List of prematurely reported obituaries

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Pope John Paul II was the subject of three premature obituaries

A premature obituary is an obituary published whose subject is not actually deceased. Such situations have various causes, such as hoaxes or mix-ups over names, and usually produce great embarrassment or sometimes more dramatic consequences. Premature obituaries are often (but not always) caused by newspaper printing errors; it's much easier to update an already-written obituary, rather than writing a new one, so publishers regularly keep large databases of semi-complete obituaries on hand for celebrities and other 'notable' public figures. Examples of premature obituaries range from arms manufacturer Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a 'merchant of death' may have caused him to create the Nobel Prize, to black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose actual death was apparently caused by reading his own obituary.

This article lists the recipients of incorrect death reports (not just formal obituaries) from publications, media organisations, official bodies, and widely-used information sources such as the Internet Movie Database; 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.
• Hoax: when a death is falsely reported as a prank.
• Impostor: 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.
• Land theft victims: many people from Uttar Pradesh, India 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.
• Misidentified body: when a corpse (often from a road crash) is misidentified as someone else who was involved in the same incident or who happened to go missing at the same time.
• Missing in action: soldiers who go missing in war are sometimes incorrectly declared dead if no body is found. In particular, a number of Japanese soldiers 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 News employee thought that an internal rehearsal for the future death of the Queen Mother 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.
• Pseudocide: when the subject fakes his own death in order to evade legal, financial, or marital difficulties and start a new life. This usually involves a fake drowning, as it provides a plausible reason why no body was found.

A

• Alan Abel reported his own death in a skiing accident as an elaborate hoax on New Years Day, 1980 (1980) to get his obituary published in The New York Times.
  

  

  Al-Majid at an investigative hearing (December 18, 2004 (2004-12-18))

• Ali Hassan al-Majid was supposed dead in April 2003 (2003-04), after British and US officials reported that he had died in an air strike in Basra; al-Majid had been seen going into the building that was attacked, and corpses of his bodyguards 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 Hussein 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 Baghdad. Al-Majid was captured several months later, and sentenced to death in 2007 (2007) for war crimes. He was hanged on 25 January 2010.
• Anthony John Allen, a serial criminal, faked his own suicide by drowning off Beachy Head (Britain's most notorious suicide spot) in 1966 (1966) to escape prosecution for theft, 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 2002 (2002) he was jailed for life for having murdered his wife and children in 1975.
• Rex Alston garnered the unusual distinction of having his marriage announced in The Times after his obituary when that paper updated the sportsman's internal obituary file and accidentally published it in 1985 (1985).

B

• William Baer, a New York University professor, was declared dead by his New York Times obituary in May 1942 as a hoax by his students.
  

  

  Luca Barbareschi

• Luca Barbareschi was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered while making the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust. The film was so realistic that shortly after it was released its director, Ruggero Deodato, 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 film, 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 Bartlett was reported in the 1934 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack to have died "about February" the previous year. In fact, he lived until 21 December 1976 (1976-12-21).
• John Basedow was reported by PRWeb to be have died in Thailand due to the tsunami resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake; the story was quickly retracted.
• Lal Bihari, Indian founder of the Association of the Dead, an organisation which highlights the plight of people in Uttar Pradesh 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 Gandhi in 1989 (and lost). He was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for his 'posthumous' activities.
• 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 Bouchard: the former Quebec premier (who had been seriously ill) was reported dead by CTV 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-Canada for the error. CTV and Radio-Canada continued to blame each other thereafter.
• Zach Braff (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 Boyle (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 persistant health problems. He died in December 2006.
• James Brady, White House Press Secretary, was shot in the head in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. 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 News anchor Frank Reynolds when the information was revealed incorrect. This led to greater subsequent caution about issuing death reports during rapidly-developing situations.
• Rodger Bumpass (voice actor), reported in August 2006 to have died during heart surgery, by Jonesboro, Arkansas station KAIT, the Internet Movie Database, and Arkansas State University's newsletter. This was apparently due to confusion with the 2005 death of a (differently spelled) Roger Bumpass.
• Pat Burns (NHL Coach), reported in September 17, 2010 by the Toronto star.
• George W. Bush, 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

Fidel Castro, inaccurately described by CNN as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star'

• Janelle Cahoon: in December 2005, the Duluth News Tribune claimed that the Benedictine nun's 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 Lincolnshire dockmaster who disappeared in September 1998 and was assumed drowned. Eight months later he was discovered living in secret in the West Midlands. 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 didn't believe it at first. Carrasco said he wasn't 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 Castro (Cuban leader) in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had used Ronald Reagan's as a template, described Castro as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star'.
• Whitney Cerak (student) was thought to have died in April 2006 when a van from Taylor University 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 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 Chamberlain (American Civil War officer and Governor of Maine): when he was shot through the hip and groin in the 1864 Siege of Petersburg, he was thought to be on the point of death, and so was reported dead by at least one newspaper (perhaps The New York Times). 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 Cheney (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 Ciardi: see Luca Barbareschi
• Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer, 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 Cobain: the rock musician was reported dead by CNN (though was in fact in a coma) after an overdose in Rome in March 1994, shortly before his actual death in April.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge: 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 Combs: (actor) was confused with a businessman named Jeffrey Coombs who was aboard hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the World Trade Center 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 Connery: (actor) in a October 25th, 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 Texas governor John Connally as well as rumours that Connery had recently undergone treatment for throat cancer.
• Alice Cooper: in the early 1970s, Melody Maker 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 Creangă: around 1884 he suffered a severe stroke and people thought he 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 Crowe: the actor was reported as dead on a Z-100 broadcast in New York City 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 Cyrus: On September 5, 2008, a false Reuters article spread around the web claiming that Miley Cyrus had died in a terrible car accident. This incident, which was also reported by TMZ, 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' YouTube account and posted a video stating she died after being hit by a drunk driver.

D

• Aden Abdullah Osman Daar: 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 Hartlepool. 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 seven 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 case for full details.)
• Calvin Demarest: Pool player institutionalized.
• Thomas Dennison: after this 37-year-old Briton went missing in October 2007, a body that was found in Greater Manchester 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 Nottingham 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 Desborough in 1920, when The Times confused the British politician with Lord Bessborough. 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 Pradesh, India. 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 Dead, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.)
• Joe DiMaggio (baseball player), broadcast by NBC 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.
• Ian Dury (musician), pronounced dead on Xfm radio by Bob Geldof in 1998, possibly due to hoax information from a listener disgruntled at the station's change of ownership. The incident caused music paper NME to call Geldof "the world's worst DJ." Dury died in March, 2000.

E

• Harry Elionsky, 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 Mother's death was erroneously announced in the Australian media in 1993 after a London-based Sky News 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 dismissal. (Fragments of the Queen Mother's life history also appeared in several other world figures' premature obituaries in the CNN.com incident.)
• Queen Elizabeth II's death was announced on BBC Radio West Midlands on May 17, 2010. Host Danny Kelly played God Save the Queen, 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 Ervine: the Northern Irish politician suffered a heart attack and brain haemorrhage on 7 January 2007. The RTÉ News at 9pm 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 Fane, cricketer, reported in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 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 Fay (film actress, also called Dorothy Southworth Ritter), was declared dead in an August 2001 Daily Telegraph 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 Ferrell (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 a (differently spelled) Terry L. Ferguson 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 Ford (former US President) in the CNN.com incident. Also, comedian Dana Carvey used Ford as an example when satirizing pre-prepared obituaries in a Saturday Night Live sketch in which he impersonated Tom Brokaw on NBC Nightly News. Ford died in December 2006.

G

• 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 Garvey died after reading his own obituary

• Marcus Garvey: after suffering a stroke in January 1940 (1940-01), the black nationalist read his obituary in the Chicago Defender which described him as "broke, alone and unpopular". Apparently as a result, Garvey suffered a second stroke and died.
• Gordon Gee: in March 2003 the then- Vanderbilt University 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 Shafie, then Foreign Minister 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.
• Jeff Goldblum: On June 25, 2009 — the same day actress Farrah Fawcett and musician Michael Jackson died — actor Jeff Goldblum was reported dead on Australia's Channel Nine 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 Gorshin (The Riddler from Batman): 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 Island 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 Graves: 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 Times. Graves died in 1985.
• Ann Green (or Anne Greene), a servant in Oxfordshire, 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 Society) using an early form of defibrillator. After a time in coma she eventually made a full recovery.
• Friedrich Gulda (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 Akron president was reported by the Akron Beacon Journal 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 isn't in them.
• Roberto Gómez Bolaños: The well known actor "Chespirito" was killed by a confused Chilean reporter (Carolina Zúñiga). Actually the dead person was the Chilean writer with the same name.

H

• Lincoln Hall, an Australian mountaineer who in May 2006 became confused from altitude sickness while descending from the summit of Mount Everest. 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 Hemingway: after the author and his wife Mary Welsh Hemingway were involved in two African plane crashes in 1954, newspapers reported that both had died. Hemingway survived, but 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. Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.
• Bill Henry (American baseball player): newspapers and the Associated Press 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 Heseltine MP in 1994, when then-DJ Chris Morris implied on BBC Radio 1 (as a prank) that the British politician had died. This led to an on-air tribute by fellow MP Jerry Hayes (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 suicide 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 Blixen, was declared dead in a 1936 Daily Telegraph 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 Horne, the legendary singer-actress, Entertainment Weekly online did post a premature obit and said that information is to be forthcoming. Horne died on May 9, 2010.
• Bob Hope, twice (aided by his great longevity). In both cases a pre-written obituary of the entertainer was accidentally published on a news web site:

1. In 1998 his obituary appeared on the Associated Press web site, leading to the announcement of his death in the United States House of Representatives, broadcast live on C-SPAN.
2. 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.
• Humphrey, the Downing Street cat (or 'Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office') under Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair, was feared dead on two occasions:

1. 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."
2. In November 1997, there were media allegations that Cherie Blair 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 Clark 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 Hung: in 2004, a satirical news report on the Broken Newz web site claiming that the American Idol contestant had died of a heroin overdose was widely believed, forcing Hung to issue a denial.

J

• Pope John Paul II is the only known triple recipient:
  1. Immediately after the 1981 attempt on his life, despite heightened caution due to CBS's embarrassing premature obituary of James Brady only weeks earlier, CNN implied the Pope had died by repeatedly referring to him in the past tense.
  2. 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'.
  3. 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.
• James Earl Jones: in 1998 the actor was erroneously pronounced dead during a radio broadcast of a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game by play-by-play announcer Lanny Frattare; Frattare had confused him with James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, who had just died.
• Raid Juhi: in March 2005 the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein was incorrectly reported by NBC News to have been assassinated. The real victims were another trial judge, Barbweez Mahmood, and his son. NBC blamed incorrect information from US officials.
• Steve Jobs: On 27 August 2008 Bloomberg 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 Twain (who was also the recipient of a premature obituary) reading "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated".

K

• Kailash (full name unknown): this farm labourer from Uttar Pradesh, India 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 Kesey: in 1966, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest faked his own suicide in an attempt to escape drugs 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 Kipling: 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" Kirchner, 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 Kramer: in December 2001, the gay rights activist was reported dead by Associated Press following a liver transplant.

• George Kaye: in November 2005, the Irish musician was reported dead by The Daily Mirror following a plane crash.
• Eddie Kydd: in July 2010, Eddie took a self imposed hiatus from the internet. Many assumed he had died from high levels of awesome but on November 30, 2010 he triumphantly returned to the world of the internet to critical acclaim.
• Khushwant Singh: an English writer of India wrote his own obituary in his mid twenties while he worked in Undivided India at Lahore. The title he chose for his obituary; Posthumous.

L

• Artie Lange, comedian from The Howard Stern Show, was reported dead in May, 2004 by KLAS-TV 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 Leeds, publisher of an almanac competing with Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. 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 Leopoldo, mixed martial arts 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 Post, TMZ, The New York Daily News, The Orange County Register, and USA Today.

M

Paul McCartney is one of several reported dead by radio DJs

• Lonnie Mack, the rock guitarist best known as the founder of the blues-rock 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 Times, 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.
• Madonna was proclaimed dead by a BBC News video uploaded on YouTube on the 28th 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.
• Nelson Mandela (South African leader) in the CNN.com incident.
• Vanni Marcoux, French baritone
• Gabriel García Márquez (writer), reported dead by Peruvian daily La República 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 Council after confusion with another person of the same name.
• Jerry Mathers: rumours that the Leave it to Beaver actor had been killed in Vietnam spread to newspapers by December 1969. (Claims that Associated Press and United Press International put out the story, and that it arose from confusion with the death of another soldier called Mathers, appear to be false.)
• Paul McCartney was proclaimed dead in 1966 by a caller to radio DJ Russ Gibb's show on WKNR-FM Detroit. A few days later New York DJ Roby Yonge was fired for discussing McCartney's possible death on a late-night show. These and other incidents led to interminable rumours 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 Menino: as an April Fool's Day prank in 1998, shock jocks Opie and Anthony claimed on WAAF-FM radio that the Boston 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 Pradesh. 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 Dead, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.)
• Kel Mitchell was falsely declared dead in widely-circulated internet messages in July 2006 due to unknown causes.
• George Monbiot (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 FlyPast; 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 Mulisch: On August 6, 2009, the Dutch writer was falsely declared dead by a Dutch Teletext service, after which some news websites took over the news
• Levy Mwanawasa: On 3 July 2008, the Johannesburg-based 702 Talk Radio claimed that the President of Zambia had died in a Paris hospital while recovering from a stroke suffered 4 days before in Egypt. The government stated that the story was false. Mwanawasa died 47 days later from complications of the stroke.

N

• Jayaprakash Narayan: 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 Nobel (arms manufacturer and founder of the Nobel Prize): 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."
• Stephen Noski: the death of 26 year old 6crew.com founder was reported via the 6crew website and confirmed by family members on his Facebook page. However the reports were an elaborate April Fools' Day hoax 4/1/2010.

O

• Maureen O'Hara: the film actress was listed as dead on the Internet Movie Database in 1998, apparently due to confusion with Maureen O'Sullivan.
• Hiroo Onoda: 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.
• Oren, a sixth-century monk on Iona: 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 Osbourne: in October 2004, a draft obituary of rock star Ozzy Osbourne's wife was accidentally published on the ABC News web site owing to a technical error.

P

• Valentin Paniagua (former Peruvian president): was reported dead by congressman Victor Andres Garcia Belaunde during a speech being made by Peru's Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo 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 Paolozzi: the artist's death was incorrectly reported in a magazine when he suffered a near-fatal stroke in 2001. He died in 2005.
• John Partridge, an astrologer whose death Jonathan Swift (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 Klaipeda. 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, Arkansas 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 Pinter: on 13 October 2005 the newsreader on Sky News, 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 Prize for literature. Pinter lived until December 2008.
• Perry Pirkanen: see Luca Barbareschi
• Velupillai Prabhakaran: the Tamil Tiger leader was reported by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation as being among the dead or missing in the December 2004 tsunami. 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 Reagan (former US President), in the CNN.com incident. CNN also included fragments of Reagan's life history in a premature obituary of Fidel Castro in the same incident. Reagan died in 2004.
• Lou Reed (musician), by numerous US radio stations in 2001, caused by a hoax email (purporting to be from Reuters) which said he had died of an overdose.
• Adam Rich: the television actor was reported to have been murdered in a 1996 tribute issue of Might magazine. It was all an elaborate hoax by the magazine's editor Dave Eggers in collusion with Rich, and was intended to satirize the media exploitation of stars who die young.
• Amnon Rubinstein, Israeli academic and retired politician, whose death was announced in 1999 by Knesset (parliamentary) speaker Avraham Burg following a hoax telephone call. Rubinstein was in hospital at the time for a minor complaint.
• Bertrand Russell: 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 Times. (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.

S

• Jimmy Savile (broadcaster) in 1994, when then-DJ Chris Morris announced on BBC Radio 1 (as a joke) that he had collapsed and died. Savile began legal action against Morris. (See also Michael Heseltine.)
• Terri Schiavo: a draft of the brain damaged patient's obituary accidentally appeared briefly on CBS'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-Gazette 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 Seale, who took part in the 1964 Ku Klux Klan murder of two black hitchhikers in Mississippi, was found not far away in 2005 – despite newspapers including The Clarion-Ledger 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.
• Katharine Sergava (Oklahoma! 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.
• Britney Spears and then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake (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 Stonehouse MP: in 1974 the British politician faked his own suicide (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 Lucan – and imprisoned. Stonehouse died 14 April 1988.
• Red Storey: the Canadian football player and ice hockey referee was reported dead by a Montreal radio station in the 1970s when a Montreal Star 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 Swarbrick: 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

Mark Twain: "The report of my death is an exaggeration"

• Margaret Thatcher: Text-message reports of Thatcher's death caused a stir at a Canadian political event, and officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper'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 Baird's cat.
• Orlando Thomas: A former professional football player afflicted with Lou Gehrig's Disease, Thomas was incorrectly reported as dead by the official website of the Minnesota Vikings, 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 Press.
• András Toma, 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 Trautman (Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania) was reported dead in the 4 April 2007 edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano; 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 Tablet 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 Jones: The Cleveland, Ohio, congresswoman was incorrectly reported as having died 20 August 2008 after suffering an aneurysm. The report prompted an official statement from John Kerry mourning her passing. Tubbs Jones did however, die later that day.
• Thuy Trang: who rose to fame in the mid-1990s playing Trini Kwan/The Yellow Ranger in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, was incorrectly reported dead following an automobile accident in 1997. Ironically, Trang did subsequently die in a car accident, four years later.
• Mark Twain: 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:

1. 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 is 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").
2. 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.

U

• Ishinosuke Uwano: 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 Vance, composer of the song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", was reported dead in September 2006 by Associated Press, 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 wasn't certain whether it was Vance or her husband who had really written the song.
• Abe Vigoda (actor): in 1982, People 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. An unofficial web site, abevigoda.com, continuously provides Vigoda's 'current status' (alive or dead) to avoid doubt in future.

W

• Terance Edward Walker: Said to have died on the operating table November 2007 in Newcastle, England, 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 Braughing, Hertfordshire.
• Elsie Waring: in 1963, this 35-year-old was certified dead by three doctors at Willesden General Hospital, London. Several hours later she gasped and started breathing while being lifted into her coffin.
• William James Wanless reported dead in India.
• Kate Webb: in 1971 the journalist was part of a group captured in the Cambodian jungle by North Vietnamese 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 Reuters. The New York Times 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 S. Weed, the inventor of Weed non-skid tire chains, was reported dead in numerous publications (including Time magazine and the New York Herald Tribune) in 1927 after a reporter for the Jackson, Michigan 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 West: 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 Twitter, prompting West's girlfriend Amber Rose to respond "This 'RIP Kanye West' topic is not funny and it's NOT TRUE!"
• Alan Whicker (journalist), while reporting on the Korean War. He was flying with an aerial spotter in a Piper Aztec 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 White: On July 7, 2009, a Today Show on-site correspondent covering Michael Jackson's memorial service from Forest Lawn Memorial Park erroneously named White as one of the famous celebrities buried there. Today host Meredith Vieira was quick to correct the error at the end of the report, stating that the correspondent likely meant to name Bette Davis instead. White is still alive and continues to actively work in the entertainment industry.
• Slim Whitman: 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!
• Philip Williams: in June 1982, this British soldier was knocked unconscious by an explosion during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands War, 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 Garden 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 Williams, guitarist in the band Kansas, whose obituary was published in a number of New England newspapers after the death of Eric de Boer of Kingston, New Hampshire. de Boer had been impersonating Williams for decades, claiming that after returning from Vietnam (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-Journal 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 Chronicle article.
• Mara Wilson (actress) was listed as dead on the Internet Movie Database in 2000, with the cause being "broken neck".
• Norman Wisdom: the British comedian was reported dead by Sky News on December 28, 2008, with a pre-prepared video obituary having been accidentally published. Wisdom died on 4 October 2010.
• John Wooden: an online picture gallery of the legendary basketball coach on The Washington Post'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 Pradesh, India. 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 Dead, an organisation that protests such cases. (See also Lal Bihari.)
• Shoichi Yokoi: trapped on Guam 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 Yorke: see Luca Barbareschi

The CNN.com incident

File:CheneyCNNobit.jpg

CNN's obituary of Dick Cheney, identifying him as the "UK's favorite grandmother".

Multiple premature obituaries came to light on 16 April 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, Dick Cheney, Nelson Mandela, Bob Hope, Gerald Ford, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan.

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', 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 (see above)

See also

• Death in absentia
• Premature burial

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