Everybody dies eventually. That’s just how life goes. But some people have stared Grim Reaper in the eye, gazed upon him unflinching, and lived to tell the tale. Even when everything went wrong, every possible scenario that should lead to your demise—somehow, these people found a way.

Whether through pure skill and talent, timely help from others, absolute luck, or simply because the Grim Reaper was feeling lazy that day, these are the stories of 10 people who should be dead but aren’t.

10 Julius Caesar: The Battle of Alesia

In the year 52 BC, Caesar was knee-deep in Gaul, an enemy territory. Vercingetorix, a Germanic tribe leader, intercepted Caesar’s forces. Vercingetorix retreated to a highly defensible fort named Alesia.

His supply line was shaking. His entire army is very close to death from starvation. A messenger came to Caesar; he said that a massive Germanic reinforcement is going to come soon. Caesar knew he couldn’t escape from this place. If he assaulted the fort, it’d be suicide. If he waited, he’d die by starvation. Caesar felt it—the Grim Reaper is coming for him.

He ordered his men to build a wall facing Alesia. Then he built another wall facing outside, creating a fort within a fort. These walls are mind-bogglingly enormous; 18km long inner wall and 22km long outer wall. The Germanic reinforcement that came was truly massive. Vercingetorix forces outnumbered Caesar’s forces three to one.

The Germanic reinforcements attacked the Roman fort from all sides, with the strongest force invading the eastern wall. As Vercingetorix did the same thing to the inner wall, Roman troops were stretched impossibly thin along the walls. Caesar himself rode around the perimeter, personally commanding his forces against the attack. They hold on for dear life.

Then Caesar took a cavalry unit and broke through the outer wall, sweeping the perimeter as they attack the Germanic forces from behind. The Germanic army was in shock. They panicked and fled, and some were killed or captured. Caesar was victorious, not just against Vercingetorix but against death.

9 William Duell: Execution by Hanging

In 1740, A young woman named Sarah Griffin arrived at Acton, London, and wanted a place to stay the night. She encountered William Duell, a 16-year-old man, who offered her his barn. Sarah accepted and made herself at home for the night. That evening, Duell went out to a nearby pub and boasted about how he had a beautiful woman in his bed. Wickedly, Duell led five men into poor Sarah’s room.

The men raped Sarah, who died the next day from a stroke. Duell was convicted of rape and murder and plead guilty, earning himself a death sentence. 24 November 1740, William Duell was executed by hanging. His body hung for 50 minutes before the hangman cut the rope. They transported the body to the Surgeons’ Hall for an autopsy.

To everyone’s dismay, William Duell woke up 10 minutes after the body was laid down on the medical table. He can’t recall what recently happened. He was fed a warm broth and given space and time to rest. He recovered the next day and was able to recite the lord’s prayer fluently as if he hadn’t been executed the day before.

8 Harrison Odjegba Okene: Sinking Ship

A Nigerian cooking crew named Harrison Odjegba Okene is boarding the tugboat RSS Jascon 4. He was peacefully heeding nature’s call in the bathroom when suddenly the entire room flipped upside down. A massive rogue wave knocked RSS Jascon-4, capsizing the ship.

He immediately opened the door and saw his friends get dragged along the corridor by the rushing water. Before he realized it, the entire ship is already pitch black and fully covered in water. He tried to move to find a pocket of air inside to ship, haphazardly feeling around the corridor walls. Luckily, he managed to grab a mattress and a coke. He found a pocket of air, big enough for him to breathe adequately.

For three days, Harrison stood very still, breathing slowly and trying not to listen to the sounds of sharks feasting on his dead friends. He stood toe-to-toe with death in the abyssal depth of the ocean.

Finally, he heard a knock and began to knock back furiously. Eventually, one of the rescue divers found him. Harrison was put into a diver tank, hoisted up into the surface, and decompressed for two days. He vowed never to set foot into any ship again.

7 Jose Salvador Alvarenga: 438 Days at the Pacific Ocean

Two fishermen from Costa Azul, Mexico, named Ezequiel Cordoba and Jose Alvarenga, were going on a fishing trip 120 km from the shore. They knew a storm was brewing, but they pushed their luck.

They managed to evade the storm but stopped just 24 km from the shore because the boat’s motor died. They tried to contact colleagues with the radio, but the batteries were dead too. At this moment, they knew they were going to embark on their last journey.

The coastal wind pushed their boat into the massive Pacific Ocean. With no oars to paddle, they had no choice but to oblige the wind. Four days had passed, and they ended up 450 km from the shore. The pair caught birds and turtles with their hands and drank their blood. They picked up discarded plastic bottles and tried to catch rainwater to drink. They even drank their own urine.

Four months later, Cordoba went insane and refused to eat, dying of starvation. After eleven months, Alvarenga had sailed 1100 km from his home. Finally, he reached Ebon Atoll, a tiny island in the Marshall Islands. He knocked on a house and was rescued.

6 Vesna Volovic: Fell Out of a Plane Without a Parachute

On 26 January 1972, a Yugoslavian flight attendant named Vesna Volovic boarded flight JAT-367. The plane flew from Denmark to Yugoslavia. Forty-seven minutes after the plane took off, there was an explosion in the baggage area big enough to break the aircraft in half.

Vesna was thrown towards the plane’s tail. A food tray flew across the corridor, pinning her down at the back of the plane, preventing her from falling out like everyone else. Vesna’s low blood pressure condition caused her to fall unconscious.

That part of the plane fell 9800 meters into a heavily wooded area around Srbska-Kamenice. The dense trees cushioned the plane’s fall—enough to keep Vesna’s limbs intact. A nearby citizen inspected the plane and rescued Vesna from the crash.

Vesna suffered multiple severe injuries on her legs, pelvis, and head, but ultimately still lived. She was brought to a nearby hospital for treatment. It turns out that the blackout prevented her heart from bursting from the shock, saving her life.

5 Aaron Ralston: Singlehandedly Survived

On 26 April 2003, Aaron Ralston decided to go Horseshoe Canyon in Wayne County, Utah, for a mountaineering adventure. After climbing the canyon expertly, he slipped and a medium-sized boulder fell, crushing and pinning his left hand. 

Ralstondevised a plan. He would chip the stone using his multitool blade to loosen it up and then try to break free. He chipped the stone for 127 hours with no luck. He recorded his last message which showed his condition. With that, he forced himself to try one last thing—amputating his left arm.

He braced himself and twisted his left hand, breaking the bone. He cut open the skin and sawed through the muscle, using his now-dulled multitool blade. With his plier, he cut his arm’s nerves one by one, screaming from the pain.

Still somehow alive, Ralston was free. He quickly bandaged his amputated arm and traveled down using his climbing gear. After seven miles of walking aimlessly, he found a pair of Dutch tourists.

4 Brock Meister: Survived Internal Decapitation

A 22-year-old Plymouth, Indiana teenager named Brock Meister was going back home after dinner with his friends. Driving his friends’ truck, Brock hit an ice patch on the road home and spun out of control going 60 km/h. His truck spun and rolled over a few times but landed upright, only backward.

Brock’s friend, who drove ahead of him, witnessed the crash and checked Brock’s condition. Despite a lot of blood, Brock was both alive and responsive. Paramedics safely transported Brock to a nearby hospital where doctors were shocked by what they saw.

Brock had been internally decapitated. His spine was no longer attached to his skull. His head was attached solely because of his skin and muscle tissues. Most people who suffer internal decapitation either died instantly or die in the ambulance. Brock received a successful follow-up surgery to re-attach his spine using a rod. 

3 Angela Hernandez: Unluckiest Car Crash

Angela Hernandez drove her 2011 Jeep Patriot on Highway One in Southern California. Suddenly, a small animal leaped in front of her car. She instinctively avoided it, but it sent her vehicle barrelling down the cliff towards the ocean.

Hernandez woke as her vehicle was drowning. She broke her collarbones, fractured four ribs, ruptured her lungs and eye blood vessels, and suffered a brain hemorrhage. Amazingly, she broke her vehicle’s window and managed to swim out of it. She reached the surface but passed out from overexertion.

She woke up on the beach, 80 meters below the highway on the cliff. She walked along the highway despite excruciating pain from her severe injuries. After seven days of walking, she finally found a woman walking along the beach. The woman then called 911 to rescue Angela. Within hours, she was airlifted towards the nearest hospital and survived.

2 Lachhiman Gurung: The One-Handed Gurkha

Gurkhas are known for producing the fiercest and toughest soldiers. In 1945, a Gurkha named Lachhiman Gurung was a part of the 4^th Battalion Gurkha Rifles. He guarded the camp near Taongda village while the rest of the team slept.

On one fateful night, the Japanese launched a night raid on Lachhiman’s camp. Japanese soldiers threw a grenade at his position. Lachhiman managed to throw two of the grenades back at them. When he grabbed the third grenade, it was too late—the grenade blew up in his hand. With the fingers gone on his right hand, his right arm and leg were mangled. The right side of his face was bloody and covered in shrapnel.

The fact that Lachhiman survived the grenade’s blast was nothing short of a miracle, but it didn’t end there. He collected himself and readied his rifle, shooting whoever came close to his trench. He avoided grenades and enemy fire, reloading the rifle just in time as more soldiers came at him. He did it all with just his undamaged left hand.

The struggle continued for 4 hours, but he somehow managed to kill 31 soldiers and fend off the 200-men attack. His friends treated him, and Lachhiman survived. He was awarded the Victoria Cross medal.

1 Frank Selak: 7 is the Unlucky Number

Frank Selak was just a 32-year-old Croatian music teacher. But he seemed to have a superpower of surviving everything life—and death—threw at him. In January 1962, Selak boarded a train, that was suddenly derailed. The train plunged into an icy river. Selak survived the fall and swam ashore with a broken arm and hypothermia.

A year later, he was on a plane flying from Zagreb to Rijeka when the back door blasted open, sucking everyone into the sky. Amazingly, Selak landed on a haystack with only minor scratches. Four years later, Selak boarded a transport bus. The bus skidded and plunged into a river, sinking all the way down. Yet again, Selak survived the fall and swam into the surface, then to the shore with a few cuts and bruises.

In 1970, Selak was driving his car when an engine failure ignited the fuel tank, bursting the car into flames. Selak jumped off of the vehicle just before it exploded. A few years later, the same thing happened with his new car. Selak again exited the vehicle safely, only suffering minor burns. Later, he was hit by a city bus and then again by a truck. This guy should think about playing the lottery. 

Dead is dead unless you’re talking about zombies, right? Well, there are people out there who believe some celebrities may have faked their death. Everyone who thought Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur, and Michael Jackson were gone for good—think again. Some have set out to prove that these and other famous figures didn’t actually die but instead staged their deaths to escape the public eye.

Whether you buy into these theories or not, they’re definitely interesting to consider. Here are 10 of the most famous “dead” people that conspiracy theorists say are actually alive.

Related: 10 Dark Conspiracy Theories That Actually Turned Out To Be True

10 Michael Jackson

The King of Pop famously passed away in 2009 from cardiac arrest. Despite there being a very public investigation into his death, some people believe that he’s still alive, moonwalking to “Billie Jean.” Even his family and fans that believe he is dead think that his death is shrouded in mystery. Here are some of the most prevalent theories.

• MJ faked his own death to escape the public eye.
• Michael faked his death to get out of debt and boost his sales again.
• He faked his death so he could live the life of a normal person.
• He didn’t fake his own death; instead, he was murdered, and the investigation was a coverup.
• MJ had to fake his death to avoid more child sexual abuse allegations.

What’s the Proof?

Like any conspiracy, the proof is what you make of it. In this case, there are poor-quality pictures where he’s been “seen” in the background at family events. Jackson’s stylist also made a series of cryptic texts, and some fans think that MJ looks too similar to one of his friends.

Even with his family’s insistence that he was murdered, it all boils down to a he-said-she-said situation, with them claiming that he didn’t sign his will and wanted his executors removed from it.

No matter what you believe, there’s one thing no one can deny—Michael Jackson was an incredible artist that changed the music industry forever.

9 Princess Diana

Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in 1997, but there are people still holding their candles in the wind—positive that she’s still alive. There have been hundreds of theories about what really happened to Diana. These theories spread so far and so quickly that an official investigation was opened and lasted for years.

Naturally, the investigation agreed with the original death report. She was in a car accident, and her driver was drunk. But the prevailing theory is that she staged her death to escape the public media circus surrounding her life and is currently living on a small island with her Egyptian husband.

What’s the Proof?

The majority of proof is just hearsay, but many of the theories stem from small bits of truth. Diana had expressed concern about her safety and had spoken about her fears that Prince Charles was planning something sinister shortly before her death. Maybe she really did plan ahead?

8 JFK Jr

This conspiracy has been making ripples in the media recently, so much so that some groups are calling for former President Donald Trump to run again with JFK Jr. as vice president. So obviously, there are people that believe JFK Jr. didn’t actually die in 1999 when his plane crashed. According to them, he’s still alive and well.

There are numerous theories about what really happened to JFK Jr., some believing that he was killed by the government or that he simply went into hiding. Whatever the real story is, almost none of the theories mention his wife or sister-in-law, both of whom were in the plane when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean… So I’m sensing a plot hole here.

What’s the proof?

There is no actual proof that he’s alive. But according to the Dallas Observer, that questioned people who believe he is alive, the answer is in Home Alone 2. That’s right, the classic family Christmas film.

Let’s follow the logic according to one interviewee: JFK was shot at Dealey PLAZA, so JFK Jr. is coming back at Discovery PLAZA. Kevin stayed at the PLAZA Hotel in the movie, where he ran into…Donald Trump!

So if you followed that, there’s your proof. And if you got lost, you’re not alone.

7 Elvis Presley

We’re all shook up. Seriously though, this addition to the list should come as no surprise. Conspiracies surrounding Elvis’s death are so far spread that one even made it into a Men in Black movie.

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll died in 1977 from a heart attack, but not before his rubber legs reinvented the music industry. There are numerous theories about Elvis’s death, with some believing that he was killed, others that his death was faked so he could get out of the public view. Still others that think he was an alien and went back to his home planet.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the solar system.

What’s the proof?

Once again, there is nothing concrete—if there was, this wouldn’t be conspiracy anymore. There have been sightings and pictures taken where people swear that Elvis is present. What suspicious minds? And, if you can believe it, there have been claims that he was an extra in the original Home Alone. It seems like Macaulay Culkin has a lot of explaining to do.

6 Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur was killed in 1996 in a drive-by shooting while in his own car. Theories about what really happened to Tupac vary widely, and some believe that he staged his own death. Others think that his death was staged by the government. And both of these assume that he is living under a new identity. The real question is, why would one of the most influential rappers of all time fake his own death?

What’s the proof?

American music exec Suge Knight says he doesn’t know if he’s dead. And Suge Knight Jr. says the rapper is living in Malaysia. Fans think that Tupac left clues about his death in his song lyrics and music videos.

Mr. Tupac…holler if ya’ hear me!

5 Paul Walker

Paul Walker died in a car accident in 2013, leading to the most emotional moment in the Fast and the Furious franchise. But that didn’t stop some fans from believing that he faked his own death. The most common theory is that Walker was working with the government to investigate a certain type of fuel. When he died in the accident, supposedly, it was all part of the plan.

What’s the proof?

People have pointed to the fact that Walker didn’t have a public funeral. And his autopsy was placed on “security hold”—whatever that means. Fans also think that the color of his car changes in photographs before and after the accident between orange and red. Could it be true, or is this like the “what color is the dress” challenge?

4 Steve Jobs

The father of Apple died in 2011, but some people refuse to believe that the turtlenecked-tech giant is really gone. One theory is that Jobs faked his death because he disagreed with where the company was headed. Another says he faked his death so he could retire and live in Egypt.

Apparently, he was interested in ancient Egyptian culture and visited the country frequently. Some people believe that he even has a tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

What’s the proof?

There is a photo making the rounds on the internet that shows a man in Egypt drinking coffee that kinda looks like him. Wherever you are, Steve, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

3 Jeffrey Epstein

Everyone has heard the phrase “Epstein didn’t kill himself.” Half the world thinks he was killed by the Clintons or other powerful people he might have named after his arrest. But while everyone is focused on one conspiracy theory, what if there was another one playing out right under our nose?

“Epstein’s still alive” is much less common since he was found dead in his cell in 2019. But some people are dedicated to the idea that he’s still alive. There are numerous theories about what really happened to Epstein. Some believe that he staged his own death and went into hiding to avoid convictions. Is he watching Maxwell take the fall while he sips Mai Tai’s on a private island somewhere?

What’s the proof?

There are numerous pictures of “Epstein” after his death that have been circulated online, but they are all pretty inconclusive. Some believe he’s hanging out at a ranch in New Mexico based on a news report written before his demise.

2 Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn is one of the most popular sex symbols in modern history. So it’s no wonder that fans don’t want to believe that she died in 1962. Some conspiracy theorists believe that she was killed by the government because of her affairs with JFK and his brother Robert Kennedy. Others think she faked her own death and is living under a new identity because she knew too many state secrets.

What’s the proof?

With the number of organizations that wanted her dead to cover up secrets, it isn’t likely that she is alive. But there are pictures of Monroe after her death that have been circulated online. Author John Baker claims she’s in a Canadian mental institution. Hopefully, they let her keep her bottle of Chanel No. 5.

1 Osama Bin Laden

When a SEAL Team says, “We got him.” that’s usually a closed book on what happened. But when it comes to Bin Laden, some people feel there are unanswered questions.

Why was he buried at sea? Why is there a lack of physical evidence of his death? Some believe that when the SEALs raided his compound, they killed a body double. They think he was really taken alive and is being used as a confidential informant. A few even think that the raid and death were faked to boost former President Obama’s approval rating.

What’s the proof?

There isn’t any definitive proof that Bin Laden is still alive. However, some people have pointed to videos of “him” after his death as evidence. Others say that because he was initially armed by America to fight Russia in the 1980s that he has always been a CI. Wherever you are, Bin Laden, stay there.

Life is short. We have only a certain number of years to make an impact on the world before Fate snatches us away. But some figures of history have continued to shape the world, even after they leave it behind. Some have made great intellectual achievements, others have journeyed across the oceans, and a few have even eluded attempts at post-mortem kidnapping.

10 People Who Were Executed And Lived To Tell The Tale

10 Abraham Lincoln foiled the theft of Abraham Lincoln’s body

The state of Illinois is famous for being the home of both “Honest Abe” Lincoln, and massively successful organized crime gangs. These two divergent traits converged in 1876, when a group of counterfeiters in Chicago hatched one of the most bizarre ransom schemes of all time. Led by “Big Jim” Kennally, the gang decided to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln (buried in Springfield, Illinois) and use it as a bargaining chip to demand the release of their imprisoned engraver, Benjamin Boyd.

But Kennally’s underlings made a critical error by inviting a government informant, Lewis Swegles, to help snatch the body. After failing to lift the 500 pound coffin, the group fled Lincoln’s tomb empty-handed when they heard a policeman’s gun misfire outside. Arrests followed soon after. Perhaps the most interesting part of the story is that Lincoln indirectly stopped the theft of his own body. Swegles, the informant, reported to the Secret Service, a federal agency formed originally not to protect the president, but to combat counterfeiting. Which president signed the legislation that created the Secret Service? None other than Abraham Lincoln.

9 George Washington nearly lost his head because he didn’t leave Mount Vernon

Lincoln was not the first president to be the victim of an attempted grave robbery. After George Washington’s death in 1799, he was promptly buried among his family members at Mount Vernon, as specified in his will. But the federal government had plans to move him to a public memorial in the city that bears his name. Despite Martha Washington’s approval, the project was delayed by Congressional inertia and so he stayed in the decaying family vault. This nearly ended in disaster in 1830. A grave robber broke into the Washington family crypt, hoping to steal the dead president’s skull. Nobody is sure who did it or why, but some sources indicate it was a disgruntled employee. A gardener at Mount Vernon had been fired by Washington’s heir, John Augustine Washington, and wanted revenge.

Fortunately or unfortunately, many of the coffins had rotted away and several Washington skeletons were mixed together on the floor. The robber took the wrong skull and was apprehended soon after. George and his family were transferred to a new tomb at Mount Vernon. But Congress requested the remains again, with Washington’s Tomb in the Capitol finally under construction. But John Washington refused to give up the body, and it stayed at Mount Vernon. Washington’s Tomb in Washington remained empty.

8 A radical philosopher lived out his ideals, even in death

The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham was not a man afraid to think and say some pretty controversial stuff. He firmly believed that all human action should be focused on maximizing “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. That may sound simple, but this belief led him to conclusions about religion, criminal justice, and gay rights that were highly unusual for the era. Bentham also considered it his duty to advance human happiness, post-mortem.

Bentham’s will, written shortly before he died in 1832, left detailed instructions to achieve that goal. Bentham’s body was publicly dissected for the sake of science and then mummified. Nobody really knows what his exact motivation for that was. His will envisions his friends having regular social gatherings with the corpse. Eventually though, the body ended up in the possession of University College London, where it remains on display today.

7 An Ancient Roman politician made one last public “speech”

Marcus Tullius Cicero devoted his life to preserving the republican institutions of Ancient Rome. Naturally, this made him numerous enemies among those wanting to destroy Rome’s traditional institutions and seize power for themselves. Following the assassination of the dictator Julius Caesar, Rome was in total chaos, divided by numerous factions fighting for control. Mark Antony hoped to position himself as Caesar’s successor.

Cicero of course wanted a return to the good old days, when Rome was ruled by wise and selfless men. In the Roman Senate he delivered a series of speeches denouncing Mark Antony and calling for a return to Rome’s old traditions. Antony was so outraged that he ordered Cicero to be murdered. He gave special instructions to the assassins to cut off Cicero’s head and hands. The body parts were then nailed to the speaker’s podium in the Senate, as a macabre warning to all Antony’s enemies.

6 An exiled Italian poet never returned home

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, portraying the author’s fictional journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven, was recognized as a masterpiece almost immediately. Its influence on later Italian literature was so immense that Dante has been called the Father of the Italian language. So it’s only natural that his hometown of Florence would treasure the remains of the great poet.

There was only one problem. Italy in those days was a pretty nasty and chaotic place, and Dante had been exiled by the Florentine government. He was in Ravenna in 1321 when he died, and was buried there. Florence’s leaders had second thoughts soon after and wanted Dante to come home.

In 1519 the Florentines sent a delegation with papal permission to take the body home. But after digging him up, they found Dante’s coffin was empty. The friars at Ravenna had cleverly hidden his bones in their monastery. The delegation went home empty handed. In 1781 a mausoleum in Ravenna was built to publicly honor the dead poet, where his body remains today. But the city of Florence still hasn’t given up. In the Basilica of Florence there is an empty tomb that patiently awaits Dante’s final homecoming.

5 Einstein’s brain continued making contributions to science, even after he died

Albert Einstein is universally acknowledged to be one of the most towering scientific minds of all time. It’s not surprising then, that people would want to figure out exactly how his magnificent brain worked. After he died in 1955, his brain was taken out, sliced up, and distributed among scientists to study. Sounds creepy, right? To make matters worse, it’s not entirely clear that anyone named Einstein wanted this to happen. The ambitious doctor who performed the autopsy took the brain out before telling the family.

Nevertheless, Einstein’s son consented to the idea after some initial anger. Numerous scientific papers have since been written about the alleged peculiarities of Einstein’s brain. But other scientists insist that every human brain is in some ways unique, and what caused Einstein’s genius is probably unknowable. As with most issues in science, the debate is likely to continue.

4 The creator of Star Trek finally made it to the final frontier

Gene Roddenberry’s life was an adventure by any definition. After flying B-17 bombers during World War II, he became a Hollywood screenwriter and created Star Trek, one of the most successful media franchises of all time. But one ambition always eluded him. He never personally made it to the starry sky above that he dreamed and wrote about. That is, he never made it while he was alive.

He finally got the chance in 1992 when a portion of his ashes flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia and then returned to earth. 5 years later another portion of Roddenberry’s remains was launched into earth orbit by a private company. However, by 2002, that spacecraft came crashing back to earth and disintegrated upon reentry.

3 The corpse of a medieval pope went on trial

Whilst mystical, the Catholic Church is also a human institution, and thus is affected by the ambitions and even the madness of human beings. One 9th century pope, Formosus, could not even escape the political controversies of the day after he was dead. It all started when Formosus was still a cardinal under Pope John VIII. Formosus and John were on opposite sides of a dynastic struggle, so John had him excommunicated on various trumped-up charges. After John’s death his successor Marinus restored Formosus to his previous position. A few years later, Formosus himself became pope.

Unfortunately for him, the political enemies made before and during his papacy didn’t give up after Formosus died. His successor, Stephen VI, literally dug up his corpse and metaphorically dug up the old accusations against him. The body of Formosus, dressed in his papal vestments, was put on trial. Stephen found the “defendant” guilty, and declared his entire papacy retroactively void. Formosus’s vestments were torn off and his body thrown into the Tiber River. Subsequent popes alternated between condemning or supporting Stephen’s bizarre actions, and the chaos continued.

2 Christopher Columbus never stopped voyaging around the world

Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain in the Old World. His wish was to be buried in the New World, but there were no churches considered suitable to house his remains. When the Cathedral of Santo Domingo (in Spain’s Caribbean Empire) was complete, Columbus was moved there. But when Spain lost control of Santo Domingo in 1795, he was moved to another part of the Spanish Caribbean, Havana, Cuba. About a century later, Spain lost Cuba as well, and Columbus was moved back across the Atlantic. Today he rests in the Cathedral of Seville, Spain.

Or does he? The story gets more complicated in 1877, when workers in the Santo Domingo cathedral found a lead box filled with human bones. The box was labeled with Columbus’s name in Spanish. Subsequent DNA testing has confirmed the remains in Seville are of Christopher Columbus, but it’s entirely possible that part of the body was left in Santo Domingo. It would be fitting if Christopher Columbus had two graves, one in the Old World and one in the New.

1 Captain James Cook was a sacred relic to the people who murdered him

Nearly three centuries after Columbus, a British explorer named James Cook was sent by his government to explore the unknown. He mapped huge areas of the world that had previously been shrouded in mystery. But his voyages ended in gruesome fashion in Hawaii.

Relations between the British and the native Hawaiians were good at first. They believed Cook and his men were gods…until one of them died. Relations quickly soured after that. The Hawaiians stole one of his boats. Then, a battle erupted on the beach and Captain Cook was brutally beaten and stabbed to death.

Nevertheless, the Hawaiians were still in awe of the man they had just killed. They cooked his body to remove the flesh, believing that a man’s power lay in the bones. After about a week, Captain Cook’s skeleton was returned to his crew, who buried it at sea. But, there have been strange rumors that some of his bones were kept in Hawaii, treasured as sacred relics by the natives of the island and perhaps even used to make weapons.

10 People Who Died Ridiculous Deaths

About The Author: Kyle D. Walter is a writer who loves to make his audience laugh, learn, and think. He is the author of the comedic novel, Six Days in the Life of David Vallejo, which can be found here.

DNA is the genetic code unique to every human, but another more obvious sign of individuality exists—your face. Love it or not, everything from the width of your nose to the size of your ears are exclusive to you.

When an unidentified body is found, a skull can unlock the secrets of that person’s appearance, even after decomposition and the passage of time. Police have been using composite sketches to identify suspects and victims for around 100 years, but forensic sculptors take the recreation of faces to another level.

Forensic sculptors will study the skull and measure the tissue depth to craft a replica of the subject’s face. The portrait, usually made of clay, will also include quirks such as broken bones and dentistry. Hair and eye color are largely guesswork, but the essence of a face can be reproduced with startling results.

A forensic reconstruction is an art form that gives anonymous bodies their names back and lets us see the faces of ancient people and long-lost murder victims.

Related: Top 10 Infamous Murder Cases Solved Through Pioneering Forensics

10 Chicago Jane Doe

A large cardboard box sat unnoticed in a Chicago alley until curious trash hunters looked inside and found human remains. The decomposed female body was discovered in January 2007 but could not be identified, so police named her “Chicago Jane Doe.”

Leading forensic artist Karen Taylor was tasked with making a facial reconstruction from the skull. The victim’s hair and ponytail elastic were still visible, and she also had a distinctive chipped front tooth plus orthodontic bands leftover from recent treatment.

A photo of the sculpture—along with dental X-rays—was featured in the Illinois Dental News, and a receptionist remembered the victim from visits to their office. The patient’s name was Marlaina “Niki” Reed, a 17-year-old who had disappeared from foster care, and DNA confirmed her identity.^[1]

9 Cheddar Man

Deep inside a limestone cave in Cheddar Gorge, England, the body of a man lay undiscovered for nearly 10,000 years. The skeleton was found during excavations in 1903 and put on display at London’s Natural History Museum as an example of a Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) man. Cool temperatures inside the cave had preserved his precious DNA, and in 2018, a team from the museum took samples from the petrous (inner ear bone) of Cheddar Man to learn more about his origins.

His DNA revealed a 76% chance that he had light blue eyes and “dark to black” skin pigmentation, more commonly found in people from sub-Saharan Africa, not ancient Britain. Forensic artists measured and scanned the skull to construct a model of his face using this new information.

Researchers had previously believed that early humans slowly developed lighter skin after migrating to Europe around 45,000 years ago. The arrival of farmers from the Middle East, combined with pale skin’s ability to absorb UV light in colder climates, brought about this change. Scientists always thought that light-colored eyes and blond hair evolved much later.

The discovery of Cheddar Man with his blue eyes and dark skin turned this theory on its head.^[2]

8 Twinsburg John Doe

Workers dumping trash behind an abandoned factory in Twinsburg, Ohio, discovered a skull and other body parts stuffed into a garbage bag. The victim had been stabbed, beaten, dismembered, then set alight in a determined effort to destroy his identity. An autopsy revealed he was an African American male aged between 20 and 35 years. Unfortunately, no one remembered the man, and his body, found in 1982, was named “Twinsburg John Doe.”

In 2016, police appointed forensic artists to construct a clay sculpture of John Doe’s face using his skull and teeth, although the mandible (lower jaw) was missing. Images of his face were circulated with no results.

In 2018, a match was found by the DNA Doe Project—a voluntary group that identifies human remains through genealogy databases. John Doe’s name was Frank Little Jr, a former soldier who had found fame as a guitarist and songwriter for the R&B group, The O’Jays. Little left the group in the late 1960s and lost touch with his family around the mid-1970s.

What happened to him next remains unknown.^[3]

7 Jane from Jamestown

The Jamestown colony in Virginia was comprised of English settlers who arrived in 1607. The community faced drought, starvation, and disease, culminating in the bleak winter of 1609, known as the “Starving Time.”

Historical documents state that extreme hunger drove the colony to eat horses, dogs, and even their own leather boots. Now evidence suggests that cannibalism saved the group from extinction.

In 2012, archaeologists at James Fort, Williamsburg, found pieces of a human skull next to animal bones in a disused cellar at the camp. A CT scanner was used to reassemble the female skull. From this, a 3D facial reconstruction was created and named “Jane” by anthropologists from the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History.

Jane was 14 years old, from Southern England, and had a high protein diet which suggests that she was from an affluent family. Clumsy puncture marks to the back of her head, which smashed the skull in half, indicate a desperate attempt to extract her brain, tongue, and cheeks—all unmistakable signs of cannibalism.

The Jamestown teenager was not thought to have been murdered, but she is unlikely to be the only corpse cannibalized by the starving people of Jamestown.^[4]

6 Pleasant Prairie John Doe

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Walking near railroad tracks in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, a photographer stumbled across a badly decomposed body. An autopsy found that the corpse was male, aged between 40 and 60, with long black hair and missing front teeth. A tattoo on the man’s forearm featuring leaves and a bear claw raised hopes that he would be identified, but no one recognized him.

Further DNA testing revealed links to the Catawba Nation of South Carolina and family members in Mexico.

After 23 years, John Doe’s skull was submitted for a full facial reconstruction. A clay model of the mystery man’s face was unveiled at a press conference in 2016, but his identity is still unknown.^[5]

5 Spitalfields Roman Lady

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

London is a city steeped in history, and in the 1990s, major construction works unearthed an ancient Roman cemetery hidden under the streets of Spitalfields Market. One coffin stood out from the rest—made from valuable lead and adorned with seashells, it held the remains of a Roman A-lister who had died around AD 350.

The perfectly preserved female skeleton was dressed in robes made from Chinese silk stitched with pure gold thread. Inside her coffin were jars of perfumed oil and a pillow of bay leaves to ease her journey to the afterlife.

Further tests revealed she was born in Italy; it is believed that she came to Roman-occupied London as the wife of a centurion.

In 2000, a facial reconstruction of the Spitalfields Lady was made from her preserved skull and is on display at the Museum of London.^[6]

4 Boulder Jane Doe

Silvia Pettem was visiting Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery in 1996 and was intrigued by a simple grave that read “Jane Doe, Age About 20.” Pettem learned that the headstone had been paid for by the people of Boulder after a woman’s battered remains were found near a creek in 1954, her identity unknown.

Pettem went back over old case files and autopsy reports in a bid to learn more and persuaded the police to re-open the case. Jane Does’s body was exhumed in 2004, and a forensic sculptor created a 3D model of her face after studying the skull.

The great-niece of a woman who had disappeared from Phoenix in 1954 was also searching the internet—and found Pettem’s website. She believed Boulder Jane Doe could be her long-lost relative, Dorothy Gay Howard. The woman had left home at 18 and was never seen again. In October 2009, DNA tests confirmed it was Dorothy’s body.

Police believe Dorothy fell victim to serial killer Howard Glatman who had hinted at a Colorado murder. Glatman was executed in 1959.^[7]

3 Viking Warrior Woman

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

A Viking’s grave in Norway was filled with a deadly cache of weapons in honor of a hero. Experts believed that only Viking men went into battle, but the skeleton found in this warrior’s grave was female.

In 2019, a team from the University of Dundee studied the 1000-year-old skeleton and discovered a deep crack in her skull, severe enough to damage the bone. The woman had survived a brutal sword attack, making her the first female Viking with battle scars equal to her male counterparts.

Scientists layered skin on top of muscle to produce a detailed likeness of the 18-or-19-year-old’s face. The model—in all its gory detail with a swollen eye and bloody head wound—can be seen at Oslo’s Museum of Cultural History.^[8]

2 Body 115

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Thirty-one people were killed at Kings Cross station, London, in November 1987 when a discarded cigarette landed on garbage piled under a wooden escalator, and fire engulfed the building.

One victim remained unidentified. Named “Body 115” after his mortuary tag number, the man was 157.5 centimeters (5 feet 2 inches) tall and had recently undergone brain surgery. Hundreds of calls came in from the families of missing men, but none matched Body 115.

Forensic artists took what remained of his skull and badly burned features to reconstruct his face.

Alexander Fallon’s family always wondered if he had perished in the fire. Fallon had left Scotland after his wife’s death and drifted toward London, where he spent years living on the streets. His occasional letters home all stopped in 1987. Forensic experts compared skull measurements and confirmed that Body 115 was 72-year-old Fallon.

Fallon had been buried in a shared grave with Ralph Humberstone, another recently identified victim. Fallon’s name has now been added to a memorial plaque, replacing the words “Unknown Man.” ^[9]

1 Santa Claus

How do you picture Santa Claus? Twinkly blue eyes and soft rosy cheeks? Wrong. The real St. Nicholas had deep brown eyes and an olive complexion with a heavy jawline and a broken nose.

The journey to uncover St. Nicholas’s face started in the 1950s when his remains were exhumed from a crypt in Italy. Anthropologists took X-rays and detailed measurements of his skull. However, it wasn’t until 2004 that computer software existed to enable scientists to build a virtual clay model of his face. A team from Manchester University in the UK created the 3D image using just these recorded measurements. His eye color and skin tone were matched with people living in the same area of Asia Minor, now Turkey.

Studies of religious art from the 4th century—when St. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra—found that he probably had the same white hair and beard as our modern-day Santa.

Over the years, this Greek bishop has somehow morphed into the red-suited man from the North Pole we all know and love. His new name “Santa Claus” comes from the Dutch feast day celebration of St. Nicholas—Sinterklaas.^[10]

During the 19th century, anatomists and surgeons needed an ever-increasing amount of bodies to advance their research in the study of human anatomy, and, as a result, the dead body trade boomed. Individuals turned to body snatching (digging up graves to extract the body) and selling them to make a neat profit—these people became known as resurrectionists.

The British government introduced the Anatomy Act of 1832 in an attempt to increase the availability of bodies for medical schools and put a stop to body snatching and murder. The Act ended the use of dissection as a punishment for murder and allowed unclaimed bodies from public institutions, such as hospitals and workhouses, to be used for dissection instead.

However, the Act did not fix the shortage of bodies, and the low supply was still not enough to satisfy, especially in London. As the Victorian era plunged ahead in its pursuit of science and innovation and the need for bodies increased and increased, the dead body trade became a complex and dangerous feature of everyday life.

Related: 10 Gruesome And Shocking Facts About Victorian Surgery

10 The Poor Became a Target

Following the passing of the Anatomy Act, the concern that the bodies of the rich and the middle-class, as well as the poor, were being taken grew. Politicians responded to these concerns by reassuring voters that legislation would be introduced that would legalize the use of the dead poor for dissection. However, the poor didn’t take much comfort in the passing of the Anatomy Act because instead of being dissected alongside a murderer, they would be dissected instead of one.

The fate of the poor worsened significantly with the passing of the New Poor Law of 1834, a piece of legislation created to gain control over the poor, specifically their bodies. The law stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or help from Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse. Unfortunately, as this list outlined earlier, a lot of workhouse officials were keen on making extra income from selling bodies.

If a person was poor, they were imprisoned, starved to death, and then upon their death, they were butchered. The poor within the workhouses also rebelled, especially when it was clear a body was being taken for dissection unlawfully.^[1]

9 Supply Chains Were Set Up

The dead body trade became even more complex as the Victorian era stretched on, and “supply chains” were set up to facilitate the sale of bodies and body parts to ensure that the process ran smoothly for maximum profit. The supply chain meant that more people became involved in the process from start to finish, some for financial gain and some in the pursuit of anatomical training.

Bodies needed to be acquired quickly, sold quickly, and disposed of even faster. In order to do this, the supply chains were set up, which involved a number of different people from across the country. Hospitals, like St. Bart’s, set up relationships with those who had direct access to bodies, such as coroners, parish officials, and workhouse officials.

For example, coroner’s hearings could be expensive, and these costs could be recovered by selling bodies after a formal inquest. In addition, bodies found on the streets were not always cut open to determine the cause of death, especially cases concerning drowning and drunks. This allowed for a relatively fresh and untouched corpse to be sold to anatomists for financial gain.^[2]

8 St. Bartholomew’s Was a Key Customer

St. Bartholomew’s, a teaching hospital founded in 1123, was a key customer in the dead body trade, which had a desperate need for cadavers to dissect in its purpose-built dissection room.

St. Bart’s had some unusual ways of obtaining cadavers and treated the law rather flexibly. Due to its location, on the streets outside of St. Bart’s, many poor people died in destitution, and the hospital most certainly capitalized on this. Porters would leave large wicker baskets outside under the King Henry VIII gate for passing body dealers to fill up. Further to this, the annual St. Bartholomew’s Fair, held outside the hospital, also proved to be fruitful for anatomists with deaths occurring due to exhaustion, ill health, or overexcitement.

As the century wore on, the simple relationship between a hospital and body dealers gradually turned into a more “sophisticated” system for acquiring bodies to keep up with demand.^[3]

7 The Case of Robert Hogg and Albert Feist

The workhouse was one of the most important sources of dead bodies; all medical schools received nothing less than a warm welcome when they visited workhouses at nightfall.

In 1858, a scandal came to light which showed the extent to which the trade in dead bodies had reached. The master of St. Mary Newington workhouse, Alfred Feist, was accused of unlawfully selling pauper bodies to Guys Hospital Medical School in London. The Parish clerk Joseph Burgess had discovered that the undertaker Robert Hogg had taken a total of 45 bodies to Guys Hospital instead of burying them. The body of one Louise Mixer’s mother, Mary Whitehead, had been removed by Hogg and taken to Guys Hospital.

Hogg confessed to carrying out fake funerals from the workhouse, stating that he received double payments for each, one from Guys Hospital and the other from the parish. Hogg would bring in any bodies that he could, including the dissected bodies from Guys Hospital. Feist and Hogg would swap the body of a claimed relative for that of a dissected stranger; the fresh body would then be taken to the hospital at nightfall.^[4]

6 Body Parts Were Also Traded

Although the trade in human bodies was predominantly in just that, as has been made clear by this list, bodies were very hard to come by, and sometimes desperate times called for desperate measures. The trade in human bodies also included body parts, and often those who needed bodies settled for body parts instead.

Even worse than the use of random body parts was the fact that some body parts were actually provided by people who were living, most likely for money. This included amputated extremities and growths, which became known as “pots.” Even though they were not whole bodies, they still played an important part in research and were often preserved for additional study in the future. Some collectors even had their own niche and built up special collections of pots that were particularly relevant to their work.^[5]

5 Fetuses and Children Were Highly Valued

A combination of historical research and the archaeological assessment of specimens at Cambridge University found that fetus and infant cadavers were highly valued for studying anatomy.

Researchers studied the skeletal collection, which ranged from the 1700s to the 1800s, amassed by the dissecting room of Cambridge’s anatomy department. They found that anatomists tended to keep the skulls of fetuses and children in one piece instead of opening them. From a total of 54 specimens in the collection, only one had received a craniotomy.

Selling the body of a fetus or a child could generate quite a bit of money for destitute and desperate women. In addition, these cadavers were particularly popular as anatomists were eager to do further research on miscarriages and abnormalities in childbirth.

To demonstrate the anatomy of the nervous and circulatory systems, a whole body was required (a smaller body was better suited to this) and was injected with colored wax. In April 1834, an unknown child’s body was found floating in a river on April Fool’s Day; it had been dismembered with only a leg, a thigh, and part of the spine and arm remaining. A local surgeon named Dr. Webb reported that it was likely the body had been used for purposes of learning anatomy “for the arteries were filled with wax.”^[6]

4 Oxford Had to Compete With Cambrdige

Two of the oldest universities in England both had anatomy schools that required bodies for dissection, so much so that they were in a race of sorts with each other to acquire the bodies first and thus advance their research.

Alexander Macalister was appointed Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge University in 1883, and was put in charge of the Anatomical Lab (pictured above, from 1888). Macalister and his department set up a “business of anatomy” that a number of regional medical schools copied. Arthur Thomson was hired to teach human anatomy at Oxford in 1885 and swiftly set about increasing the number of cadavers available to the university.

Thomson had difficulty gaining a foothold in the local market, and in an attempt to improve this and catch up with Macalister, he decided to go further afield. His petty cash records show that he traveled extensively and paid around 12 pounds for each body. Thomson set up purchasing agreements in two west Midlands locations, and he acquired seven bodies from West Midland’s guardians from 1886 to 1887. He further expanded his trade, and between 1895 and 1929, 404 bodies were purchased from poor law unions and asylums in four locations: Leicester, Reading, Staffordshire, and from within Oxford’s city limits.^[7]

3 Railways Were Crucial

As demonstrated by the efforts of Macalister and Thomson to boost the number of bodies acquired, accessing bodies from several locations was necessary,y if not vital. Therefore, a pivotal part of the dead body trade was the use of the railway, especially for obtaining corpses from further afield to supply to places like Cambridge and Oxford.

Three times a week, an express train left Liverpool Street Station in London, traveling via Cambridge and Doncaster. This train became known as the “dead train” as it carried corpses to Cambridge. Attached to the rear carriages of the trains were “funeral wagons,” which contained stacked boxes of dead bodies. The boxes were carefully sealed to prevent foul odors from the bodies from leaking out so as not to alert the passengers.

Thomson, at Oxford, needed an efficient way to collect and move the bodies, and the railway became pivotal in the same way it did for Macalister. Both Leicester and Reading had main-line stations on the Great Western Railway network, and the quicker the route, the better. An undertaker was employed to take bodies to the railway station, and each body was placed in a box addressed to a member of the Anatomy Department at the university.^[8]

2 Families Hid Cadavers

The Anatomy Act enabled the bodies of the poor to be possessed and used for dissection, and the horror stories concerning the use of these bodies were not unknown to the poor. For example, if someone died in prison or at a workhouse, a relative had seven days to come forward and claim the body with proof they could afford a proper burial.

Some wanted to avoid their loved ones being dissected so badly that they hid the body, often to bide time to raise funeral funds. In Shoreditch, East London, Mary Ann Huckle kept the body of her dead husband, Thomas Huckle, in their house for four days and four nights. The Bury and Norwich Post reported that it was most likely to buy time and avoid the body being taken to St. Bartholomew’s or Cambridge Anatomy School.

On a—somewhat—lighter note, “burial clubs” were formed to help families afford funeral services, where members made weekly payments to ensure the club could cover expenses, no matter how long someone had been a member. Sort of like the Victorian answer to crowdsourcing or holding a “funeral” car wash.^[9]

1 Cholera Conspiracy

During the cholera outbreak of 1831-1832, victims were isolated in special hospitals. Upon death, their bodies were buried as quickly as possible after a brief post-mortem, despite the wishes of family and friends.

Combined with the passing of the Act, the actions of the medical authorities raised a lot of concern among the public, who began to get suspicious that the cholera scare was just a way for doctors to experiment on and dissect more bodies. Unfortunately, these fears were not completely unjustified.

In September 1832, a three-year-old boy died in the Swan Street Cholera Hospital in Manchester. At the boy’s funeral, the grandad asked to see the body, but his request was refused, so he opened the coffin himself instead. He found the boy’s head missing, and in its place, a brick. The story caused outrage, and a crowd of several thousand marched to the hospital, where they smashed windows and wrecked equipment.^[10]

Playing dead seems like the last ditch effort of someone or something that has given up all hope. When you have no ideas left, just stay very still and hope the world passes you by. It’s not clever and it doesn’t take a lot of skill, but you’d be surprised at how effective it is. And it’s not just good for avoiding bear attacks. 

10. Moorland Hawker Dragonflies Play Dead to Avoid Mating

The Moorland Hawker dragonfly may not be a creature you’re familiar with, but it’s very common. You can find it all across the northern hemisphere through Europe, Asia and North America. The females of the species have also developed a unique self preservation technique that is at once clever and kind of sad, in human terms.

Insect mating is never a particularly romantic endeavor, so after hawker dragonflies have mated, it’s back business as usual. But in their world, consent doesn’t exist, and a male has no way of knowing if a female has already mated or not. Females, in an effort to prevent unwanted males, have perfected the playing dead defense.

A female obviously doesn’t need to mate twice, but a male that tries it could actually end up causing damage to her reproductive system. To fend this off, the female will flee from a male and then crash to the ground, lying on her back and remaining perfectly still. Since an upside down insect is almost always a dead insect, the male will conclude she’s dead and leave.

9. A Pet Pig Played Dead To Get Help For Her Owner

There’s ample evidence that pigs are highly intelligent, even more so than dogs, and on par with human toddlers. When a bond has been made between humans and a pet pig, it’s not surprising that a pig may have some clever skills up its sleeves when the need arises. We can train dogs to track drugs and alert humans who are having a seizure. A pig that plays dead to save a life seems entirely reasonable. 

Jo Ann Altsman had a heart attack back in 1998 and the only one home to help her was a pot-bellied pig named Lulu. The pig actually forced her way through a fence, tearing herself up in the process, and made her way to the street. There, she did the only thing a 150lb pig could do. She played dead in the middle of the road.

Eventually, someone stopped to see why there was a dead pig in the road. Lulu led the person back to the home and Altsman received medical attention. Apparently, had it taken even another 15 minutes, her doctor said she likely wouldn’t have made it. 

8. Male Nursery Web Spiders Play Dead to Trick Females 

Arachnophobia is a prominent fear for many people, and there’s not a lot of love lost between spiders and humans. And it’s no wonder when you look at how they treat one another. Take, for instance, the nursery web spider. The males of the species are deceitful and sneaky and far too crafty for their own good.

When it comes time to mate, the males have to get creative. In many spider species, the females will kill the males and they are typically much larger. Male nursery web spiders use tricks to get the job done, which can include giving the female a gift wrapped in silk to distract her. The problem is the gift may be a lie and inside will just be a seed she can’t eat or even the husk of something the male already ate. And he’ll also play dead to deceive her long enough to turn her back so he can sneak in and mate while he has the chance. 

About two-thirds of given gifts were real insects that the female could eat while the male mated with her. The last third were the trick gifts, which usually resulted in shorter mating periods since the female would realize she’d been duped. That led to the deadbeat male faking death, so it had a chance to try another round of mating. 

7. Cichlid Fish Play Dead to Dupe Prey

Typically, we think of playing dead as a method of escape. We’ve all likely heard that playing dead is a way to deal with a grizzly bear. Just do nothing and hope it loses interest. But sometimes playing dead is done for the exact opposite reason, as is the case with cichlid fish. 

A technique known as aggressive mimicry, the fish uses it to draw in others that would feed on its dead body. The fish literally lies still on the bottom, resting in the mud, and when smaller fish come to inspect the corpse, it snaps to life and eats them. 

6. Embryonic Sharks Play Dead After Sending Predatory Electrical Signals

The life of a shark can be a rough one. These predators are constantly on the hunt for food and they’re also in danger from humans as well as each other. Larger sharks are more than happy to prey on smaller ones and baby sharks are at great risk. This is such an everyday part of how a shark lives that their ability to avoid predators is pure instinct, part of their minds before they’re even born. We know this because there’s evidence of embryonic sharks playing dead to avoid danger. Even before they hit the water, they know to avoid predators. 

Sharks are able to sense electrical fields produced by other living things. They use this ability when they are adults to help them hunt. But when they’re still unborn, they can sense the electrical fields of potential predators and respond by limiting their movement and effectively playing dead to not give themselves away to something that might be interested in a snack. All of this happens within the confines of an egg still inside the mother shark. When the electrical signals are sensed, the embryonic shark will limit gill movements and wait the predators out.

5. Praying Mantis Will Play Dead to Avoid Cannibalism

The praying mantis is an infamous example of the dangers of mating in the animal kingdom. It’s a well-known example of the disparity between males and females in insects thanks to the habit females have of cannibalizing males after and sometimes even during mating. The males, as you can imagine, don’t like this and will try to avoid it if and when they can. 

In at least one species of mantis, around 60% of males end up eaten. The other 40%? They need to think fast. For some, the key is to trick the female into thinking her job is already done and that means playing dead. 

This can be seen in several different mantis species which also engage in the behavior to escape predators. They leap off trees, flatten themselves on the ground, and present themselves as corpses. 

4. Opossums Don’t Choose to Play Dead

Is any animal more famous for playing dead than the opossum? People literally call it “playing possum.” Ironically, of all the animals we’ve already covered that play dead, opossums are actually the least effective at it. Which isn’t to say they won’t effectively make you think they’re dead, it’s just that they’re not “playing,” strictly speaking. The reaction is not a voluntary one, so it’s less play and more affliction. 

The reason an opossum is said to play dead is what you think. It’s a defensive mechanism and comes into play when the opossum fears attack from a predator. The animal doesn’t have control over it and cannot make it start or stop on its own. It’s kind of like a sneeze or a muscle spasm that might strike you by surprise and you just endure it because your body is doing what it needs to do. 

The opossum will also release liquid from a gland that gives off a smell like rotten flesh to help complete the illusion. This can go on for four hours, too.

As an aside, though it’s called “playing possum,” if you’re talking about the North American marsupial, it is technically an opossum. A possum is actually a similar but different animal found in Australia.  

3. Young Fire Ants Fake Death Until They’re Older

When it comes to ants, there’s a real mixed bag out in the world. Some species are tiny and relatively harmless, while others are larger and potentially very dangerous. The bullet ant gets its name because when it stings you, it produces a pain likened to actually being shot by a gun. That’s pretty terrifying. Slightly less terrifying but still much maligned thanks to its sting is the fire ant. If you’ve never been stung by a fire ant, you can guess, based on the name, what you might be in for. Their sting is loaded with compounds that can cause minor skin irritation up to serious pain. 

Though the fire ant is equipped with clear defensive skills, just like most animals, the young ones are not as adept as the older members of the species. Young fire ants are not able to defend themselves against rival fire ants so they’ll just play dead to avoid a confrontation altogether.

The “attacking” ants may only show up and inspect the young ants, they don’t need to be fully aggressive. The young ants will curl up right away and as soon as the rivals leave, they uncurl and go about their day. Once they’re old enough, however, the fire ants will take on a more aggressive defense and fight these invaders rather than trying to trick them. 

2. A Deer Shot By a Hunter Attacked After the Man Thought it was Dead

Hunting, whether subsistence hunting or even trophy hunting, typically plays out the same way. Whether we agree with it or not, it involves a human tracking and killing an animal either for the sport of it or to feed themselves or their family and community. But that’s getting ahead of the story and implies the hunt went as planned, and that’s not always the case.

Thomas Alexander was hunting deer in Arkansas. He caught sight of a buck and fired, taking the deer down. Alexander left his hide and approached the deer to inspect his kill. So far, this is how most deer hunts go. But this was not like most deer hunts, and that deer that Alexander went to inspect was not dead. It just looked like it was. 

Incredibly, the deer was not dead. When Alexander approached, the deer got to its feet and attacked him. The buck must have had an impressive rack of antlers because Alexander suffered serious puncture wounds throughout his body. He was able to make a call to his wife, who then called emergency services, but unfortunately the man died shortly after. The deer was not found.

1. A Korean Business Lets People Pretend to be Dead

Maybe it seems too obvious that humans play dead as well, but when you stop to think about it, can you think of many cases in which this happens for a particular reason other than why an animal might do it? We’re told to play dead to avoid grizzly bears and, in horror movies, it’s sometimes a good way to avoid the killer.

In Daejeon, South Korea, there’s another reason for playing dead and it’s apparently to prevent suicides.  In a seminar called “Coffin Academy,” participants are charged $25 to spend four hours getting ready to die. They write letters to their loved ones, decide what should be written on their tombstones, and then spend some time resting in a coffin to get a feel for that final dirt nap.

The pretend death goes for 10 minutes of silence and stillness. According to at least one account of it, the coffin is actually nailed shut by staff to really hit the simulation home. Some feared that the experience, which many find therapeutic, might encourage people to want to commit suicide by presenting them with the idea that the afterlife is peaceful. The founder argues the opposite, suggesting that it shows how lonely it would be to people in a country with the highest suicide rate in OECD countries.