Main thread isAlive() after an unhandled exception

Question

It appears that the main thread is "magic" in some way; after main() dies from an unhandled exception, isAlive() still reports true and join() waits forever for the (now moribund but apparnetly undead) main thread to die.
Is there any way to detect (reliably) whether main() is really alive, as opposed to being some sort of zombie?
Some code which demonstrates the problem:
public class Termination {
public static void main (String args[]) {
Waiter w = new Waiter();
w.start();
try {
Thread.currentThread().sleep(1000);
catch (InterruptedException e) { }
throw new RuntimeException("Bang!"); // the thread is still
} // alive after this???
class Waiter extends Thread {
Thread t;
public Waiter () {
t = Thread.currentThread();
public void run () {
while (t.isAlive()) {
System.out.println("Waiting for " + t);
try {
t.join(500);
catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("Interrupted");
System.out.println("Joined " + t);
System.out.println("Terminated: " + t);
}

Answer 1

This is not necessarially a solution or answer to your question, but an observation.
The scope from whence the thread was spawned is main, main itself executes to completion. When the exception is caught, main is no longer executing once finally() is called. However, the Thread that is spawned is still alive and well, it continues to interact with itself. The thread needs to be destroyed. Check out my changes.
Main is "dead" when the exception is thrown, and caught is called or if finally is defined it is called, I believe.
public class Termination {
    public static void main (String args[]) {
        Waiter w = new Waiter();
        w.start();
        try {
            Thread.currentThread().sleep(1000);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            w.destroy();  //destroy child thread
            //throw new RuntimeException("Bang!");
    class Waiter extends Thread {
        Thread t;
        public Waiter () {
            t = Thread.currentThread();
        public void run () {
        while (t.isAlive()) {
            System.out.println("Waiting for " + t);
            try {
                t.join(500);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                System.out.println("Interrupted");
                System.out.println("Joined " + t);
        System.out.println("Terminated: " + t);
}