The known achieved maximum age when Calment became WOP was either 115 by Augusta Holtz or 116 by Easter Wiggins. The first person to verifiably reach 113 was Delina Filkins in 1928.

The rest of your post is pure speculation without any actual evidence backing your assessmenents.

There are many, many other claims to 118, such as Felice Cormier and Lucy Hannah. Are they plausible too?

It's all speculation of course and I note only a minority of all actual 113+ cases have been found, or more specifically been capable of validation .

That said, the milestone of Jeanne Calment remains that of an "ëxtreme outlier" . Behind her are now 3 outliers, sitting between 118-340 and 119-107.

I think ONE person who was never found or validated may have legitimately reached 120 - but not much more than that.

@chrisr I'd speculate roughly 60-65% of all real 110+ cases, 70-75% of all real 113+ cases and 80% of all real 116+ cases have been identified. These are just very rough estimations. I agree with you that besides Calment, maybe one person has ever reached 120, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tanaka is indeed the real second-oldest ever currently. We'll likely never know.

Posted by: @aq

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Hello all, I just wanted to share with you some interesting thoughts I've had on SCs. I've noticed a lot of people ask hypothetical questions, (myself included) and I think that's a good thing. One of the questions that's been in my mind for such a long time is "What if there were people 118+ or even older than Mrs. Calment who were never validated?". Personally I believe there are many people who made it past their 118th birthday, but were never validated. I'll explain why...

Mrs. Calment died in 1997, at the age of 122, or NINE years older than the previous oldest person ever recorded. If you told someone in 1988, when Calment was 113, that she would break the record by 9 years, they would've dismissed the idea. However, that's EXACTLY what happened! She broke the record by 9 years. That is equivalent of me telling you guys today that a current SC will break the record by NINE years and make it to the age of 131. Likely? No. I think the chances of this are incredibly slim... but not impossible. 

My point is that if Calment made it to 122 in 1997, widening the record by 9 years, there are likely people that have before and since "filled the gap".

First person to 113: 1955

First person to 122: 1997 (42 years later)

First person to 131: 2039 (42 years later)

So according to the evidence we have, documentation shows that every APPROXIMATE 42 years, the maximum age increases by 9 years, UNTIL we have reached the max human lifespan. I'm not good at mathematics, but I'm sure there is some formula to figure out the missing ages.

First person to 122: 1997

(First person to 123-130: Between 1998-2038)

First person to 131: 2039

I'm not saying every person who claimed to be 118+ is true, but I think we shouldn't dismiss them so easily. If Mrs. Calment and Mrs. Knauss weren't verified until after their deaths, can you imagine how far fetched it would seem in 1997 if the maximum age still stood at 113? And yet in 1997, you had 122 year old Calment AND 117 year old Knauss who would later go on to be 119!? If they hadn't been known until after their deaths, they probably would've been dismissed and never been checked by a reliable organization. 

Yes, it is very unlikely that there are other 118+ people who's ages are true, but I think it would be more unlikely if we didn't even have one unverified person. Scientists show that the probability of reaching 122 in all of history is about one in 10 billion, and yes these are incredibly slim odds, but rarer things have happened. Like the guy who was struck by lightning 7 times? Or the guy who shuffled a deck of cards in perfect order? Science shows that these things are statistically impossible, and yet they HAVE happened!

I personally think all cases under 125 should be considered possible, researched, studied, and only dismissed if evidence comes to light fully debunking the person. Guinness and other organizations should have 2 lists, one of "fully authenticated" cases, and a second list of "plausible but not verified" cases. As far as people over 120 go, I would give my opinion on the following cases:

Mrs. Du Pinhua (120): 40% change of being true

Mrs. Nguyen Tru (123): 40% chance of being true

Mrs. Maria Gomes de Reis (122): 30% chance of being true

Mr. Shigechiyo Izumi (120): 5% chance of being true

Mr. Marcelino Abad Tolentino (122): 1% chance of being true

I have been thinking about this for quite some time. Again, I am not a math person, so I can't say my algorithm is correct, but I think I might be on to something. I'd like to hear your thoughts on my ideas and opinions...

You're working under the assumption that the "maximum" human lifespan is going to continue to increase steadily as time goes on, when that isn't necessarily the case. People born 200+ years ago are genetically identical to people alive today, so the only difference would be an improvement in standard of living + population growth. This will only change once anti-aging/life-extending technology and medicine becomes a reality, but that won't happen for a while. 

As someone who spends a lot of time researching Latin American cases, I can personally say that I very rarely encounter claims to 115+ that seem even remotely plausible, and this region of the world is really the only place where undiscovered, documentable cases of this age will likely appear, since most cases from "first world" nations will be known about before they ever reach this age. 120+ is just on another level of improbable. 

Posted by: @aq

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My point is that if Calment made it to 122 in 1997, widening the record by 9 years, there are likely people that have before and since "filled the gap".

First person to 113: 1955

First person to 122: 1997 (42 years later)

First person to 131: 2039 (42 years later)

So according to the evidence we have, documentation shows that every APPROXIMATE 42 years, the maximum age increases by 9 years, UNTIL we have reached the max human lifespan. I'm not good at mathematics, but I'm sure there is some formula to figure out the missing ages.

By your logic, the age 86 (113-9-9-9) was first reached in  1829 (1955-42-42-42)? Obviously not. Just as 131 won't be reached in 2039. But neither 123, in my opinion. Calment was an extreme outlier, who just happend to live quite early in the history of supercentenarians, and extended the maximum age to 122 from a small set of ever-lived supercentenarians – but now, with an ever-lived supercentenarian set of probably at least 5 times the size it was in 1997, the maximum age is still 122. So it's not important that Calment reached it in 1997, what is important is that in 2023, the maximum age is still 122, and since this is such an outlier age, we'll likely have to wait for a higher age until the ever-lived supercentenarian set expands to many times the size of today's. Which will take decades. 131 may never be reached, unless technological advancements make it possible.

I've realize now my time logic is nowhere near correct as @024Tomi points out that going backwards by my calculations, Age 86 would have first been reached in 1829. I had not considered going back in time as I had just chosen the span between Mrs. Filkins and Mrs. Calment.

I understand my logic is based on speculation and not science. These are just my personal guesses. I still believe it is unlikely that Mrs. Calment is the only person in history to reach their 120s. Surely there has been at least one person to make it to 120 or 121 and just not accounted for. Maybe so Calment might be the oldest, but I still think that there is at least one person that closed the gap between her and Tanaka. 

There have been many people in uncontacted tribes, and many people who have lived before the age of technology whose ages never accounted for, no matter how old they lived to be. Whether they lived to be 18 or 118. I would say in my opinion there's probably at least a 90% chance that one of these people made it to 118. And maybe a small chance that one made it past Calment's age. But I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

I still think that claims above 118 should be given the benefit of the doubt, maybe capping these off at 122-125 instead of 115?.

I understand that cases like Mr. Mbah Gotho who claimed to be 146, and a Ghanaian woman named Amodzie claimed to be 198 are indeed false. Maybe they were SCs, but 99% chance they were under 118 and a 100% certain chance they were not more than 125. However I still think cases like these should be investigated at the possibility that they were 110+, which I think is very likely. Instead of approaching the case of a person who claims to be 130+ as "This person's case is false, dismiss their claim", I think it would be better to approach it with "This person isn't the age they claim, but they still might be 110+". Unless of course there is extreme doubt they are even a SC.

I think that the maximum human lifespan does have a ceiling. However I don't believe it is 122. If I had to take a guess, I would say 125-129. But I highly doubt that ages like 146 and 198 will ever be reached unfortunately. I think it would be incredibly rare if we had actually found (Calment) the oldest person to ever exist. The only way to prove this though, is to examine the hundreds of billions of people who have ever lived on this Earth, and obviously that would be impossible. So of the 99.999etc% of people we have never examined, we will never know. But I doubt that out of all these people thar Calment was the oldest.

Again, my guesses, predictions and theories are not backed by science. I'm just sharing what my personal opinions are. 

The good thing Aquanaut_Chalk is that you stimulated some thoughtful debate and that's always great on these Forums.

When we speak about human longevity increasing, there are strong examples, but not at the very extreme end. 

If we look at the 114 to 116 categories, we do see very solid growth in the numbers over the past decade or so. Whilst a lot more are being investigated and validated, there still seems to be little doubt that more people are genuinely reaching these ages over the past 10+ years, than before.

Equally the 117 category only had 1 member (MLM) from 1997 - up until the 1898 - 1901 cohorts then produced 5 (assuming Nabi Tajima isn't actually a year younger) between 2015 and 2018. This significantly boosted 117 numbers - though no one could get to 118.

The 1903 and 1904 cohorts then challenged Sarah Knauss at 119. One sneaked past by 10 days and the other got very close.

So the 117-119 range has seen growth in the numbers of achievers, though to be fair, there is a risk now that we may not see another 118 year old for maybe a decade.

But no one has ever got near Jeanne Calment - so 122 can't a reliable benchmark to lever off, in terms of longevity expectations. Had JC never existed then SK would have been the outlier, for about 25 years, finally challenged in 2022 and early 2023. That would make more sense, purely from a statistical point of view. So the JC result is an absolute freak outcome.

The other interesting thing is that the top 3 of Calment, Knauss and Meilleur remained unchanged from March 1997 to March 2018 (if NT's age is true) or otherwise until August 2020 when Kane Tanaka got there. So somewhere from 21 to nearly 23.5 years. This was despite all of the growth noted above.

Even today (assuming NT is a year younger) then JC, SK and MLM would make up 60% of the all time top 5 (or at worst 50% of the top 6). We now have 406 validated 113+ year olds.

Chronologically JC was 113+ SC no 15, MLM was 33 and SK was number 35. So based on the 406, (96% of which are deceased) all 3 fall within the first 8.6% of historically validated 113+ supercentenarians. Again one wouldn't expect that.

Annual survival rates at these upper ages (114+) , appear to be between 35% and 40% with limited reliability on the stats from 117+. If for example 37.5% was adopted than a 119th birthday leaves the candidate with only about a 3.5% chance of making 122-164. So a pool of 29 - 119 birthday achievements would expect to see 1 reach 122-164. So we've been very lucky.

All in all - solid evidence of increasing lives for very senior supercentenarians, with the all time number 2 recently challenged and surpassed. But not 122-164 - and it would take a freak validation for this to be challenged in the next 6.5 years. 

After doing some more research since my last post on here, I conclude that all of you have been right. It seems like, of the hundreds of living 118+ cases I've researched, all of them (except one) have red flags. These cases have no early life documentation, no official documents proving age, and seems to have other red flags. I still stand with the case of Mrs. Lamichhane, as her case seems to be the only living one in my opinion that is plausible. I will do my absolute best to help her family get the help they need to apply for her. 

Doing further research, I now have a completely different opinion on the cases of Mrs. Maria Gomes, Mr. Davino Gomes da Silva, Mr. Marcelino Abad Tolentino, Mrs. Francisca Susano... and so forth. I now believe these cases are nearly 100% likely to be false.

I however have found a case from 2020, concerning a 118 year old man in Tabasco, Mexico who's name is not given. At first I believe this man's case, because his age was only found out when he was taken to the hospital after displaying symptoms of Covid. To me, this made his case quite strong because his family was not in it for publicity. However, I now conclude that the chances of a 118 year old male is extremely low. I now think it is very very unlikely that this man was really 118, and I think an accidental identity switch is more likely. 

I am disappointed that there are not more cases of people living over 118, and past 120, but that doesn't mean there won't be any in the future. Hopefully there will be massive medical advances made in the future to make living to 120 the norm. In my fantasies, I see the oldest living people making it to 200, by the year 2100. And I'm willing to put in whatever help I can give to turn those fantasies into a reality. Thank you for your opinions. 

Ok, I have found a new case of a Mexican woman named Guadalupe Garcia who claims to have been born in December 1904, and is currently 118 years old.

She also claims to have had 25 children.

I think this case is worth investigating more. I cannot seem to find any proof either supporting her case or debunking it. Her case is very difficult to find any information on. If it's true that she indeed has 25 children, it would provide more insight on whether or not she is the age claimed. 

I think the chances are less than 10% that she is actually 118, but I still think her case should be investigating more thoroughly. 

What do you think? Worth investigating?

Just to let you all know I found an article on Facebook from 10 January 2023 that confirmed Manuel Garcia Hernandez alive at the claimed age of 126 years & 17 days. Personally I think he's no more than early 100s. He was probably born in 1926 rather than 1896, but the article insists he's 126. 

I also saw from Mrs. Batuli Lamichhane's great grandson's FB page that she was confirmed alive on 24 April 2023 at the claimed age of 121 years & 32 days. Like I've said before I believe she was most likely born on March 23rd 1903 rather than 1902 and is actually 120 years & 32 days, although I've got several pieces of evidence that support her case, I can't say she's for certain. 120 is very advanced age, but I think Mrs. Lamichhane is probably true. I personally think that in addition to her, there's probably one other person out there older than Mrs. Morera but again, no proof of this.

Another article I found confirms that Mr. Andrelino da Silva made it to his 122nd birthday this February. No disrespectful towards him of course but I think he's got like a 0.0001% chance of being true. There's no way a 122 year old man still drives, lives on his own, and walks without a cane. I'm sorry but I don't believe it. I also found a user on Reddit who gave very good points to debunk Mr. Silva's case even further. His birthday is 03/02/01 according to the Brazilian system. What are the odds he was born on three, two, one? It's almost certain he didn't know his birthday so he just made up a fake one or exaggerated it. He also has claimed he is a terror on the social security system of government pay. He probably used his father's date of birth for early pension. Even he, himself admitted that he's gotten quite the amount of benefits from it. Suspicious if you ask me. I'd say he looks 75-85 to me. 

Anyway, just a few updates for everyone. 

I recently stumbled upon an article mentioning LP Suwang (1551-1995), a Cambodian man who claimed to have lived for 444 years. Obviously false, but I did find something interesting. The Thai government claims to have documentation attesting that he indeed lived for 444 years (again, Obviously false), but the part that interested me is that apparently there's some documentation and pictures of Mr. Suwang from 1930 that list him as being an elder, and these photos show him looking like a senior citizen. Now, I have no idea if these documents and photographs are even real, but let's pretend he was 50 in 1930. That would give him an estimated birthdate of 1880. If his life spanned from 1880 to 1995 he may have been 114 or 115 at the time of his death. He does look suspiciously young to be an SC (he looks more like 85-95 to me), but could it have been possible that this man was the world's oldest living man, between Frazier and Mortensen? I highly doubt it, and again don't know if these documents and pictures are true, but it's definitely interesting to think about. I mean if he was like 22 when he immigrated to Thailand, they wouldn't have listed him as a senior citizen. Of course we would need to see these pictures, to see if it's even the same person. He was probably younger than 114/115 but he still may have been the oldest man in Thailand at the time of his death. Going to go with plausible but still unlikely that he was 110 or over, but I think this is worth investigating further. But in my opinion, he definitely was NOT older than Kimura. 

Ok, I happen to come across a new case, which I had never seen before. Mrs. Isabel Alves de Carvalho claimed to have been born in Brazil on 15 August, 1901 and sadly passed away recently on 19 May, 2023 at the claimed age of 121 years & 277 days. Applying the knowledge I have learned here on this forum, I spent a few minutes reading about her case and was about to disregard it as an exaggeration, but then I saw that she claimed to have been married in 1915. Now I'm going to tread carefully here, as I don't want to make the same mistake as I did with Goddard Diamond. The most likely possible scenario is that she was likely mixed up with her mother who was the one born in 1901, and Mrs. Isabel Carvalho was the one born in 1915. Also less likely but still more plausible than a 121 year old woman is that an Isabel Alves de Carvalho was born in 1901 and married in 1915, but is a different Isabel than the one claiming to be an SC. And our SC claimaint Isabel accidentally got her records mixed up with the Isabel who was actually born in 1901. Now I only found out about this case like 30 minutes before I started writing here, so I've literally done zero research. But I decided to ask on this forum first, is Mrs. Carvalho's case WORTH researching? No disrespect toward her of course, but 121 is a very very advanced age for a woman. It's possible, as Jeanne Calment did reach this age back in the 90s, but is it possible enough that another person reached it? The thing that really threw me for a loop is that Mrs. Carvalho claims to have proof that she was married in 1915. This is contrary to most extreme cases who don't have early life documentation, thats why it surprised me. Is it worth searching to see if this proof actually exists? I know nothing else about her. The article didn't mention the ages of her children, so we could either support her case or debunk her in that way. 

Just found something odd. Apparently Modesto Lopez Bautista's grandson is friends with the grandson of the Claimed Anonymous 118 year old man who survived COVID-19 in 2020. I am being fully serious.