A person may be legally declared dead (
declared death in absentia or
legal presumption of death) despite the absence of direct proof of the person's death, such as the finding of remains (e.g., a
corpse or skeleton) attributable to that person. Such a declaration is typically made when a person has been
missing for an extended period of time and in the absence of any evidence that the person is still alive – or after a much shorter period but where the circumstances surrounding a person's disappearance overwhelmingly support the belief that the person has died (e.g., an
airplane crash).