↑ arvau

Wikipedia / List of impostors

An impostor (also spelled imposter) is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often through means of disguise, deceiving others by knowingly falsifying one or more aspects of their identity. This is in contrast to someone that honestly believes their false identity due to psychosis (break from reality), mistake (e.g. mistakenly switched at birth, or memory problems), or having been lied to about their identity by another (e.g. by a parent, or kidnapper).

They may lie about their name, rank or title, profession, education, identity of family members or friends, social class, notoriety or influence, life experiences, abilities or achievements, their health history or disability (or that of their family members), citizenship or club membership, racial or ethnic background, religious or political affiliation, wealth or property ownership, tenancy or residency, past or current employment, charitable contributions, criminal or civil court history.

Reasons for imposture

Many impostors try to gain financial or social advantages through social engineering or through means of identity theft, but also often for purposes of espionage or undercover law enforcement. Their objective may be one of sexual gratification, giving a false name, false claim of being single or unwed, and/or false age in order to hide adultery, bigamy, or to catfish (e.g. a pedophile pretending to be a youth online).

Those in witness protection, those fleeing abusers or persecution, and criminals evading arrest may also assume a false identity.

Economic migrants may pose as tourists (visitor visas) or as international students (international student visas with a non-accredited university or college). In some countries, such as Canada, students from abroad on educational visas sometimes then present as asylum claimants to obtain residency or citizenship.

Some impostors may do it for pathological reasons, such as having a personality disorder that involves an excessive need for attention and emotional reactions from others (be it praise and/or sympathy), an excessive sense of self-importance or being special, an excessive sense of entitlement, an excessive need to control others, a lack of remorse or emotional empathy, chronic and frequent exaggeration or lying about one’s abilities or life events, and exploitativeness. These psychological conditions may include narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy and sociopathy), Munchausen syndrome (factitious disorder imposed on self) and Munchausen-by-proxy (factitious disorder imposed on another).

According to forensic psychologist Ian Joblin, people who invent extraordinary life stories often do so to overcome feelings of inadequacy. By inventing an identity that embodies qualities admired within their culture, they seek validation, confidence, and influence. Such deceptions usually begin with small exaggerations that expand as they are accepted by others. As the fabricated narrative grows, it evolves to resolve inconsistencies, and the confabulator's insecurity may develop into an inflated sense of power and invulnerability.

People have also posed as others as a hoax or prank, sometimes for amusement, but also for publicity or as part of a protest, sometimes later revealing their true identity.

Many women in history have presented themselves as men in order to advance in typically male-dominated fields. There are many documented cases of this in the military during the American Civil War. However, their purpose was rarely for fraudulent gain. They are listed in the List of wartime cross-dressers.

Spies have often pretended to be people other than they were. One famous case was that of Chevalier d'Eon (1728–1810), a French diplomat who successfully infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by presenting as a woman.

Historically, when military record-keeping was less accurate than today, some persons—primarily men—falsely claimed to be war veterans to obtain military pensions. Most did not make extravagant claims that would attract attention and possible exposure. In the modern world, falsely posing as a member of the military or exaggerating one's service record is almost always only to gain undeserved respect and admiration.

Scientists and filmmakers may also engage in imposture for the purposes of conducting a social experiment or public education; later revealing the deception to participants and public is a key part of the experiment. For instance, James Randi's Project Alpha; Derren Brown's Messiah, and Fear & Faith; and Vikram Gandhi's Kumaré.

Notable impostors

False nationality claims

  • Princess Caraboo (1791–1864), Englishwoman who pretended to be a princess from a fictional island

  • Korla Pandit (1921–1998), African-American pianist/organist who pretended to be from India

  • George Psalmanazar (1679–1763), who claimed to be from Taiwan

  • Micheál Mac Liammóir (1899–1978), notable actor in Ireland, born in England as Alfred Willmore but falsified an Irish birth and identity

False minority national identity claims

False royal heritage claims

Fraudsters

  • Frank Abagnale (born 1948), who passed bad checks as a fake pilot

  • Joseph Ady (1770–1852), notorious English impostor and postal fraudster

  • Gerald Barnbaum (1933–2018), former pharmacist who posed as a doctor for over twenty years, assuming the identities of various licensed physicians

  • Alessandro Cagliostro (1743–1795), Italian adventurer and self-styled magician

  • Cassie Chadwick (1857–1907), who pretended to be Andrew Carnegie's daughter

  • Ravi Desai, (active 1996–2002), a journalist who posed as Robert Klinger, fictitious chief executive officer of BMW's North American division, in a series of articles for Slate magazine

  • Belle Gibson (born 1991), an Australian alternative wellness advocate who falsely claimed to have survived multiple cancers without using conventional cancer treatments

  • David Hampton (1964–2003), who pretended to be the son of Sidney Poitier

  • Joseph "Harry" Jelinek (1905–1986), who is alleged to have fraudulently sold the Karlstejn Castle to American industrialists

  • Brian Kim (born 1975/1976), lived in Christodora House in Manhattan, falsified documents identifying himself as the president-secretary of its condo association, and transferred $435,000 from the association's bank account to his own bank account

  • Sante Kimes (1934–2014), impersonated various public figures and was convicted of murdering her own landlady, wealthy socialite Irene Silverman, in an apparent plot to assume Silverman's identity

  • Mandla Lamba, "fake billionaire" from South Africa who received media attention by claiming to be a successful mining tycoon.

  • Victor Lustig (1890–1947), "The man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice."

  • Richard Allen Minsky (born 1944), who lured women into vulnerable situations by pretending to be people they knew, then lawyers representing them, and then raped them

  • Arthur Orton (1834–1898), also known as the Tichborne Claimant, who claimed to be the missing heir Sir Roger Tichborne

  • Paul Palaiologos Tagaris (c. 1320/40– after 1394), Orthodox monk, claimed to be a member of the Palaiologos dynasty, pretended to be the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, later succeeded in being named Latin Patriarch of Constantinople

  • Frederick Emerson Peters (1885–1959), U.S. celebrity impersonator and writer of bad checks

  • Gert Postel (born 1958), a mail carrier who posed as a medical doctor

  • Lobsang Rampa (1910–1981), formerly plumber Cyril Hoskins, who claimed to be possessed by the spirit of a deceased Tibetan lama and wrote a number of books based on that premise

  • James Reavis (1843–1914), master forger who used his real name but created a complex, fictitious history that pointed to him as the rightful owner of much of Arizona

  • Anna Sorokin (born 1991), posed as a fictitious wealthy heiress to fraudulently obtain loans, luxury goods, travel, and stays at exclusive hotels

  • Leander Tomarkin (1895–1967), fake doctor who became the personal physician of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, and convinced Albert Einstein to assume the honorary presidency of one of his medical conferences

  • Sally and Timothy Walker, married couple represented in Sally's memoir (published under the name Raynor Winn) The Salt Path, which was later alleged to be largely misrepresented.

Military impostors

Multiple impostors

  • Frédéric Bourdin (born 1974), "the French Chameleon"

  • Barry Bremen (1947–2011), known in the sports world as "The Great Imposter", after pretending to be an MLB umpire, an NBA All-Star, and a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, among other things

  • Ferdinand Waldo Demara (1921–1982), "The Great Impostor", who masqueraded as many people, from monks to surgeons to prison wardens

  • Christian Gerhartsreiter (born 1961), a serial impostor and convicted murderer who infamously posed as a member of the Rockefeller family and became the subject of several books

  • Marvin Hewitt (1922–1991), who impersonated several academics and became a university physics professor

  • Stanley Clifford Weyman (1890–1960), American multiple impostor who impersonated public officials, including the U.S. Secretary of State and various military officers

  • Laurel Rose Willson (1941–2002), who claimed to be "Lauren Stratford", a victim of satanic ritual abuse, and later as Holocaust survivor "Laura Grabowski"

  • Mamoru Samuragochi (born 1963), who claimed to be a "deaf composer", though it was later revealed that his hearing ability has already improved and most of his works were written by Takashi Niigaki, conductor of "Onimusha Soundtrack", produced by Samuragouchi.

  • Nicolai Lilin (born 1980), an Italian-Moldovan writer who claimed to be the descendent of a Siberian ethnic group deported by the Soviet Union to Bender, Moldova in the 1930s, despite being of Polish origin and Bender having not been in the USSR at that time. He also claimed to be a veteran of the Second Chechen War, despite his name not appearing in any sources close to the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Hoaxes

There have been a great many notable hoaxes; only a few are listed.

  • In the Dreadnought hoax, Horace de Vere Cole and members of the Bloomsbury Group, in make-up and costume posing as members of Abyssinian royalty, in 1910 persuaded the Royal Navy to invite them to inspect the fleet and its flagship, the battleship HMS Dreadnought. When the hoax was revealed, de Vere Cole contacted the press and sent newspapers a photograph of the "princes". The group's pacifist views embarrassed the Navy, which was ridiculed, and demanded that Cole be arrested; but the group had broken no laws.

Others

In fiction

See also

References