limp and cold, and assumed he must have died. While he was lying in his coffin, dressed in a suit and surrounded by relatives, his nephew saw him wake up, though did not believe it at first. Carrasco said he was not in any pain, and asked for a glass of water. His death had been announced on a local radio station, which issued a correction.
- Fidel CastroFidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
(Cuban leader) in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had used Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's as a template, described Castro as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star'. - Whitney CerakWhitney CerakWhitney Cerak is an American student who was mistakenly identified as another person, following a car accident that killed five people on Interstate 69 in Grant County, Indiana....
(student) was thought to have died in April 2006 when a van from Taylor UniversityTaylor UniversityTaylor University is a private, interdenominational, evangelical Christian college located in Upland, Indiana. Founded in 1846, it is one of the oldest evangelical Christian colleges in America....
collided with a tractor trailer, leaving five dead. 1400 people attended her funeral. Fellow student Laura VanRyn was thought to have survived the accident, which left her in a coma and heavily bandaged. Suspicions were only aroused when during her gradual recovery in the hospital, VanRyn started making strange comments and using names wrongly; her university roommate also reported that she did not appear to be VanRyn. Weeks after the accident, when concerned hospital staff asked her her name, she wrote 'Whitney Cerak', which was confirmed by dental records. The tragic mix-up appeared to have been caused by Cerak's and VanRyn's somewhat similar appearance, and confusion at the crash scene. Cerak co-wrote a book about her experience titled Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope. - Joshua ChamberlainJoshua ChamberlainJoshua Lawrence Chamberlain , born as Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain, was an American college professor from the State of Maine, who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army...
(American Civil WarAmerican Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
officer and Governor of MaineMaineMaine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
): when he was shot through the hip and groin in the 1864 Siege of PetersburgSiege of PetersburgThe Richmond–Petersburg Campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War...
, he was thought to be on the point of death, and so was reported dead by at least one newspaper (perhaps The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
). However, he gradually recovered in hospital. Chamberlain was shown the newspaper report 'when they thought he was able to take it', and reportedly 'got a great kick out of seeing his obituary'. He died in 1914. - Dick CheneyDick CheneyRichard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
(US Vice-President) in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had been based on the Queen Mother's, described Cheney as 'Queen Consort' and the 'UK's favorite grandmother'. - Francesca CiardiFrancesca CiardiFrancesca Ciardi is an Italian film actress.She was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust. So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder...
: see Luca Barbareschi - Arthur C. ClarkeArthur C. ClarkeSir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, science fictionScience fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writerWriterA writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, had his obituary published by the G.R.A.A. (Goddard Retirees and Alumni Association) newsletter in 2000 (April). The obituary says he died on 10 February 2000, and even specifies the cause of death as pulmonary fibrosis. To date, no correction seems to have been published. Clarke died in 2008 of "respiratory complications and heart failure". - Kurt CobainKurt CobainKurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
: the rock musician was reported dead by CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
(though was in fact in a coma) after an overdose in Rome in March 1994, shortly before his actual death in April. - Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
: in 1816 the writer heard his death mentioned in a hotel by a man reading out a newspaper report of a coroner's inquest. He asked to see the paper, and was told that "it was very extraordinary that Coleridge the poet should have hanged himself just after the success of his play [Remorse]; but he was always a strange mad fellow". Coleridge replied: "Indeed, sir, it is a most extraordinary thing that he should have hanged himself, be the subject of an inquest, and yet that he should at this moment be speaking to you." A man had been cut down from a tree in Hyde Park, and the only identification was that his shirt was marked 'S. T. Coleridge'; Coleridge thought the shirt had probably been stolen from him. Coleridge died in 1834. - Jeffrey CombsJeffrey CombsJeffrey Alan Combs is an American actor known for his horror film roles and his appearances playing a number of characters in the Star Trek franchise.-Early life:...
: (actor) was confused with a businessman named Jeffrey Coombs who was aboard hijacked American Airlines Flight 11American Airlines Flight 11American Airlines Flight 11 was American Airlines' daily scheduled morning transcontinental flight from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California...
, which crashed into the World Trade CenterWorld Trade CenterThe original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
during the September 11 attacks. Combs the actor was pronounced dead by news media outlets and had to announce publicly that he was still alive. - Sean ConnerySean ConnerySir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
: (actor) in an October 25, 1993 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, Connery described recent reports of his death as a result of confusion over the then-recent death of former TexasTexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
governor John ConnallyJohn ConnallyJohn Bowden Connally, Jr. , was an influential American politician, serving as the 39th governor of Texas, Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard M. Nixon. While he was Governor in 1963, Connally was a passenger in the car in...
as well as rumours that Connery had recently undergone treatment for throat cancer. - Alice CooperAlice CooperAlice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
: in the early 1970s, Melody MakerMelody MakerMelody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
magazine confused readers by publishing a satirical concert review of the rock musician in the form of a mock obituary. So many fans took it literally that Cooper had to issue a statement, reassuring them: "I'm alive, and drunk as usual."
- Ion CreangăIon CreangaIon Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
: around 1884 he suffered a severe stroke and people thought he had died. Reading his obituaries in the newspapers, Creangă reportedly said: "If this was to be the mourning I would have gotten after my death, I'm happy I haven't died yet, and so help God, may I die when people will care less about someone like me". - Russell CroweRussell CroweRussell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
: the actor was reported as dead on a Z-100WHTZWHTZ — branded Z100 — is a commercial pop/contemporary hit radio radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey serving the New York metropolitan area. The station is currently owned by Clear Channel Communications...
broadcast in New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on June 10, 2010; this was later refuted by a representative for the actor. - Delimar Vera Cuevas: this new-born girl was declared by police to have died in a Philadelphia house fire in 1997. Six years later her mother became suspicious when a girl at a birthday party she was attending bore similarities to her other children. Subsequent DNA tests proved the girl was Delimar. Local resident Carolyn Correa was thought to have started the fire in order to kidnap her. Police could not explain why they had originally declared Delimar dead, as no human remains had been found in the fire, which had not been intense enough to completely destroy a body.
- Miley CyrusMiley CyrusMiley Ray Cyrus is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana....
: On September 5, 2008, a false ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
article spread around the web claiming that Miley Cyrus had died in a terrible car accident. This incident, which was also reported by TMZTMZ.comTMZ.com is a celebrity news website that debuted on November 8, 2005. It was a collaboration between America Online and Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros., until Time Warner divested AOL in 2009. However, it is still affiliated with AOL News and has the AOL News logo affixed in...
, was quickly debunked, as Miley performed in concert the following Friday. A similar incident took place on November 16, 2008, when someone hacked into Cyrus' YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
account and posted a video stating she died after being hit by a drunk driver.
D
- Aden Abdullah Osman DaarAden Abdullah Osman DaarAden Abdulle Osman Daar , popularly known as Aadan Cadde, was a Somali politician and the country's first President from July 1, 1960 to June 10, 1967.-Biography:...
: in May 2007 the first President of Somalia was erroneously reported dead by news portal SomaliNet and other web sites. In reality, he was in a critical condition and on life support in a Nairobi hospital following a long illness. One source said Daar's daughter had 'assumed' he had died and had informed government officials; another blamed Nairobi medical sources. Daar died shortly afterwards on 8 June 2007. - John Darwin: this British prison officer was presumed to have drowned in March 2002 when he disappeared while canoeing in the sea near HartlepoolHartlepoolHartlepool is a town and port in North East England.It was founded in the 7th century AD, around the Northumbrian monastery of Hartlepool Abbey. The village grew during the Middle Ages and developed a harbour which served as the official port of the County Palatine of Durham. A railway link from...
. Despite a huge search operation, and the fact that the weather had been calm, only his paddle was found, followed weeks later by the wreckage of his canoe. An inquest declared him dead. However, in December 2007 Darwin walked into a London police station, announcing: "I think I'm a missing person", and claiming to have no memory of the past five years. Darwin's wife Anne, who had claimed on his life insurance, says he turned up at their home in 2003 and lived in secret there and next door for three years. They also spent time together in Panama where they planned to set up a hotel for canoeing holidays; she emigrated there shortly before Darwin reappeared. Both Darwin and his wife were subsequently convicted and imprisoned. (See John Darwin disappearance caseJohn Darwin disappearance caseThe John Darwin disappearance case was an investigation into the faked death of British former teacher and prison officer John Darwin, who turned up alive in December 2007, five years after he was thought to have died in a canoeing accident....
for full details.) - Calvin DemarestCalvin DemarestCalvin W. Demarest of Chicago, was a national amateur and professional carom billiards champion from Chicago in the early 20th century known for an open, crowd-pleasing style of play. He later gained notoriety for stabbing his wife and injuring his mother during a suicidal psychotic episode...
: Pool player was incorrectly reported dead in an insane asylum in 1916 by the New York Times, which quickly retracted the claim saying they had no idea how the error occurred. Demarest actually died in 1925. - Thomas Dennison: after this 37-year-old Briton went missing in October 2007, a body that was found in Greater ManchesterGreater ManchesterGreater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...
was identified by his parents and caseworker as his. After the funeral and cremation, police contacted Dennison's mother saying they thought they had in fact found him alive and living rough in NottinghamNottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
some days earlier. To prove it, they asked her for three questions only Dennison would know the answer to; he subsequently phoned her, saying "You've buried me". The body bore an uncanny resemblance to Dennison – even with similar scars and leg ulcers – leading police to ask whether he had had a twin brother.
- Lord DesboroughWilliam Grenfell, 1st Baron DesboroughWilliam Henry Grenfell, 1st Baron Desborough, KG, GCVO, was an athlete, sportsman, public servant and politician. He sat in the House of Commons firstly for the Liberal Party and then for the Conservatives between 1880 and 1905 when he was raised to the peerage...
in 1920, when The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
confused the British politician with Lord BessboroughEdward Ponsonby, 8th Earl of BessboroughEdward Ponsonby, 8th Earl of Bessborough, KP, CB, CVO was a British peer.-Biography:Ponsonby was the eldest son of Rev. Walter Ponsonby and his wife, Louisa, the daughter of Edward Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans...
. Lord Desborough died in 1945. - Jhulri Devi was officially declared dead in 1974 and chased off her farm by relatives in order to steal her land in Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. After many years of legal delays, her 'death' was only annulled in 1999, by when she had reached the age of 85, after intervention by the Association of the DeadAssociation of the DeadThe Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People is a northern Indian pressure group that seeks to reclaim the legal rights of those falsely listed by the government as being dead....
, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.) - Joe DiMaggioJoe DiMaggioJoseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio , nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper," was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak , a record that still stands...
(baseball player), broadcast by NBCNBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in January 1999 as a text report running along the bottom of the television screen. The text, which DiMaggio saw himself, had been pre-prepared following newspaper reports that DiMaggio was near death, and was transmitted when a technician pressed the wrong button. DiMaggio died in March 1999. - Fats DominoFats DominoAntoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....
(musician), was thought drowned during the Hurricane KatrinaHurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
flooding that affected his Ninth Ward, New Orleans neighborhood. After a few days, Domino reappeared, saying that he had evacuated to a friend's home in Baton Rouge. - Ian DuryIan DuryIan Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...
(musician), pronounced dead on XfmXfmXfm is a brand of two commercial radio stations focused on alternative music, primarily indie pop, and owned by Global Radio.-History:Xfm was created in London in 1992 by Sammy Jacob, who later co-founded NME Radio in 2008. Xfm subsequently expanded to a network of four stations; there are...
radio by Bob GeldofBob GeldofRobert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...
in 1998, possibly due to hoax information from a listener disgruntled at the station's change of ownership. The incident caused music paper NMENMEThe New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
to call Geldof "the world's worst DJ." Dury died in March, 2000.
E
- Harry ElionskyHarry ElionskyHarry Elionsky , also known as Buster Elionsky and Henry Elionsky, was a champion long distance swimmer, and handicap swimmer in open water swimming.-Biography:...
, it was reported on October 13, 1918 that he had died during the 1918 flu pandemic. Several reference books still list his death in 1918 as fact such as: "Hunting the 1918 flu: one scientist's search for a killer virus" and "The plague of the Spanish lady: the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919". Both repeat the error from the 1918 papers. He went on to set records for distance swimming into the 1920s. - Queen Elizabeth the Queen MotherElizabeth Bowes-LyonElizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
' s death was erroneously announced in the Australian media in 1993 after a London-based Sky NewsSky NewsSky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
employee saw an internal rehearsal for her future death (one of many conducted by the UK media over the years). Thinking it was for real, he phoned his mother in Australia with the 'news', who passed it on to the media. The time zone difference may have made it difficult for the Australian media to check the story during UK night-time. The employee was dismissed for the mistake, but then won a lawsuit for wrongful dismissalWrongful dismissalWrongful dismissal, also called wrongful termination or wrongful discharge, is an idiom and legal phrase, describing a situation in which an employee's contract of employment has been terminated by the employer in circumstances where the termination breaches one or more terms of the contract of...
. (Fragments of the Queen Mother's life history also appeared in several other world figures' premature obituaries in the CNN.com incident.) The Queen Mother died on 30 March 2002. - Queen Elizabeth IIElizabeth II of the United KingdomElizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...
' s death was announced on BBC Radio West Midlands on May 17, 2010. Host Danny Kelly played God Save the QueenGod Save the Queen"God Save the Queen" is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms and British Crown Dependencies. The words of the song, like its title, are adapted to the gender of the current monarch, with "King" replacing "Queen", "he" replacing "she", and so forth, when a king reigns...
, then announced that "Queen Elizabeth II has now died." He was stopped by his producer, and later admitted that the announcement was meant as a joke: the Queen Elizabeth II who had died was a Facebook user who used the Queen's name. The chairman of Mediawatch-UK said in response, "Because it's the Queen and they treated it like a big announcement, it makes things worse ... It's the BBC we are talking about here, and there's a certain expectation from them."
- David ErvineDavid ErvineDavid Ervine was a Northern Irish politician and the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party .-Biography:...
: the Northern Irish politician suffered a heart attackMyocardial infarctionMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and brain haemorrhage on 7 January 2007. The RTÉ News at 9pmRTÉ News: Nine O'ClockRTÉ News: Nine O'Clock is the flagship evening news programme for Irish television channel RTÉ One. It is presented by Anne Doyle, and deputised by Eileen Dunne. It is the final comprehensive news programme of the day on RTÉ One...
led with the news that he had died, correcting the error later in the bulletin. RTÉ's web site also reported him dead. Ervine died the following afternoon.
F
- Frederick FaneFrederick FaneFrederick Luther Fane was born in Ireland, but played cricket for the England cricket team in 14 Test matches...
, cricketer, reported in Wisden Cricketers' AlmanackWisden Cricketers' AlmanackWisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
1956 edition as having died on 9 December 1954. The 1961 edition reported his real death, aged 85, on 27 November 1960, saying: "Owing to a similarity of initials, Wisden reported his death when he was 79. The man concerned was Francis L. Fane, his cousin. By a coincidence, Mr Fane's father also once read his own obituary." - Frederick John Fane (cricketer), father of Frederick Fane (see above). According to Wisden 1961, he too suffered a premature obituary, though no details were given.
- Dorothy FayDorothy FayDorothy Fay was an American actress.-Early life and career:She was born Dorothy Fay Southworth in Prescott, Arizona, the daughter of Harry T. Southworth and Harriet Fay Fox. Her father was a medical doctor...
(film actress, also called Dorothy Southworth Ritter), was declared dead in an August 2001 Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
obituary. Mrs Ritter, who lived in a nursing home, had been taken to another room temporarily when a friend stopped by to visit. On hearing that Mrs Ritter was "gone", the friend telephoned the Telegraph obituary editor. Fay died in November, 2003. - Will FerrellWill FerrellJohn William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...
(comedian), reported by iNewswire to have died in a paragliding accident in March 2006. The press release was a hoax; Ferrell has never been paragliding. - Terry L. Fergerson, a teacher from West Monroe, New York, US, was thought to have died in May 2006 when Terry L. Ferguson (differently spelled last name) was killed in a vehicle collision. When Fergerson arrived at work the following day he found fellow teachers and students consoling each other over his death; various friends and relatives also thought he had died. It is not clear whether the confusion was made by them, local media or the police. In addition to their similar names, Fergerson and the real victim both drove red Chevy pickups and were of similar age. "I don't know what the percentages are, I'm not a mathematician, but it's pretty far out", Fergerson said.
- Sebastiao Fidelis: a Brazilian man whose supposed body was identified by his wife and buried in 2001 after he had been missing for two months. A year later he was found wandering in the area, having lost his memory.
- Gerald FordGerald FordGerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
(former US President) in the CNN.com incident. Also, comedian Dana CarveyDana CarveyDana Thomas Carvey is an American actor and stand-up comedian, best known for his work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for playing the role of Garth in the Wayne's World movies.-Early life:...
used Ford as an example when satirizing pre-prepared obituaries in a Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
sketch in which he impersonated Tom BrokawTom BrokawThomas John "Tom" Brokaw is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors...
on NBC Nightly NewsNBC Nightly NewsNBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
. Ford died in December 2006.
G
- Zsa Zsa GaborZsa Zsa GaborZsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
: In early 2011, many websites, including her wikipedia page, reported the death of Zsa Zsa Gabor. However, it was quickly revealed that she had not actually died, and that that this was a hoax mistaken by several websites as fact. - S. Gandaruban: this Sri Lankan man living in Singapore faked his own death in 1987 and fled the country to escape creditors after his car rental business collapsed. He then arranged for a fake death certificate stating that he had been shot dead in crossfire. His brother and wife were convicted of their involvement. In 2007, he was charged with conspiring to claim extensive life insurance arising from the fake death.
- Marcus GarveyMarcus GarveyMarcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
: after suffering a stroke in , the black nationalistBlack nationalismBlack nationalism advocates a racial definition of indigenous national identity, as opposed to multiculturalism. There are different indigenous nationalist philosophies but the principles of all African nationalist ideologies are unity, and self-determination or independence from European society...
read his obituary in the Chicago DefenderChicago DefenderThe Chicago Defender is a Chicago based newspaper founded in 1905 by an African American for primarily African American readers.In just three years from 1919–1922 the Defender also attracted the writing talents of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks....
which described him as "broke, alone and unpopular". Apparently as a result, Garvey suffered a second stroke and died. - Gordon GeeGordon GeeElwood Gordon Gee is an American academic. He is in his second term as the president of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; he was previously president from 1990 to 1998....
: in March 2003 the then- Vanderbilt UniversityVanderbilt UniversityVanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
president was declared dead by a fake edition of the university's student newspaper The Vanderbilt Hustler, sparking early dismissal from classes, tears, and moments of silence. Gee issued a press release confirming he was still alive. The hoax was perpetrated by staff from a separate student satirical magazine The Slant, whose managing editor would only say: "I have the right to remain silent, and I am exercising my right of silence". - Ghazali ShafieGhazali ShafieTun Muhammad Ghazali Shafie was a Malaysian politician. He served as Foreign Minister and Home Minister during his career....
, then Foreign MinisterMinistry of Foreign Affairs (Malaysia)The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Malaysia is the Malaysian government ministry which oversees the foreign relations of Malaysia. The current ministry is based in Putrajaya with Datuk Seri Anifah Aman as Minister, Senator A...
of Malaysia, was reported by the New York Times to have died in an aeroplane crash in 1982. Ghazali had in fact survived the crash, read his obituaries, and lived until 2010. - Gabrielle GiffordsGabrielle GiffordsGabrielle Dee "Gabby" Giffords is an American politician. A Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, she has represented since 2007. She is the third woman in Arizona's history to be elected to the U.S. Congress...
: A member of the United States House of RepresentativesUnited States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, Giffords was one of numerous people shot during a meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, ArizonaTucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
on January 8, 2011. Giffords sustained a serious gunshot wound to the head, but was not one of the six people immediately killed by the attack. NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
erroneously reported that she had been killed, however, and that report was picked up and circulated by numerous other media outlets, including CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, Fox News ChannelFox News ChannelFox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
, the New York Times, and ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
. - Cookie GilchristCookie GilchristCarlton Chester "Cookie" Gilchrist was a gridiron football player in the American Football League and Canadian Football League.-Career:...
: Gilchrist, a former fullback in the Canadian Football LeagueCanadian Football LeagueThe Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....
and American Football LeagueAmerican Football LeagueThe American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
, was presumed dead by his hospice worker on January 8, 2011 and reported the news to his nephew, Thomas Gilchrist. However, upon laying him down, Cookie was revived. Gilchrist died two days later. - Jeff GoldblumJeff GoldblumJeffrey Lynn "Jeff" Goldblum is an American actor. His career began in the mid-1970s and he has appeared in major box-office successes including The Fly, Jurassic Park and its sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Independence Day...
: On June 25, 2009 — the same day actress Farrah FawcettFarrah FawcettFarrah Fawcett was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she first appeared as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's Angels, in 1976...
and musician Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
died — actor Jeff Goldblum was reported dead on Australia's Channel NineNine NetworkThe Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
news. The report was quickly debunked, and traced back to a hoax website. - Harry Gordon: in 2000, this Australian businessman faked his own death in a boating accident so his wife could claim a fortune in life insurance, though he claimed it was to evade business and relationship problems. He assumed a new identity and fled to Spain, then to England (where he worked in a potato crisp warehouse), South Africa, and New Zealand. He explained gaps in his past to a new girlfriend by telling her he was on a witness protection programme. He was discovered in 2005 and later jailed when, by extraordinary coincidence, his brother encountered him on a mountain path in New Zealand. Gordon published a book about his exploits, titled How I Faked My Own Death.
- Frank GorshinFrank GorshinFrank John Gorshin, Jr. was an American actor and comedian. He was perhaps best known as an impressionist, with many guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show...
(The RiddlerRiddlerThe Riddler is a fictional character, a comic book character and supervillain published by DC Comics, and an enemy of Batman. Created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, the character first appeared in Detective Comics #140 ....
from BatmanBatmanBatman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
): in 1957, after driving to a screen test for 39 hours without a break to avoid having to fly, the actor fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. A Los Angeles newspaper reported him dead. Gorshin was unconscious for four days, and the role went to another actor. Gorshin died in May 2005. - Nicephorus Glycas: in 1896, having presumably been declared dead, the Greek Orthodox bishop of Lesbos IslandLesbos IslandLesbos is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with 320 kilometres of coastline, making it the third largest Greek island. It is separated from Turkey by the narrow Mytilini Strait....
awoke in his coffin after he had been lying in state for two days. He sat up and asked what mourners were staring at. - Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
: the writer was left for dead in 1916 after receiving life-threatening injuries at the Battle of the Somme. He made a remarkable recovery, and read a report of his death in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. Graves died in 1985. - Ann Green (or Anne Greene), a servant in OxfordshireOxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
, was hanged for allegedly murdering her newborn child in 1650. Having presumably been declared dead, her corpse was taken away for dissection, but she revived. She was ultimately pardoned, and became something of a celebrity. - Catherine Sophie Greenhill, a British three-year-old who was pronounced dead after falling from an upper storey window onto flagstones in the late 18th century. However, she was revived by a Dr (or Mr) Squires, a member of the recently-formed Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned (later the Royal Humane SocietyRoyal Humane SocietyThe Royal Humane Society is a British charity which promotes lifesaving intervention. It was founded in England in 1774 as the Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned, for the purpose of rendering first aid in cases of near drowning....
) using an early form of defibrillator. After a time in coma she eventually made a full recovery. - Friedrich GuldaFriedrich GuldaFriedrich Gulda was an Austrian pianist and composer who worked in both the classical and jazz fields.Born in Vienna as the son of a teacher, Gulda began learning to play the piano from Felix Pazofsky at the Wiener Volkskonservatorium, aged 7...
(pianist), who in 1999 faxed the Austrian News Agency claiming he had died of a stroke at Zurich airport. Shortly afterwards he announced he was still alive and would be giving a 'Resurrection Recital', which was accompanied by go-go dancers (he often played pranks to annoy the musical establishment). - Dominic Guzzetta: in November 2005, the former University of AkronUniversity of AkronThe University of Akron is a coeducational public research university located in Akron, Ohio, United States. The university is part of the University System of Ohio. It was founded in 1870 as a small college affiliated with the Universalist Church. In 1913 ownership was transferred to the City of...
president was reported by the Akron Beacon JournalAkron Beacon JournalThe Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...
to have been 'posthumously honored' at a fundraising event. Prior to this, he had joked for years that he reads the obituaries to make sure his name is not among them. - Roberto Gómez Bolaños: The well known actor "Chespirito" was reported killed by a confused Chilean reporter (Carolina Zúñiga). Actually the dead person was the Chilean writer with the same name.
H
- Lincoln HallLincoln Hall (climber)Lincoln Hall is a veteran Australian mountain climber and author. Hall is the author of White Limbo, the story of the first Australian team to climb Mount Everest. While others in the team made it to the top, Hall was forced to turn back close to the summit due to illness...
, an Australian mountaineer who in May 2006 became confused from altitude sicknessAltitude sicknessAltitude sickness—also known as acute mountain sickness , altitude illness, hypobaropathy, or soroche—is a pathological effect of high altitude on humans, caused by acute exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude...
while descending from the summit of Mount EverestMount EverestMount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
. A rescue attempt was abandoned after several hours when Hall was reported to have died. However, he was discovered alive the following morning and rescued. - Corinna Harfouch: the German actress was reported dead by a Swiss newspaper when she fell into a river during filming and was swept away. In fact, she survived and phoned her ex-husband, who had seen the obituary, from hospital to confirm that she was alive.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
: after the author and his wife Mary Welsh HemingwayMary Welsh HemingwayMary Welsh Hemingway was an American journalist and the fourth wife of Ernest Hemingway.Born in Minnesota, Welsh was a daughter of a lumberman. When she was 32, she married Lawrence Miller Cook, a drama student from Ohio. Their life together was short and they soon separated...
were involved in two African plane crashes in 1954, newspapers reported that both had died. They survived, but Ernest Hemingway suffered extensive injuries which affected him for the rest of his life. AE Hotchner claimed that Hemingway read a scrapbook of his obituaries every morning with a glass of champagne after the incident. Ernest Hemingway committed suicide in 1961. Mary Welsh Hemingway died in 1986. - Bill HenryBill HenryWilliam Rodman Henry is a retired American professional baseball player. A left-handed pitcher, he appeared in Major League Baseball between and for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Houston Astros...
(AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
baseball player): newspapers and the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported him dead in August 2007 after the death of a similar-looking retired salesman of the same name. The dead man had claimed for decades that he was the retired sportsman — even to his wife and stepchildren — and had explained away discrepancies in his story, such as Bill Henry's name and place of birth on baseball cards, as printing errors. The fraud came to light when a genealogist investigated the incorrect date of birth published in the obituaries. - Michael HeseltineMichael HeseltineMichael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group. He was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001 and was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major...
MP in 1994, when then-DJ Chris MorrisChris Morris (satirist)Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...
implied on BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
(as a prank) that the British politician had died. This led to an on-air tribute by fellow MPMember of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Jerry HayesJerry HayesJeremy Joseph James Hayes, known as Jerry Hayes, is a British former Conservative politician, the MP for Harlow in Essex from 1983 until 1997. He subsequently returned to practising criminal law.-Political career:...
(during which Morris managed to make Hayes laugh inappropriately), and Morris' subsequent suspension. (See also Jimmy Savile.) - Carl Hilderbrandt: a British businessman who jumped bail in 1990 on theft charges and faked his suicidePseudocideA faked death occurs when an individual leaves evidence to suggest that he or she is dead in order to mislead others. This may be done for a variety of reasons, such as to fraudulently collect insurance money or avoid capture by law enforcement for some other crime.People who fake their own deaths...
by drowning, presumably resulting in his being declared dead. He started a new life in America, but years later was identified by a British tourist and eventually prosecuted. - Cockie Hoogterp, the second wife of Baron BlixenBror von Blixen-FineckeBaron Bror von Blixen-Finecke was a Swedish baron, writer, and African big-game hunter.Born to an aristocratic Swedish family, he married his Danish second-cousin Karen Blixen in 1913...
, was declared dead in a 1936 Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
obituary after the Baron's third wife died in an auto accident. Mrs. Hoogterp sent all her bills back marked "Deceased" and ordered the Telegraph to print that "Mrs. Hoogterp wishes it to be known that she has not yet been screwed in her coffin." - Lena HorneLena HorneLena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
, the legendary singer-actress, Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
online did post a premature obit and said that information is to be forthcoming. Horne died on May 9, 2010. - Bob HopeBob HopeBob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, twice (aided by his great longevity). In both cases a pre-written obituary of the entertainer was accidentally published on a news web site:
- In 1998 his obituary appeared on the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
web site, leading to the announcement of his death in the United States House of RepresentativesUnited States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, broadcast live on C-SPANC-SPANC-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
. - In the 2003 CNN.com incident. Hope's draft obituary, which had used the Queen Mother's as a template, described him as 'Queen Consort' and the 'UK's favorite grandmother'. Hope died just three months later.
- Professor John Nicholas Peregrine Horden, a Fellow of All Souls' College Oxford. An erroneous obituary was published by the Oxford University Gazette on 2 October 2008, and withdrawn in a subsequent issue. The confusion was caused by the recent death of his father, Professor John Horden.
- HumphreyHumphrey (cat)Humphrey was a cat employed as the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from October 1989 to 13 November 1997...
, the Downing StreetDowning StreetDowning Street in London, England has for over two hundred years housed the official residences of two of the most senior British cabinet ministers: the First Lord of the Treasury, an office now synonymous with that of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the Second Lord of the Treasury, an...
cat (or 'Chief Mouser to the Cabinet OfficeChief Mouser to the Cabinet OfficeThe Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is the unofficial title of the official resident cat of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 10 Downing Street. Only one cat, Humphrey, was given the title officially; the other cats are given this title affectionately, usually by the British press...
') under Margaret ThatcherMargaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, John MajorJohn MajorSir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
, and Tony BlairTony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, was feared dead on two occasions:
- In September 1995 a government press spokesman announced that Humphrey was presumed dead, as he had been missing since June. After the ensuing publicity, he was found to be alive and residing in the nearby Royal Army Medical College where he had been taken in as a stray. A statement was issued quoting Humphrey as saying: "I have had a wonderful holiday at the Royal Army Medical College, but it is nice to be back and I am looking forward to the new parliamentary session."
- In November 1997, there were media allegations that Cherie BlairCherie BlairCherie Blair , known professionally as Cherie Booth QC, is a British barrister working in the legal system of England and Wales. She is married to the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair; the couple have three sons and one daughter...
disliked the cat so much that she had had him killed; the government claimed he had merely gone into retirement away from the public spotlight. In Parliament, Alan ClarkAlan ClarkAlan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
MP demanded that the government prove Humphrey was still alive. As a result, the government released photographs of Humphrey posing with the day's newspapers as proof. Humphrey's actual death was announced by Tony Blair March 2006.- William HungWilliam HungWilliam James Hung Hing Cheong , commonly known as William Hung, is an American singer who gained fame in early 2004 as a result of his off-key audition performance of Ricky Martin's hit song "She Bangs" on the third season of the television series...
: in 2004, a satirical news report on the Broken NewzBroken NewzBroken Newz is a news satire website launched in 2001 by Bill Doty. Its real news look has often fooled readers into believing the validity of the site's content. An example of this was a story regarding William Hung overdosing on Heroin, which was reported by the China Press as fact.The site...
web site claiming that the American IdolAmerican IdolAmerican Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
contestant had died of a heroin overdose was widely believed, forcing Hung to issue a denial.
- William Hung
J
- Jiang ZeminJiang ZeminJiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
: Amid internet rumors concerning his health, Hong Kong's Asia Television LimitedAsia Television LimitedAsia Television Limited is one of the two free-to-air television broadcasters in Hong Kong, the other being rival Television Broadcasts Limited . It launched in 1957 under the name Rediffusion Television as the first television station in Hong Kong...
reported him dead on its 6 pm evening news broadcast on July 6, 2011. The next day, China's Xinhua News AgencyXinhua News AgencyThe Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
dismissed reports of Jiang's death as "pure rumor," prompting ATV to retract its earlier report. http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/176246/20110707/jiang-zemin-death-rumor-china-denies-and-atv-apologizes.htm - Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul IIBlessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
is the only known triple recipient:- Immediately after the 1981 attempt on his life, despite heightened caution due to CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
's embarrassing premature obituary of James BradyJames BradyJames Scott "Jim" Brady is a former Assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary under U.S. President Ronald Reagan...
only weeks earlier, CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
implied the Pope had died by repeatedly referring to him in the past tense. - In 2003, by CNN again, this time in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had used the Queen Mother's as a template, noted the Pope's 'love of racing'.
- On the eve of his actual death on 1 April 2005, Fox News claimed he had died after it received incorrect reports from the Italian media that his ECG had gone flat.
- Immediately after the 1981 attempt on his life, despite heightened caution due to CBS
- James Earl JonesJames Earl JonesJames Earl Jones is an American actor. He is well-known for his distinctive bass voice and for his portrayal of characters of substance, gravitas and leadership...
: in 1998 the actor was erroneously pronounced dead during a radio broadcast of a Pittsburgh PiratesPittsburgh PiratesThe Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
baseball game by play-by-play announcer Lanny FrattareLanny FrattareLanny Lawrence Frattare is a former American sportscaster. For 33 years he was a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, the longest such tenure in the team's history...
; Frattare had confused him with James Earl RayJames Earl RayJames Earl Ray was an American criminal convicted of the assassination of civil rights and anti-war activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr....
, Martin Luther King's assassin, who had just died. - Raid Juhi: in March 2005 the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam HusseinSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
was incorrectly reported by NBC NewsNBC NewsNBC News is the news division of American television network NBC. It first started broadcasting in February 21, 1940. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is...
to have been assassinated. The real victims were another trial judge, Barbweez Mahmood, and his son. NBC blamed incorrect information from US officials. - Steve JobsSteve JobsSteven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
: On 27 August 2008 BloombergBloomberg L.P.Bloomberg L.P. is an American privately held financial software, media, and data company. Bloomberg makes up one third of the $16 billion global financial data market with estimated revenue of $6.9 billion. Bloomberg L.P...
accidentally published a 17-page obituary. In a subsequent public appearance Jobs joked about the accident by displaying on screen during a keynote an imprecise quotation of Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
(who was also the recipient of a premature obituary) reading "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". Jobs died on 5 October 2011.
K
- Kailash (full name unknown): this farm labourer from Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
was officially registered as dead by cousins in order to steal land he had inherited. He went to court, but the case was mired in legal delays, and his cousins beat him and threatened to kill him. "It is better to be dead on paper than to be really dead", he said. (See also Lal Bihari.) - Ken KeseyKen KeseyKenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
: in 1966, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon asylum, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional process and the human mind, as well as a critique of Behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Written in 1959, the novel was adapted into a...
faked his own suicide in an attempt to escape drug charges. He had friends leave his truck and a suicide note on a cliffside road in California, while he fled to Mexico. He later returned to the US, but was arrested and jailed for five months. Kesey died in 2001. - Rudyard KiplingRudyard KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
: His death had been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers." - Michael "Corporal" KirchnerMichael KirchnerMichael Penzel is an American semi-retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his stint in the World Wrestling Federation under the ring name Corporal Kirchner and for competing in Japan under the ring name Leatherface.-World Wrestling Federation:After working as talent enhancement for...
, former professional wrestler, was reported dead in an article at WWE.com on 15 October 2006. He and his family were understandably confused and upset, and even after Kirchner confirmed that he was alive, the error was never officially retracted on WWE's website. - Larry KramerLarry KramerLarry Kramer is an American playwright, author, public health advocate, and LGBT rights activist. He began his career rewriting scripts while working for Columbia Pictures, which led him to London where he worked with United Artists. There he wrote the screenplay for Women in Love in 1969, earning...
: in December 2001, the gay rights activist was reported dead by Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
following a liver transplant. - George Kaye: in November 2005, the Irish musician was reported dead by The Daily Mirror following a plane crash.
- Khushwant SinghKhushwant SinghKhushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, is among the most widely-read columns in the country....
: an English writer of IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
wrote his own obituary in his mid twenties while he worked in Undivided India at LahoreLahoreLahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
. The title he chose for his obituary; Posthumous.
L
- Artie LangeArtie LangeArthur Steven "Artie" Lange, Jr. is an American actor, comedian and radio personality best known for his tenures with the The Howard Stern Show and the comedy sketch series MADtv....
, comedian from The Howard Stern Show, was reported dead in May, 2004 by KLAS-TVKLAS-TVKLAS-TV, virtual channel 8 , is the CBS-affiliated television station serving the Las Vegas, Nevada market; it is owned and operated by Landmark Media Enterprises...
in Las Vegas. The show was being broadcast from Las Vegas, and Stern show prank caller Captain Janks capitalized on Artie's debauched reputation by telling the news station that he was a representative from the Hard Rock Hotel, and that Artie had been found dead in his hotel room. - Titan LeedsTitan LeedsTitan Leeds was an 18th century American almanac publisher.He is best known for his treatment by Benjamin Franklin's rival Poor Richard's Almanac...
, publisher of an almanacAlmanacAn almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
competing with Benjamin FranklinBenjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
's Poor Richard's AlmanacPoor Richard's AlmanacPoor Richard's Almanack was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, who adopted the pseudonym of "Poor Richard" or "Richard Saunders" for this purpose. The publication appeared continually from 1732 to 1758...
. Franklin had repeatedly predicted the death of Leeds in his publication, and when the date of Leeds' supposed passing had come and gone, published Leeds' obituary anyway. (See the somewhat similar case of John Partridge.) - Kimo LeopoldoKimo LeopoldoKimo Leopoldo , or simply Kimo, is an American mixed martial artist. He made his MMA debut at UFC 3 in 1994 losing to Royce Gracie by submission. Kimo's fighting style has been described as freestyle, with a mixture of striking and grappling techniques.He was credited with a black belt in Taekwondo...
, mixed martial artsMixed martial artsMixed Martial Arts is a full contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, including boxing, wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, karate, judo and other styles. The roots of modern mixed martial arts can be...
fighter, was the subject of numerous premature obituaries on July 21, 2009. Internet reports that Leopoldo had died after complications from a heart attack late in the evening on July 20 were picked up and republished by a large number of mainstream media outlets, including The Huffington PostThe Huffington PostThe Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
, TMZTMZ.comTMZ.com is a celebrity news website that debuted on November 8, 2005. It was a collaboration between America Online and Telepictures Productions, a division of Warner Bros., until Time Warner divested AOL in 2009. However, it is still affiliated with AOL News and has the AOL News logo affixed in...
, The New York Daily News, The Orange County RegisterThe Orange County RegisterThe Orange County Register is a daily newspaper published in Santa Ana, California. The Register is the flagship publication of Freedom Communications, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, Coast magazine, and several related Internet sites.The Register is notable for its...
, and USA TodayUSA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
.
M
- Lonnie MackLonnie MackLonnie Mack is an American rock, blues and country guitarist and vocalist....
, the rock guitarist best known as the founder of the blues-rockBlues-rockBlues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...
guitar genre, was lamented as recently deceased in the Foreword to the 1997 book, Rock Music in American Popular Culture. Although rarely seen in recent years, the notoriously reclusive Mack was still very much alive, and performed as a headliner at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as recently as November 15, 2008. - Iven Mackay, an Australian general, received an obituary in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, entitled "Athlete, Soldier and Headmaster", as a result of a case of mistaken identity following the death of Major General James Alexander Kenneth Mackay in 1935. - MadonnaMadonna (entertainer)Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
was proclaimed dead by a BBC News video uploaded on YouTube on 28 September 2010. The video has been considered by many a leak from BBC News archive of obituaries, although the news network never commented on this. - Robyn MalcolmRobyn MalcolmRobyn Malcolm is a New Zealand television and theatre actress. She has appeared in numerous New Zealand TV shows and has toured New Zealand with a number of theatre productions.-Early life:...
(New Zealand actress) was proclaimed dead in May 2011 through FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
. It was stated that she had fallen 60 feet at Kauri Cliffs while filming onset. - Nelson MandelaNelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
(South African leader) in the CNN.com incident. - Vanni MarcouxVanni MarcouxJean-Émile Diogène Marcoux was a French operatic bass-baritone, known professionally as Vanni Marcoux . He was particularly associated with the French and Italian repertories...
, French baritone, was incorrectly reported as having died in World War One in 1914. He actually died in 1962. - Gabriel García MárquezGabriel García MárquezGabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
(writer), reported dead by Peruvian daily La RepúblicaLa RepúblicaLa República is a center-left newspaper published in Lima, Peru. It is one of the two main national dailies sold all over the country since it was founded on May 3, 1981. The paper was founded by Gustavo Mohme Llona, a former member of the Peruvian Congress...
in 2000. - Johnny Sterling Martin: to avoid paying child support, in 1979 this American persuaded a relative to call a family court and claim that Martin had died in a bar fight. In January 2006, following a tip-off by an ex-wife, he was located 150 miles away where he had been living under his real name. He was arrested and jailed. During the intervening decades his child support bill had risen to $30,000.
- Alison Matera: in 2006 this Florida woman told fellow church choir members that she had cancer, and over the course of 11 months gave them reports of her treatment, culminating in the claim that she was near death and would be going into a hospice. She subsequently made further phone calls masquerading as a hospice nurse, then as Matera's sister, claiming that Matera had died. The church arranged a memorial service – to which Matera showed up, again claiming to be her sister. Suspicions had already been aroused from the phone calls, in which the nurse and sister both sounded exactly like Matera. Police did not arrest her as no crime had been committed; she blamed her behaviour on childhood trauma.
- Mary Mather, a paediatrician who was reported dead in December 2004 by the General Medical CouncilGeneral Medical CouncilThe General Medical Council registers and regulates doctors practising in the United Kingdom. It has the power to revoke or restrict a doctor's registration if it deems them unfit to practise...
after confusion with another person of the same name. - Jerry MathersJerry MathersGerald Patrick "Jerry" Mathers is an American television, film, and stage actor. Mathers is best known for his role in the television sitcom series Leave It to Beaver , in which he played Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, the younger son of archetypal suburban couple June and Ward Cleaver , and the brother...
: rumours that the Leave it to BeaverLeave It to BeaverLeave It to Beaver is an American television situation comedy about an inquisitive but often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood...
actor had been killed in Vietnam spread to newspapers by December 1969. (Claims that Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
and United Press InternationalUnited Press InternationalUnited Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
put out the story, and that it arose from confusion with the death of another soldier called Mathers, appear to be false.) - Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
was proclaimed dead in 1966 by a caller to radio DJ Russ GibbRuss Gibb"Uncle" Russ Gibb is a former concert promoter, and media personality from Dearborn, Michigan, probably most famous for his role in the Paul is Dead phenomenon, a story he broke as a DJ on WKNR-FM....
's show on WKNR-FMWDTW (AM)WDTW is a Detroit-area radio station, operating at 1310 kHz with 5,000 watts. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications and airs mostly syndicated progressive talk radio programs....
Detroit. A few days later New York DJ Roby YongeRoby YongeRoby Yonge was an American radio DJ, most notable in the 1960s. He was best known for being fired from New York station WABC-AM in 1969, after he reported over the air that the singer Paul McCartney of The Beatles might be dead....
was fired for discussing McCartney's possible death on a late-night show. These and other incidents led to interminable rumoursPaul Is Dead"Paul is dead" is an urban legend suggesting that Paul McCartney of the English rock band The Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike....
that McCartney's supposed death (hinted at by a trail of supposed clues in various Beatles songs) had been covered up and he had been replaced by a look-alike. - Sipho William Mdletshe, a South African man who was thought to have died in a 1993 traffic accident. After spending two days in a metal box in a mortuary, he was freed when his cries alerted workers. However, his fiancee refused to see him thereafter, believing he had turned into a zombie.
- Thomas MeninoThomas MeninoThomas Michael "Tom" Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor...
: as an April Fool's Day prank in 1998, shock jocks Opie and AnthonyOpie and AnthonyOpie and Anthony are the hosts of The Opie & Anthony Show, a talk radio program airing in the United States and Canada on XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio. Since the merger of the two satellite companies, this is now called Sirius/XM...
claimed on WAAF-FMWAAF (FM)WAAF is a Boston, Massachusetts, area commercial Album Oriented Rock/Active rock radio station that mixes music that is popular in the modern rock, heavy metal and classic rock genres....
radio that the BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
mayor had died in a car accident. Several local media outlets picked up on the story and reported it as true, causing a media firestorm that eventually led to the pair being fired. However, fan support resulted in Opie & Anthony getting a job in New York. - Prasad and Mahaprasad Mishra (Indian brothers) were officially declared dead in 1979 by four nephews in order to steal their land in Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
. Though the nephews were forced to admit fraud, the case was mired in legal delays for many years. The Mishra brothers' 'deaths' were finally annulled in 1999 (by when Prasad had reached the age of 75) after intervention by the Association of the DeadAssociation of the DeadThe Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People is a northern Indian pressure group that seeks to reclaim the legal rights of those falsely listed by the government as being dead....
, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.) - Kel MitchellKel MitchellKel Johari Mitchell is an American actor, comedian, singer, rapper, screenwriter, producer, parodist, dancer and musician. He was best known for his work as a regular cast member of the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That, his portrayal of Kel Kimble on the Nickelodeon sitcom Kenan & Kel,...
was falsely declared dead in widely-circulated internet messages in July 2006 due to unknown causes. - George MonbiotGeorge MonbiotGeorge Joshua Richard Monbiot is an English writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He lives in Machynlleth, Wales, writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain and Bring on the...
(environmentalist and writer) was once declared clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya after contracting cerebral malaria. He recovered. - Peter Moran (British journalist) was reported dead in the December 2007 issue of aviation magazine FlyPastFlyPastFlyPast is Britain's top-selling aviation magazine, published monthly, edited by Nigel Price. The magazine started as a bi-monthly edition in May/June 1981 and its first editor was the late Mike Twite. It is owned by Key Publishing Ltd of Stamford, Lincolnshire and the magazine's main former editor...
; he had previously contributed to the magazine for several years. This was apparently due to confusion with another aviation writer of the same name, and was corrected in the January 2008 issue. - Harry MulischHarry MulischHarry Kurt Victor Mulisch was a Dutch author. He wrote more than 80 novels, plays, essays, poems and philosophical reflections. These have been translated into more than 20 languages....
: On August 6, 2009, the Dutch writer was falsely declared dead by a Dutch TeletextTeletextTeletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
service, after which some news websites took over the news - Levy MwanawasaLevy MwanawasaLevy Patrick Mwanawasa was the third President of Zambia. He ruled the country from January 2002 until his death in August 2008. He is credited for having initiated a campaign to rid the country of corruption...
: On 3 July 2008, the JohannesburgJohannesburgJohannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
-based 702 Talk Radio claimed that the President of Zambia had died in a ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
hospital while recovering from a stroke suffered 4 days before in EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. The government stated that the story was false. Mwanawasa died 47 days later from complications of the stroke.
N
- Jayaprakash NarayanJayaprakash NarayanJayaprakash Narayan , widely known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash, or Loknayak, was an Indian independence activist and political leader, remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for peaceful Total Revolution...
: while hospitalized in March 1979, the politician's death was erroneously announced by India's prime minister, causing a brief wave of national mourning, including the suspension of parliament and regular radio broadcasting, and closure of schools and shops. The mistake arose when the director of the Intelligence Bureau saw a body looking like Narayan being carried from hospital. Narayan died in October, 1979. - Alfred NobelAlfred NobelAlfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer. He is the inventor of dynamite. Nobel also owned Bofors, which he had redirected from its previous role as primarily an iron and steel producer to a major manufacturer of cannon and other armaments...
(arms manufacturer and founder of the Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
): in 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. A French obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead") and that Nobel "became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before". Nobel died in 1896. - Joseph Norton: the death of the 89-year-old University at Albany professor emeritus was incorrectly reported in the Summer 2007 edition of the university's alumni magazine. When asked whether he knew anyone who wanted him dead, Norton replied, "I haven't any idea. There might well be. I've been rather active in the gay world, which not everybody approves of."
O
- Maureen O'HaraMaureen O'HaraMaureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne...
: the film actress was listed as dead on the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
in 1998, apparently due to confusion with Maureen O'SullivanMaureen O'SullivanMaureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...
. - Barack ObamaBarack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
: on July 4, 2011, a hacker collective called "The Script Kiddies" took control of Fox News's politics TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
feed and posted that the incumbent PresidentPresident of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
had been assassinated during a campaigning event in Iowa. - Hiroo OnodaHiroo Onodais a former Japanese army intelligence officer who fought in World War II and did not surrender until 1974, having spent almost 30 years holding out in the Philippines. He held the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army.-Early life:...
: this Japanese soldier survived for decades in the Philippines jungle, believing that World War II had not ended. Onoda, with three other soldiers who accompanied him for some years, continued to fight the war, killing many local Filipinos. Though numerous attempts were made (e.g., by leaving leaflets) to persuade them that the war was over, every such effort was regarded as an enemy trick. Onoda – who was officially declared dead in 1959 – only gave himself up in 1974 when his commanding officer, who had long since retired from the military and become a bookseller, was sent to the island to order Onoda to surrender. He returned to Japan a national hero, and wrote a book No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War. - OrenSaint OtteranOdran or Odhran , a descendant of Conall Gulban, is usually identified with Odhron , who preceded Saint Columba in Iona. His death is recorded in 548 and his grave was greatly revered in Iona....
, a sixth-century monk on IonaIonaIona is a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries and is today renowned for its tranquility and natural beauty. It is a popular tourist destination and a place for retreats...
: having presumably been declared dead, he was buried, but was dug up again the following day and found to be alive. He is said to have subsequently been re-buried for heresy when he claimed that after his first burial he had seen heaven and hell. - Sharon OsbourneSharon OsbourneSharon Rachel Osbourne is an English television host, author, music manager, businesswoman and promoter as well as the wife of heavy metal singer-songwriter Ozzy Osbourne....
: in October 2004, a draft obituary of rock star Ozzy OsbourneOzzy OsbourneJohn Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
's wife was accidentally published on the ABC NewsABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
web site owing to a technical error.
P
- Valentin PaniaguaValentín PaniaguaValentín Paniagua Corazao was a Peruvian politician and former Interim President of Peru. Paniagua was elected by the Peruvian Congress to serve as interim president of the country after Alberto Fujimori was ousted from office by Congress in November 2000.As Interim President, his main task was to...
(former Peruvian president): was reported dead by congressman Víctor Andrés García BelaúndeVíctor Andrés García BelaúndeVíctor Andrés García Belaúnde, also called Vitocho is a Peruvian politician .Víctor Andrés García descends from a family that has been linked to Peruvian politics for a long time. His great-grandfather General Pedro Diez Canseco was three times interim President in the 1860s...
during a speech being made by Peru's Prime Minister Jorge Del CastilloJorge Del CastilloJorge Alfonso Alejandro Del Castillo Gálvez is a Peruvian lawyer and politician. He was the Prime Minister of Peru. He is also a member and current Secretary-General of the Peruvian Aprista Party...
to the Peruvian Congress in August 2006. 15 minutes later, Paniagua's attending physician announced that the former president had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit but was alive and recovering. He died in October 2006. - Eduardo PaolozziEduardo PaolozziSir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA , was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art sphere, while, working on his own interpretation and vision of the world. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization...
: the artist's death was incorrectly reported in a magazine when he suffered a near-fatal stroke in 2001. He died in 2005. - John PartridgeJohn Partridge (astrologer)John Partridge was an English astrologer. He was also the author and publisher of a number of astrological almanacs and books.-Partridge's life:...
, an astrologer whose death Jonathan SwiftJonathan SwiftJonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
(writing under a pseudonym) 'predicted' in a 1708 hoax almanac and later 'confirmed', prompting numerous anti-Partridge newspaper obituaries. (See also Titan Leeds.) He died in either 1714 or 1715. - Sidney Patrick: an American who was allegedly taken on board a UFO in 1965, he was incorrectly said to be dead by ufologist Timothy Good in his 1996 book Beyond Top Secret. Good corrected the mistake in a subsequent book.
- Natalya Pavlova: this Lithuanian 27-year-old went missing in November 2007, and was declared dead a few weeks later when a body found in a forest was identified by her parents as hers. However, in January 2008 she turned up alive when she was arrested for shoplifting in the city of KlaipėdaKlaipedaKlaipėda is a city in Lithuania situated at the mouth of the Nemunas River where it flows into the Baltic Sea. It is the third largest city in Lithuania and the capital of Klaipėda County....
. It turned out that she had been living there with her boyfriend. It was not known who the dead woman was. - Vuk Peric: a Serbian pensioner who put his own death notice in the newspaper in 1997 to see who would turn up to his funeral. After watching the funeral from a distance, he revealed himself and thanked everyone for attending.
- Jim Pierce: this resident of Smackover, ArkansasSmackover, ArkansasSmackover is a city in Union County, Arkansas. According to the 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city stands at 1,929.The name Smackover comes from an anglicization of the French "Sumac Couvert" which translates to "covered in sumac"...
was thought to have died in 1926 when a body identified as his by over 50 people was found in an empty railroad oil tank car. His son took the corpse back to Texas for burial, but was met there by Jim Pierce, very much alive. It was not clear who the dead man was. - Samy Pillai: a Malaysian man who was certified dead in June 2005 after his wrecked motorcycle was found near an unidentifiable body. In March 2007 it was discovered that he had in fact survived the accident when he was found 300 km away, partly paralysed and unable to speak; his identity was confirmed by thumbprints. It was not known what he had been doing in the intervening two years.
- Harold PinterHarold PinterHarold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...
: on 13 October 2005 the newsreader on Sky NewsSky NewsSky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
, apparently relaying information she was having difficulty hearing on her earpiece, announced that the writer had died. (She also mispronounced his name, and described him as a 'play writer'.) She rapidly corrected this to report that in fact he had won the Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
for literature. Pinter lived until December 2008. - Perry PirkanenPerry PirkanenPerry Pirkanen is an American actor. He is best known for starring in the 1980 Italian horror film Cannibal Holocaust. Pirkanen, then a student at New York's Actors Studio, was hired by director Ruggero Deodato who was looking for unknown actors to play the film's four protagonists.So realistic was...
: see Luca Barbareschi - Velupillai PrabhakaranVelupillai PrabhakaranThiruvenkadam Velupillai Prabhakaran was the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam , a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka...
: the Tamil Tiger leader was reported by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting CorporationSri Lanka Broadcasting CorporationThe Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on January 5, 1967 when Radio Ceylon became a public corporation. Dudley Senanayake who was the Prime Minister of Ceylon in 1967 ceremonially opened the newly established Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation along with Minister Ranasinghe...
as being among the dead or missing in the December 2004 tsunami2004 Indian Ocean earthquakeThe 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
. This was taken by many to suggest that he was specifically dead. The corporation later retracted the report. He was killed in a battle against Sri Lankan Army troops in May 2009.
R
- Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
(former US President), in the CNN.com incident. CNN also included fragments of Reagan's life history in a premature obituary of Fidel CastroFidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
in the same incident. Reagan died in 2004. - Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
(musician), by numerous US radio stations in 2001, caused by a hoax email (purporting to be from ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
) which said he had died of an overdose. - Adam RichAdam RichAdam Rich is an American actor.-Career:Rich is most remembered for his role as the youngest son, Nicholas Bradford, on the television series Eight is Enough, which ran for five seasons, from 1977-1981. After leaving that show, he made guest appearances on The Love Boat, CHiPS, Fantasy Island, The...
: the television actor was reported to have been murdered in a 1996 tribute issue of MightMight magazineMight was a San Francisco-based magazine co-founded in the early 1990s by David Moodie, Marny Requa and Dave Eggers, who went on to describe the magazine's rise and fall in his bestselling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius....
magazine. It was all an elaborate hoax by the magazine's editor Dave EggersDave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
in collusion with Rich, and was intended to satirize the media exploitation of stars who die young. - Amnon RubinsteinAmnon RubinsteinAmnon Rubinstein is an Israeli law scholar, politician, and columnist. A member of the Knesset between 1977 and 2002, he served in several ministerial positions. He is currently dean of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and a patron of Liberal International.-Early life:Rubinstein was born...
, Israeli academic and retired politician, whose death was announced in 1999 by Knesset (parliamentary) speaker Avraham BurgAvraham BurgAvraham "Avrum" Burg is an Israeli author; he was formerly a member of the Knesset, a chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a Speaker of the Knesset.-Biography:...
following a hoax telephone call. Rubinstein was in hospital at the time for a minor complaint. - Bertrand RussellBertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
: the philosopher was reported dead in the Japanese press in 1920 when he was suffering from pneumonia. Some sources say the reports were a deliberate form of revenge by Japanese journalists whom Russell had refused to meet due to his illness. His supposed death may also have been reported in The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. (It is also sometimes said that by way of apology, The Times allowed Russell to pre-write his own obituary for publication on his actual death. But the obituary does not read as if it could be by him; the confusion may be that in 1937 he wrote an imaginary Times obituary for his own entertainment, which is briefly quoted at the end of his obituary in the New York Times.) Russell died in 1970. - Bob Ruthman: Ruthman, an author who was a roommate of journalist Andy Rooney during their time at Colgate UniversityColgate UniversityColgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, USA. The school was founded in 1819 as a Baptist seminary and later became non-denominational. It is named for the Colgate family who greatly contributed to the university's endowment in the 19th century.Colgate has 52...
in the 1930s, was falsely reported dead by TMZTMZTMZ can refer to any of the following:*The Thames airport in New Zealand*Thirty Mile Zone, a zone in and around Hollywood, California that is considered to be "local" for purposes of entertainment industry union work rules...
after experiencing a heart attack and being prematurely pronounced dead while at Rooney's funeral in November 2011. Ruthman was later revived, and the numerous news reports indicating his death were corrected within two hours.
S
- Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (son of former LibyanLibyaLibya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
dicator Muammar GaddafiMuammar GaddafiMuammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
) Although it was widely reported at the time that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had been captured or killed by NTC forces during the concluding stages of the Battle of SirteBattle of Sirte (2011)The Battle of Sirte was a battle of the 2011 Libyan civil war that began when the National Liberation Army attacked forces loyal to ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown and designated capital of Sirte, on the Gulf of Sidra...
on 20 October 2011, these reports appeared to be false due to the fact that shortly after his father was killed, the Libyan prime minister Mahmoud Jibril said that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had managed to escape and was on the run. - Jimmy SavileJimmy SavileSir James Wilson Vincent Savile, OBE, KCSG was an English disc jockey, television presenter and media personality, best known for his BBC television show Jim'll Fix It, and for being the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC music chart show Top of the Pops...
(broadcaster) in 1994, when then-DJ Chris MorrisChris Morris (satirist)Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...
announced on BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
(as a joke) that he had collapsed and died. Savile began legal action against Morris. He actually died on Oct. 29, 2011, two days before his 85th birthday. (See also Michael Heseltine.) - Terri SchiavoTerri SchiavoThe Terri Schiavo case was a legal battle in the United States between the legal guardians and the parents of Teresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo that lasted from 1998 to 2005...
: a draft of the brain damaged patient's obituary accidentally appeared briefly on CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
's web site on March 28, 2005, in advance of her death. Schiavo died on March 31, 2005 after removal of life support on March 18, 2005. - Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (historian): his death was referred to in the Pittsburgh Post-GazettePittsburgh Post-GazetteThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, also known simply as the "PG," is the largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.-Early history:...
on 29 November 2005. The newspaper retracted the reference on 2 December, saying, "We are embarrassed but happy for Mr Schlesinger." Schlesinger died February 28, 2007. - James Ford SealeJames Ford SealeJames Ford Seale was a Ku Klux Klan member charged by the U.S. Justice Department on January 24, 2007, and subsequently convicted on June 14, 2007, for the May 1964 kidnapping of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, two African-American young men in Meadville, Mississippi...
, who took part in the 1964 Ku Klux KlanKu Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
murder of two black hitchhikers in Mississippi, was found not far away in 2005 – despite newspapers including The Clarion-LedgerThe Clarion-LedgerThe Clarion-Ledger is the Pulitzer Prize winning daily newspaper of Jackson, Mississippi. It is the second oldest company in the state of Mississippi and is one of only a few newspapers in the nation that continues to circulate statewide...
having reported him dead, apparently because Seale's family had said he was. Seale was located by the brother of one of the victims, and was convicted in 2007, having previously had all charges dropped when the case was originally investigated. Seale died on August 2, 2011. - Katharine SergavaKatharine SergavaKatharine Sergava was an actress and dancer....
(Oklahoma!Oklahoma!Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
actress & dancer), whose obituary was published in 2003 in the Daily Telegraph and a few days later in the New York Times. The latter newspaper blamed the former for the mistake. Sergava died November 26, 2005. - Jaclyn SmithJaclyn SmithJacquelyn Ellen "Jaclyn" Smith is an American actress and businesswoman. She is best-known for the role of Kelly Garrett in the television series Charlie's Angels, and was the only original female lead to remain with the series for its complete run...
(Charlie's AngelsCharlie's AngelsCharlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...
actress & model), was reported to have shot herself in Honduras in 2009. The rumor began when a Honduran newspaper reported that her 'Angels' stunt double had shot herself, and several sites misread the news. Smith took to Twitter and Facebook to dispel the false reports. "Jaclyn is safe and home with her family. She is not in Honduras. It is a lie." - Britney SpearsBritney SpearsBritney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
and then-boyfriend Justin TimberlakeJustin TimberlakeJustin Randall Timberlake is an American pop musician and actor. He achieved early fame when he appeared as a contestant on Star Search, and went on to star in the Disney Channel television series The New Mickey Mouse Club, where he met future bandmate JC Chasez...
(musicians) were reported to have died in a car crash by two Texas DJs as a joke in 2001. The radio station (KEGL) was sued and the DJs were fired. The car crash story is thought to have originated as a rumour on the Internet. - John StonehouseJohn StonehouseJohn Thomson Stonehouse was a British politician and minister under Harold Wilson. Stonehouse is perhaps best remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974...
MP: in 1974 the British politician faked his own suicidePseudocideA faked death occurs when an individual leaves evidence to suggest that he or she is dead in order to mislead others. This may be done for a variety of reasons, such as to fraudulently collect insurance money or avoid capture by law enforcement for some other crime.People who fake their own deaths...
(by drowning in Miami) in order to escape financial difficulties and marry his mistress. He was subsequently discovered in Australia – where initially police thought he might be Lord LucanRichard Bingham, 7th Earl of LucanRichard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan , popularly known as Lord Lucan, as Lord Bingham before 1964, and sometimes colloquially called "Lucky" Lucan, was a British peer, who disappeared in the early hours of 8 November 1974, following the murder of Sandra Rivett, his children's nanny, the previous...
– and imprisoned. Stonehouse died 14 April 1988. - Red StoreyRed StoreyRoy Alvin "Red" Storey, CM was a Canadian football player and National Hockey League referee.-Early life and career:...
: the Canadian football player and ice hockey referee was reported dead by a Montreal radio station in the 1970s when a Montreal StarMontreal StarThe Montreal Star was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It folded in 1979 following an eight-month pressmen's strike....
employee misheard another saying "Red's story is dead" (referring to sports editor Red Fisher). The employee told his wife, who phoned the radio station – which then broadcast the 'news' without checking it. Storey died March 15, 2006. - Dave SwarbrickDave SwarbrickDave Swarbrick is an English folk musician and singer-songwriter. He has been described by Ashley Hutchings as 'the most influential [British] fiddle player bar none' and his style has been copied or developed by almost every British, and many World folk violin players that have followed him...
: the folk musician's obituary was published in the Daily Telegraph in April 1999 after he was admitted to hospital with a chest infection, prompting the quip: "It's not the first time I have died in Coventry."
T
- Mikhail TalMikhail TalMikhail Tal was a Soviet–Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion.Widely regarded as a creative genius, and the best attacking player of all time, he played a daring, combinatorial style. His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability....
: The former world chess champion was erroneously reported dead in 1969 by a number of Yugoslav newspapers. He died in 1992. - Margaret ThatcherMargaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
: Text-message reports of Thatcher's death caused a stir at a Canadian political event, and officials in Prime Minister Stephen HarperStephen HarperStephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
's office were preparing to issue a statement of condolence, until it was determined that the deceased Thatcher in question was actually Transport Minister John BairdJohn Baird (Canadian politician)John Russell Baird, PC, MP is a Canadian politician currently serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper....
's cat. - Orlando ThomasOrlando ThomasOrlando Thomas is a former defensive back who played in the NFL from 1995 until 2001. He played his entire career with the Minnesota Vikings....
: A former professional footballAmerican footballAmerican football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player afflicted with Lou Gehrig's Disease, Thomas was incorrectly reported as dead by the official website of the Minnesota VikingsMinnesota VikingsThe Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Vikings joined the National Football League as an expansion team in 1960...
, his former team, on October 28, 2009. The story of Thomas's death was then picked up and re-reported by various news services, including the Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. - András TomaAndrás TomaAndrás Toma was a Hungarian soldier who was taken prisoner by the Red Army in 1944, then discovered living in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 2000. He was probably the last prisoner of war from the Second World War to be repatriated...
, Hungarian POW in World War II, was captured in early 1945 and was declared dead in 1954. He was found in 2000 and returned home. He died in 2004. - Donald Walter TrautmanDonald Walter TrautmanDonald Walter Trautman is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who serves as Bishop of Erie.-Biography:Donald Trautman was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended Niagara University in Lewiston. He studied theology under Karl Rahner at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, from...
(Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of ErieRoman Catholic Diocese of ErieThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie is a Roman Catholic diocese in western Pennsylvania. It was founded on July 29, 1853. It is one of seven suffragan sees in Pennsylvania that make up the Ecclesiastical Province of Philadelphia, which is headed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.-...
, PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
) was reported dead in the 4 April 2007 edition of the VaticanHoly SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
newspaper L'Osservatore RomanoL'Osservatore RomanoL'Osservatore Romano is the "semi-official" newspaper of the Holy See. It covers all the Pope's public activities, publishes editorials by important churchmen, and runs official documents after being released...
; in fact it was his predecessor Bishop Michael Murphy who had just died. "I told people that there was an early resurrection," Trautman said. The TabletThe TabletThe Tablet is a Catholic international weekly review published in London. Contributors to its pages have included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Paul VI ....
printed a cartoon about the incident, depicting one angel at a reception desk telling another: "Bishop Trautman's just e-mailed us with a cancellation." - Stephanie Tubbs JonesStephanie Tubbs JonesStephanie "Tubbs" Jones was a Democratic politician and member of the United States House of Representatives. She represented the 11th District of Ohio, which encompasses most of downtown and eastern Cleveland and many of the eastern suburbs in Cuyahoga County, including Euclid, Cleveland Heights,...
: The Cleveland, OhioCleveland, OhioCleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, congresswoman was incorrectly reported as having died 20 August 2008 after suffering an aneurysmAneurysmAn aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...
. The report prompted an official statement from John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
mourning her passing. Tubbs Jones did however, die later that day. - Thuy TrangThuy TrangThuy Trang was a Vietnamese American actress. She was best known for her role as Trini Kwan, the original Yellow Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television series.-Early life:...
: who rose to fame in the mid-1990s playing Trini KwanTrini KwanTrini Kwan is a fictional character in the Power Rangers universe, portrayed by Vietnamese actress Thuy Trang. She is best remembered as the original Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the first entry of the franchise....
/The Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power RangersMighty Morphin Power Rangers is an American live-action children's television series based on the 16th installment of the Japanese Super Sentai franchise, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger. Both the show and its related merchandise saw unbridled overnight success, catapulting into pop culture in mere months...
, was incorrectly reported dead following an automobile accident in 1997. Ironically, Trang did subsequently die in a car accident, four years later. - Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
: on two occasions the writer was incorrectly feared dead. Though only the second case counts as a premature obituary, the first is often erroneously cited as the most famous case:
- In 1897 a journalist was sent to enquire after Twain's health, thinking he was near to death; in fact it was his cousin who was very ill. Though (contrary to popular belief) no obituary was published, Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal of 2 June 1897, including his famous words "The report of my death was an exaggeration" (which is usually misquoted, e.g. as "The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated", or "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated").
- On 4 May 1907, when people lost track of a yacht he was travelling on, the New York Times published an article saying he might have been lost at sea. In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain read the article, and cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in the New York Times the following day.
- Twain died in 1910.
U
- Ishinosuke UwanoIshinosuke Uwanois a former soldier in the Japanese Imperial Army who came to media prominence in April 2006 after it was found that he had been living in Ukraine for six decades after the end of World War II...
: in April 2006 this Japanese soldier, missing since World War II, was found to be living in Ukraine aged 83, where he had married and had a family. He had been officially declared dead in 2000. At the end of the war he had remained in the Soviet Union for unknown reasons; he said the Soviet government subsequently prevented him contacting his Japanese relatives. Following his discovery he visited Japan for the first time in over 60 years; he could remember little of Japan and had even largely forgotten how to speak Japanese.
V
- Paul VancePaul VancePaul Vance is an American songwriter and record producer.With over 300 recorded songs, Vance co-wrote such hits as "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini," recorded in 1960 by Brian Hyland, which rose to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and "Catch a Falling Star," recorded in 1957 by...
, composer of the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot BikiniItsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" is a novelty song telling the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka dot bikini at the beach, who in the first verse is too afraid to leave the locker where she has changed into her bikini; in the second, she has made it to the beach but sits...
", was reported dead in September 2006 by Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, followed by the rest of the media. The reports even caused racehorses owned by Vance to be scratched from races. In fact the dead man was a former salesman and painting contractor called Paul Van Valkenburgh, who had told his wife he had written the song many years earlier under the stage name Paul Vance. When pursued by an Associated Press Reporter immediately after the scam was discovered, the impostor's widow, who had not yet been provided with evidence of her late husband's wrongdoing, said she was not certain whether it was Vance or her husband who had really written the song. - Abe VigodaAbe VigodaAbe Vigoda is an American movie and television actor. Vigoda is well known for his portrayal of Sal Tessio in The Godfather, and for his portrayal of Detective Sgt. Phil Fish on the sitcom television series Barney Miller from 1975–1977 and on its spinoff show Fish that aired from February 1977 to...
(actor): in 1982, PeoplePeople (magazine)In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine referred to him as 'the late Abe Vigoda'. He then posed for a photograph showing him sitting up in a coffin, holding the magazine in question. Vigoda claims that during the 1980s the widespread belief that he was dead cost him work. Erroneous reports of Vigoda's death have become something of a running joke, such as in television sketches.
W
- Terance Edward Walker: Said to have died on the operating table November 2007 in NewcastleNewcastle upon TyneNewcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, whilst receiving a heart transplant. It was later determined that he had broken into the hospital morgue and replaced a toe tag with one containing his own information. He is believed to have fled to Australia or New Zealand. The cremated body that replaced Walker was later found to belong to 51 year old Douglas Nicolas Gow who had died of a drug overdose. The Walker family have never accepted Terance's fleeing and are actively pursuing a legal result so his "widow" can claim a military pension. - Matthew Wall: On 2 October 1571, a pallbearer dropped his coffin on the way to the funeral, waking him up. His 'resurrection' is still celebrated each year in BraughingBraughingBraughing is a village and civil parish, between the rivers Quin and Rib, in the non-metropolitan district of East Hertfordshire, part of the English county of Hertfordshire, England...
, HertfordshireHertfordshireHertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. - Elsie Waring: in 1963, this 35-year-old was certified dead by three doctors at Willesden General Hospital, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Several hours later she gasped and started breathing while being lifted into her coffin. - William James WanlessWilliam James WanlessSir William James Wanless, M.D., F.A.C.S. was a Canadian born surgeon, humanitarian and Presbyterian missionary who founded a medical mission in Miraj, India in 1894 and led it for nearly 40 years...
reported dead in India. - Gerard WayGerard WayGerard Arthur Way is an American musician and comic book writer who has served as lead vocalist and co-founder of the band My Chemical Romance since its formation in 2001...
: Frontman of My Chemical RomanceMy Chemical RomanceMy Chemical Romance is an American alternative rock band from New Jersey, formed in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way and have a diverse sound incorporating elements of punk, emo, glam metal, and progressive rock...
. Was said to have died in a car accident when someone incorrectly put it on Wikipedia. Way released a statement on the bands website saying 'I heard a rumor that I died in a car accident. I didn't.' - Kate WebbKate WebbKate Webb was a New Zealand-born Australian foreign correspondent for UPI and Agence France Presse.-Biography:...
: in 1971 the journalist was part of a group captured in the CambodiaCambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
n jungle by North VietnamNorth VietnamThe Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
ese troops. Official reports claimed that a body that had been found and cremated was hers, and a box of bones said to be hers was delivered to ReutersReutersReuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
. The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
published an obituary. She emerged from captivity over three weeks later, having endured forced marches, interrogations, and two strains of malaria. Webb died in 2007. - Harry Delyne Weed, the inventor of Weed non-skid tire chains, was reported dead in numerous publications (including TimeTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine and the New York Herald TribuneNew York Herald TribuneThe New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
) in 1927 after a reporter for the Jackson, MichiganJackson, MichiganJackson is a city located along Interstate 94 in the south central area of the U.S. state of Michigan, about west of Ann Arbor and south of Lansing. It is the county seat of Jackson County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 33,534...
Citizen Patriot wrote that the recently-deceased Mrs. Alice Weed from Jackson had been the inventor's widow. It later emerged that Alice Weed was no relation, and that both the inventor and his wife were alive and well. - Kanye WestKanye WestKanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
: was the subject of an Internet hoax news report on 20 October 2009 claiming that he had been killed in a car crash. The rumour quickly spread via social networking websites such as TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
, prompting West's girlfriend Amber Rose to respond "This 'RIP Kanye West' topic is not funny and it's NOT TRUE!" - Alan WhickerAlan WhickerAlan Donald Whicker, CBE is a British journalist and broadcaster. His career has spanned over 50 years.-Background:Whicker was born to British parents in Cairo, Egypt...
(journalist), while reporting on the Korean WarKorean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. He was flying with an aerial spotter in a Piper AztecPiper Aztec-Accidents and incidents:*On 18 April 1974, Aztec G-AYDE was involved in a ground collision with BAC One-Eleven G-AXMJ at London Luton Airport after the pilot of the Aztec entered the active runway without clearance. He was killed and his passenger was injured...
plane behind enemy lines, as part of a story. Though his plane landed safely, a similar craft was shot down on the same day, and was assumed to be Whicker's plane. The resulting newspaper obituary commented on his lack of achievement (Whicker then being far less well-known than he is now). - Betty WhiteBetty WhiteBetty White Ludden , better known as Betty White, is an American actress, comedienne, singer, author, and former game show personality. With a career spanning seven decades since 1939, she is best known to modern audiences for her television roles as Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and...
: On July 7, 2009, a Today Show on-site correspondent covering Michael JacksonMichael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
's memorial service from Forest Lawn Memorial Park erroneously named White as one of the famous celebrities buried there. Today host Meredith VieiraMeredith VieiraMeredith Louise Vieira is an American journalist, television personality, and game show host. She is best known for her roles as the original moderator of the ABC talk program The View and co-host of the long-running NBC News morning news program, Today...
was quick to correct the error at the end of the report, stating that the correspondent likely meant to name Bette DavisBette DavisRuth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
instead. White is still alive and continues to actively work in the entertainment industry. - Jaleel WhiteJaleel WhiteJaleel Ahmad White is an American actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Steve Urkel from Family Matters and voicing the character of Sonic the Hedgehog and other characters for Sonic the Hedgehog media....
: In June 2006, an internet rumor was spread via email that White had committed suicide. The email contained a fake Associated PressAssociated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
report stating that White was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment after shooting himself. The report, which contained fake quotes from former co-stars and associates, also claimed that White left behind a suicide note that contained Steve Urkel's popular catchphrase, "Did I do that?" No legitimate news outlets ever picked up the story. Five months after the hoax, White addressed the rumor stating, "I don’t even know what to say about that darned thing. As much as you try to live your life right, you’re gonna get sucker-punched now and then. That was my sucker punch back in June". - Slim WhitmanSlim WhitmanOttis Dewey Whitman, Jr. , known professionally as Slim Whitman, is an American country music singer and songwriter, known for his yodelling abilities. He has sold in excess of 120 million albums in unit sales and has had numerous successful recordings...
: the country singer was reported dead in January 2008 by a radio DJ and by the Nashville Tennessean' s website, apparently sparked by rumours he had died. "It seems like every 10 years something weird happens like that", he said; in a previous strange incident, a song of Whitman's was used to repel invading aliens in the film Mars Attacks!Mars Attacks!Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Tim Burton and based on the cult trading card series of the same name. The film uses elements of black comedy, surreal humour, and political satire, and claims to be also a parody of multiple science fiction B movies... - Philip Williams: in June 1982, this British soldier was knocked unconscious by an explosion during the Battle of Mount TumbledownBattle of Mount TumbledownThe Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an engagement in the Falklands War, one of a series of battles that took place during the British advance towards Stanley.-Overview:...
in the Falklands WarFalklands WarThe Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
, and left for dead. When he came to, the rest of the British soldiers had gone. Williams' parents were informed of his 'death' and a memorial service held for him. It took him nearly two months to find his way back to civilisation, braving extreme weather. He was then criticized by the media and fellow soldiers, who accused him of desertion. - Ken Williamson, an Olympic track-and-field judge, collapsed outside Madison Square GardenMadison Square GardenMadison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
in 2004 from a heart attack, and was said by officials and a colleague to have died. However, he was revived with a defibrillator and taken to hospital. - Rich WilliamsRich WilliamsRichard Williams is the guitarist for the rock band Kansas, and has been with them since their 1974 self-titled debut album. Rich lost his right eye in a childhood fireworks accident. He wore a prosthetic eye for many years, but now wears an eye patch instead.In the beginning, Williams shared...
, guitarist in the band KansasKansas (band)Kansas is an American rock band that became popular in the 1970s initially on Album-Oriented Rock charts, and later with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind"...
, whose obituary was published in a number of New EnglandNew EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
newspapers after the death of Eric de Boer of Kingston, New HampshireKingston, New HampshireKingston is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The population at the 2010 census was 6,025.- History :Kingston was the fifth town to be established in New Hampshire. Originally, it was a part of Hampton, New Hampshire...
. de Boer had been impersonating Williams for decades, claiming that after returning from VietnamVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
(where he had been held as a POW) he had joined Kansas, using the name "Rich Williams" as a stage name. The real Williams wrote in an e-mail sent to The Topeka Capital-JournalThe Topeka Capital-JournalThe Topeka Capital-Journal is a daily newspaper in Topeka, Kansas owned by Morris Communications. It has won one Pulitzer Prize.-History:...
that he had known about the impersonation for five years and thought it was "really wacky stuff", but added that he respected de Boer for his service in Vietnam. It was later discovered that there was no evidence that de Boer had ever been in the military, let alone that he had been a Vietnam POW. - Edward Osborne Wilson (biologist and environmentalist), listed as dead in a 2005 San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
article. - Mara WilsonMara WilsonMara Elizabeth Wilson is an American former child actress best known for her roles as a child star, particularly in Mrs. Doubtfire , Miracle on 34th Street , and Matilda . She was born in Los Angeles, California, to Michael and Suzie Wilson . She has three older brothers, Danny, Jon, and Joel, and...
(actress) was listed as dead on the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
in 2000, with the cause being "broken neck". - Norman WisdomNorman WisdomSir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE was an English actor, comedian and singer-songwriter best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin...
: the British comedian was reported dead by Sky NewsSky NewsSky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
on December 28, 2008, with a pre-prepared video obituary having been accidentally published. Wisdom died on 4 October 2010. - John WoodenJohn WoodenJohn Robert Wooden was an American basketball player and coach. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood", he won ten NCAA national championships in a 12-year period — seven in a row — as head coach at UCLA, an unprecedented feat. Within this period, his teams won a record 88 consecutive games...
: an online picture gallery of the legendary basketballBasketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
coach on The Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
's website on June 3, 2010 was headlined "John Wooden dies at 99". Wooden was at the time hospitalized in grave condition. Wooden died the next day.
Y
- Paltan Yadav was officially declared dead in 1980 by relatives in order to steal his land in Uttar PradeshUttar PradeshUttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Rendered penniless and unable to afford to marry, he became a holy man. After years of legal delays, his 'death' was only annulled in 1999 after intervention by the Association of the DeadAssociation of the DeadThe Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People is a northern Indian pressure group that seeks to reclaim the legal rights of those falsely listed by the government as being dead....
, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.) - Shoichi YokoiShoichi Yokoiwas a Japanese sergeant in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War. He was among the last three Japanese hold-outs to surrender after the end of hostilities in 1945.-Early life:Yokoi was born in Saori, Aichi Prefecture...
: trapped on GuamGuamGuam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
when U.S. troops recaptured it near the end of World War II, this Japanese soldier lived in an underground cave in the jungle until 1972, believing that the war had not ended and that leaflets reporting Japan's surrender were enemy propaganda. He had been reported killed in action. On his return home, Yokoi was treated as a national hero for his extreme tenacity and loyalty. However, he felt he had not served the Emperor and army adequately, saying "It is with much embarrassment that I have returned alive" – which instantly became a popular saying in Japan. Yokoi's experiences enabled him to become a television commentator on survival skills. His discovery also prompted a search for other missing Japanese soldiers such as Hiroo Onoda. - Carl Gabriel YorkeCarl Gabriel YorkeCarl Gabriel Yorke is an American actor.He was one of four actors who the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust. So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder...
: see Luca Barbareschi
The CNN.com incident
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
website without requiring a password (and may have been accessible for some time before). The pages included tributes to Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
, Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
, Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
, Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
, and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
Some of these obituaries contained fragments taken from others, particularly from Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was the queen consort of King George VI from 1936 until her husband's death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
's obituary, which had apparently been used as a template. Dick Cheney for example was described as the 'UK's favorite grandmother', the site noted the Pope's 'love of racing', and described Castro as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star' (a reference to Ronald Reagan). Though the Queen Mother was already dead, in an unrelated incident she had previously received a premature obituary of her own.
External links
- Dead People Server – database of dead celebrities; includes list of people incorrectly rumoured to be dead
- Dead or Alive – allows you to check whether famous people of all kinds are dead or alive
- Regret the Error – reports media errors of all kinds, especially in North America
- Snopes – urban legends, including people rumoured to be dead
- Reggie Online – people who have faked their own deaths (or otherwise turned out to be unexpectedly alive)
- Smoking Gun page about the CNN incident