History Main / ReportsofMyDeathWereGreatlyExaggerated

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'', after going into self-exile over thinking he was responsible for Mufasa's death (he thought his roaring frightened a herd of wildebeests into the gorge when really, the hyenas chased them there and Scar killed Mufasa himself), everyone in the Pride Lands believes that Simba is dead. Even Scar assumes this, as the hyenas didn't tell him he got away from them. When [[RightfulKingReturns he returns to take back the Pride Lands]], everyone (barring Nala, who had already found out he was alive) at first thinks he is Mufasa's ghost.

* In the ''ComicBook/DuckTales'' one-shot "Double Indemnity", Magica's clone of Launchpad forces the boys and Scrooge out of the plane into a sandstorm, and then Magica starts a camel stampede to get them trampled. They survive (of course) and Scrooge quickly gets back to declare that the assassination attempts failed.
* In ''ComicBook/MarvelOneHundredthAnniversarySpecial'', Vance Astro (actually [[Comicbook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy Peter Quill]] a.k.a. Starlord), mentions the trope by name after unmasking himself.
* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': When Tim Drake detached his cape fleeing from a mass of Arkham escapees it was found wrapped around skeletal remains and he was presumed dead. His death was reported to all the Bats, only for Tim to almost instantaneously arrive at ComicBook/{{Oracle}}'s tower and let her and ComicBook/BlueBeetle know he'd survived. Unfortunately they were unable to tell ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} until after ComicBook/TheJoker had gloated about killing two of his little brothers and Dick had beaten him to death for it. [[JokerImmunity Batman resuscitated him though]].
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** In ''ComicBook/SupermanTheDoomsdayWars'', a suddenly speaking Doomsday gloats that "The rumors of my stupidity were greatly exaggerated". Both Doomsday and the person actually riding him, ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, were thought dead by this point (Doomsday was presumed dead at the end of ''[[ComicBook/SupermanDoomsdayHunterPrey Hunter/Prey]]'' and Brainiac was seemingly killed at the start of ''Doomsday Wars''.)

* In ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'', V says this almost word-for-word at the end before blowing up Downing Street. It's actually Evey wearing one of V's costumes, but the idea of V has to be kept alive to keep anarchy alive.
* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfWonderWoman2016'': ComicBook/SteveTrevor has been turned into a media pony by the military after his return from what was thought to have been his death at sea. He's not very fond of all the attention, or the fact that he's basically grounded for the duration of the media circus he's being put through.

* For the first half of ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', Hades believes that Herc had been killed as a baby, due to Pain and Panic lying about it, leaving him to believe that [[NothingCanStopMeNow nothing could stand in the way]] of his plan to take over Mt. Olympus. It's at about the halfway point that Hades learns from Meg's information that Hercules is in fact still alive. Needless to say, he is more than a little upset with Pain and Panic.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WendellAndWild'' Father Level Bests literally announces "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!" upon returning from the dead much to most people's shock.

* In December of 2020, many people thought that Creator/DickVanDyke died after he began trending on Twitter. Van Dyke responded by saying that no, he's not dead; it was actually his [[LongLived 95th birthday]]. By the way, he's still alive in November 2022.

* When college basketball star Lauren Hill[[note]]Not exactly a star, but became a national figure due to her cancer fight. For more details, see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Hill_(basketball) The Other]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hiram_vs._Mount_St._Joseph%27s_women%27s_basketball_game Wiki]] or the "Basketball" folder of "Heartwarming: Heartwarming/RealLifeSports".[[/note]] died from cancer in April 2015, a lot of people thought that Music/TheFugees frontwoman Music/LaurynHill had passed away. She didn't.

* Some accidental premature publishing on cnn.com revealed that CNN at least has outlines and some graphics prepared for obituaries of famous people who have yet to die, in anticipation of eventually having to get one up on short notice. Notably, they had one for UsefulNotes/DickCheney that was ''clearly'' not ready, as it called him "England's favorite grandmother" -- a line from Queen UsefulNotes/{{Elizabeth|!!}}'s premature obit.

** It had been said that the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein cooked up the "Paul is dead" conspiracy. Epstein had doubts about "Paperback Writer" selling as it wasn't a typical Beatles love song, so he hatched the idea for one of them to "die" to drum up publicity for the single. Ringo and George passed on the idea; John offered to be the guy but that was nixed as everyone knew he was a joker anyway. So Paul, by virtue of elimination, was elected to be the "dead man." One of the clues to Paul's supposed demise was the license plate on a car on the ''Abbey Road'' cover, which read "28 IF", meant to stand for Paul would have been 28 the following June. Flash forward to 1993 when Paul released his ''Paul Is Live'' album which featured him on the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing and a similar license plate: "IS 51."

* In describing the assessments of his medical condition once given to him by various doctors, composer [[Music/FryderykChopin Frederic Chopin]] commented "I have been sick as a dog during these past two weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I was breathing my last; and the third said I was already dead."

* In 2009 actress Nancy Allen was reported to have died of cancer, she later came out and told the public this was untrue.

* When college basketball star Lauren Hill[[note]]Not exactly a star, but became a national figure due to her cancer fight. For more details, see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Hill_(basketball) The Other]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hiram_vs._Mount_St._Joseph%27s_basketball_game Wiki]] or the "Basketball" folder of "Heartwarming: Heartwarming/RealLifeSports".[[/note]] died from cancer in April 2015, a lot of people thought that Music/TheFugees frontwoman Music/LaurynHill had passed away. She didn't.

* In December of 2020, many people thought that Creator/DickVanDyke died after he began trending on Twitter. Van Dyke responded by saying that no, he's not dead; it was actually his [[LongLived 95th birthday]]. By the way, he's still alive in October 2022.

* On July 26, 2022; a post from the wife of ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'' star Tony Dow (who played Wally Cleaver) to social media reported that Dow had passed away from complications of liver cancer (which had been announced two months earlier); with the post being shared by others he knew, including co-star Jerry Mathers (who played the title character) and eventually being picked up by the media. Later that afternoon, Dow's son posted a follow-up message that Dow was still alive but receiving hospice care. Tony Dow really did pass away the next day.

* Creator/TomKenny discussed on Marc Maron's podcast how he was once reported dead, and how he thinks that romors like that are more likely to happen to someone like him, as he's relatively well known but not ''super'' well known (using Creator/GeorgeClooney as an example of the latter), so the rumors take longer to debunk. The same thing happened to Rodger Bumpass, although he has claimed this to be untrue (the death of Squidward's ''German'' voice, Eberhard Prueter, might have been the cause for those rumors).

* When college basketball star Lauren Hill[[note]]Not exactly a star, but became a national figure due to her cancer fight. For more details, see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Hill_(basketball) The Other]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hiram_vs._Mount_St._Joseph%27s_basketball_game Wiki]] or the "Basketball" folder of Heartwarming/RealLifeSports.[[/note]] died from cancer in April 2015, a lot of people thought that Music/TheFugees frontwoman Music/LaurynHill had passed away. She didn't.

* Some accidental premature publishing on cnn.com revealed that CNN at least has outlines and some graphics prepared for obituaries of famous people who have yet to die, in anticipation of eventually having to get one up on short notice. Notably, they had one for Dick Cheney that was ''clearly'' not ready, as it called him "England's favorite grandmother" -- a line from Queen Elizabeth's premature obit.
* When pioneer astronaut Neil Armstrong died, [[https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/25/neil-young-armstrong-nbc-mistake_n_1830502.html NBC's website reported]] that Music/NeilYoung had died. (In a Jay Leno man-on-the-street session years previous, Young had been named as the "first man to walk on the moon" by an elderly lady.) The London ''Telegraph'' called Armstrong the first woman in space, inspiring little girls everywhere (possibly thinking of Sally Ride, who had died months earlier -- and even then she was only the first non-Soviet woman).

* For a complete list of premature obituaries, check out [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries The Other Wiki.]]

* In describing the assessments of his medical condition once given to him by various doctors, composer Frederic Chopin commented "I have been sick as a dog during these past two weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I was breathing my last; and the third said I was already dead."
* Abe Vigoda, known for his acting roles in ''Film/TheGodfather'' and ''Series/BarneyMiller'', was wrongly reported as dead in 1982 by ''People'' magazine. Vigoda found this amusing, and had a photo published in ''Variety'' of himself sitting up in a coffin reading the mistaken issue of ''People''. In 1987, it happened again after a reporter from Secaucus, New Jersey, mistakenly called him "the late Abe Vigoda", which once again prompted much amusement and what spawned the RunningGag about Vigoda's "dead or alive" status. It got to the point where a website was made ([[http://www.abevigoda.com abevigoda.com]]) to provide real-time updates on the status of Abe Vigoda (current status: Abe Vigoda is dead). When he ''actually'' died in 2016, [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer many reports had to state that this wasn't a hoax or mis-statement]].

* Jaroslav Hašek, author of ''[[Literature/TheGoodSoldierSvejk The Good Soldier Švejk]]'', summed up various accounts depicting his alleged death during his UsefulNotes/WorldWarI captivity in Russia (and short stint as a Bolshevik commissar):

* Country music pioneer Ray Price was also a victim of the premature obituary, as many national news outlets (from ''Rolling Stone'' to the ''USA Today'') had reported the singer's purported passing on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013, from cancer -- only for Price's wife, Janie, to reveal that although he was near death, he was still alive. [[http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2013/12/reports-of-country-legend-ray-prices-death-have-been-premature.html/ See this link for more details.]] [[TemptingFate Incidentally, Price did die -- approximately a day after the premature obituaries were announced online,]] leaving behind one of the greatest legacies ever in country music.
* In 1976, Music/{{ABBA}} member Bjorn Ulvaeus appeared on German television to counter a rumour that he and his bandmates had died in a plane crash in what was then West Berlin. Some versions of this rumour claimed that Anni-Frid Lyngstad (AKA Frida) had survived, but with such [[CareerEndingInjury severe injuries]] that her singing career was effectively over. Needless to say, ABBA were never actually involved in a plane crash (though they did have a near-miss in 1979) and all four are currently still alive.
* On March 16, 2014, US Magazine reported that Creator/WayneKnight had been killed in an auto accident. Upon hearing this, Wayne tweeted [[https://twitter.com/iWayneKnight/status/445239269469458432 "Some of you will be glad to hear this, others strangely disappointed, but...I am alive and well!"]], later adding "Does someone have to DIE to trend? Geez!"

* In TheNineties, four major Australian broadcasting stations announced the death of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Within an hour they realised it would have been better to have confirmed the story, as they were told in no uncertain terms the 93-year old Queen Mum was ''still alive''. It turns out an Australian working for Creator/{{Sky}} News in London had walked in on a test screening of the QM's obituary, got the wrong end of the stick entirely, and rang home to Brisbane with the "[[GoingForTheBigScoop scoop]]." The local radio station put it out, and... let's just say that quite a few Australians no longer work in broadcast news.

* When college basketball star Lauren Hill died from cancer in April 2015, a lot of people thought that Music/TheFugees frontwoman Music/LaurynHill had passed away. She didn't.

* In 1989, during the making of the Music/NineInchNails music video for "Down In It", a weather balloon holding up a camera being used for filming ended up floating away and the crewmembers were unable to recover it. The balloon traveled 200 miles, where it landed in a field in Michigan and was found by a farmer. After the camera was handed over to the police, they saw footage of what they believed to be the decayed corpse of an unknown man surrounded by two men in what they thought was a gang killing. The footage was then sent to the FBI, where after a year of investigation the truth was discovered: the 'decayed corpse' was actually NIN frontman Trent Reznor covered in cornstarch to ''appear'' dead and decayed for the purpose of the music video, and the other two men were then-members Chris Vrenna and Richard Patrick. Reznor, who as of 2020 is still alive, found the whole ordeal amusing.

* In December of 2020, many people thought that Creator/DickVanDyke died after he began trending on Twitter. Van Dyke responded by saying that no, he's not dead; it was actually his [[LongLived 95th birthday]].
* Prior to her passing at the end of 2021, Creator/BettyWhite had a ''lot'' of false reports of her death circulate on the internet. Strangely, when The Guardian announced her passing, there was no NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer included despite this trope taking effect so many times.
* In an odd case of this, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, ABC put up a bumper photo of JFK with the byline "1917-1963"... twenty minutes ''before'' wired services were cleared to announce it by press secretary Malcolm Kilduff. Apparently, ABC was going on unofficial news relayed from Eddie Barker of CBS affiliate KRLD. Due to this, NBC ended up being the first news outlet to make the ''official'' announcement, about a half-hour after Kennedy was declared dead.

* In India, it's popular to bribe an official to declare a relative dead so that you can inherit his property. It has all the advantages of murder without the unpleasant messiness. [[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/world/24INDI.html?ex=1083211200&en=3394201d75ddfea1&ei=5070 Lal Bihari]] had this happen to him and it took him years to literally get his life back. He was awarded an [[http://improbable.com/ig/ Ignobel Prize]] for his foundation of the Association of Dead People. One tactic of Association members is to get arrested at protests, [[LogicBomb leaving the authorities to explain how dead people can be arrested]].
* On June 25th, 2009, Creator/JeffGoldblum was reported dead of a fall on a movie set in New Zealand. This was a cruel online hoax capitalizing on several recent celebrity deaths, most infamously Music/MichaelJackson's -- Goldblum had never even ''been'' to New Zealand and certainly wasn't filming a movie there! On June 30th he went on ''Series/TheColbertReport'' (on which he had made several recent appearances) to deny the reports of his death. He then subsequently caved to the evidence ([[RealityIsUnrealistic an Australian news program clip reporting his death]]), [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ehxpq9/the-colbert-report-jeff-goldblum-will-be-missed confirmed his own death, and gave his own "eulogy."]] In a 2010 appearance on Jonathan Ross's show, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT7gQXdGUOk he went into detail]] about what it was like both to learn he was believed to be dead and to get calls from colleagues, family members, and friends who heard the "news".

* Similarly, LetsPlay/SimonLane was a victim of this himself, after some people tried to pretend he had died in order to scam money, under pretences that it would go towards a revival of ''[[Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries Shadow of Israphel]]''. Subsequently, his and LetsPlay/LewisBrindley's joint channel [[WhyTheFandomCantHaveNiceThings turned off comments for around two months]], since this was the last straw (other comments had been self-promotion of small channels, spamming for reports of SOI, MoralGuardians complaining unnecessarily, and so on).

* Some accidental premature publishing on cnn.com revealed that CNN at least has outlines and some graphics prepared for obituaries of famous people who have yet to die, like Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth, in anticipation of eventually having to get one up on short notice. Notably, the Cheney one was ''clearly'' not ready, as it called him "England's favorite grandmother" -- a line from Elizabeth's premature obit.

* Said word for word by Music/OliviaNewtonJohn, battling cancer but denying rumors that her time is drawing near.

* In 1976, Music/{{ABBA}} member Bjorn Ulvaeus appeared on German television to counter a rumour that he and his bandmates had died in a plane crash in what was then West Berlin. Some versions of this rumour claimed that Anni-Frid Lyngstad (AKA Frida) was said to have survived, but with such [[CareerEndingInjury severe injuries]] that her singing career was effectively over. Needless to say, ABBA were never actually involved in a plane crash (though they did have a near-miss in 1979) and all four are currently still alive.

* In 1976, Music/{{ABBA}} member Bjorn Ulvaeus appeared on German television to counter a rumour that he and his bandmates had died in a plane crash in what was then West Berlin. Needless to say, ABBA were never actually involved in a plane crash (though they did have a near-miss in 1979) and all four are currently still alive.
** In some versions of this rumour, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (AKA Frida) was said to have survived, but with such [[CareerEndingInjury severe injuries]] that her singing career was effectively over.

* Susan Olsen, who played Cindy on ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' has revealed that fans are often surprised to learn that she's still alive, thinking she died of a drug overdose at age 18. Those people, of course, have her confused with the tragic Anissa Jones, who played Buffy on ''Series/FamilyAffair'', because both girls sported blonde sausage curl [[GirlishPigtails pigtails]] (Cindy's hairstyle was inspired by Buffy's, at 7-year-old Olsen's [[ActorInspiredElement own request]]).

* On July 26, 2022; a post from the wife of ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'' star Tony Dow (who played Wally Cleaver) to social media reported that Dow had passed away from complications of liver cancer (which had been announced two months earlier); with the post being shared by others he knew, including co-star Jerry Mathers (who played the title character) and eventually being picked up by the media. Later that afternoon; Dow's son posted a follow-up message that Dow was still alive but receiving hospice care; with Tony Dow passing away the next day.

* Creator/JayLeno was falsely reported dead in April 2019. However, the article reporting his "death" [[EpicFail got his year of birth ''[[EpicFail AND]]'' [[EpicFail his age wrong.]] (1949 instead of 1950, 71 instead of 68.)

* Susan Olsen, who played Cindy on ''Series/TheBradyBunch'' has revealed that fans are often surprise to learn that she's still alive, thinking she died of a drug overdose at age 18. Those people, of course, have her confused with the tragic Anissa Jones, who played Buffy on ''Series/FamilyAffair'', because both girls sported blonde sausage curl [[GirlishPigtails pigtails]] (Cindy's hairstyle was inspired by Buffy's, at 7-year-old Olsen's [[ActorInspiredElement own request]]).

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Kakine Teitoku, aka "Dark Matter", from ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', is brutally beaten up by [[AxCrazy a berserk Accelerator]], after he stabs one of the few people Accelerator actually cares about right as she's trying to reason with him to spare Teitoku's life. [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown After being buried waist-deep in the pavement]] [[CurbStompBattle and having his face quite literally sheared off]], the #2 Level 5 is presumed deceased... until he resurfaces in the New Testaments, as bat shit as ever and [[ColorFailure completely white now]] as a result of his Dark Matter fueled regeneration. Unfortunately for him, Takitsubo's AIM Stalker causes one of his Beetle Army members to [[HoistByHisOwnPetard go rogue, kill him and take over his identity, memories, and power]], but with a kind and well-meaning personality.
* ''Manga/DragonBall'': Goku seems to be written off as dead by his friends for most of the King Piccolo saga, even though there's no indication of him actually dying. He just went after the mutant that killed Krillin and Bulma already declares him killed in action, not even considering the possibility that he might still be alive. King Piccolo thought the same thing after their first battle where he seemingly killed him; he was quite surprised when Goku arrived to save Tien.
* In the finale of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'', after finally attempting to [[spoiler:kill Shizuo, Izaya fails and is hit into another building by his nemesis where he suffers from internal bleeding, leading to a TrailOfBlood. He then is forced to run from several airborne vending machines as he attempts to get away. Izaya finally then engages Shizuo in a fight in a last-ditch attempt at a XanatosGambit. He gets both his arms broken and is shot by Vorona with a ballistic knife. Izaya is able to escape in the end, but his odds of survival are only fifty-fifty, and he is last seen saying he does not want to die anywhere near Shizuo. It's confirmed that he did survive, though none of the characters know of his whereabouts as he never returned to Ikebukuro and thus never told anyone he was alive. At least, until he decided to troll Namie by E-mailing her]].
* ''Manga/FairyTail'':
** Lyon throws himself off a cliff with Racer of the Oracion Seis to protect Gray and Sherry from being killed by Racer's attempted explosive suicide attack, leaving them both to think he's dead after the bomb goes off and causing Sherry ([[BrainwashedAndCrazy thanks to the dark magic activating to switch people's moral alignments]]) to briefly go crazy-evil. Turns out, Lyon managed to cut the bomb off Racer and then shielded them both with a hastily-crafted ice wall, though the effort briefly knocked him out, and he returns with Racer as Gray is preventing Sherry from trying to murder Natsu and Lucy. He nearly invokes this word for word.
** Up until the Sirius Island arc, most of the world believed the [[TheDreaded Black Wizard]] [[EvilSorceror Zeref]] had been dead for centuries with various dark guilds and cults using his left-behind dark magics to cause havoc or resurrect him. As it turns out, Zeref is ''very'' much alive into the present...[[DeathSeeker though he certainly wishes otherwise]].
* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'':
** In part 2, [[ThoseWackyNazis Stroheim]] is believed dead by Joseph, only to show up later [[StupidJetpackHitler as a cyborg]].
** At the end of part 2, it's Joseph's turn to be believed dead. He shows up at his own funeral with his newlywed wife, Suzi Q. They were actually going to inform the rest of the cast that he was alive, but the latter forgot to telegram them.
** In part 3, Avdol is presumed dead after a fight with other stand users. He is later revealed to have been simply recovering from his wounds, which was known by all the main characters excluding Polnareff, whom they assumed would not be able to keep the secret and would thus endanger their recovering friend.
* ''Franchise/LupinIII'':
** Lupin is apparently shot by a sniper and falls from the getaway chopper in ''Anime/LupinIIIMissedByADollar'', only to reappear alive and well later on and play a [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Hero]] to the rest of his cornered gang.
** ''Anime/LupinIIIVoyageToDanger'' has both Jigen and Goemon apparently killed. The former appeared to die in a massive explosion; he escaped via a hidden tunnel. The latter was stabbed by a thrown knife and fell from a cliff into the sea; his AbsurdlySharpBlade deflected the knife just enough to miss his heart, and he was later rescued by a local fisherman.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Everyone in the story thought that Madara Uchiha/Tobi died a long time ago. Turns out to be {{averted|Trope}} in the case of Madara, who was brought BackFromTheDead, but Tobi is Obito, who was crushed "to death" in Kakashi's Gaiden. He was saved ([[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe half of him, anyway]]) by Madara. Who was still alive for a long period of time after he was believed to be dead anyway.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** This happens to Luffy a few times where after receiving a vicious CurbStompBattle, his enemy thinks he's dead... [[{{Determinator}} until he returns to challenge them again]]. This happened ''twice'' in his fights with Crocodile.
** During the TimeSkip, where everyone thought the entire Straw Hat crew was dead because they had been gone for two years, not know they were actually training in secret. This gave a bunch of impostors the opportunity to take advantage of their MIA status and impersonate them, [[PaperThinDisguise though not very well]]. After Sentomaru exposed the frauds, the pirates they had recruited truly thought Luffy was dead...until Sentomaru revealed that [[BullyingADragon the guy the fake Luffy was threatening was the real deal]], indicating that the Straw Hats were alive after all.
** The pirate Jack was reported dead after he picked a fight with Issho, Sengoku, and Tsuru. However, the Mink Tribe, which was recently attacked by Jack, giving a sample of just how freakishly strong he is, worry that he might be alive because they NeverFoundTheBody; And he is, injured, but alive and more than furious that the newspapers wrote him off.
** The Big Mom Pirates make this assumption of the Sanji Retrieval Team during a meeting, due to a combination of unaware facts and Opera lying about Jimbei freeing Luffy and Nami [[YouHaveFailedMe to avoid punishment]]. Because of this, the Straw Hats were able to be successful WeddingSmashers.
* The mysterious Loser King from ''Anime/{{Tailenders}}'' is believed to be long dead ever since his mysterious disappearance during a race to reach the Terraformer on the Indian continent over a century ago. When the main characters undertake the same perilous race he did, they discover as they approach the Terraformer that the Loser King never died or disappeared, instead he is still racing to reach the end. As it turns out, there is some severe TimeDilation going on near the Terraformer and only minutes had passed from the Loser King's perspective. Additionally, Tomoe is revealed to have known the truth of the situation as she raced alongside him over a century ago and was desperate to reach him again after he sent her away when he realized what was going on. In the end, this trope occurs to Tomoe as well as TheRival racer Goodspeed when they are forced to return due to having been in the Terraformers presence with another century having passed in the short time they spent there and were similarly presumed dead.
* Heihachi Mishima from ''Anime/TekkenBloodVengeance'' is not as dead as most people think. [[MeleeATrois He shows up for the three-way brawl between himself, his son, and grandson.]]
-->'''Heihachi:''' It feels good to be back. Hiding in the shadows after faking your own death is a bore. In fact, it's downright tedious.\\
'''Kazuya:''' I thought I've thrown you into the depths of Hell.\\
'''Heihachi:''' Ha! If you thought that was enough to kill me, you are gravely mistaken.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'':
** Vivienne Graham is believed by Monarch and by humanity at large to be dead after she was SwallowedWhole by Ghidorah in Antarctica but was actually OnlyMostlyDead and has been reborn as part of the TwoBeingsOneBody Titan [[AdaptationalHeroism Monster X]]. It isn't until several chapters in that Monarch becomes aware of her fate, and the public remains in the dark about it for longer.
** Mariko, a character from the ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' {{novelization}} who was responsible for setting Behemoth loose, is officially listed as deceased but she actually survived the destruction (though not without scars) and went off the grid.
* ''Fanfic/AFrozenFlower'':
** After Otto meets Till in the [[GasStationOfDoom Gas Station Convenience Store of Doom]] and she transfers memories of ThePlan that Grimes and his group of ''lamberos'' plan to enact, he becomes of the belief that the rest of the group found out about the memory transfer and have killed Till since she is a traitor. He's left quite shocked when Orchid later informs him that thanks to her sensing abilities, she knows that Till isn't dead, is still with the group, and is the only one apart from Otto himself that knows about the memory transfer.
** And then there's TheReveal later than Till is actually Ottilie, Oz's former partner who was thought to have been killed in the Tunguska Explosion battle, which causes Otto, Oprah and Orchid to have NoOneCouldSurviveThat reactions.
* ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs'':
** In "What if Elfangor and Loren raised Tobias?", the official story is that Arbron, Elfangor, and Alloran all died on their mission to the Taxxon planet... even though every Andalite knows that Alloran [[DeathByAdaptation was]] alive and unwell as Visser Three's host for years afterwards.
** In "What if they saved Jake's family?", when Marco mentions his mom, Jean points out that she's been dead for five years. Marco then retorts that he's been [[FakingTheDead "dead"]] for three months.
* In ''Fanfic/AllYouNeedIsLove'' L isn't dead but the computer thinks he is.
* ''Fanfic/BridgeToTerabithia2TheLastTime'': It's an LDD-fanfic. The first chapter literally ends with Jess' father, Jack Aarons, telling him "Leslie is alive" (doubles as an IronicEcho, since in the novel and movie the fanfic is based from, Jack is the one who tells Jess of Leslie's death). [[spoiler: It turns out Leslie's death is retconned to a NeverFoundTheBody situation, where during her solo trip to Terabithia, she was actually abducted by an enemy of the Burke family and assumed dead. Unfortunately, by the time she made it back to Lark Creek, it's been 5 years]]...
* It's mentioned a few times in the ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}}'' series that everyone assumed [[SparedByTheAdaptation Tom]] died after he [[FallingIntoThePlot fell out of the Blade Ship]] at first. In ''THX 1138'', he's surprised to meet Collette because he thought all the Auxiliary Animorphs were dead. [[https://thejakeformerlyknownasprince.tumblr.com/post/660158398686429184/do-have-any-headcannons-about-the-characters Sol said on Tumblr]] that she decided to resurrect her because it's only implied that she died in canon.
* In ''Fanfic/IfWishesWerePonies'' After getting beaten up by Dudley during a game of Harry Hunting and left in the forest near the Playpark in Little Whinging, Harry accidentally stumbles through a portal leading to [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Equestria]], where he spends a year living a happier and healthy life in Ponyville with the Mane Six and his friends the CMC. Returning to Earth after learning about the existence of Hogwarts (and to set up an Embassy site by buying up all of the properties around the playpark), Harry Potter and the CMC encounter Dudley and his gang. [[note]]Averted and Zigzagged with most of the Wizarding World in that Dumbledore's observation charms attuned to the Dursley residence were designed to pick up if Harry was essentially "happy", largely unaware that it was attuned to the HOUSEHOLD and not to Harry specifically.[[/note]]
-->'''Dudley''': I thought you'd died when you disappeared so sudden like.\\
'''Harry''': Any report of my death was an exaggeration.
* In ''Fanfic/TheMiracleAtPalaven'', Patrus Castellus goes to Captain Ixius' family to inform them that, after 3 years of being MIA, she was officially being designated as KIA. To his immense surprise, he found her at home with her husband and children.
* ''Fanfic/TheNightUnfurls'': Word for word, at the beginning of Chapter 32:
-->'''[[spoiler:Kyril]]:''' I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
* ''{{Series/Emergency}}'':
** In ''[[http://audreys-efanfic.freeservers.com/lostandfound.html Lost and Found]]'' this goes double when a serial killer abducts John and shoots Roy. Roy survives, but John's captor tells John he died, and Roy and the others can only fear the worst for John.
** Everyone but Roy thinks John is dead in [[http://tbillingsemergencyfanfic.com/miracles.htm "A Season for Miracles."]]
** "[[http://tbillingsemergencyfanfic.com/missingfamilypart1.htm Missing Family"]] has a similar thing where Roy's plane crashes and everyone but John are sure he's dead.
** ''[[http://audreys-efanfic.freeservers.com/sojourn.html Sojourn Into Silence]]'' has everyone thinking Roy died in a helicopter crash--until he's found alive 18 days later in a ravine.
* In ''Fanfic/FairiesOfTheShatteredMoon'', General Ironwood nearly says this word-for-word when he shows up at the Atlesian Council after the Schnee Manor exploded, which killed Jacques, Willow, and Klein, and put him in critical condition, claiming that he used the event in question to briefly fake his own death to throw off the enemy. [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope As it turns out though]], [[DeadAllAlong he actually did die from his injuries]], but Watts revived him with his {{Necromancy}} Curse and used him to launch a coup on the Council with the [[BlindObedience Ace Ops and Specialists]] to discredit the military. The moment his use is done, Watts cuts off his control and lets Ironwood drop like a sack of bricks dead.]]
* One of the several things that sets the plot in motion in ''Fanfic/FireEmblemThreeHousesFifthPath'' is that Sothis didn't actually die when she fused with Byleth like she said she would. When Byleth finds out she is greatly peeved about it and the two get in a shouting match.
* In ''Fanfic/OriginStory'', when the Black Panther tells Alex that he thought she had died, she actually quotes the trope's title at him and cites Mark Twain. In response, he relates to her the truth that Twain never actually said it.
* In Creator/SamAndMickey's videos, Franchise/{{Barbie}}'s mother, Margaret, has a tendency to announce that Barbie's Aunt Millicent passed away, only for Millicent to appear alive and well afterwards.
-->'''Aunt Millicent:''' I'm not dead, Margaret!\\
'''Margaret:''' You're dead to ''me''!
* ''Fanfic/WalkOnTheMoon'': Rei was gone for two weeks when she performed the reverse summoning jutsu. Jounin who are gone for a few days are written off as dead, and Rei was only an academy student at the time. Considering how devastated her family was and the fact that her disappearance coincided with the Uchiha massacre, it is a [[PlayedForDrama very serious matter.]]
* Inverted in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9663922/1/Reparations Reparations]]''. Tamsin and Bo were devastated when Lauren (and her friend Dan) was listed as a casualty of a hurricane. Not only are both alive, they were completely unaware of they had been declared dead in the first place.
-->'''Tamsin:''' Yo Doc, this is either the night of the undead, or news of your demise were grossly, and I mean very grossly, exaggerated.\\
'''Lauren:''' ''(confused)'' There were reports of my demise?
* ''Fanfic/SonOfTheSannin'': Unlike in canon, Madara Uchiha doesn't actually die, just remains on life support until he enters a resurrection cocoon to restore himself to his prime ([[CameBackStrong and then some]]). However, he does allow the world at large to believe him dead so as to lay low and prepare his return from the shadows.
* ''Fanfic/SixesAndSevens'' starts with Michael Carter's death being faked. The description of the fic on [=AO3=] even references this quote.
* ''Blog/AStudentOutOfTime'': After the beginning of [[Franchise/{{Danganronpa}} The Tragedy]], former Hope's Peak student Umeko Hayase, Class 75's Ultimate Quantum Physicist, disappeared. She dropped off the face of the Earth and many, from Future Foundation to the former Remnants of Despair, believed she'd died. As it turns out, she simply went into hiding after being severely injured by a grenade attack, and was invested in a time travel experiment [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong which would kickstart the events of the story]].
* [[Franchise/DragonAge Varric]], in the ''Fanfic/TwiceUponAnAge'' side volume ''Across the Waking Sea'', has to send a letter of this sort to Bethany Hawke following a specific ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' plot point. He knows that she has good reason to believe he could be dead (since her last letter was returned undeliverable), so as soon as he's able, he makes sure to let her know that he's safe.
* Used as a RunningGag in ''Fanfic/JustTheBestMarySueEver'', when Dorian Gray returns to Film/{{the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen}}. Almost every single member of the team utters some variation of "I thought you were dead," to which he replies, "I get that a lot."
* In ''Webcomic/{{Unlinked}}'', Amelia gets electrocuted in the opening chapter and is clinically dead for several minutes before being revived. However, that was enough time for the train to assume she was dead for good, removing her number and putting her tape in storage. When Amelia appears in front of One-One, the robot refuses to believe she's alive, getting caught in a [[LogicBomb loop]] until deciding that [[EntertaininglyWrong she's obviously a clone like Hazel]].
* ''Fanfic/YourMoveInstigatorDrawYourWeaponAndHoldYourTongue'': Tenten tells Sakura and Kiba about how one of the kids at her orphanage had BigOlEyebrows, sobering when she mentions how he was taken away and recruited to be a [[ChildSoldiers Child Soldier]] just like her and everybody else there. She assumes that he was killed in battle like all the rest. However, it's eventually revealed that his inability to use chakra kept him off the frontlines, and he was found and adopted by Gai, culminating in the two being reunited years later.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', Scott Lang (a.k.a. ComicBook/AntMan) is falsely assumed to have been [[spoiler:one of the many victims of Thanos's Snap. However, in reality, he was in the Quantum Realm, and the only three people who knew he was there ''and'' knew how to get him out were actual victims of the Snap, as seen in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RM_rOCHQwE the mid-credits scene]] of ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp''. He finally escapes from the Quantum Realm in ''Endgame'', but [[YearOutsideHourInside five years have passed in the real world while only five hours passed from his perspective.]] This leads to an emotional scene where he reunites with his now-teenage daughter Cassie, who assumed he had died. Later, he and the remaining Avengers exploit the TimeyWimeyBall rules of the quantum realm to go back in time and steal Infinity Stones to create a new gauntlet to bring everyone back.]]
* In ''Film/BatmanBegins'', Bruce Wayne goes on a multi-year incognito journey to find himself, and when he gets back Alfred tells him he's been thought dead. It's mostly played as a throwaway joke, though, and is sorted out between scenes with no lasting complications. Alfred mentions that there have been moves to have him declared legally dead, and Bruce says it's a good thing he left everything to Alfred then.
* In ''Film/BeatTheDevil'', Peterson and Dannreuther are pushing a broken-down car along a mountain road when it gets away from them and careens off a cliff into the sea. They are reported as dead, which surprises them when they return. Besides being funny, this is plot-relevant: Harry finds out about the uranium scheme when Rovello, believing his partner to be dead, approaches Harry and tries to get him to join.
* John Wayne's character in ''Film/BigJake'' hears everyone he meets tell him that they thought he had died. Eventually, Big Jake gets so annoyed, he promises to kill the next person to say it to him -- who, of course, turns out to be the BigBad...
* ''Film/ABridgeTooFar''. Urquhart's paratroopers are quite astonished when the General turns up alive, having been holed up in a Dutch house for several days. Unfortunately, things have gotten even worse since he was away.
* In ''Film/CastAway'', Chuck Noland is declared dead after being stranded on a deserted island for years. They even held a funeral for him.
-->'''Chuck Noland:''' You had a coffin? What was in it?
* ''Film/BuddhasPalm'': The ancient Firecloud Devil, which was once TheDreaded in the Martial World, is assumed to be dead. But early in the film, after the hero Long Jian-fei botches his suicide attempt, he ends up in a cave and encounters the Firecloud Devil, who had been living as a hermit ever since his supposed death decades ago. It was here he decides to pass his knowledge in the titular Buddha's Palm to Long.
* ''Film/DeepImpact'': The initial announcement about the Wolf-Biederman comet states that both Dr. Wolf and Leo Biederman died in a car accident before they could share their discovery of the comet with anyone. In reality, only Dr. Wolf was in the car when it crashed. Leo Biederman and his family, watching the speech at home, are bemused to hear that he's supposedly "dead". During an assembly at his school, Leo theorises that because Dr. Wolf put both of their names in his notes the investigators assumed Leo had died with him.
* Everybody in ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'', when meeting Snake Plissken, will say something along the lines of "I thought you were dead!"
** Plissken mutters to the girl in the coffee store, "I ''am'' dead."
* Exploited by the hero in ''Film/{{Fury 1936}}''. Joe is presumed dead but actually escaped the fire and explosion at the jailhouse which was brought on by an [[TorchesAndPitchforks angry mob]]. He then stays in hiding to watch the townspeople get sentenced to death for his murder.
* In ''[[Film/TheJungleBook1994 The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story]]'', Shere Khan is shot and presumed dead early in the film. When he returns later, he reveals that he was merely ShotInTheAss.
* Word for word, this trope is the tagline for the ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'' sequel ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'', confirming that Harry Hart is somehow still alive.
* In ''Film/MyFavoriteWife,'' Ellen Arden returns after being shipwrecked on a DesertedIsland for seven years. When she returns, her children (who do not recognize her) tell her about how their mother was drowned and mention that they put flowers on her grave every Easter. Her mother also tells her that her funeral was "Lovely--Dr. Blake preached a wonderful sermon."
* In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides'', Jack Sparrow relates the (RealLife) myth of how the body of Blackbeard swam three times around a navy vessel after it'd been decapitated. As he relates this story ''to'' Blackbeard, who's alive and intact, this trope presumably applies within the [=PotC=] Verse.
* ''Film/SeventhHeaven'': Chico comes home from UsefulNotes/WorldWarI just as his wife Diane is being told he was killed. As they embrace, he says that they said he was dead, but he'll never die.
* Played with in ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''. "Reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated."
* In the ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' [[InNameOnly movie]], Johnny Rico's friends bring him a copy of his own death certificate, while he's still in the hospital recovering from his wounds. They all have a big laugh over it, except for Rico's LoveInterest, who doesn't know the report was incorrect.
** Later on, her JerkAss boyfriend discovers Rico is still alive, and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold immediately informs]] the LoveInterest.
* In ''Film/SullivansTravels'', famous director Sullivan is believed to have been run over by a train and killed. It was actually a bum wearing Sullivan's shoes. He's actually in jail, but no one knows he's not dead until he finds a way to escape and make his existence public.
* In ''Film/TooManyHusbands,'' Bill Cardew was declared LegallyDead after a boating accident, but he was actually stuck on a DesertedIsland for a year. Meanwhile, his wife marries his business partner and best friend, leading to some awkwardness when Bill returns.
* In ''Film/VanillaSky'', following the car crash, Tom Cruise's character at one point mildly jokes that "The rumors of my death have been mildly exaggerated."
* ''Film/TheComedyOfTerrors'', having suffered from catalepsy all of his life, Trumbull and Gillie would frequently believe Lord Black to be dead, only for him to wake up much later, usually telegraphed to the audience by his nose twitching and asking "what place is this?"
* The {{biopic}} ''Film/SaintLaurent'' portrays a real incident when it was announced on the radio that the famous designer had died. He was busy working on his next collection and refused to be interviewed, but his partner Pierre brought a group of reporters into his atelier to confirm he was, in fact, still alive.
[[/folder]]

-->'''Martin:''' Hey. You dead?
-->'''Gabriel:''' (''confused'') No.
-->'''Martin:''' I figured. You'd have texted me.

[[folder:Literature]]
* In ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer'', Tom and Huck are mistakenly thought dead until they show up [[AttendingYourOwnFuneral at their own funeral]].
* Possibly as a ShoutOut to Creator/MarkTwain, one book in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' sees a new alien race that according to Ax was killed off millennia ago. "Reports of their extinction may have been exaggerated" indeed, they're trying to kill us right now.
* In Creator/JohnSteakley's ''Literature/{{Armor}}'', the protagonist is the only survivor of a military unit that gets wiped out. The confusion of circumstances results in parts of the computerized record-keeping system thinking he's also dead, while other parts are aware he's alive; this, to put it mildly, does not make his life any easier.
* The ''Franchise/BattleTechExpandedUniverse'' novel "''Blood Legacy''" features the specific Twain quote sent cryptically by Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht to mercenary commander Morgan Kell, early into the Clan invasion. Because of the interference of the Primus of Comstar, this is the only way he can try to inform the grieving Kell family that the son they thought killed early in the invasion is actually alive, captured by the Clans. [[spoiler:It also serves as a ''very'' subtle hint that Focht is not all he's cracked up to be either. He's actually Frederick Steiner, who was also presumed dead over a decade by that point.]]
* ''Literature/BenAndMe'': Ben accidentally convinces some locals that he's drowned when he runs off chasing a dog that had stolen his cap, leaving his clothes on the banks.
* Doc Daneeka from ''Literature/CatchTwentyTwo'' is listed as dead because he was on the flight roster for a bomber that flew into a mountain. The fact that he was standing there in person, telling them he wasn't dead, failed to convince the army bureaucracy.
* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': Literally, in book #11 (''The Cat Who Lived High''), when the vacationing Qwill's car is stolen and the driver turns up dead. The local law enforcement where the car is found, who don't know Qwill, assume the dead man is the owner of the car and issue an incorrect report. While most of Moose County is thrown into deep mourning, Arch goes to where Qwill is staying to get the cats -- and almost has a heart attack when he finds Qwill alive and sort of well, having just fought off an attempt on his life.
* Near the end of ''Literature/TheConformist'', Marcello discovers that Lino, the man he shot as a child after he attempted to molest Marcello, is still alive and that the obituary he read in the paper shortly after the event was erroneous.
* ''Literature/TheCuriousIncidentOfTheDogInTheNightTime'': Christopher's father told him his mother died. Then Christopher finds all the letters she's been writing to him since she left his father.
* In ''Literature/EnochArden'', the title character returns after being shipwrecked for more than ten years to find his wife has married another man.
* ''Literature/GrentsFall'': While his army may have been scattered before the story started, [[spoiler: the Bladecleaver]] survived unharmed.
* ''Literature/HarryBosch'' is surprised in ''Literature/TwoKindsOfTruth'' when his appeal for help in the 15-year-old Esme Tavares missing person case results in Esme Tavares contacting him. It seems that Tavares, who was presumed dead by everyone after she disappeared from her home while her infant daughter slept in a crib, had simply skipped out on a bad marriage and changed her name.
* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheHobbit'', when Bilbo Baggins finally returns to his house, he finds a huge crowd gathered for his estate auction. Since he had left without telling anyone, and not returned for a year, everyone in the Shire had assumed he was dead. His heirs, the Sackville-Bagginses, are rather disappointed when he turns up.
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'':
** Honor herself says a variation on the line when she returns to Manticore in ''Ashes of Victory''. In this case, not only has she been gone for the better part of two years, but the [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny People's Republic of Haven]] actually faked footage of her ''execution'' and broadcast it throughout the galaxy. This causes a lot of complications, not least of which that her estate has been divided up according to her will. [[HumbleHero Honor is less bothered by this than by certain twenty-foot-tall memorials to her.]] Even the Peeps thought she had died in a failed attempt to escape. But no one was going to believe ''that'', so they claimed to have formally executed her, to put a badass face on the debacle.[[note]]Unfortunately for the Peeps, this ultimately leads directly to a) no less than four [[HeelFaceTurn Heel-Face Turns]] among the Havenite officer corps (Lester Tourville, Shannon Foraker, Warner Caslet, and Thomas Theisman) and b) the MilitaryCoup that overthrows the Committee and restores the kind of democracy that hasn't governed Haven in two hundred years. Whoops.[[/note]]
** Roughly half a decade later, Honor's best friend Michelle Henke is seemingly killed at the Battle of Solon. Turns out she actually made it off the ship and was tucked safely away in a Havenite POW camp. When the two meet again, Michelle remarks that "now we're even for that jaunt to Cerberus you took."
* Nicoma Cosca in the ''Joe Abercrombie'' novels has this happen many times over the course of his life, and declares it "wishful thinking on the part of my enemies."
* The first third or so of ''Literature/TheMartian'' is driven by astronaut turned reluctant Martian colonist Mark Watney's urgent need to contact MissionControl before reports of his death cease to be greatly exaggerated.
* Drizzt thought Jarlaxle was dead since the end of ''Gauntlgrym'', the first book of ''Literature/TheNeverwinterSaga'', but he is rescued by the drow mercenary in ''The Last Threshold''. Drizzt even runs up to hug him, while he banters about his supposed death.
* In ''Literature/TheSatanicVerses'', by Salman Rushdie, Saladin Chamcha has trouble with red tape and getting his career back in order after being presumed dead in the plane crash.
* In ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'', we have Lemony Snicket.
-->''This obituary is filled with errors. Most importantly, I AM NOT DEAD.''
* This was used by Arthur Conan Doyle to implement ''Literature/SherlockHolmes''[='=] infamous FirstLawOfResurrection example. Conveniently, in the story which was originally planned to kill Holmes off [[KilledOffForReal for real]], Watson never actually saw Holmes die, but instead found supposedly incontrovertible evidence after the fact. So his lack of observational skills was used to explain away the originally-described-as-sheer rock face as actually being climbable by Holmes, with much of the other evidence of Holmes and Moriarty's fight at the waterfall having ended in a MutualKill being Holmes deliberately FakingTheDead to evade and track Moriarty's second in command.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Corran Horn has been reported dead and turned up alive again so often (3 times in the five ''[[Literature/XWingSeries X-Wing]]'' novels he features in alone) that it has been joked that when he really dies, nobody will believe it and will assume he's just in hiding and will turn up again sooner or later.
* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': In ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'', Shallan is witness to Jasnah being assassinated by the [[NebulousEvilOrganization Ghostbloods]], and the ship they're traveling on sinks (by Shallan, trying to escape from the Ghostbloods). Shallan carries this information back to Jasnah's family, unaware that Jasnah used her [[{{Teleportation}} Elsecalling]] powers to escape into [[AnotherDimension Shadesmar]], and her [[HealingFactor Stormlight]] to recover from her wounds. It took her until ''Literature/{{Oathbringer}}'' to actually get ''back'' though.
* In Creator/LewisCarroll's ''Literature/SylvieAndBruno'', the Vice-Warden arranges for a false report of his brother's death.
-->''"Is the Warden supposed to be dead?"\\
"Well, it's supposed so: but, mind you, I don't believe it! The evidence is very weak—mere hear-say. A wandering Jester, with a Dancing-Bear (they found their way into the Palace, one day) has been telling people he comes from Fairyland, and that the Warden died there. I wanted the Vice-Warden to question him, but, most unluckily, he and my Lady were always out walking when the Jester came round. Yes, the Warden's supposed to be dead!" And more tears trickled down the old man's cheeks.''
* ''Literature/TarotMysteries'': [[spoiler: Biddle was apparently shot by some mobsters they conned in a flashback in the first book but at the end of the second book it's revealed that he survived and he reappears at the shop]].
* ''Literature/TeddyLondon'': Referenced in book 4, ''All Things Under the Moon''. The day before the London Detective Agency goes to face a werewolf, they get into a discussion that involves quotes on death; Paul Morcey says he prefers Mark Twain's famous quote on death and hopes to be around to say it in a few days.
* ''Literature/{{Temeraire}}'': In ''Victory of Eagles'', Laurence is thought dead by Temeraire after the ship he was imprisoned on is sunk by the French (a stray cannonball opened his cell, and he tried to help the crew before making it to the lifeboats with the survivors).
* Serge, the ''Literature/TimDorsey'' novels' usual protagonist, is on a quest to find out the truth about his grandfather Sergio's death after a fiasco with rare stolen diamonds. He believes his namesake is still alive and is actually quite right. The "dead man" in question even explains that no one bothered to check how deep the water was, he was actually standing up to his chest and watching the chaos unfold on the docks.
* ''Unofficial History'' by Sir William Slim. During [=WW2=], Brigadier Slim encounters some British troops under his command fleeing an attack by Italian bombers. They earnestly inform him they are the {{sole survivor}}s after their unit was wiped out, one of them adding that the brigadier is dead as well. Slim assures them that he's very much alive, then orders them back to their unit (which is still intact, just demoralized having never been in combat before).
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': A footnote in one of the Literature/CiaphasCain, '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!''' books reveals that Cain was listed as "killed in action" and then showed up alive (and typically saving the day) so many times that the Munitorum finally gave up trying to keep track and kept him on the payroll regardless -- even long past his ''confirmed'' death ... and burial with full military honors.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Often a component of the BackFromTheDead storylines that are frequently seen on [[SoapOpera soap operas]]. Sometimes the person resurfacing is as much a shock to the viewer as it is to the characters, but occasionally, the audience is fully aware that the person is alive:
** ''Series/AllMyChildren'''s Tad Martin was blown from a bridge. The viewer saw that he survived, but wandered off with amnesia while his loved ones mourned and didn't return until two years later, still with no memory of his past.
** Reporter/novelist Edmund Grey was believed killed when an adversary blew up his car. Grey walked into the middle of his own funeral service on his family grounds at the Wildwind estate to the shock of everyone present.
** ''Series/OneLifeToLive'''s Todd Manning was shot multiple times and thrown over a cliff. The last viewers saw of him until the following year was him lying on a beach with his eyes slowly opening, while his wife was left to mourn.
*** Examples where the character remained onscreen:
** ''Series/AsTheWorldTurns'''s Jack was presumed dead in a car accident and woke up in a hospital with no memory of his past life. However, he didn't disappear--viewers actually saw scenes of him being nursed back to health interspersed with scenes of his wife and children mourning him that lasted for several months until the two ran into each other and he snapped out of it.
** A nearly identical situation when ''Series/GeneralHospital'''s Luke was presumed dead in an avalanche.
** And when ''Series/TheYoungAndTheRestless''' Victor also supposedly died in a car accident but was rescued by a blind woman who cared for him on her farm and even educated him about who he'd been before. In another instance, he was actually being held prisoner after a plane crash.
*** ''Deliberate'' SoapOpera examples:
** ''Series/TheYoungAndTheRestless''' Victor again, who was so fed up with his bickering family that he allowed them to believe he was dead.
** ''Series/GeneralHospital'''s Luke and Laura faked her death in an explosion in order to flee the evil Cassadines who had recently returned to town. And Damian Smith did the same thing to frame his ex-girlfriend for his supposed murder.
* Archie Bunker was misreported as dead by the Veterans Administration for one episode of ''Series/AllInTheFamily''.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** John Sheridan was thought to be dead. "I was. I got better." He spends a long time cleaning up the consequences of this.
** Earlier in the series, Sheridan exploits the fact that Mr. Morden is [[LegallyDead officially deceased]] to hold him prisoner without legal justification (Garibaldi [[WhatTheHellHero calls him on it]]) and [[PerpSweating interrogate him]] about what happened to the expedition where Sheridan's wife disappeared.
* ''Series/BarneyMiller'': Dietrich is thought to have been killed when a stress analyzer he was wearing for a scientific study flatlines. His apparent "death" is milked for a dramatic ad break cliffhanger. As it turns out the analyzer shorted out when he was hit with fire extinguisher spray.
* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. Lampshaded at the end of "[[Recap/BlakesSevenS3E8RumoursOfDeath Rumours of Death]]", in which Avon discovers his LostLenore wasn't tortured to death as he believed, but was actually a DoubleAgent for the SecretPolice.
-->'''Avon:''' [[BigBad Servalan]] was planning on sending you [my] corpse, but the [[TitleDrop rumours of my death]]--\\
'''Tarrant:''' --have been greatly exaggerated.\\
'''Avon:''' ''(to himself)'' Well, [[DespairEventHorizon slightly exaggerated, anyway.]]
* Happens twice on ''Series/TheBrittasEmpire'':
** In "Back from the Dead", Brittas is presumed to be dead. In reality, he had spent about a week in a chicken coop in Bulgaria, with the mix-up being because someone had stolen his possessions and were wearing them when they were flattened.
** Later on in "Gavin Featherly R.I.P", Gavin is also believed to be dead after he is lost at sea. In reality, he was captured by RuthlessModernPirates.
* ''Series/{{Brotherhood}}'': In the pilot, when one of Michael's associates said he heard he was six feet under, Michael responds, "Me? No, I was at the library...There are a lot of good books in the library."
* The ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' episode "Doppelgangland", in which meeting Vamp Willow causes Series/{{Angel}} to report that Willow is dead. He then says hi to human Willow who is standing right behind him.
* ''Series/{{Cheers}}'': A season 7 episode has Rebecca Howe mistaken for dead due to a mix-up with an obituary for another Rebecca Howe. Her superiors at the Lillian Corporation send a wreath to Cheers, complete with a card saying "at last her suffering is over."
* In ''Series/CoronationStreet,'' Jerry's father puts his own obituary in the newspaper. He had a questionable past, and doing so was a way to make it easier for his granddaughter to join the police.
* ''Series/TheDevilJudge'': Yo-han, twice. The first time he's reported murdered in prison. The second time it's assumed he died in the courtroom explosion. Both times he survives.
* Happens on more than one occasion in ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** The Series 2 two-part finale [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E12ArmyOfGhosts "Army of Ghosts"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday "Doomsday"]] begins with a voiceover from Rose [[BreakingTheFourthWall telling the viewer]] "this is the story of how I died." At the conclusion, it's revealed that she's actually alive and stuck in a parallel universe, but she's been declared legally dead in our universe.
** In the Series 5 finale [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E13TheBigBang "The Big Bang"]], the Doctor, Amy, and Rory meet a mortally wounded version of the Doctor from 12 minutes into the future and watch him die. Turns out he was only faking it to allow the trio to create a diversion for 12 minutes, allowing the future-Doctor to [[TheSlowPath use those 12 minutes]] to wire up the Pandorica.
* Jonathan Doors is shot by a sniper in the pilot of ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'', protecting the Taelon ambassador Da'an. Turns out, it was all a setup. The sniper was working for Doors and was shooting blanks, as was the doctor who confirmed his death. The goal was to set up LaResistance to figure out the real reason the Taelons came to Earth. A few episodes later, Doors publicly outs himself, using a similar line to this trope.
* In ''Series/EngineSentaiGoOnger'''s ''10 Years Grand Prix'' movie, Hiroto gets propelled to Junk World in an explosion (caused by [=BearRV=] crash-landing to Earth) and then can't get back, due to the new Prime Minister Noizumi putting up an "isolation barrier" which prevents access to Earth from other dimensions. Everyone else thinks Hiroto was [[MistakenForTerrorist killed in a suicide-bombing attempt to assassinate Noizumi]], and when the other Go-ongers end up on Junk World and reunite with him, they initially think he's a ghost.
* ''Series/{{Frasier}}'': In "The Late Dr. Crane" a case of mistaken identity at a hospital leads to a news report declaring that Frasier has died, much to confusion of Frasier and his family watching at home. Frasier gets the station to run a retraction but seeing his premature eulogy prompts him to start making some changes to his life. Meanwhile, his father is getting a lot of mileage out of his friends offering their sympathies via free drinks and gift baskets.
* ''Fries With That?'': Ben Shaw files himself as dead to get out of being beaten up. His friends quickly take advantage of this by pointing out that they don't pay dead people.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones''.
-->'''Lord Tywin:''' I see that the rumors of your demise were unfounded.\\
'''Tyrion:''' [[TheUnfavourite Sorry to disappoint you, Father]]. No need to leap up and embrace me, [[DeadpanSnarker I wouldn't want you to strain yourself]].
* ''Series/GeneralAndI'':
** Chu Bei Jie is believed dead. Turns out he's alive. But Bai Ping Ting doesn't learn this until she's given a rival army information that could help them defeat him.
** Later, Bai Ping Ting is believed dead. Yang Feng and Ze Yin have a funeral and a memorial made for her. Unknown to them or Chu Bei Jie, she's still alive.
* There's an episode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'' in which Blanche's spurned boyfriend, an obituary editor, runs her obituary to get back at her. [[SkewedPriorities Blanche is more upset that he claimed she was 68 than she is about being presumed dead]].
* ''Series/{{Happy}}'': After the FinalBattle of Season 1, [[AntiHero Nick's]] various injuries and a heart attack cause him to be rendered clinically dead for eight minutes before being resuscitated. This leads to rumors on the street that he actually died permanently.
* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' had an episode involving an Immortal who did a lot of charity work, who was shot in a mugging and died on Anne's operating table. As Anne broke the news to his followers, he came walking down the hall.
* In one ''Series/HorribleHistories'' sketch, as per history, a distinctly premature obituary is Alfred Nobel's inspiration for establishing his eponymous prizes (as it revealed that otherwise he would be remembered solely as the 'Merchant of Death', i.e. the inventor of dynamite). "And I will call them... Prize-amite!"
* In ''Series/ICarly'', Spencer is thought to be dead in an episode due to a misleading newspaper article [[TheUnreveal which never explains why they presumed that]]. [[DeadArtistsAreBetter It results in Spencer's artwork being worth a lot more money, which causes him to continue the illusion]].
* Not quite a running gag, but it happens a few times on ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}''.
** In one of the pilot episodes, "Les Funérailles d'Ulfin", Arthur is attending the funeral of an elderly noble... only to have the "dead guy" waking up (just as the pyre is being lighted) and asking what's going on. When he makes an unfortunate comment, Arthur is very tempted to put him ''back'' in the grave.
** In Livre I, "La Mort le Roy Artu", Father Blaise endeavors to have tourists visiting Kaamelott to bring some money to the coffers. The visit of the castle ends up with... the tomb of King Arthur. Because it's solemn. Arthur is rather bothered by this; Blaise thus changes it to... visiting the tomb of Queen Guenièvre.
--->'''Lancelot:''' Perceval, what are you doing here?\\
'''Perceval:''' I'm taking the tour.\\
'''Arthur:''' ''What'' tour? You ''live'' here, you complete moron!\\
'''Perceval:''' Yeah, but they take you places I've never seen! Apparently we can visit your tomb, that's got to be worth looking at.
** Episode "Always" of Livre II is all about the characters reacting (and getting all philosophical) over the report of Perceval's death. Turns out he just has been very sick and shows up at the end.
--->'''Arthur:''' But you're not dead, you bastard?!
** [[TheBard A bard]] once announces the funeral of King Loth. As it happens, you [[UnreliableExpositor shouldn't listen to everything bards sing]].
** Léodagan and Séli are once believed to be dead by their kingdom of Carmélide, AndThereWasMuchRejoicing. When Léodagan learns that it was caused by Yvain's latest poor choice of a moniker (he was going for "the Elephant of Cameliard", but got it mixed up with "Orphan"), he is ''not'' amused.
** Lancelot makes his reappearance in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLk3XTTr_6A a rather sinister fashion]]:
--->'''Guenièvre:''' I thought you were dead?\\
'''Lancelot:''' Not yet, not quite.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Lateline}}'' has Raji really upset as the news program goes to air. He then reveals that he had just heard Creator/BuddyHackett had died. They agree to make a quick mention on the air. When the guests respond to the quick mention by discussing their memories of Hackett, they end up turning the episode into an hour-long dedication. The next episode of the news program starts with the revelation that Hackett is still alive an apology for the mistake. (The episode of the sitcom aired in 1998, five years before Buddy Hackett died for real.)
* In the ''Series/{{Mash}}'' episode "The Late Captain Pierce", the U.S. Army mistakenly declares Hawkeye dead. The 4077th knows it's a mistake, but Hawkeye's father, who was notified in keeping with official policy, does not, and due to some exceptionally poor timing, it takes Hawkeye several days to reach him and set the record straight.
* ''Series/MyFamily'': Ben Harper gets listed in the obituary by accident.
* ''Series/MaxHeadroom'': In the pilot, Network 23 president Grossberg attempts to have Edison Carter killed to cover up the death of a viewer caused by one of Network 23's Blipverts. The episode ends with Carter storming Grossberg's office with his camera in hand, just as Grossberg has finished announcing his death.
-->''"This is Edison Carter, coming to you ''very much'' live and direct from Network 23."''
* One ''Series/MyTwoDads'' episode has a typo in an obituary causing everyone to think Joey was dead. He goes along with it for a while to sell art, because DeadArtistsAreBetter.
* ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'': In Part I, Obi-Wan, Owen and Bail believe that Anakin Skywalker died after the events of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''. In Part II, The Third Sister informs Obi-Wan that Lord Vader is looking for him. Obi-Wan panics and she senses it.
-->'''Third Sister''': You didn't know? He's alive, Obi-Wan. Anakin Skywalker is alive.
* ''Series/OctoberFaction'': Samuel Allen's death was faked by Presidio.
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' special The Promised Land, Rimmer flies through a window with a bomb that was about to blow up the ship. The bomb explodes a short distance away, leaving Lister and the Cat to believe he sacrificed himself, until he turns up in the corridor behind them.
* ''Series/{{Rome}}''. Lucius Vorenus returns to Rome after eight years campaigning in Gaul to find that due to an error, his pay had ceased being sent to his wife Niobe, so she assumed he'd been killed in battle. Unfortunately she then had a child with another man, which she has to keep secret because Vorenus can legally kill both her and the child under Roman law.
* In ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'' episode "The Death of the Doctor"... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin you can guess]].
-->'''The Doctor:''' Have you been telling people I'm dead?
* Subverted in [[http://snltranscripts.jt.org/00/00supdate.phtml this]] ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' segment from 2001 in which Music/LouReed appeared on "Weekend Update" to confront rumors that he was dead. Reed confirmed that yes, he really was dead.
** Played straight in [[https://snltranscripts.jt.org/92/92mfarley.phtml a memorable 1993 skit]] in which Music/PaulMcCartney, appearing on "The Creator/ChrisFarley Show'', confirmed that the Paul Is Dead hoax (see RealLife below) was in fact a hoax.
-->'''Paul''': I wasn't really dead.
** In the 40th anniversary special, many jokes were made at the expense of Jon Lovitz that listed him as a beloved cast member that was no longer with us, only to cut to him, sitting in the Live Studio Audience, reacting as if this was news to him. Culminated with him being listed at the end of a montage of all the deceased cast and crew, with the slow-motion of his WTH expression from earlier and somber music.
** Inverted with Generalissimo Fransisco Franco, who has been correctly reported as still dead... but Weekend Update still maintains reporters on the scene in the event that his condition changes. [[note]] The Original Gag was spoofing the media reports over-reporting his failing health in an attempt to avoid this trope.[[/note]]
* In the ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Caddy," this happens to George Costanza when he goes on an unauthorized vacation while his car is parked at his job with [[TheKeyIsBehindTheLock the keys locked in it]], taking advantage of everyone's belief that he must be at work if his car is there. He remembers too late that a local restaurant regularly leaves fliers on the windshields of all the cars in the lot and sends Jerry to remove the evidence. Finding the car additionally covered in seagull droppings, Jerry and Kramer pick the lock and take the car to a car wash, but get in an accident on the way back. George's coworkers find the car with the door broken off and blood in the driver's seat and instantly assume the worst. HilarityEnsues.
* ''Series/SleepyHollow'' gives us a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]] with Brooks, who actually ''was'' dead, but was resurrected by the BigBad to continue doing his dirty work:
-->'''Brooks:''' Reports of my death were... pretty much true.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': In a bit of a subversion, Earth-1's Lionel Luthor really does die in season 7. A few years later, in season 10, his Earth-2 counterpart comes to Earth-1 and pretends to be the original, saying the trope name almost word-for-word.
* The eventually-[[BackFromTheDead oft-killed]] Daniel Jackson had this happen to him in an early episode of ''Series/StargateSG1''- they hold a eulogy for him and start going through his stuff before they realize they've just been tricked into ''thinking'' he's dead. And at the beginning of season 7, he reclaims a good many items which Jonas Quinn was using... "You weren't using them" was Jonas' ([[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence understandable]]) explanation. He differs from most of these examples in that most of the time he ''actually was'' dead. Later on, though, his teammates get wise about it, and O'Neill outright ''refuses'' to hold a memorial service one of the latter times he gets killed, noting that he'll probably be back any time now.
* The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E1AmokTime Amok Time]]" from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' has this when Kirk and Spock are forced to fight to the death in some kind of Vulcan mating ritual. Spock seemingly kills Kirk (which snaps him out of a [[MateOrDie mating frenzy]], don't know what that says [[HoYay about their relationship]]) and returns to the Enterprise [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone devas]][[HeroicBSOD tated]] and ready to resign from Starfleet. Cue Kirk coming up behind him and asking "Don't you think you had better check with me first?". Cue Spock grabbing him and spinning him around with the biggest, goofiest smile on his face. Turns out [=McCoy=] had injected Kirk with something during a time-out that he said was to help the human Kirk compensate for Vulcan's climate, but was really to make it look like Kirk had died so Spock would win.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Duet", the Cardassian war criminal Gul Darhe'el gets apprehended by the crew, only for Gul Dukat to inform them that the real Darhe'el has been dead for several years. Darhe'el initially falls back on this trope before finally breaking down and admitting the truth -- he's one of Darhe'el's former assistants who was so horrified by what he witnessed that he's [[TheAtoner impersonating Darhe'el in an attempt to force Cardassia into owning up to the atrocities they inflicted upon the Bajorans.]]
** {{Invoked|Trope}} for the purpose of humor in the series finale. When Jake asks after the welfare of Kasidy (pregnant and struggling with MorningSickness), she quips, "Reports of my death have been exaggerated... but not by much."
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': Dean's "demise was exaggerated" after a {{shapeshifter}} who assumed his form was killed.
* ''Series/SchittsCreek'': Rumors of Moira's death circulate online. Moira is at first horrified, then begins to bask in the attention and praise being dead garners her. She plots her resurrection press conference carefully, but [[spoiler: she takes too long and her death is overshadowed by the death of a celebrity kitten.]]

[[folder:Music]]
* ''La Tumba Falsa'' (The False Tombstone) by Mexican group ''Los Tigres Del Norte'' tells about the narrator who was abandoned by an unfaithful wife along with multiple children. Rather then tell them the truth, he makes up a story that their mother died and points out a tomb in a cemetery with no visitors as being their mother's grave. The narrator lives in guilt as his children go their lives leaving flowers and paying respects to this particular grave.

[[folder:Recorded Comedy]]
* On "Cocktail Bar" (from Monty Python's ''Live at Drury Lane'' album), four businessmen engage in shop talk about an associate who made a financial killing, invested it, and is declaring himself as dead on April 5 as a tax dodge.

[[folder:Roleplay]]
* Occurs a couple of times in ''Roleplay/WeAreAllPokemonTrainers'':
** In the alternate timeline, a flashback implies [[Videogame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Cyrus]] had the mind-controlled Dialga kill DS, and she is reported dead to the other Trainers. Only when she [[BigDamnHeroes arrives for the finale]] is revealed that Dialga resisted Cyrus's command long enough to imprison DS along with the other Legendaries instead.
** Later, when DS and the Lake Trio finally find Palkia, who is the only one who can help them escape from the other dimension, they discover that Palkia has been [[TakenForGranite petrified]], presumably having been that way since the arc began.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Bardings who take the "Birthright" cultural Virtue get a single-use UnexplainedRecovery from otherwise certain death, but their [[AllianceMeter Standing score]] is reset to zero because they're presumed dead by their people.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'':
** After respawning, the champion Ezreal says this quote, word-by-word.
* ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'':
** The game starts with Elaine discovering that because she spent so much time out of the government of her islands, she was declared dead and had to get re-elected.
--->'''Elaine Marley:''' I'm going down to city hall to see about getting declared un-dead.\\
'''Guybrush Threepwood:''' Won't that make you a flesh-eating zombie?
** In the same game:
--->'''Meathook:''' Guybrush! I'd heard you were killed by a giant clam!\\
'''Guybrush:''' Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.\\
'''Meathook:''' Not to mention celebrated.\\
'''Guybrush:''' What?\\
'''Meathook:''' Nothing.
* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', Shepard [[ItMakesSenseInContext actually was dead for two years]], which leads to trouble when they return to the Citadel and is picked up by the security scanners as being dead. Fortunately, a [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure friendly C-Sec officer]] changes the records without making Shepard jump through all the hoops they would normally have to go through. It is mentioned that folks ''fake'' their own death fairly often as a tax dodge -- possibly a ShoutOut to a gag in ''Literature/TheHitchHikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' where Hotblack Dessiato is apparently spending a year dead for tax reasons. You can also have them keep you out of the system so to security, you don't exist. Several characters will, naturally enough, comment on this when you meet them again. Wrex (assuming he survived the first game) gets a good one:
-->'''Wrex:''' What brings you here? How's the ''Normandy''?\\
'''Shepard:''' Destroyed in a Collector surprise attack. I ended up spaced.\\
'''Wrex:''' Well, you look good. Ah, the benefits of a redundant nervous system!\\
'''Shepard:''' Yeah, Humans don't have that.\\
'''Wrex:''' Oh. It must have been painful, then.
* In the first chapter of ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|CursedMemories}}'' Dark Hero Axel is reported as dead (Adell and Rozalin just knocked him out), and he spends several chapters trying to convince people he's not. His own mother goes into mourning and then chews him out when he calls to reassure her because she thinks he's an unusually cruel prankster; even after he [=MCs=] the Coliseum battle to jumpstart his career, the newscast "lose" the footage and claims that he's an escaped asylum inmate who thinks he's Axel. Much later his producer is revealed to have been behind it all to cover up his embezzlement.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** Doctor Halsey quotes this trope in ''VideoGame/HaloReach''. The casualty reports had listed her as K.I.A., or so Noble Team thought.
** Near the beginning of the level "Uprising" in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', the Arbiter runs into some friendly Elite forces. He's greeted with "The Arbiter! I thought he was dead!"
** A variation of this happens in ''VideoGame/{{Halo Wars 2}}'' when Isabel first meets Captain James Cutter aboard the ''Spirit of Fire''. [[note]] Official UNSC reports said that the ''Spirit of Fire'' was lost with all hands during the Human-Covenant War sometime after The Battle of Arcadia when it was last seen. In truth: the ''Spirit of Fire'' ended up following The Covenant to a [[DysonSphere Forerunner Shield World]] which housed a fleet of [[PreCursors Forerunner Ships]] deep beneath the planet's crust that was accidentally reactivated. James Cutter ended up sacrificing his ships' [[FasterThanLightTravel Slipspace Drive]] to [[EarthShatteringKaboom trigger a supernova within the Shield Worlds' inner star]] in order to prevent the Covenant from using the Forerunner Ships against Humanity during [[VideoGame/HaloWars the first game]]. After [[OutrunningTheFireball escaping the Shield Worlds' destruction]], the crew ended up putting themselves into [[HumanPopsicle Cryostasis]] while the ''Spirit of Fire'' would slowly limp its way back into UNSC Space at sublight speeds for nearly 30 years until the ship was pulled through the Portal to The Ark and kick-start the events of the second game. [[/note]]
--->'''Isabel:''' "James Cutter, Captain of the ''Spirit of Fire.'' You're supposed to be lost with all hands."\\
'''James Cutter:''' "Not so lost, it seems."
* In ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'', Spyro goes through a portal and ends up in a faraway land where dragons were thought to be extinct. He replies with "Rumors of our extinction were greatly exaggerated."
* The ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' add-on, ''Lonesome Road'' adds a perk, "Thought You Died", which is basically this.
** In the main game, you can meet up with the people that were responsible for you getting shot in the head. Most of them react in shock that you're alive.
** In the backstory, this has happened to Joshua Graham five times. 1st Recon, NCR's elite sniper squad has reported five confirmed kills on him, only for him to show up alive each time. This has led to him becoming TheDreaded and when you meet him in the Honest Hearts DLC, Graham is indeed [[MadeOfIron inhumanly durable and difficult to kill]].
* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'': Albert Wesker and later, Jill Valentine both fall under this trope; Wesker in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica'' and Jill in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5''.
* In the original ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' trilogy, Irene Lew is thought to have been killed in the opening of the third game. She shows up later on and she is not very happy with her former boss trying to kill her.
-->'''Irene:''' Did you think that I would die that easily?
* In ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'', Col. John Konrad gives an interesting inversion of this trope. As it turns out, the real Col. Konrad had taken up residence in one of Dubai's towers, and eventually, out of depression over the failure of the evacuation of Dubai's people, committed suicide. The Konrad who has been speaking to Cpt. Martin Walker was just a figment of his imagination, and the moment Walker finds Konrad's corpse, the imaginary Konrad walks up to the body and gives it a genuinely amused look, before stating with a smirk:
-->'''"Konrad"''': It seems that reports of my... ''[[DeadAllAlong survival]]''... have been greatly exaggerated."
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Whenever Scout is revived in a Mann vs. Machine map using the Re-Animator, he has this to say:
-->'''Scout:''' Reports of my death were BULLCRAP!!
* In ''VideoGame/ZombiesRun'', Runner 3, Simon Lauchlan uses this phrase exactly when Runner 5 leads Runner 4, Jody Marsh, to the believed dead runner to avoid capture by the ministry.
* In the Nod campaign of ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'', Kane is believed dead before resurfacing a few missions later. As he himself lampshades, his enemies have a bad habit of reporting his death prematurely.
-->'''Kane''': Once again, the world is quick to bury me.
* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'':
** Falstad Wildhammer gets to name-drop the trope for one of his StopPokingMe quotes as a reference to an [[http://wowwiki.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Shirt_Guy incident]] where [[Creator/BlizzardEntertainment Blizzard]] fudged their own lore for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', making this an unusual meta example. There's also this gem from his bio:
---> ''Despite wild speculation, Falstad has never been dead and anyone who claims such is a liar.''
** Medivh has a StopPokingMe line that differs a bit:
--->'''Medivh:''' Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated. I mean, yes, I died, but people love to embellish.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' employs this trope for no less than five of its playable Heroes:
** Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were last seen caught in an explosion that destroyed Overwatch headquarters, resulting in the two being declared dead. They survive to this day as Soldier: 76 and Reaper, respectively.
** Tracer was thought to be gone after the prototype fighter jet she was flying had its teleportation capabilities malfunction and cause the craft and her to vanish until Winston saved her with technology that prevents her from jumping about the space-time continuum.
** Hanzo was forced by his organized crime clan to kill his younger brother Genji, and Genji was thought to be dead as a result. In reality, Overwatch saved his life, giving him a new cyborg body. The revelation that Genji is alive leaves some rather deep-seated issues within Hanzo, who had been paying respects to the presumed-dead Genji every year until Genji in his new body showed up.
** Ana was counter-sniped [[EyeScream in the eye]] by Widowmaker during a crucial rescue mission and was presumed to be killed. Declaring this [[MyGreatestFailure her greatest failure]] due to the personal circumstances of her mistake, she decided it would be better if the world thought she died, [[FakingTheDead keeping her survival and recovery a secret]].
*** In the same comic, Ana is surprised to see Widowmaker at all, as she had been presumed dead after her disappearance following her (Widowmaker's) husband's death. Ana quickly deduces that Widowmaker must have killed her husband and disappeared, before being interrupted by the aforementioned shot.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': Link and Zelda have been presumed dead... [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld for about a hundred years]]. Link was, very nearly, killed in battle, and spent that century in a [[RipVanWinkle healing sleep that kept him from aging]]; Zelda spent it [[AndIMustScream trapped in the Malice of Calamity Ganon]]. Consequently, assuming the Hylian Champion survived his killing doesn't stop people from thinking he's dead.
* At the end of the first season of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'', Lee watched as Kenny is surrounded by a group of walkers and is presumed to have perished. In the next season, Clementine is surprised to meet him again as she was told about his fate.
* Invoked in ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfMordor'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'': because they were created as soldiers by Sauron, orcs are actually very hard to kill unless straight-up decapitated. As a result, it's a game mechanic that orcs who have been promoted to Nemeses can heal up from presumed fatal blows you dealt them in your last encounter and return to fight you again. They can even survive getting severed in two! In ''Shadow of War'', your own Branded Orcs can likewise potentially shrug off killing blows and return to service.
** The trope arguably also applies to the main character, who ''is'' dead, but keeps getting back up to seek revenge anyway.
* ''VideoGame/BattleTech'': You're shown the apparent death of Lady Kamea Arano during a MilitaryCoup at the end of the JustifiedTutorial. However, [[ForegoneConclusion she narrates]] the FramingDevice. Turns out the footage you saw of her [=DropShip=] being shot down on launch was faked by the coup plotters: she got offworld fine and spent the next three years dodging assassins.
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', the overworld narration informs the player that [[spoiler:Dimitri]] is dead on two story routes. In one, he shows up as an enemy commander and survives ''that'', until he's actually KilledOffscreen. For real this time. [[spoiler:On Azure Moon, the PlayerCharacter is reunited with him almost immediately and doesn't have time to dwell on it, though he's undergone SanitySlippage in the meantime. Also in Azure Moon, Dedue can suffer BigGuyFatalitySyndrome if you didn't successfully complete a sidequest earlier in the game. If you did, he's this trope.]]
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': When Solo/Sofia first visits the town of Casabranca/Branca (and Endor), many people s/he talks to keep acting as if s/he were killed by foes rather than Eliza/Celia, as if Solo/Sofia never existed at all!
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': To expose the traitor among them and to learn who was behind the mental shutdowns, the Phantom Thieves devised a plan to use Sae's Palace as a means of helping Joker fake his death by having the traitor (a.k.a. Akechi) kill a cognitive Joker. After learning who ordered the hit, they [[DoNotAdjustYourSet hijack the airwaves of the world]] to reveal the truth and to send a calling card to the BigBad, Masayoshi Shido.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars30'', choosing the Earth route at the start of the game reveal that Amuro Ray and Char Aznable had died due to the events of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack''. [[spoiler:Early on, you end up picking up Char, back in his "Quattro Bajeena" alias, and a little later, Chan Agi along with Amuro.]]
* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuest2015'', a reboot/reimagining/sequel to the ''VideoGame/KingsQuest'' franchise, King Graham banters with Mordon/Mordack, asking him how he's alive when he extinguished his fire years ago ([[VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder referring to Graham using magic to summon rain to defeat Mordack while he turned himself into fire]]). Mordack says he was hiding under the floorboard.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
** Madam Oglavia Spudna has this response to a horrified captured librarian who has just realized who the well-known TortureTechnician is as she was thought to be dead.
** When Maxim challenges Old Man Death to a fight for his hat the old man mentions that some of the cavalry that they once rode with was through a few years ago and had said [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100526 Maxim was dead.]] Maxim was reported dead since he was "detached" and didn't align himself with Wulfenbach like the rest of the Jägers.
* In ''Webcomic/JoeVsElanSchool'', after Joe returns home from three years in JuvenileHell, Joe's friend [[GirlNextDoor Chloe]] tells him that, among other things -- including that he'd moved to California or been sent to prison -- she'd heard rumors that he was dead.
* In ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', after Roy defeats Xykon in the Redmountains, he thought he finally fulfilled his mission, unaware that Redcloak had a SoulJar that would enable Xykon to regenerate his body. It wasn't until the Azure City saga where Roy learned from his father that Xykon was still alive.
* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': Emil and Lalli try to escape a giant via a frozen body of water, but the fact that it can't hold Emil results in Lalli killing the giant via a burst of magic that shatters both the giant and the ice. They manage to escape on an ice floe and get ashore somewhere far away from the rest of the crew. When Sigrun backtracks the next morning looking for them, all she finds is the giant's exploded corpse right next to the part of the body of water that got its ice blown to bits by the magic burst. She comes to the conclusion anyone would be killed by that and tells the rest of the crew upon returning.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Bell's butchers in Ethelmik think they've killed Emil and Elka when their pair goes over the falls, and Bell uses Emil as a martyr while pushing the story that it was an Aldish attack that destroyed the city. Emil gets a huge state funeral despite the lack of body, and then Emil and Elka show up still chasing the silver and trying to dismantle Bell's superweapon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/AllHailKingJulien'', several characters assumed to have been eaten by fossa have turned up in the kingdom, including Julien's own parents. Presumably death by fossa is so common, anyone who suddenly vanishes is assumed to have been eaten.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arcane}}'': Everyone assumed Vi had died with the rest of her family, not secretly locked up in jail. When she returns to the Undercity, people are appropriately shocked to see someone back from the dead.
* This was Aang's status for half of the third season of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' following the second season finale, where Azula killed Aang only for Katara to bring him back. [[InnocentlyInsensitive While Sokka was excited to have such a stealthy advantage]], Aang was initially upset that the world thought their only hope to end the war was gone forever, but eventually decided it was best that the world not know the Avatar was alive for now. Unfortunately, Azula, being the MagnificentBitch she is, had a feeling that Aang was alive and not only had a plan to defend against the Gaang's invasion, but also make them waste their stealthy advantage.
* In the revival of ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'', Beavis is convinced that Daria Morgendorffer committed suicide. Butthead corrects him that [[MythologyGag she just]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Daria}} moved away]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'' had all of his benefits cut at work after spending a short period of time dead.
* On ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' this happened three times. The first time with Peter, who got out of a hospital bill by writing that he was dead. The rest of the episode involved him making a deal with the GrimReaper. The second time was when they got Quagmire out of a marriage with a psycho woman. Since her last name was also Quagmire by marriage, and she grabbed the GrimReaper's hand (killing herself in the process), it all worked out nicely.
** The third time also involved the GrimReaper, but he was just there, he didn't harvest. Peter, Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire all get stranded on a deserted island for quite some time and are declared dead. Peter has to save his marriage since Brian married Lois during that time.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Cubert was able to take over Planet Express because the Professor had been declared dead as a tax dodge.
-->'''Farnsworth:''' Tax dodge nothing! You take one nap in a ditch in the park and they start declaring you this and that!
* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', for half the second season, Dipper was under the assumption that Agents Powers and Trigger were eaten by the zombie hoard in "Scary-Oke". In "Not What He Seems", he learns otherwise.
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'', Dino Spumoni faked his death, counting on it [[DeadArtistsAreBetter boosting his popularity]]. Then he realized [[DidntThinkThisThrough he couldn't get paid if he was]] ''[[DidntThinkThisThrough dead.]]''
* In the 90s ''WesternAnimation/IronMan'' cartoon, Tony [[FakingTheDead fakes Iron Man's death]] (this was back when he still had a secret identity in the comics) after he goes off the rails in "Armor Wars". When he gets back in the saddle, he drops the line, attributing it to Mark Twain. "Iron Man lives."
* Occurs almost ''verbatim'' early in the second season of ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', upon discovering that Shendu has returned (as a ghost) and is in possession of the Dark Hand's boss, Valmont:
-->'''Shendu:''' Reports of my demise have been ''greatly'' exaggerated, Chan.
* ''WesternAnimation/KorgothOfBarbaria'': The dark wizard Specules is annoyed when he finds a bunch of thieves in his castle looting the place on the assumption that he was dead. Turns out, he was just taking a cruise holiday.
* ''Mickey's April Fools'' has Mickey Mouse pretending to die in front of Mortimer as an April Fools prank. Mickey then gets a letter declaring he's inherited a million dollars, but he can't get it because he's supposed to be dead.
* In the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'', a rumor gets around that Ruby is dying. By the end, everyone thinks she's dead and is mourning her, while she tries to correct them. All PlayedForLaughs.
* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' has this as the reason why Entrapta pulls a (downplayed) FaceHeelTurn. During a rescue mission to save some of the other Rebellion members from the Horde, the rest of the group see her get trapped in an incinerator [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat that turns on just seconds later]]. However, Entrapta manages to use a RobotBuddy to shield herself from the flames, before proceeding to hide within the vents of the enemy base for the next two days awaiting rescue. She's found by two of the villains, Catra and Scorpia, who manipulate her into believing that she was purposefully left behind due to being seen as a nuisance. (Well, Catra does because she's a ManipulativeBitch; Scorpia believes this narrative because she's a MinionWithAnFInEvil and thinks Catra's her friend and wouldn't lie to her.) This plus the Horde's willingness to support her more dangerous research leads to her joining, while her former friends are completely convinced she's dead.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** Homer Simpson fakes his death in "Mother Simpson" to escape a day of work. It eventually leads to him discovering his long-lost mother, whose ''own'' death had been greatly exaggerated decades previously by Homer's father. She then fakes her death AGAIN at the end of the episode.
** Lisa was presumed dead in "Lisa the Tree Hugger", owing to the fact that she was supposed to be camping an ancient redwood when it got hit by lightning (which, as it turns out, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero was caused by the bucket she had in the tree]]). She refused to come clean because her "death" was inspiring the people, but finally did when it was twisted by the rich Texan guy into publicity for his new amusement park.
** And Bart also once had Milhouse help him fake his death on some cliff.
** In 'Simpsons Tall Tales' episode where Bart and Nelson take the roles of [[Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn]], the two boys can be seen lying on a rafter grinning down at the townspeople who are attending the boys' funeral. Subverted that it turns out that they really are dead; their bodies, which ended up with those looks on them, are lowered to their caskets.
** Lampshaded in the soap "Reach for the Sun" that Marge and Lisa are watching:
--->'''Marguarita:''' Father [=McGrath=]! I thought you were dead!\\
'''Father [=McGrath=]:''' I was!
** During "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday", Marge and Lisa work on an egg painting kit endorsed by Vincent Price. After discovering they're missing a set of decorative feet that's supposed to come with the kit, Marge calls the company and is shocked when Price himself answers even though he'd died several years before the episode aired. Price declares "You should know the grave could never claim me" before giving Marge instructions on how to get the feet from his next-of-kin. He then caps off by saying "I must now return to the sweet embrace of the crypt." Lisa's not sure if Price is supposed to be alive or dead by that point. Things get even more complicated when he appears at the end of the episode, driving a bus.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' featured a guy being frozen for almost three years. He comes back to his wife who says that she assumed he was dead and married someone else and now had two kids, aged 8 and 13. After a while, the guy says, "8 and 13!?"
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', after the titular hero was seemingly [[TheWallsAreClosingIn crushed to death]] in a battle with Shocker, Marko and O'hirn take advantage of it by robbing a store. When Spidey shows up to foil them, he tries to quote the trope name but fails and just tells them to tell Shocker he wants a rematch.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManUnlimited'': The Green Goblin quotes this almost word for word when he shows up in the final episode to assist Spidey and the other heroes against the High Evolutionary and his forces.
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'':
** After "The Shredder Strikes Back Part 2", the Foot believed that the Turtles and their allies were killed in the fire at April's antique store. This was due to Baxter Stockman faking proof in order to steal an Utrom exoskeleton from Shredder. The Turtles would take advantage of this by launching their own sneak attack in "Return to New York".
** This has happened to the Shredder multiple times. First, the Turtles thought he was killed by the collapsing water tower at the end of "The Shredder Strikes Part 2". Then, when Leonardo seemingly decapitated him in "Return to New York Part 3". Finally, he appeared to have been killed by the destruction of [=TCRI=] in "Secret Origins Part 3", only to show up alive at the end of the "City At War" arc.
* Shockwave paraphrases this trope in his first appearance in the third season of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime''.
-->"Reports of my demise were greatly... ''premature.''"
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': Both Sadlygrove and Rubilax were under the impression Goultard was dead for some time before the start of the first season, tomb and everything. Goultard dissuades that notion by literally walking out of said tomb, telling Sadlygrove "Well, I'm not dead anymore!" and Rubilax "Death's terribly overrated, you know." [[spoiler:It doesn't hurt that Goultard is TheAgeless due to fulfilling the duties of the god Iop while the latter is off reincarnating in mortal form (of which Sadlygrove is unknowingly the current incarnation of). Other material suggests even if he ''was'' killed, he's still BarredFromTheAfterlife because he kept beating up all the dead and demons.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/WanderOverYonder'': In "The Pet", Wander befriends a man-eating alien and begins training it to be a pet; when attempting to give it a teddy bear as a gift, it spits at it and rips it to shreds before wrapping it in a cocoon. When Sylvia opens the cocoon minutes later, she mistakes the teddy bear's remains for Wander's fur, thinking he had been eaten by the alien.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The TropeNamer is Samuel "Creator/MarkTwain" Clemens, who gave the trope title as a statement in response to hearing that his obituary had been published in the New York Journal. The Journal had mistakenly reported the illness of his cousin James Ross Clemens (who [[NotQuiteDead wasn't actually dead]], either) as Twain's own death. The original quote was:
-->James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, [...] is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration.
* During the 1864 Siege of Petersburg in the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, famous for leading a heroic stand at Gettysburg, was severely wounded when a bullet passed through both hips and tore through his groin. Doctors predicted his wound was fatal, and he was "posthumously" promoted to Brigadier General. Newspapers in his home state of Maine ran obituaries about his supposed death. The doctor's diagnosis turned out to be accurate, but the predicted timing was not. Chamberlain did die from his wound, but not for another 50 years, in 1914. He was the last recorded civil war veteran to die from battle wounds.
* Creator/RudyardKipling was also once declared dead by a magazine, to which he wrote a letter saying "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."
* Happens sporadically to non-notable individuals; usually, this results from poor communication between a family and the funeral home (i.e., a family member incorrectly reporting that someone had died, when in fact that person is still alive although death is likely imminent). On these rare occasions, the funeral home will submit for publication to local newspapers an obituary that had been pre-written.
* Every major news outfit will have pre-written (or, for broadcast media, pre-edited) obituary notices ready to go for notable figures, particularly those considered at high risk of non-natural death and those old enough that natural death could happen any day now. As can be seen from several of the following examples, it's an unfortunately short step from "ready to go" to "gone out the door without proper verification, better call the Legal department". In addition, Obit packages for very notable figures can sometimes be put up for sale (Pope John Paul II's obituary was [[https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/film/dvd/pope-john-paul-ii-1920-2005/DVDB00096J1LYLN?keyword=&gclid=CjwKCAiA_P3jBRAqEiwAZyWWaE0fsv6_Y-kE5FcF2ViwyTaq3IoGm0zeK9en9cmxOKql6TvcfrO0iBoCYMkQAvD_BwE released on DVD]], for example). The logistics of getting product to the shops in a timely fashion pretty much ensures that copies of it are floating around, open to misinterpretation, before the subject has [[Creator/MontyPython rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible]].
* On August 27, 2008, Bloomberg accidentally published a 17-page obituary regarding Creator/SteveJobs' death. In a subsequent public appearance Jobs joked about the accident by displaying on-screen, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Jobs ''actually'' died about three years later.
* A newspaper mistakenly published an obituary for Alfred Nobel, instead of his deceased brother. Nobel was shocked to see a newspaper crowing that "the merchant of death is dead" due to his invention of dynamite and gun propellants, and was inspired to start the Nobel Prize so that he would be remembered for something else. It worked.
* Creator/{{CBS}} News reported that Arizona Congressman Gabrielle Giffords had died after she was wounded in a mass shooting on January 8, 2011. At the time, she was actually in surgery in critical condition. She survived, although six other lives were lost in that same incident, including a Federal Judge and a nine-year-old girl.
* Music/BritneySpears went through this at least twice:
** Her Myspace page was once hacked (or so they claim) with a fake death announcement.
** In 2001, Spears was the victim of a prank news report on radio station KEGL in Fort Worth, Texas, where the disc jockeys claimed that the then 19-year-old pop princess was killed in a car accident and that her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake was also either killed or that his death was expected shortly. Outrage quickly followed, major news media quickly debunked the report and the disc jockeys responsible for the report were fired.
* Prior to his real death in 2008, ''Series/DoctorWho'' regular Kevin Stoney (who played Mavic Chen, Tobias Vaughn, and Tyrum) was reported dead in 1985 according to Dreamwatch. However, he appeared at a convention in 1987 to prove he was still alive, which shocked many fans.
* In India, it's popular to bribe an official to declare a relative dead so that you can inherit his property. It has all the advantages of murder without the unpleasant messiness. [[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/24/world/24INDI.html?ex=1083211200&en=3394201d75ddfea1&ei=5070 Lal Bihari]] had this happen to him and it took him years to literally get his life back. He was awarded an [[http://improbable.com/ig/ Ignobel Prize]] for his foundation of the Association of Dead People. One tactic of Association members is to get arrested at protests, [[LogicBomb leaving the authorities to explain how dead people can be arrested]].
* On June 25th, 2009, Creator/JeffGoldblum was reported dead of a fall on a movie set in New Zealand. This was a cruel online hoax capitalizing on several recent celebrity deaths, most infamously Music/MichaelJackson's -- Goldblum had never even ''been'' to New Zealand and certainly wasn't filming a movie there! On June 30th he went on ''Series/TheColbertReport'' (on which he had made several recent appearances) to deny the reports of his death. He then subsequently caved to the evidence ([[RealityIsUnrealistic an Australian news program clip reporting his death]]), [[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ehxpq9/the-colbert-report-jeff-goldblum-will-be-missed confirmed his own death, and gave his own "eulogy."]] In a 2010 appearance on Jonathan Ross's show, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT7gQXdGUOk he went into detail]] about what it was like both to learn he was believed to be dead and to get calls from colleagues, family members, and friends who heard the "news".
* In the aftermath of the demonstration on 17th November 1989 that launched the VelvetRevolution in Czechoslovakia, a rumor has spread that a student named Martin Šmíd was killed during the event. This turned to be a misinformation; a student of that name was at the demonstration but left before the police attack began. He was interviewed on television, presumably to dispel the rumor...and the transmission started at just the wrong moment when he was saying, referring to the events of the day: "Death touched me." (In case this figure of speech doesn't translate well to English, he meant: "I was horrified.")
* Some accidental premature publishing on cnn.com revealed that CNN at least has outlines and some graphics prepared for obituaries of famous people who have yet to die, like Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth, in anticipation of eventually having to get one up on short notice. Notably, the Cheney one was ''clearly'' not ready, as it called him "England's favorite grandmother" -- a line from Elizabeth's premature obit.
* When pioneer astronaut Neil Armstrong died, [[https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/25/neil-young-armstrong-nbc-mistake_n_1830502.html NBC's website reported]] that Music/NeilYoung had died. (In a Jay Leno man-on-the-street session years previous, Young had been named as the "first man to walk on the moon" by an elderly lady.) The London ''Telegraph'' called Armstrong the first woman in space, inspiring little girls everywhere (possibly thinking of Sally Ride, who had died months earlier -- and even then she was only the first non-Soviet woman).
* In 1964, news bulletins widely broadcast a report that UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev had died of "hecaphylphocatirosisus". Apparently, this went out when someone did not notice the notation "Can you confirm this?"
* For a complete list of premature obituaries, check out [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries The Other Wiki.]]
* Although he was never officially declared to be dead, a very popular meme in the late 1960s suggested that Music/PaulMcCartney had died in a car accident around the mid-1960s and was replaced by a lookalike, which really took off in the underground media. The fact that the 'evidence' for this theory largely seemed to stem from a number of obscure and oblique 'references' on [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] album covers and in song lyrics suggested that large quantities of drugs being ingested probably had something to do with it, but the rumours bedeviled [=McCartney=] for years no matter how many times he denied them, including a variation on the Mark Twain 'quote' above: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. If I were dead I'd be the last to know."
** It had been said that the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein cooked up the "Paul is dead" conspiracy. Epstein had doubts about "Paperback Writer" selling as it wasn't a typical Beatles love song, so he hatched the idea for one of them to "die" to drum up publicity for the single. Ringo and George passed on the idea; John offered to be the guy but that was nixed as everyone knew he was a joker anyway. So Paul, by virtue of elimination, was elected to be the "dead man." One of the clues to Paul's supposed demise was the license plate on a car on the ''Abbey Road'' cover, which read "28 IF", meant to stand for Paul would have been 28 the following June. Flash forward to 1993 when Paul released his ''Paul Is Live'' album which featured him on the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing and a similar license plate: "IS 51."
* A few years ago, there were a number of rumors that actress Creator/NatashaLyonne was at death's door, due to various drug addictions. According to Website/IMDb and the entire run of ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'' (in which she is a part of the main ensemble), she's still alive.
* A popular rumor in the '70s and '80s was that Jerry Mathers (of ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'' fame) had been killed in Vietnam. Not only is he quite alive and still acting, he never even served in Vietnam.
* At the Battle of Hastings in 1066, a rumour suddenly swept through UsefulNotes/WilliamTheConqueror's army that Duke William had been killed. The Duke heard of this and took his helmet off so that his army could recognise his red hair. He proceeded to win the battle (in which his opponent King Harold really ''was'' killed) and complete the [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy Norman Conquest]].
* When UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria was in her final years, it was frequently reported that she had died and implied that they were just pretending she was still alive to keep her son off the throne.
* In 2008, an internet {{troll}} began circulating reports that voice actor Jerry Jewell had died in a car accident. Jewell remarks on it in the DVD commentary for ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' episode 9, which was being dubbed around that time: "Yes, I died in a car accident. But I had to record. That's what I'm willing to go through to get the job done." Fitting considering the anime in question, and the fact that such things happen to the characters in it [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap regularly]].
* [=LulzSec=] once placed a false story on The Sun's website claiming that Rupert Murdoch had died from a drug overdose. It was quickly removed but still managed to be reprinted by The Times and a number of other news sites.
* Steve Burns from ''WesternAnimation/BluesClues'' was surprised to hear he had died and been replaced with a lookalike (his character actually left the show to go to college and his brother Joe took over; the show even did a transition episode to explain the in-universe story to viewers[[note]]in real life, Burns said he left the show because he felt he was visibly aging out of his role as an "older brother"-type character[[/note]]). No matter how many times he said he was still alive, some people still believed he was dead.
* In describing the assessments of his medical condition once given to him by various doctors, composer Frederic Chopin commented "I have been sick as a dog during these past two weeks. Three doctors have visited me. The first said I was going to die; the second said I was breathing my last; and the third said I was already dead."
* Abe Vigoda, known for his acting roles in ''Film/TheGodfather'' and ''Series/BarneyMiller'', was wrongly reported as dead in 1982 by ''People'' magazine. Vigoda found this amusing, and had a photo published in ''Variety'' of himself sitting up in a coffin reading the mistaken issue of ''People''. In 1987, it happened again after a reporter from Secaucus, New Jersey, mistakenly called him "the late Abe Vigoda", which once again prompted much amusement and what spawned the RunningGag about Vigoda's "dead or alive" status. It got to the point where a website was made ([[http://www.abevigoda.com abevigoda.com]]) to provide real-time updates on the status of Abe Vigoda (current status: Abe Vigoda is dead). When he ''actually'' died in 2016, [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer many reports had to state that this wasn't a hoax or mis-statement]].
* Website/IMDb once mistakenly reported that Creator/MaraWilson (of ''{{Film/Matilda}}'' and ''Film/MrsDoubtfire'' fame) was dead. Her joking response was that [[BackFromTheDead they were]] [[CameBackWrong half right]].
* Creator/TomKenny discussed on Marc Maron's podcast how he was once reported dead, and how he thinks that romors like that are more likely to happen to someone like him, as he's relatively well known but not ''super'' well known (using Creator/GeorgeClooney as an example of the latter), so the rumors take longer to debunk. The same thing happened to Rodger Bumpass, although he has claimed this to be untrue (the death of Squidward's ''German'' voice, Eberhard Prueter, might have been the cause for those rumors).
* Jaroslav Hašek, author of ''[[Literature/TheGoodSoldierSvejk The Good Soldier Švejk]]'', summed up various accounts depicting his alleged death during his UsefulNotes/WorldWarI captivity in Russia (and short stint as a Bolshevik commissar):
--> "After I returned to my home country I learnt I had been hanged three times, two times shot, and once even drawn and quartered by wild Kirgiz insurgents, near the Kale-Ishela lake. Finally, I was stabbed during a brawl by drunken sailors in an Odessa pub. [[RefugeInAudacity The last account I deemed the most likely]]."
* Creator/BobHope was twice a victim of death rumors -- once in 1998, when he was still in good health, and again in 2003, just three months prior to his actual passing – with a pre-written obituary of the entertainer accidentally published on a news web site. In the 1998 case, where his "death" was actually published on the Associated Press' website, Hope's death was announced in the U.S. House of Representatives, broadcast live on C-SPAN (with camera shots of visibly upset legislators being shown). The 2003 obituary was published on CNN's website.
* Country music pioneer Ray Price was also a victim of the premature obituary, as many national news outlets (from ''Rolling Stone'' to the ''USA Today'') had reported the singer's purported passing on Sunday, Dec. 15, 2013, from cancer -- only for Price's wife, Janie, to reveal that although he was near death, he was still alive. [[http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2013/12/reports-of-country-legend-ray-prices-death-have-been-premature.html/ See this link for more details.]] [[TemptingFate Incidentally, Price did die -- approximately a day after the premature obituaries were announced online,]] leaving behind one of the greatest legacies ever in country music.
* In 1976, Music/{{ABBA}} member Bjorn Ulvaeus appeared on German television to counter a rumour that he and his bandmates had died in a plane crash in what was then West Berlin. Needless to say, ABBA were never actually involved in a plane crash (though they did have a near-miss in 1979) and all four are currently still alive.
** In some versions of this rumour, Anni-Frid Lyngstad (AKA Frida) was said to have survived, but with such [[CareerEndingInjury severe injuries]] that her singing career was effectively over.
* On March 16, 2014, US Magazine reported that Creator/WayneKnight had been killed in an auto accident. Upon hearing this, Wayne tweeted [[https://twitter.com/iWayneKnight/status/445239269469458432 "Some of you will be glad to hear this, others strangely disappointed, but...I am alive and well!"]], later adding "Does someone have to DIE to trend? Geez!"
* In 2010 Tawnee Stone, a web softcore porn personality from the mid-1990s, was reported to have died in a car accident; but it was the ''character'' Tawnee Stone, not the actress who had done the scenes (and who hadn't made any new material in a long time). The producer spread the rumor to revive interest.
* In the Christmas charity livestreams for [[LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} the Yogscast]] in 2013, LetsPlay/SimonLane put a photo of fellow member Alex "Parv" Parvis (also the guitarist for the band Music/{{Area 11}}) onscreen, claimed he'd died and said that the photo was a mini-memorial. It very promptly became a meme in the form of "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin RIP PARV]]", in no small part thanks to people who believed it was true, and he came back from a gig with the band that very evening to [[https://twitter.com/Area11Parvis/status/407302458290208768 find out he was "dead"]]. Even after he cleared the situation up, there were people who still didn't believe he was still alive nearly seven months later.
* Similarly, LetsPlay/SimonLane was a victim of this himself, after some people tried to pretend he had died in order to scam money, under pretences that it would go towards a revival of ''[[Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries Shadow of Israphel]]''. Subsequently, his and LetsPlay/LewisBrindley's joint channel [[WhyTheFandomCantHaveNiceThings turned off comments for around two months]], since this was the last straw (other comments had been self-promotion of small channels, spamming for reports of SOI, MoralGuardians complaining unnecessarily, and so on).
* In 2009 actress Nancy Allen was reported to have died of cancer, she later came out and told the public this was untrue.
* For the longest time, the English voice of Mewtwo in ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'' (credited as "Philip Bartlett") was believed to have died in 2001. However, in 2014, [[http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13970 the actor himself came out to put an end to all the confusion,]] revealing that he was still alive and that his real name was Jay Goede.
* Creator/JudiDench was the object of a cruel Internet hoax in October 2015. Stories were circulated on the Internet falsely stating she had died. Most credible news reporters checked and refrained from publishing, but the story still circulated virally. Dench herself had to put out an official statement to the effect that she is still here and hopes to be present in the world for some time yet.
* Creator/RobertAntonWilson. Who in the very early Internet days of 1994 was perplexed when people began phoning and writing to his "widow" to express condolences over her sad loss. Wilson had no idea how the rumour started, but when writing about the metaphysics of being "dead" whilst still being alive, said he really appreciated some of the nicer obituaries that were being printed. Apparently an Internet bulletin board had put it out as a joke to see who was taken in.
* In TheNineties, four major Australian broadcasting stations announced the death of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Within an hour they realised it would have been better to have confirmed the story, as they were told in no uncertain terms the 93-year old Queen Mum was ''still alive''. It turns out an Australian working for Creator/{{Sky}} News in London had walked in on a test screening of the QM's obituary, got the wrong end of the stick entirely, and rang home to Brisbane with the "[[GoingForTheBigScoop scoop]]." The local radio station put it out, and... let's just say that quite a few Australians no longer work in broadcast news.
* Sometime in 2008, Music/MileyCyrus' website was hacked with a message saying that she was killed by a drunk driver. Presumably, she wasn't impressed, as she's still alive and doing music.
* One of the more famous examples of this trope was the rumor that John Gilchrist, who played [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Mikey the kid from the famous Life Cereal commercial,]] died from overexposure from carbon monoxide after eating Pop Rocks with Coke. The rumor was debunked and Gilchrist is still with us working as a director of media sales for MSG Network.
** In a similar case, Sven Ruygrok appeared in an infamous commercial for Frosties cereal in the UK, leading to a cyberbullying campaign against him and many rumors on the internet that he had committed suicide because of the bullying. Ruygrok has publicly spoken to confirm he is still alive and give his side of the story.
* "I was never killed by Holmes or anyone else." — Businesswoman Kate Durkee on learning that she was being counted among H. H. Holmes' Murder Castle victims, 1896.
** Durkee was one of four people to come up against claims that Holmes had killed them, by the way.
* In the midst of a celebrity death epidemic in January 2016 that claimed Music/DavidBowie and Creator/AlanRickman among others, someone made a deeply ridiculous article stating that ''Franchise/TheMuppets''[='=] SelfDemonstrating/{{Animal}} (a fictional character) had died. While the Muppet team has yet to respond to this, [[http://www.snopes.com/muppet-animal-death-hoax Snopes was quick to debunk the rumor.]]
** See also the fake obituary for the Pillsbury Doughboy, which was more of an excuse to write a HurricaneOfPuns.
* This trope happened to Creator/JackieChan sometime in 2013, but it didn't take long for it to be confirmed as a hoax.
* When Sir George Martin, the longtime producer of Music/TheBeatles, died in March 2016, people confused him with Creator/GeorgeRRMartin, who [[http://grrm.livejournal.com/477607.html dispelled rumors of his own death on his LiveJournal account.]]
* When college basketball star Lauren Hill died from cancer in April 2015, a lot of people thought that Music/TheFugees frontwoman Music/LaurynHill had passed away. She didn't.
* A clickbait article titled "These celebrities died without anyone knowing" was highlighted with a picture of Creator/JenniferCoolidge. When someone pointed this out to her on Twitter, she responded "Yes, I am dead, and it's great!"
* The main article page for a while depicted actor Chandler Riggs responding via Twitter to a similar scenario, where a photo of him was captioned with a link to "actors who died quietly this year." His response: [[SelfDeprecation "I wish LOL"]].
* PlayedForLaughs with the final ''[[LetsPlay/AchievementHunterMinecraftSeries Let's Play Minecraft]]'' with Creator/RayNarvaezJr as part of Creator/AchievementHunter as the team keeps treating Ray's last day as if he's going to die and Ray responding that he's not dying. The fandom tends to play along with this joke.
* In a truly tragic and bizarre turn, when popular fan fiction writer "becuzitswrong" (whose collective stories have over half a million subscribers on fanfiction.net) started suffering serious delays in updating because of chronic health problems, a rumor made the rounds that the writer had died. Eventually, he posted an update to several fan fiction archives saying that, no, he was still alive and would be returning to regular updates soon. He even went so far as to quote the line "reports of my death were greatly exaggerated" and said that "[[TemptingFate things have finally calmed down and I am starting to write again. It is a wonderful feeling.]]" Unfortunately, he died for real less than a week after this announcement was posted.
* Following the 2011 Japanese earthquake, rumors of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' creator Creator/SatoshiTajiri dying as a result spread on the internet. [[http://kotaku.com/5781344/pokemon-company-squashes-twitter-rumor-of-creators-death-update These were proven false within days.]]
* [[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Daily Telegraph]] mistakenly reported the death of folk violinist Dave Swarbrick of the band Music/FairportConvention in 1999, saying that he had died at home in Coventry. Swarbrick later quipped, "[[ToughRoom It isn't the first time I've died in Coventry.]]" He died for real in 2016.
* During Creator/JuliaLouisDreyfus' acceptance speech at the 2016 Emmy Awards, she paid tribute to her father Gérard, who'd passed away two days earlier. However, many Twitter users started mistakenly paying tribute to ''[[Creator/RichardDreyfuss Richard]] [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Dreyfuss]]'', [[http://www.thewrap.com/julia-louis-dreyfus-father-richard-dreyfuss-not-dead-emmys/ which somewhat amused him.]]
* [[http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/pages-nf/main deadoraliveinfo.com]] used to be a good site to disprove this trope, but new names have only been added infrequently since about 2008, and as of 2017 there's very few people in the database born after 1958.[[note]]Their criteria for having a living person included in their database include being 50 or older.[[/note]] Not to mention that it still lists certain dead people, such as Ruby Mohammed, Creator/JoanFontaine, Creator/MaureenOHara, Creator/StanFreberg, and the previously-mentioned Ray Price as still being alive. That said, the siterunners will still update someone's life status to accommodate their death (and occasionally the cause) if they really need to. Nowadays the [[http://www.celebritydeathbeeper.com/ Celebrity Death Beeper]] is your best bet.
* Ugandan anti-death penalty activist Edward Edmary Mpagi spent 18 years on death row for the murder of a businessman named George William Wandyaka. In reality, Wandyaka had been injured during a home robbery but survived. However, the civil war in Uganda cut communications between Masaka (where the attack took place) and the capital Kampala (where Mpagi was arrested), preventing the correction of the error.
* After the Music/BeastieBoys' debut album, ''Music/LicensedToIll'', was released, rumours started to circulate that Mike D had died from a drug overdose. In response, "Shake Your Rump" from ''Music/PaulsBoutique'' included the following lyrics:
-->Well, I'm Mike D, and I'm back from the dead\\
Chillin' at the beach, down at Club Med
* Mambo musician Pérez Prado (born as Dámaso Pérez Prado) was mistakenly reported dead by newspapers in 1983. In reality, it was his brother Pantaleón Pérez Prado (also a musician, and who also had gone by just Pérez Prado years before) who had passed away.
* Said word for word by Music/OliviaNewtonJohn, battling cancer but denying rumors that her time is drawing near.
* Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius was mistakenly reported dead during an illness in 175 AD; hearing the news, the troops of Syrian-Roman General Avidius Cassius acclaimed him as new emperor in the Middle East, only to murder him three months later when they learned that Marcus Aurelius was very much alive and preparing military action against them. Some suggest Marcus Aurelius's wife, Faustina the Younger, deliberately misled Avidius Cassius as part of a convoluted way to secure the succession of her teenage son, [[TheCaligula Commodus]], and that Marcus Aurelius was aware of this and it was the reason why he ordered Avidius Cassius's correspondence to be destroyed.
* Model and pin-up legend Creator/BettiePage disappeared at the height of her popularity in TheSixties and was widely believed to have died. Considering her rather wild and self-destructive lifestyle, this was not an unreasonable assumption. In TheNineties, an investigation into her fate was launched, only to uncover that she was in fact still alive and living in Los Angeles, poor and completely unaware of her iconic status. A horde of fans and admirers (Hugh Hefner not least among them) worked to ensure that she received royalties for reproductions of her work, allowing her to live in relative comfort until her death in 2008. She never returned to the public eye, however, preferring to let her fans remember her as the sex symbol she had been.
* During the UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} disaster in 1986 three workers were sent into the tunnel beneath the reactor to open a set of sluice gates and drain water tanks that were in danger of exploding and worsening the damage. Given the amount of radiation they would be exposed to it was considered a SuicideMission and initial reports suggested that all three of them had died of Acute Radiation Sickness afterwards. Whether this was part of the official attempts to cover up the extent of the disaster or simply a result of bureaucratic miscommunication is unknown, but the story that they had died persisted for many years. Eventually it was discovered that all three men had actually survived their trip beneath the reactor. As of 2019 two of them, Alexei Ananenko and Valeri Bezpalov, are still alive while the third, Boris Baranov, died of a heart attack in 2005.
* In 1855, a human body found under a bridge in Milwaukee was identified positively by ten witnesses as belonging to a gentleman called John Dwire. During the inquest, Mr. Dwire, who had been living 16 miles away at Kemper's Pier, declared on oath, "Lest anyone here should still think I'm dead, I have come in person to assure him that I am not the corpse found in the river last Saturday morning". The true identity of the corpse was never discovered.
* In 1989, during the making of the Music/NineInchNails music video for "Down In It", a weather balloon holding up a camera being used for filming ended up floating away and the crewmembers were unable to recover it. The balloon traveled 200 miles, where it landed in a field in Michigan and was found by a farmer. After the camera was handed over to the police, they saw footage of what they believed to be the decayed corpse of an unknown man surrounded by two men in what they thought was a gang killing. The footage was then sent to the FBI, where after a year of investigation the truth was discovered: the 'decayed corpse' was actually NIN frontman Trent Reznor covered in cornstarch to ''appear'' dead and decayed for the purpose of the music video, and the other two men were then-members Chris Vrenna and Richard Patrick. Reznor, who as of 2020 is still alive, found the whole ordeal amusing.
* "Predictions for the Year 1708", a satire of astrology, written by Creator/JonathanSwift under the name "Isaac Bickerstaff", predicted the death of astrologer and almanac-writer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Partridge_(astrologer) John Partridge,]] who had annoyed Swift with a comment about the "infallible" Church of England (effectively [[NotSoDifferentRemark equating]] it with the Roman Catholic Church). On the predicted date, a letter circulated "confirming" Partridge's death and giving him a sarcastic eulogy. Partridge had recurring difficulties convincing people that he was in fact still alive until he finally died for real a few years later.
* Donald O'Brien, an actor who starred in many {{Spaghetti Western}}s and Italian horror films in the 1960s and 1970s, was falsely reported to have died on November 29, 2003; a misconception that's still reflected in many online sources. It didn't help that he'd had health problems since the 80s and gone into retirement in the 90s. As of 2016 he was still very much alive and living in Paris, and apparently finds the entire situation very amusing.
* Death of French politician and businessman [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Tapie Bernard Tapie]] has been erroneously announced several times. In one of those (October 2019), French newspaper ''Le Monde'' mistakenly published online a pre-written eulogy, and the mistake was obvious since crucial information like date or age of death were left blank; cause of death was cancer, and Tapie was indeed suffering from cancer. He eventually died in October 2021.
* In December of 2020, many people thought that Creator/DickVanDyke died after he began trending on Twitter. Van Dyke responded by saying that no, he's not dead; it was actually his [[LongLived 95th birthday]].
* Prior to her passing at the end of 2021, Creator/BettyWhite had a ''lot'' of false reports of her death circulate on the internet. Strangely, when The Guardian announced her passing, there was no NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer included despite this trope taking effect so many times.
* In an odd case of this, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, ABC put up a bumper photo of JFK with the byline "1917-1963"... twenty minutes ''before'' wired services were cleared to announce it by press secretary Malcolm Kilduff. Apparently, ABC was going on unofficial news relayed from Eddie Barker of CBS affiliate KRLD. Due to this, NBC ended up being the first news outlet to make the ''official'' announcement, about a half-hour after Kennedy was declared dead.
* Creator/ErnestHemingway after surviving not one but two sequential airplane crashes in Africa.
* Showing that this trope doesn't just apply to people, German radio reported that the carrier USS ''Wasp'' (CV-7) had been sunk [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo in May 1942]] during a mission to transport RAF Spitfires to Malta. The ship's crew, who hadn't even been attacked, much less sunk, had themselves a good laugh, then gathered to symbolically throw a bucket of water overboard and declare their ship had been 'salvaged'.
** Similarly, the Japanese claimed to have sunk the carrier USS ''Enterprise'' (CV-6) (yes, [[Franchise/StarTrek that one]]) ''three different times'', but she survived the entire war.
[[/folder]]

%% Image removed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1516064105048296000
%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to suggest an image.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Everyone in the story thought that Madara Uchiha/Tobi died a long time ago. Turns out to be {{averted|Trope}} in the case of Madara, who was brought BackFromTheDead, but Tobi is Obito, who was crushed "to death" in Kakashi's Gaiden. He was saved ([[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe half of him, anyway]]) by Madara. Who was still alive for a long period of time after he was believed to be dead anyway.

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'':
** In part 2, [[ThoseWackyNazis Stroheim]] is believed dead by Joseph, only to show up later [[StupidJetpackHitler as a cyborg]].
** At the end of part 2, it's Joseph's turn to be believed dead. He shows up at his own funeral with his newlywed wife, Suzi Q. They were actually going to inform the rest of the cast that he was alive, but the latter forgot to telegram them.
** In part 3, Avdol is presumed dead after a fight with other stand users. He is later revealed to have been simply recovering from his wounds, which was known by all the main characters excluding Polnareff, whom they assumed would not be able to keep the secret and would thus endanger their recovering friend.
* In the finale of ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'', after finally attempting to [[spoiler:kill Shizuo, Izaya fails and is hit into another building by his nemesis where he suffers from internal bleeding, leading to a TrailOfBlood. He then is forced to run from several airborne vending machines as he attempts to get away. Izaya finally then engages Shizuo in a fight in a last-ditch attempt at a XanatosGambit. He gets both his arms broken and is shot by Vorona with a ballistic knife. Izaya is able to escape in the end, but his odds of survival are only fifty-fifty, and he is last seen saying he does not want to die anywhere near Shizuo. It's confirmed that he did survive, though none of the characters know of his whereabouts as he never returned to Ikebukuro and thus never told anyone he was alive. At least, until he decided to troll Namie by E-mailing her]].
* ''Franchise/LupinIII'':
** Lupin is apparently shot by a sniper and falls from the getaway chopper in ''Anime/LupinIIIMissedByADollar'', only to reappear alive and well later on and play a [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Hero]] to the rest of his cornered gang.
** ''Anime/LupinIIIVoyageToDanger'' has both Jigen and Goemon apparently killed. The former appeared to die in a massive explosion; he escaped via a hidden tunnel. The latter was stabbed by a thrown knife and fell from a cliff into the sea; his AbsurdlySharpBlade deflected the knife just enough to miss his heart, and he was later rescued by a local fisherman.
* The mysterious Loser King from ''Anime/{{Tailenders}}'' is believed to be long dead ever since his mysterious disappearance during a race to reach the Terraformer on the Indian continent over a century ago. When the main characters undertake the same perilous race he did, they discover as they approach the Terraformer that the Loser King never died or disappeared, instead he is still racing to reach the end. As it turns out, there is some severe TimeDilation going on near the Terraformer and only minutes had passed from the Loser King's perspective. Additionally, Tomoe is revealed to have known the truth of the situation as she raced alongside him over a century ago and was desperate to reach him again after he sent her away when he realized what was going on. In the end, this trope occurs to Tomoe as well as TheRival racer Goodspeed when they are forced to return due to having been in the Terraformers presence with another century having passed in the short time they spent there and were similarly presumed dead.

* In ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'', V says this almost word-for-word at the end before blowing up Downing Street. It's actually Evey wearing one of V's costumes, but the idea of V has to be kept alive to keep anarchy alive.

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': When Tim Drake detached his cape fleeing from a mass of Arkham escapees it was found wrapped around skeletal remains and he was presumed dead. His death was reported to all the Bats, only for Tim to almost instantaneously arrive at ComicBook/{{Oracle}}'s tower and let her and ComicBook/BlueBeetle know he'd survived. Unfortunately they were unable to tell ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} until after ComicBook/TheJoker had gloated about killing two of his little brothers and Dick had beaten him to death for it. [[JokerImmunity Batman resuscitated him though]].
* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfWonderWoman2016'': ComicBook/SteveTrevor has been turned into a media pony by the military after his return from what was thought to have been his death at sea. He's not very fond of all the attention, or the fact that he's basically grounded for the duration of the media circus he's being put through.

-->'''Tamsin:''' Yo Doc, this is either the night of the undead, or news of your demise were grossly, and I mean very grossly, exaggerated.
-->'''Lauren:''' ''(confused)'' There were reports of my demise?

* MistakenDeathConfirmtion: The character's death is confirmed by another character via lack of life signs or an obviously lethal injury.