There's one guy at ShareCG who ripped off a bunch of commercial models from one of the architecture model sites and claimed he made 'em.  I wouldn't have known, except that a job I did a year or so back had some of these models in the project.

There was also some prat who'd ripped off a well known version of Terminator endoskeleton, subdivided it and passed it off as his own work.

Outright piracy is bad enough but claiming someone else's hard work as your own is beyond the pale, IMO.

BTW, I don't think it's bizarre at all; that is, unfortunately, a common part of human nature.  There are millions of Walter Mittys out there. 

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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