A news story is circulating claiming that the man in this photo is a 179-year-old Indian cobbler named Mahashta Murasi. The text of the article is as follows:
A retired cobbler from northern India, Mahashta Murasi, claims he was born in January 1835, making him not only the oldest man on earth, but the oldest to have ever lived, according to the Guiness World Records.
According to indian officials, the man was born at home in the city of Bangalore on January 6th 1835, and is recorded to have lived in Varanasi since 1903. He worked as a cobbler in the city until 1957, when he retired at the already venerable age of 122.
"I have been alive so long, that my great grand-children have been dead for years" explains Mr Murasi. "Somehow death forgot about me... And now there's hardly any hope left. Look at the statistics, nobody dies past 150, even less at 170. At that point, I guess I'm immortal or something. I might as well enjoy it!"
The man's birth certificate and identity cards all seem to confirm his version, but unfortunately no medical examination can confirm his saying for now. The last doctor Mister Murasi visited died in 1971, so there is little information available about his previous medical files.
The article is circulating widely on foreign-language sites in particular (Italian,
Portuguese, Spanish, etc.) where it's being posted unquestioningly as fact. But, of course, not a word of this story is true.
The source of the article is the fake-news site
worldnewsdailyreport.com, which has a
disclaimer buried on their site, identifying all their articles as fiction.
However, World News Daily Report didn't create the picture of the old man. They simply found it online, where it's been circulating for many years. At various times, the photo has been turned into a meme. However, I've been unable to locate the original source of the image. So I can't identify who the man in the image really is.
But assume that World News Daily Report hadn't invented the entire story. Would it have been possible for the story to have been true? Could someone live to be 179? Well, there have been cases of extreme age reported. However, they usually turn out to be cases of age exaggeration, which is a well-known phenomenon. As people get older, into their 80s and 90s, they often start to exaggerate their age, because being thought of as older is a way to enhance their status within the community. This strategy works especially well when there are no birth records to contradict whatever age the person is claiming to be. So it's relatively common to have cases of people falsely claiming to be supercentenarians (older than 110). The most notorious case of this occurred during the 1970s in the
Ecuadorian town of Vilcabamba, where numerous people were claiming to be supercentenarians, although subsequent research discredited their claims. None of them were older than 96.
The oldest person on record, whose age was well documented, was
Jeane Calment of France, who reached the age of 122. She died in 1997.
Comments
I see your point in "seeing it" but honestly....you can´t apply that to every thing. I myself have never been to America, so I have never seen it, I have to assume that America is there as everyone says it is.I have to assume Plutonium exists, although I have never seen it. I have to assume the declaration of Indipendence (american document) exists, and If people have cheched both his documents and Varanasi 1903 registry I have to assume it´s true. I can´t be 100% sure, but if it´s not true, it´s not gonna change my life radically, I must admit.
But you´re missing my point : don´t be skeptical no matter what, that closes your mind.
In late 1800 the scientists declared that NOTHING heavier than air could fly...guess what...bummer. In 1903 they were proved wrong. Be open, we have a universe still to discover
As for progeria, it's something very different, and reversing it is a pipe dream, not dissimilar to some perpetual motion ideas.
(And the captcha is beating the Turing test again, this time coming up with "hundred19"...)
carbon dating would be the easiest way yes
and to all disbelievers,
it could be a hoax yes, but srsly, birth certificates in early india?
nope.. they should have carbon dated him after his death
They take the position to trust and defend an unbelievable story on a site that states it is a fake news site outright (in the disclaimer), and then they come in here and argue that the story is real because a scientist said flight wasn't possible in the 1800s.
It shocks me that people are so quick to believe something unbelievable they read on a crappy, low-rent site and they never think, "Gee, I wonder why no major news outlet is covering this AND there are sites saying this story is a hoax."
If you believe the story about the old man, just know that you are a stupid, stupid person.
If you want something to actually to be able to sink your teeth into on the same subject, I give you Li Ching-Yuen.
Claimed to be 197 years old, records suggest he actually was 256 years old.
Old people do lie about their age. 😛
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Ching-Yuen
they also have a vampire on wikipedia that is over 230 years old called ANGEL, am i sposed to beleive that aswell?
get real Bob dull.
Of course it's a hoax.
some people try to make the people foolish y you. be foolish your self very funny
VERIFY THE AGE BY COMPUTER USE
Registrar, provided men came with his records, if it is village, he has to come with two witnesses, if it is a chritian, he has to come with baptism certificate, it all depends on the moods of the Registrars, (Drunkards) {This is my statement because I have seen a drunkar registrar since my youn days who would be under the influence of Alcohol from morning till evening, only after taking bath at home he would not drink since he was a Brahmin}
So, itis possible that his registration was not done for some or the other reason,
Now, in the computer age, when ASI claims the age of structures, plants, young men and women on the basis of their cells, why not the government take initiative to verify the Age.
There should be no two way information to be false.
When people can actually prove their age beyond any doubt and from several different sources as accepted for instance by the Guinness Book of records - we find that out of billions of people who have ever lived and have the means to prove their age beyond question - nobody has lived to be 123 years old yet . One person has been 122 , nobody died at 121, nobody at 120 , 1 person at 119 , nobody at 118 and then 3 so far at 117 then there are more numbers but still only a handful at 116 115 etc out of millions and millions of people this clearly shows where life which can be proved runs out !!!!
Or does somebody think that some people who cannot prove their age live longer ( decades longer by many foolish claims ) than the billions who have solid evidence for their age ?
This article is anyway fake and obviously fake anyway even if it was not stated as so !!! 179 is just stupid . If a person claims 120 for instance and cannot prove it - well it would be very unlikely to be true but it could be . Then the older they claim the more unlikely it becomes . So many far more reasonable age claims are proved to be false all the time . People take on the ID of a dead father or older sibling with the same name and first seem to be able to supply evidence which subsequently is shown to be fraudulent . If a child died young as many did in older times for example in some cultures it was common to call a younger offspring the same name . Even where evidence is given it is not always what it seems to be !!! We have to be very careful with false claims which give prominence to the wrong people while denying the rightful people of their record . What satisfaction can these people get from lying anyway in the end when they know it is not the truth ?