Why do rumors about Walt Disney placing human remains in POTC abound?

[techskip]

Originally Posted by Steve DeGaetano

It's a good point, Skip. Certainly a skull *could have* been give to Walt as a gift, and then installed on the attraction.

The problem, as I see it, is there hasn't been one iota of empirical evidence of this. Not one shred of this story has ever appeared in any Disney press that I know of, either official or unofficial. You might think a story such as this might have made it into print at least somewhere over the past 40 years.

I didn't say or mean to insinuate that it happened to Walt personally, just that it was a different culture back then.

I believe the specific article in question was about a military wife who's husband promised to "get a [insert racial slur here] because of Pearl Harbor". It was part of a PBS special about how both side dehumanized the enemy in an attempt to justify death. I was both shocked and horrified that such an action would not only be considered acceptable, but on the cover of a nationally published magazine. Granted context is everything, but the thought of someone giving Walt a human skull as a macabre example of either Haunted Mansion or Pirates would not be utterly shocking (I realize they were both in the planning stages before his untimely death.) I doubt it ever happened, but that spin on society would then shed light into the secret acceptance of human remains in a theme park attraction.

[Nautilus]

Originally Posted by Walt Jr.

I believe that I actually read that on the POTC: From the Magic to the Movies by Jason Surrell.

Apparently as the story goes, all of the original skeletons were from actual living beings at the time and were donated by UCLA Medical training (the bodies/ skeletal systems had been donated). When a believable fake one could be made, they were all switched out and given proper burial.

That's just what I read.

Kinda neat to be part of a Disneyland attraction.... literally!

(at least for a while)