Essay on the Conspiracy Behind Walt Disney's Frozen Body

This conspiracy theory started after Walt Disney died on December 15th, 1996. A few weeks after Disney passed, a reporter claimed he had snuck into the Disney’s previous hospital, St, Joseph’s, found directly across the street from Disney studios and where he was treated during his final stages of lung cancer. The reporter broke into the storage room and saw Disney’s body in a cryogenic metal chamber. There is no physical evidence in support of the reporter’s claim, however, many newspapers around the world heard the story and published it as a true story. The story sounded very accurate because Disney was known to be fascinated with futuristic technology that could better the world. Theorists believe that Disney is stored away in that chamber so that when technology is evolved enough, he can be revived. At some point, the line between true and false began to blur. At one point, someone pointed out that “the first man to ever be cryogenically frozen just so happened to be in the same city Disney is reportedly buried in and was frozen only a month after Disney’s death. This proved that the technology existed at the same time and at the same place too. In addition, Bob Nelson, former president of the Los Angeles-based Cryonics Society of California, claimed Disney had called and asked a lot of in-depth questions about being frozen early on in his sickness” (Reid). The paper that this so-called reporter worked for, National Spotlite, cannot been found in any major newspaper archives. This makes it possible that neither the tabloid nor the reporter existed, making this a conspiracy theory. “The last thing that has believers raising eyebrows is that in the cemetery where Disney’s ashes are said to be buried, there is no evidence or indicator of any remains of the legend being on his family plot, meaning Disney’s remains may not be where they were said to be” (Reid). The Disney family says that he was cremated, and his ashes were spread in Forest Lawn memorial Park in Glenside, California. However, conspiracy theorists decided that rather than be at a cryonics facility and risk exposure, Disney wanted to be stored in Disneyland, where his remains are theorized to be in a chamber underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. “Rumors became so widespread that two different biographies of Disney, one published in 1986 and one in 1993, hint that the rumors could be true. Both biographies used dubious ‘inside sources’ at Disney and are now widely questioned as far as their veracity” (Tremaine). In 2019, conspiracy theorists began stating that Disney released Frozen as a red herring to deter said theorists. They believe that Frozen was created to change search results when looking up phrases with the words “Disney” and “frozen” in them to maneuver people away from results about cryogenic chamber theories and instead results about the movie. Before Frozen came out, Google searches of “Disney frozen” yielded results surrounding Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen body. Now with the same search phrase, results for the iconic animated movie flood each page. The movie is loosely based off of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale “The Snow Queen,” and really could have been named anything related to snow and the cold. But Disney chose Frozen, and conspiracy theorists believe that it was for a reason. A systemic conspiracy is a conspiracy with broad goals like securing control over a country, region, or even world. This conspiracy theory is a systemic conspiracy because its goal is to prove that Walt Disney’s body is cryogenically frozen and is waiting to be revived. The people involved in this theory fall under Type Two Group. People who hold Disney’s body and fund research into reviving it are non-secret groups doing secret activities. They could very well be anonymous philanthropists donating their money for the cause. These philanthropists could even be the Disney family funding the project for the reanimation of their beloved relative. People began believing in this theory when Walt Disney died in 1966 and even more in 1967 when the Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened in Disneyland. In 2019, there was an addition to this theory that had people talking. Conspiracy theorists believe that Disney’s Frozen is a cover up and distraction to keep people away from the knowledge that Walt Disney’s head or body are cryogenically frozen. This theory is based in California, specifically near Disneyland and Disney Studios, due to the fact that it is theorized that Walt Disney is buried in the park itself. People see this conspiracy very infrequently, but due to internet tracking, it may pop up on them explore pages a few times. Once someone reads about this theory, however, they may be more inclined to read more about it, and therefore, they will see it more frequently. There are not a lot of occurrences about this theory unless someone tweets something about it on the occasion. Articles come out every year or so with a new author writing a bit about the theory and why people believe it. When Frozen II came out in 2019, there was a little bit of a spike in the amount of people that found the theory online due to them looking up the words “Disney” and “frozen” in the same search. They just got lucky when doing a deep search with those words. Some people believe in this theory because they know that Walt Disney was fascinated by science. They also believe this because he had a lot of money and could afford to freeze his body until technology was evolved enough to bring him back. There are stories that “verify” this theory, but no one knows what is true and what is false. There are two warrants to this conspiracy theory. The first is that Walt Disney died in 1966. The second is that Frozen (2013) and its sequel, Frozen II (2019) are named such because of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” Just as there are two warrants, there are two claims to this theory. The first is that Walt Disney’s body was cryogenically frozen in 1966 and is held underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland. The second is that Frozen and Frozen II were named such so that when looking up “Disney” and “frozen,” the results would only show the movies and cover up any trace of people talking about Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen body. The first part of evidence is that Walt Disney’s grave has no physical remains in it and newspapers reported that someone saw Disney’s body in the cryogenic chamber in the basement of the hospital he was treated in. The second part is that the search results for “Disney” and “frozen” together show results about Disney’s frozen body one out of ten times on search results pages. The biggest logical gap in the conspiracy theory deals with the legitimacy of the reported finding of Disney’s frozen body. Walt Disney’s family has also come forward and said that they cremated him and spread his ashes. Conspiracy theorists argue this fact because there is no physical place where Disney’s remains lay, meaning the family could be lying. The major fallacy of the conspiracy theory is that anecdotes do not make a science where observers and testimony can be wrong. Another fallacy that pairs along with this one is that bold statements do not make claims true. The bold statements coming from apparent testimonies and observations may just be from bold, attention-seeking people. Reporters want publicity and are willing to make bold statements to get their names out there. In the 1960s, I’m sure that people could get away with stretching the truth whereas now, it is harder to do so. But once that information about Disney’s frozen body was published, there was no way of taking it back. This is the same case for the fallacy that rumors don’t equal reality. The report in papers could have just been that: rumors. Another fallacy that comes up in this conspiracy theory is coincidences. It might have just been the biggest coincidence that Disney Studios named the movie Frozen because it is quick and catchy. One fallacy that is also applicable is Ad Ignoratiam, which means that if you cannot disprove a theory, it must be true. There is really no way for an average person to prove that Disney’s body is below the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, however, that does not mean the theory is true. Slippery slope is also somewhat applicable to this theory. It states that letting a relatively minor event occur will create a much bigger one later. In this case, news about Disney’s frozen body coming out leads to people talking about it. Then, naming the movie Frozen gets people talking even more and with the evolution of social media, broadcasts it out to anyone anywhere. There are plenty of symbols within this conspiracy theory. Words can act as symbols, and in the case of this conspiracy theory, the word “frozen” is an important symbol. “Frozen” is not only the title of the blockbuster film and its sequel, but it is now a symbol of covering up Disney’s hidden body. The word itself covers traces of the conspiracy theory and shines light on the movie franchise. Walt Disney’s head, which is much more recognizable than just his body, is a symbol of this conspiracy theory. Many websites and articles that report on this topic have pictures of Walt Disney’s head, which is just a staple symbol of the theory itself. The Pirates of the Caribbean Ride is a symbol of secrecy and mystery. It is the secret spot where Disney’s frozen body is apparently hidden and encapsulates the secrecy and mystery with the theory of where Disney’s remains are. The cryogenic chamber that Disney is supposedly held in represents time. It symbolizes the amount of time that passes by until technology is evolved enough to bring Walt Disney back from his frozen state. It can also be attributed to being “frozen in time.” Disney’s body is technically frozen in time in the chamber. The idea of covering up Disney’s hidden body ties into the idea that Disney is not the lovely, fun company that everyone thinks it is. Using a movie to cover up a crazy, scientific process of hiding a body for a long time is not something a company known for sunshine and rainbows would do. I believe the audience for this theory resides all younger people who grew up or are still growing up with Disney, middle-aged people, ages 58-65 (who were born around the time of Disney’s death), and the elderly people who are still alive that would remember when Walt Disney first became the household name he is (so somewhere around 85-90). The younger people today are very invested in social media and with information flying all over the place on social media platforms, the information about this conspiracy is easy to access for all younger people. If they have a relationship from growing up with Disney, they may be more inclined to believe said theory. The younger people who were the perfect age for Frozen and Frozen II when they came out and watched the movies have a connection that many other people do not even have. They might also think that this theory is fun to believe in and with some form of proof, can be persuaded into believing it is the real truth. The older people that were born when Disney died do not have memory of his death but were born in the years that this conspiracy started, so they might be more likely to come across the theory and end up believing some truth in it. The elderly people who lived through Disney’s death and actually saw his life are the trickiest and easiest to get a belief out of. Some may believe that from what they saw during walt Disney’s life that he was definitely the type of man to have his body cryogenically frozen. However, the opposite exists and some of these elderly people may think that Disney would never freeze his body like that. The elderly people who believe Walt Disney froze himself could be the home base of this theory with some help from the younger generations who were prime age for Frozen. They can appeal emotionally to watching Disney’s rise to fame and Frozen’s rise to fame as well. Because some of them are older, people treat them delicately and are more inclined to feel an emotional appeal to what they say. The same goes with the younger crowd. If they are little and cute, it is harder for adults to be stern and say no to what they say or believe. The background characteristics of the audience are not easily recognized. Due to the overwhelming fact that the many people that comment on this theory do so from Twitter, most of the audience is affluent on Twitter. But elderly people are less inclined to be on Twitter, so their connection is from their age and experience. Because Disney is a big childhood staple, many of the audience must have some relationship with Disney. Whether it be from watching movies as a kid, to watching Disney Channel, visiting the theme parks, going on the Disney Cruise, or having birthday parties that were Disney-themed, most audience members must have experienced something of the sort in order to have a relationship with Disney. It is kind of hard to have never interacted with anything Disney-related throughout someone’s life due to its mass presence in so many different places. The people making the arguments about the conspiracy theories are primarily Twitter users with the occasional news reporter chiming in online. The primary age of these Twitter users is between 18 and 35, meaning they are people who probably grew up with the Disney Channel and the rise of Disney movies and platforms. These people are not very popular and are basically no names. A lot of them have a decent number of retweets or likes on their posts, but none are Matthew McConaughey famous. This means that they have little to no credentials that would be important in judging their knowledge or position. A lot of them post funny phrases or jokes about the theory, but there are a few who post serious things about this theory. Some of these users may actually use sources from the internet that I also use, but none are people that have actual testimonies that could mean something. If someone does have one, they surely have not come forward with it since the first man said he saw Disney's body in the bottom of the hospital. The people that this level of credibility would work best on are younger people. Twitter is a giant news source for younger generations and would therefore be the place where they learn the most about the theory. Elderly people with no real knowledge of Twitter and social media would also probably be susceptible to believing the credibility of these users and their claims. This would work worse on middle-aged people who watch the news and have a good understanding of credibility levels of Twitter and social media. They would probably just scroll past the tweets thinking it is some joke, like my parents. The two big types of media that this conspiracy theory gets attention from are news sites and social media, specifically Twitter. There is no real coverage of the theory from classic sources like videos, books, TV shows, or movies. News sites like CBS, BBC, ABC 10, and USA Today have all reported on this theory. USA Today even claims that they fact checked the theory to be false. Each of these publications does have a clear definition of what counts as a conspiracy theory and that this story qualifies as such, even if they believe it to be false. These publications may mishandle the story due to the difference between news reporters and those that are opinionated due to such political bias in the world today. The original news publication from the theory, National Spotlite, could very much have messed up what the eyewitness said and coupled it with emotional and untrained bias. The reporter might not have seen a public official for factual details and might have not gotten an ‘expert” opinion. There is the fact that it may have just been fake in general, but no one knows. Twitter and Instagram are the two big platforms that have broadcasted information about this theory to people. About all of the Instagram posts about the theory are memes or about podcast episode explaining the theory. There are not really any that say something serious about whether Disney’s body is frozen or not. Twitter, however, has a field day. A lot of the tweets about this theory are joke and are also serious, while none of them really mishandle the story like the news potentially does. No matter the seriousness of the tweet, the theory still gets social media attention from it. The information spreads, not matter the form it takes. Even if a meme is meant to be funny, there are ways in which it can be educational about the theory to the audience. It also makes them aware that this theory exists in the first place. There is a strength in the fact that most of the theory is found on social media. The percentage of people that use social media are younger, and as I said before, those people are a great target for belief in this theory. However, do to the fact that this theory is nor prevalent in classic forms of knowledge like books, videos, TV shows, and more, it makes it hard to make a point. In this theory, pictures are not worth a thousand words. Because there is no photographic evidence to prove that Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen in a chamber, the audience must believe what the users on social media say if they believe in this theory at all. On a 100-point scale of believability, I give this conspiracy theory a 15. There is a very slim chance that this conspiracy is true due to its lack of hard evidence. There could have possibly been hard evidence back in 1967 when a newspaper wrote about the so-called chamber in the basement in the hospital. However, if this was hard evidence it would not be missing. The only reason I give it a number other than zero is because it would be funny and cool if it was real. I think technology today could possibly do this cryogenically frozen-like-things like they do for Captain America, but I’m not sure if the Disney family has enough money to do such a thing. My Grandma is old enough to know all about Disney’s career and when I told her about this conspiracy, she told me she also would not give it a zero. That also gives me a small glimpse of hope.