A prematurely reported obituary is an obituary of someone who was still alive at the time of publication. Examples include that of inventor and philanthropist Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a "merchant of death" for creating military explosives may have prompted him to create the Nobel Prize; [1] black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose actual death may have been precipitated by reading his own obituary; [2] and actor Abe Vigoda, who was the subject of so many death reports and rumours that a website was created to state whether he was alive or dead.
This article lists the recipients of incorrect death reports (not just formal obituaries) from publications, media organisations, official bodies, and widely used information sources; 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.
Premature obituaries may be published for reasons such as the following:
Multiple premature obituaries came to light on April 16, 2003, when it was discovered that pre-written draft memorials to several world figures were available on the development area of the CNN website without requiring a password (and may have been accessible for some time before). The pages included tributes to Fidel Castro (d. 2016), Dick Cheney, Nelson Mandela (d. 2013), Bob Hope (d. July 2003), Gerald Ford (d. 2006), Pope John Paul II (d. 2005), and Ronald Reagan (d. 2004), [525] all of which claim they died in 2001. [526] [527] [528] [529] [530] [531] [532]
Some of these obituaries contained fragments taken from others, particularly from Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother's obituary, which had apparently been used as a template. Dick Cheney for example was described as the "UK's favorite grandmother", and Pope John Paul II was noted for his "love of racing". [464] Although the Queen Mother was already dead, in an unrelated incident she had previously received a premature obituary of her own.
On November 16, 2020, about 100 draft obituaries were published on the Radio France Internationale website, as well as those of its partner sites including Google, Yahoo! and MSN. These included Queen Elizabeth II (supposedly having died of coronavirus, later died in 2022), footballer Pelé (d. 2022), actors Clint Eastwood, Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren, politicians Jimmy Carter, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Raul Castro and Lionel Jospin, and French businessman Bernard Tapie (d. 2021), of which this was his third premature obituary. The broadcaster blamed it on a 'major bug' while upgrading its website. [533]
A hoax is a widely publicised falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into putting up the highest possible social currency in support of the hoax.
An obituary is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. According to Nigel Farndale, the Obituaries Editor of The Times, obituaries ought to be "balanced accounts" written in a "deadpan" style, and should not read like a hagiography.
Snopes, formerly known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture.
Clifford Michael Irving was an American novelist and investigative reporter. Although he published 20 novels, he is best known for an "autobiography" allegedly written as told to Irving by billionaire recluse Howard Hughes. The fictional work was to have been published in 1972. After Hughes denounced him and sued the publisher, McGraw-Hill, Irving and his collaborators confessed to the hoax. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, of which he served 17 months.
Alan Irwin Abel was an American hoaxer, writer, and mockumentary filmmaker famous for several hoaxes that became media circuses.
A faked death, also called a staged death, is the act of an individual purposely deceiving other people into believing that the individual is dead, when the person is, in fact, still alive. The faking of one's own death by suicide is sometimes referred to as pseuicide or pseudocide. People who commit pseudocide can do so by leaving evidence, clues, or through other methods. Death hoaxes can also be created and spread solely by third-parties for various purposes.
The John Darwin disappearance case involved the faked death of the British former teacher and prison officer John Darwin. Darwin turned up alive in December 2007, five and a half years after he was believed to have died in a canoeing accident.
The Clinton body count is a conspiracy theory centered around the belief that former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have secretly had their political opponents murdered, often made to look like suicides, totaling as many as 50 or more listed victims. The Congressional Record (1994) stated that the compiler of the original list, Linda Thompson, admitted she had "'no direct evidence' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by 'people trying to control the president' but refuses to say who they were."
Sightings of the American singer Elvis Presley have been reported following his death in 1977. The conspiracy theory that Elvis did not die and instead went into hiding was popularized by Gail Brewer-Giorgio and other authors.
A death hoax is a deliberate report of someone's death that is later revealed to be untrue. In some cases, it might be because the person has intentionally faked death.
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. The perpetrator, Adam Lanza, fatally shot his mother before murdering 20 students and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and later committed suicide. A number of fringe figures have promoted conspiracy theories that doubt or dispute what occurred at Sandy Hook. Various conspiracy theorists have claimed, for example, that the massacre was actually orchestrated by the U.S. government as part of an elaborate plot to promote stricter gun control laws.
National Report is a fake news website that posts fictional articles related to world events. It is described by Snopes.com as a fake news site, by FactCheck.org as a satirical site, and by The Washington Post as part of a fake-news industry, making profits from "duping gullible Internet users with deceptively newsy headlines." The National Report describes itself as a "news and political satire web publication" and provides a disclaimer that "all news articles contained within National Report are fiction".
Paul Horner was an American writer, comedian and contributor to fake news websites. Horner has been described as a "hoax artist" by outlets such as The Associated Press, The Chicago Tribune, PolitiFact and The Washington Post.
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.
World News Daily Report (WNDR) was a satirical fake news website purporting to be an American Jewish Zionist newspaper based in Tel Aviv and dedicated to covering biblical archeology news and other mysteries around the globe.
The People's Voice is an American fake news website based in Los Angeles. The site was founded as Your News Wire in 2014 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai and his husband, Sinclair Treadway. In November 2018, it rebranded itself as NewsPunch. Your News Wire was revived as a separate website in November 2020, and has continued publishing hoaxes similar to those in NewsPunch. In 2023, NewsPunch adopted its current name, The People's Voice.
Nicholas Alahverdian, also known as Nicholas Rossi and Arthur Knight, among other aliases, is an American sex offender who faked his own death in 2020.
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(help)Word was received here today that Vanni Marcoux, a member of the Boston Opera Company, had been killed while fighting in the French Army. ...
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Announcement was made by the Presbyterian hoard of foreign missions today that Dr William Wanless who was reported dead in India on July 7 ...