Back in 1990, the Univ of Iowa opened one of the first bulletin board systems (BBS) in the world. Called ISCABBS, it functioned much like we do here, various threads on which to comment and the ability to send private messages. At times there were literally more than a thousand users on line, with hundreds more in the queue.
One of the most prolific posters at the BBS was a guy who called himself "Prussian Prince." He actually claimed to have been of noble heritage, and to hear him tell it he knew half the world's celebrities....entertainment industry, sports, politics, etc. While he was posting, he claimed to be part of the Florida State University football staff, but his claimed life's previous stops were eye watering. There wasn't a thread on that BBS he didn't post on and present himself as an authority. Think an early Thomas from La Jolla.
At some point, early 2000s I think, he PMed a few of us a newspaper article that told the story of someone who'd run afoul of the law. The article was significant, he explained, because he and the guy in the article shared the same name, first name was Paul and the surname was very Polish. It was odd the guy would seemingly out of left field tells us who he was. I figured something was in the wind.
Several months later, one of the other guys he'd confided his identity to PMed to tell me he had heard a rumor Prince had died. He eventually found an obit for him, and his death was the "talk" of the BBS. Posting traffic also declined noticeably.
Over the next few years, someone kept logging into the dead guy's account, shown as "last online" similar to here. Little cryptic message from other members were also being posted hinting the guy wasn't really dead. Later it was discovered the guy had had at least a dozen accounts/screen names.
I still don't know if the guy had really died, but he was piece of work.
