The world’s best imposter : "Ferdinand Waldo Demara"

Ferdinand Waldo Demara was in his early 20’s. He didn’t have a job but he needed money, so he started telling everyone that he was an expert surgeon.

I guess they just didn’t do thorough background checks back then, because he actually got hired as a surgeon aboard a naval vessel with a fake name and degree.

At that point things were going great for Ferdinand as there was really nothing for him to do and he was getting paid for that. The Korean war came, soldiers started getting injured and Ferdinand was obviously expected to treat them.

What made things worse was that he was literally the only surgeon on board, so everyone who was injured was his responsibility.

Although he had zero medical experience, Ferdinand had a photographic memory, so after flipping through a medical textbook for 10 minutes he started doing surgery and somehow, some way all of his 16 surgeries were successful.

Ferdinand was called a hero surgeon and no one could tell he was just some random dude.

In his biography he confessed to impersonate a naval surgeon, a civil engineer, a sheriff's deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher.

Demara was said to possess a true photographic memory and was widely reputed to have an extraordinary IQ. He was apparently able to memorize necessary techniques from textbooks and worked on two cardinal rules: the burden of proof is on the accuser and when in danger, attack. He described his own motivation as "RASCALITY, PURE RASCALITY"

Imagine how great he could have been if he actually went to the med school.

His publicity got him caught. After getting the reputation of a hero surgeon, a journalist did a piece on him for a newspaper. After the real surgeon noticed his name in the paper who's documents Ferdinand forged, he contacted the authorities and his cover was blown. He was discharged immediately but due to the sensitive detail and shame of the military he wasn't charged as they did not want more publicity of this hoax he pulled which would have resulted in military's public humiliation.