Weird Facts People

Impostors:

There have been impostors in society for decades as far as we know and probably for centuries. An impostor is someone who passes himself or herself off as someone else. It can be someone who impersonates another person or someone who invents an identity and plays that rôle as long as they can. We are not talking about entertainers who routinely imitate the latest political target for the amusement of their audience. We are talking about people who actually take the place of their target in real life and live the life of that person without anyone noticing... at least not for some time.

There are, believe it or not many examples of imposterism. I am going to list a few of these here. There may be many more impostors than we know about, because they may not have been detected yet and may never be. Why they do this varies from impostor to impostor. Some do it for money. Some for the recognition that has eluded them in their own identity and others just for fun. But what we do know is that they are usually very very intelligent people. They would need to be to learn all about another person's life and mannerisms and all the details they need to carry it off. Not to mention taking their victim's place at his place of work and get away with it sometimes for years in spite of not being qualified.

• Brian MacKinnon (1963 -  ), AKA Brandon Lee, the 32 year-old who passed himself off as a pupil at Bearsden Academy. MacKinnon was a medical student in the University of Glasgow but he kept failing his exams and was eventually taken off the course. Determined to become a physician, he posed as Canadian teenager Brandon Lee to re-qualify and get back into medical school. So, 1993 he enrolled in the same school he had graduated from 13 years earlier, Bearsden Academy in Bearsden, a suburb of Glasgow. Although some of the teachers were there when MacKinnon was there thirteen years earlier, he was accepted by all as a new sixteen year old pupil. He stayed for two years, after which he received five 'A' grade Highers in 1994 in Maths, English, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. He was accepted by the University of Dundee's medical school to begin classes that autumn. He left the University after a few months due to financial issues but was accepted to restart in September 1995. Shortly before he was due to re-commence his studies, he took two girls from the school to a holiday in Tenerife. Aafter their return an anonymous phone call to the school headmaster exposed him.

• Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. (1921- 1982) AKA The Great Impostor. As Dr. Joseph Cyr, he joined the Royal Canadian Navy as surgeon where he managed numerous successful surgeries including the removal of a bullet from a man’s chest. Making great use of his photographic memory, Demara taught himself all he needed to know for his deception by reading books on the subject. The Canadian Navy, having eventually discovered that Demara was using a false name, kicked him out but his credentials as a surgeon were not questioned. He then went on to create a series of new identities including: zoology Ph.D., law student, cancer researcher, hospital orderly, deputy sheriff, prison warden and teacher.

• Marvin Hewitt highscool dropout was found in 1954 to be Dr Kenneth D Yates working as associate professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire. It was his third college (as far as we know) and fifth teaching position in seven years in spite of having no qualification of any sort. The college described him as a "brilliant physicist" and a very satisfactory teacher.

• Harry Stokes a 19th-century bricklayer was only unmasked as a woman after his death. Fearing her true nature was about to be revealed she committed suicide and even then her identity was only revealed by chance.

• Louis Grin valet in the 1890s, claimed to be Louis de Rougement, an adventurer who lived with the cannibalistic tribes of Australia for 30 years. There were many newspaper articles published about his exploits and how he survived for so long. They were all fictitious and many based on novels he had read.

• Dr James Barry (1799 - 1865) joined the army in 1813, passed through the grades of assistant surgeon and surgeon in various regiments, and had served as such in this capacity all over the world. In around 1840 he became promoted to the rank of medical inspector, and was transferred to Malta. He went from Malta to Corfu where he was based for many years where he died. Upon his death after forty years of service as an officer in the British army and a matchless reputation in his field he was discovered to be a woman.

• Stanley Clifford Weyman (1890-1960) was an American impostor who impersonated government officials, including Secretary of State and various military officers. He once famously inspected the USS Wyoming playing the part of the Consul General for Romania, fooling the ships captain and crew. He treated them all to dinner afterwards, the bill was supposed to be covered by the Romanian consulate. He was arrested at the dinner and only annoyed because they did not let him finish his meal.

"The desire to want to be somebody important without expending any effort, or making up stories to get attention is actually fairly common," says Dr Colin Gill, a psychologist and expert on the nature of identity. "Of course, we only hear of high-profile cases such as these, when people get caught out. I suspect there may well be thousands of people telling these kind of lies or leading double lives."

Given this, we have not seen the last of our imposters. But, it must be much more difficult than it used to be to impersonate someone these days, given that technology has advanced so far making it easy to check out anybody's identity anywhere any time.