Mbah Gotho

Saparman Sodimejo,^[1][2] known more commonly as Mbah Gotho (died 30 April 2017) was an Indonesian Christian^[3] man who unverifiably^[4] claimed to be the oldest person ever recorded. In May 2010, Solopos reported that enumerators of that year's census had recorded his age next birthday as 142,^[5] which would have made him 19 years older than the official oldest recorded person, Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997.^[1][2] A heavy smoker throughout his life, he outlived ten siblings, four wives and all five of his children.^[6] The Liputan 6 website reported that Mbah Gotho's estimated age was 140, and that he could not remember his date of birth but claimed to remember the construction of a sugar factory built in Sragen in 1880.^[7]

In August 2016, after a television report on Liputan 6, numerous international media outlets reported Mbah Gotho's claim,^{[8][9][10][11]} including photographs of his ID card (issued in 2014), which displays his claimed birth date of 31 December 1870. Although Indonesian officials at the record office confirm the birth date^[12] there is no independent, third-party verification of his claimed age, which is required for the longevity claim to be recognized by record authorities such as Guinness World Records.^[8][9] Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group said the claimed age was "fiction", "unbelievable" and "in the same category as Sasquatch ["Bigfoot"], the Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster".^[4] The 2010 Liputan 6 story noted others of a similar claimed age including a woman named Maemunah and known as Ambu Unah, supposedly born in 1867, in Cimanuk, Pandeglang Regency.^[7][13]

On 28 April 2017, he was admitted to RSUD Hospital in Sragen and died two days later at 5.45pm local time on 30 April.^[14][15][16]

See also

• Longevity claims
• Longevity myths

References