I personally know someone who has told me that he/she is an arahant. he/she is a lay buddhist with a commitment and discernment I have never otherwise seen. I will not reveal his/her identity, but I will try to relate what he/she has told me both about her experience and how he/she practiced. he/she told me mainly for purposes of motivating me, describing his/her experience as a carrot on a stick like the buddha's 'practice as if your hair were on fire.' I am very grateful that he/she told me as it has massively improved my faith and persistence... it is one thing for some guys thousands of years to have done it, but apparently god's son was walking around too and there were dragons and shit.
What he/she has told me of his/her experience:
An ever-present perfect equanimity and awareness of all conditions as well as a certain quality of 'joy' with regard to all of them. he/she reports that he/she is always aware of the occurrences at all 6 sense-doors simultaneously at all times. he/she reports a lack of emotion, the compassion inherent in her experience are experienced not as emotion but rather as an automatic tendency in action. Another aspect he/she reports is a complete lack of a feeling of 'presence' or 'being' or 'agency' rather thoughts, words, and deeds occur as if out of nowhere. Another aspect is that there is absolutely no sense of time passing, rather just a continuous moment. basically her experience is one of six senses, no emotional feelings, no tension, no control or agency, just the six senses occurring.
What he/she has told me of his/her practice:
He/she began practicing with body scanning and anapana. He/she didn't aim for absorption in his/her practice, just being undistracted such that he/she could observe sensations continuously with the aim of maximizing equanimity and seeing impermanence. He/she started with scanning, but eventually found it and anapana unnecessary due to his/her progress in equanimity and mindfulness (though she recommends using those methods until one is pretty far along), he/she switched then to a more all encompassing and fully accepting style of attention mimicking the state at which he/she was moving towards. One day while practicing in daily life off the cushion his/her experience shifted (after gradual increases over 10+ years) to fully selfless, fully equanimous, fully compassionate, fully without a sense of control, fully aware, all in complete continuousness at all times. He/she believes that practicing via attention and equanimity will cause a meditator to continue progressing as long as the meditator doesn't rest content at any stage short of perfect, continuous alertness and attamaya-uppekha. The person's #1 most stressed practice advice would probably be continuousness of attention.
I have known this person for some time and I find all their statements and actions to be congruent, their actions matching with their reports (constant compassion[in action] towards what he/she can control and constant equanimity towards what he/she can't). I have of course no certainty, but I also have no certainty of even the buddha's awakening or that arahantship and nibbana exist, regardless I think his/her advice is far from controversial, but perhaps it is good to know that there really are arahants out there.
I will answer any questions I can unless they in any way would help divulge the identity of this person. They have not asked me to conceal there identity nor do they know I am posting this or that I use this forum, and I don't think they would object even if I divulged their identity but regardless I will not do so. (you would almost definitely not know them by name anyway)
edit: another thing - this person said that it is likely due to their conditioning that they revealed their status, but they believe that there are plenty of arahants around just that their conditioning informs their decision not to share. they said that an arahants compassion is directed by their life experiences and intelligence, what they think will work and what they think won't, they don't know what the most compassionate thing to do for sure is but they do always do what seems to be the most compassionate thing.
edit2: I'd prefer to answer questions here so that I don't have to repeat myself, also I don't really care too much about defending this person's claim, I can't give anyone certainty about anything. as I said his/her advice is fairly non-controversial and I posted what I did mainly as a source of motivation for people, I don't want this to turn into a debate or a look-at-me thing... just as a source of faith that arahantship is possible and as a source of motivation from that faith. Don't wait around for certainty that it is possible, I don't think you will find any.