Following his move to New York in 1969, Highwater claimed his new identity: he said that he had been adopted as an Indian child from Montana by a Greek-American family and raised in Los Angeles (another version said the family was Armenian). He at one time said that the Marks family had adopted him as a child. In yet another version he said both his parents were Cherokee. He reportedly graduated from North Hollywood High School. He said he attended college in Los Angeles and gained a PhD degree by the age of 20; this was never documented.