Marvin Hewitt, Imposter

Sometimes it seems as if credentials-faking imposters are a wholly recent phenomenon, due to our contemporary insistence on the all-important documentation needed to get ahead. But of course, the human race has churned out imposters ever since the days of Baron Munchausen and prior, giving our pal Alex plenty of material for his Museum of Hoaxes.

I ran across a fifty-year-old case recently in Life magazine from April 12, 1954. The perp was one Marvin Hewitt, and he managed to masquerade as a college-level physics professor, among other positions!

You can read most of the article here. The ending, unfortunately, was missing from my issue of the zine.

Posted By: Paul | Date: Mon Sep 15, 2008 | Comments (0)
Category: Celebrities, Crime, Education, Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Magazines, 1950's

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All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.