“Their paperwork is in order, they’re just dead.”
If true, this is some epic, incredible, just diabolical stuff.
It’s the kind of thing that makes you understand why so many people buy into conspiracy theories and urban legends – because every now and then, one of them turns out to be legit. If! If this one is legit.
This story comes to us from fortune.com, but it isn’t fresh news. As I read it this morning, I remembered that I’d heard this guy – British university researcher Saul Justin Newman – on a few podcasts over the past year.
Take your pick of episodes here. The ABC (Australia), The Guardian, NPR, The Conversation, and so on.
He’s well regarded, or as well regarded as any expert or researcher can be in these ‘post truth’ days.
In fact, you can read his own authored piece on his research at The Conversation, published after he was awarded the cheeky Ig Nobel prize.
(As Ars puts it, “the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor ‘achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.’”)
This except from the Fortune story is the type that gets your eyes wide, jaw dropped as a slow and mindblown “whaaaaat…” escapes.
Just one of many examples is Sogen Kato, who was thought to be Japan’s oldest living person until his mummified remains were discovered in 2010.
It turned out he had been dead since 1978. His family was arrested for collecting three decades of pensions payments.
The government then launched a review which found that 82 percent of Japan’s centenarians — 230,000 people — were missing or dead.
“Their paperwork is in order, they’re just dead,” Newman said.
