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. Examples 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):
- Brush with death : when the subject unexpectedly survives a serious illness or accident which made them appear to be dead or certain to die.
- Name confusion : where someone with an identical or similar name has died. Usually the subject of the obituary is famous; the decedent 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.
- Pressing the wrong button : 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 no fewer than seven major world figures.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.Further information: Association of the Dead
- Misunderstandings : such as when a Sky News employee thought that an internal rehearsal for the future death of the Queen Mother was real.
A
- Alan Abel staged his own death in a skiing accident as an elaborate hoax in 1980 ( 1980 ) to get his obituary published in the The New York Times .
- 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. To date, he remains imprisoned.
- 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 ) .
- Nnamdi Azikiwe First President of Nigeria was declared dead by Nigerian Newspapers years before he actually died.
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 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.
- Pope Benedict XV , whose pneumonia in January 1922 caused worldwide expectation of his impending death. His death was prematurely announced by a New York newspaper with the front-page headline "Pope Benedict XV is dead", followed by a later edition headlined "Pope has remarkable recovery." However, the Pope did subsequently die of the illness on 22 January.
- 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.
- 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. 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.
- 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
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