Journal of Scientific Exploration Anomalistics and Frontier Science 606 JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION • VOL. 36, NO 4 – WINTER 2022 journalofscientificexploration.org INTRODUCTION Self and identity anomalies can be a dramatic topic that captures the public’s interest and imagination. For in- stance, supposedly true stories like Sybil (Schreiber, 1973) and Te Tree Faces of Eve (Tigpen & Cleckley, 1957/1992) famously publicized the concept of dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder or ‘split personality,’ i.e., a mental condition characterized by the maintenance of at least two distinct and relative- ly enduring personality states (Brand et al., 2016; Dorahy et al., 2014; McAllister, 2000). Other times news reports and television documentaries have highlighted ‘identity’ mysteries, including the Shakespeare authorship question RESEARCH ARTICLE James Houran Jhouran@aethoscg.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1725-582X Integrated Knowledge Systems Dallas, Texas, USA Laboratory for Statistics and Com- putation, ISLA - Instituto Politecnico de Gestao e Tecnologia Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal Lorraine Sheridan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8705-0531 Curtin University Western Australia, Australia Neil Dagnall https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0657-7604 Department of Psychology Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK SUBMITTED February 18, 2022 ACCEPTED March 15, 2022 PUBLISHED December 30, 2022 https://doi.org/10.31275/20222483 PLATINUM OPEN ACCESS Creative Commons License 4.0. CC-BY-NC. Attribution required. No commercial use. Evaluating the Mystery of 'Brushy Bill' Roberts (aka Billy the Kid) as a Case of Extreme Celebrity Worship HIGHLIGHTS A man who claimed to be ‘Billy the Kid’ showed behaviors consistent with strong celebrity worship of the famous outlaw, thereby implying that an alter ego persona was possibly at play. ABSTRACT ‘Brushy Bill’ Roberts gained notoriety in 1950 for identifying himself as the presum- ably deceased outlaw ‘Billy the Kid.’ We hypothesized that his case refected extreme celebrity worship, which involves psychological absorption with a target celebrity and potential fantasy–reality breakdowns. A blinded expert panel mapped Roberts’ claims, activities, and circumstances against the three phases of celebrity worship and their known correlates. Outcomes from this exercise suggested that (a) his reported attitudes and behaviors equated to an above-average score on the Celebrity Worship Scale (Mc- Cutcheon et al., 2002), (b) his identity as the Kid unfolded somewhat similarly to the behavioral progression of celebrity worship, and (c) he ostensibly had the most psycho- social risk factors for the ‘Entertainment–Social’ level of celebrity worship, though many were also noted for the more extreme ‘Intense–Personal’ and ‘Borderline Pathological’ phases. Tese results imply that Roberts might have intentionally adopted Billy the Kid as an alter ego primarily for leisure and escapism, although this construction perhaps evolved to include more compulsory or addictive aspects. KEYWORDS Absorption, alter ego, celebrity worship, grandiose delusions, narrative reality (Leigh et al., 2019), the ‘Jack the Ripper’ serial killer (Louhe- lainen & Miller, 2020), the 17th century French prisoner known as the ‘man in the iron mask’ (Wilkinson, 2001), and suspected conspirators in the JFK assassination (Linsker et al., 2005). And then there are forensic cases that possibly involve blurred fantasy–reality distinctions, such as indi- viduals who surface under curious circumstances and are believed by some to be various historical fgures previously presumed dead. Tis includes the Grand Duchess Anas- tasia Nikolaevna of Russia (Kurth, 1983), the mysterious 1971 skyjacker known as ‘D. B. Cooper’ (Colbert & Szollosi, 2016), Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid (McPhee, 1998, p. 358), or the three famous escapees from the 1962 prison break from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (Noyes, 2016).