Well, Baby Luke Skywalker hid for 18 years in plain sight right on his home planet, right in his uncle’s home, and Yoda and Obi didn’t even change his name when they placed him there. Could anyone have come up with a better scheme than that?
Not exactly the same thing, but many of the missing after the September 11th attacks called in to say that they heard their own names at a memorial service years later, and previously had no idea that anyone thought they were dead. If you paid close attention, the official death toll gradually dropped from year to year as more “victims” turned up alive and were removed from the list.
It’s certainly possible that some of the other victims whose bodies weren’t found are survivors who decided to take advantage of the situation to start a new life (and avoid child support, criminal charges, or other consequences of their past life). If someone can disappear without even trying, then they could do it on purpose.
I knew a guy who made flawless US passports in the 80’s. $5000 each, the equivalent of $20,000 today. with that kind of money, you can probably get a Bangladeshian passport in any name that you asked for. A BLACK passport, that renders you unsearchable at airports, and un-arrestable for crimes.
A what??
You know, a magic passport, probably makes you immune to AIDS, Ebola, MERS etc too.
Presumably a diplomatic passport (a U.S. diplomatic passport has a black cover).
Although it seems to me that trying to pass yourself off as a (totally fake) U.S. diplomat could backfire rather badly. Wouldn’t one of those guys be more conspicuous than some random blue-cover-passport-carrying American businessman or tourist, not less? And if you start causing trouble in Ruritania, it’s not like the Ruritanians will just shrug their shoulders and say “Oh, well, whatcha gonna do–American diplomat?” Presumably they’ll be burning up the phone lines to Foggy Bottom, and then the jig will be up. (“Er…we have no record of any ‘I.P. Freely’ as an employee of the United States government. Kindly detain this person until we can arrange to have him shipped straight to Gitmo.”)
I recall David McCullough saying someone did just that in his history the Johnstown Flood. Someone presumed washed away and dead showed back up decades later. He’d taken one look at what happened and decided to grab the opportunity to leave his old life behind. Of course, it was much easier to reinvent yourself anew in the late 19th century than it is these days. Back then, there were no pesky fingerprint records or electronic trails following you around.
P.U.!!!
That, in a nutshell, captures the essential patheticness of the ‘prequels’. Such staggering lack of imagination. Sure, there are lots of other examples, but really, this takes the cake!
(sorry for hijack, please go on)
No matter how you feel about I–III, all this was implicit by the end of VI—most of it, indeed, by the end of V. The problem is of another kind.
That faked car wreck must have been a cover for plastic surgery, as well.
That’s only logical - I assume she was faking her death to get out from under the fame and family. Why she would them become a TV reporter, though is confusing, though I suppose if the cover ID and surgery are good enough, why not? She’s secretly laughing her ass off at the world.
The real question is did she do it to escape the royal family, or are they behind it? They ran her off to stop embarrassing Charles… or something.
I rather think the idea was buy a legitimate diplomatic passport from Greeditania.
This guy got away with it for 5 years before he was discovered. Not famous though.
Well he is a little bit famous now I guess.
Bumped.
Lord Lucan was just officially declared dead; his son can now inherit the title: British peer Lord Lucan declared dead 42 years after he disappeared