In the world-famous Pirates of the Caribbean section at Disneyland, there were once real human remains. Although these relics have now been replaced with models, it is said that when this recreational vehicle was built in 1967, the fake alternatives available were not good enough and so the park’s “dream engineers” preferred to use some real materials.
It may come as a shock to think about it today, but Disneyland’s use of real remains isn’t the most recent example of human bones popping up in places you wouldn’t expect. For example, real skeletons were also used in the 1982 movie Poltergeist, which viewers may recall containing many skeletons.
The players were unaware
Snopes even did an investigation examining rumors about Poltergeist and confirmed that human skeletons were sometimes used without the cast even knowing. During a TV interview, star JoBeth Williams said, “In my innocence and naivety, I assumed these were not real skeletons,” Snopes said. I assumed they were props skeletons made of plastic or rubber. Like the whole team, I later found out that they use real skeletons because it’s very expensive to make fake rubber skeletons. And I think everybody was really startled by the idea.”
Similarly, the technological limitations to fake skeletons at the time led to Disneyland’s decision to use real skeletons on its pirate-themed cruise. Former Disney producer Jason Surrell explained in his book Pirates of the Caribbean: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies that he thought the “fake skeletons of the era were far from believable,” as Atlas Obscura reports.
Even then, making lifelike skeletons was too much for the scene editing departments, as it cost as much as the rest of the park in total. Instead, bones from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that are real human remains were used.
Technology has advanced since then, and with it, a new era has begun, in which the remains of this amusement ride’s previous design have been replaced by surprisingly believable skeleton models. Surrell also states that the bones were returned to their home country and a proper burial was given.
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