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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