Re: Cryonics on ABC World News Tonight

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sun Feb 11 2001 - 17:51:58 MST


A good debunking of the rumors regarding the supposed Walt Disney
cryopreservation is at http://www.snopes2.com/disney/info/wd-ice.htm.

Hal
===
    If Disney was not really frozen, then how and when did this rumor
    originate? The exact origins of the rumor are unknown, but at least
    one Disney publicist has suggested that the story was started by
    a group of Disney Studio animators who "had a bizarre sense of
    humor." The earliest known printed version of the rumor appeared in
    the magazine Ici Paris in 1969.

    Even if the origins of the story are unknown, it is certainly easy to
    see why the rumor is so believable. In the years immediately preceding
    his death, Disney was involved in a number of projects which cemented
    his image as a technical innovator in the public's mind. Disneyland
    attractions such as the monorail, the House of the Future, the
    Voyage to the Moon; the introduction of audio-animatronic figures
    at the 1964 World's Fair, and Disney's plans for his "community of
    tomorrow" (EPCOT) in Florida made it easy to believe Walt Disney
    was ahead of everyone else in his planning, even when it came to
    his death. When you consider that the first cryonic suspension
    took place just a month after Disney's death (Dr. James Bedford,
    a 73-year-old psychologist from Glendale, was suspended on January
    12, 1967), it's not so far-fetched to imagine that Disney might have
    made similar arrangements.



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