Over the span of half a century, Brooklyn impostor Stanley Clifford Weyman impersonated everyone from a Navy admiral to a sanitation expert. When caught, he would admit his deception, serve his jail time, and then take up a new identity. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we’ll review Weyman’s surprisingly successful career and describe some of his more audacious undertakings.

We’ll also puzzle over why the police would arrest an unremarkable bus passenger.

Sources for our feature on Stanley Clifford Weyman:

St. Clair McKelway, The Big Little Man From Brooklyn, 1969.

Alan Hynd, “Grand Deception — ‘Fabulous Fraud From Brooklyn,'” Spokane Daily Chronicle, April 13, 1956.

Tom Henshaw, “Bygone State Visits Marked by Incidents,” Associated Press, Sept. 13, 1959.

John F. Murphy, “Notorious Impostor Shot Dead Defending Motel in Hold-Up,” New York Times, Aug. 28, 1960.

Richard Grenier, “Woody Allen on the American Character,” Commentary 76:5 (November 1983), 61-65.

This week’s lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Josva Dammann Kvilstad. Here are three corroborating links (warning — these spoil the puzzle).

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Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.

If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!