is a person who pretends to be somebody else, often to try to
gain financial or social advantages through social engineering ,
but just as often for purposes of espionage or law enforcement.
Pretenders to various thrones used to be common. Numerous men
claimed they were the Dauphin, the heir to the French throne who
disappeared during the French Revolution, and there were three
false Dimitris who were serious pretenders to the throne of
Russia. Other notable royal pretenders include Perkin Warbeck,
Anna Anderson, and, more recently, Robert Brown, who claims to
be the son of Princess Margaret and Pete Townshend. The case of
Anna Anderson is unusual in that it is believed that her claim
to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia was the work of a
third party, as she was not considered to be in sound mind. It
also differs from many other impostures in that although hard,
irrefutable scientific proof has arisen making her (or the third
party's) claim without a doubt false, many still refuse to
discount it. Very