During the ninth annual Andy Kaufman Awards at New York City's Gotham Comedy Club on Monday night, the former "Taxi" and "Saturday Night Live" star's brother Michael Kaufman stepped on stage to talk about his sibling. Then a 24-year-old woman joined him and said she was Michael's niece -- and Andy Kaufman's daughter.

Michael admitted he didn't know if Andy is dead or alive, but told a story that he found a note written by the comic describing plans to fake his death and then reappear at a restaurant on Christmas Eve in 1999. Andy Kaufman didn't show up, but Michael says he instead received a letter that night describing how his famous brother wanted a normal life and that "he'd met and fallen in love with a woman and had a daughter, and that he didn't want Michael or anyone to say anything while their own father was still alive."

Michael said their father Stanley died earlier this year. A month later he received a phone call from a woman who said Andy was still alive and had been following the Andy Kaufman Awards "from afar." That woman is allegedly the same woman who joined Michael on stage to say she's Andy Kaufman's daughter

Al Parinello, a producer of the Andy Kaufman Awards and a lifelong friend of the comedian, says Monday's event was not a hoax. "I witnessed the entire thing and I can tell you without a doubt this was not a prank," he told The Hollywood Reporter.

Officially, Kaufman died of lung cancer in 1984 at the age of 35. But TMZ reports no official date of death exists and an online database suggests he lived in Cook County, Illinois, in 2001 and later in Westchester County, New York.

What do you think? Is Andy Kaufman still alive?

Eh, probably not, and the full article has some reasons why. But it's a cool theory.

Sam Simon, who was a producer on Taxi, has said that the everyone who knows anything about it knows Kaufman died, and the only reason this "is Andy really alive?" thing is perpetuated is a few people have made it their livelihood.

Andy Kaufman didn't fake his own death -- he faked his own life. It would be amazing if he managed to arrange this nearly 30 years after he died. In a way, he lives on more now than if he were still living aged 64.