Having developed a reputation for my investigations of the Bible Code, the Roswell UFO incident, and other fringe beliefs, Tech officials asked me to present an opposing view at the upcoming event. The debate was on. I started reviewing numerous articles on Gage’s Web site and scoured many other sources for more information. Soon, a picture emerged of a massive pseudoscientific movement based on faulty physics, cherry-picked data, and demonization of opponents as complicit in the “conspiracy.” I’d long been dubious of 9/11 “controlled demolition” claims, and my perusal of Gage’s site left me even more skeptical of “Truth Movement” arguments.

On October 24, about thirty people assembled in the student union building for the debate. Before things got started, Gage asked for a show of hands on these three questions: “Believe fires brought down buildings” (seventeen raised their hands), “Unsure” (eight), and “Believe in explosive controlled demolition” (six). Then, alumna McGrade made a short presentation that mentioned only things agreed upon by both points of view, such as the width of the Towers, timing between the jet impacts and the collapses, and so forth. Gage followed with his thirty-minute presentation, which focused primarily on World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7), which collapsed at approximately 5:20 pm on the afternoon of September 11. Gage argued that there are ten reasons WTC 7, which was not hit by an airplane, was intentionally demolished:

1. Rapid onset of ‘collapse’
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor—a full second prior to collapse
3. Symmetrical ‘collapse’—through the path of greatest resistance—at free-fall acceleration
4. Imploded, collapsing completely, and landed mostly in its own footprint
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
6. Several tons of molten metal reported by numerous highly-qualified witnesses
7. Chemical signature of Thermite (high tech incendiary) found in solidified molten metal, and dust samples by physics professor Steven Jones, PhD
8. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
9. Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional
10. Foreknowledge of ‘collapse’ by media, NYPD, and FDNY

After Gage’s presentation, he asked for another show of hands. This time, the results were: “Fires brought down buildings” (seven hands), “Unsure” (twelve), and “Explosive controlled demolition” (nine). Then I spoke for about half an hour. I began by giving a Big Picture of the differences between science and pseudoscience with several examples that I’ve studied (Bible Codes, UFO conspiracies, Chemtrails, etc.).

None of the 9/11 “Truth” claims really hold up under scrutiny. For example, regarding the Twin Towers’ collapse “through the path of greatest resistance—at free-fall acceleration,” Gage often uses a demonstration using three cardboard boxes to make his point. He holds two small boxes in either hand, representing the topmost floors of either Twin Tower. He then drops both boxes; one is dropped on top of a thirty-inch-high strong cardboard box that represents the base of the towers (below where the planes struck), and the other is dropped onto empty air, whence it falls the thirty inches to the table top. In his online videos with this demonstration, Gage announces that “The one that had no resistance under it falls at freefall speed…. The one that has 80,000 tons of structural steel on it —it doesn’t even give. It resists. As met by an equal and opposite reaction known as the conservation of momentum. It doesn’t fall.” Gage then cites the supposed “freefall” speed as evidence that the towers were demolished with explosives. I mentioned this demonstration, citing it as an excellent example of pseudoscience. What’s actually relevant here is load vs. structure: the fact that dynamic loads are not the same as static loads. A plate can easily support the weight of a hammer carefully placed on it, but if the hammer is dropped on the plate, the dynamic load is more than it can bear, and it can crack. Once the top floors of the towers fell even one floor’s height, the horrifying “piledriver” collapse became inevitable.

I also showed simulations of why the towers fell, focusing on the interlocking structural components that reinforced the towers. I showed how WTC 7 had been severely damaged by debris from Tower 1 and showed evidence (routinely ignored by “Truthers”) of the severe fires that burned for many hours in Tower 7. I discussed the claims that thermite was used and showed a test filmed at Tech in which a large quantity of thermite failed to cut a large steel beam.

A twenty-minute question and answer period followed my talk. As the meeting was adjourned and everyone was poised to leave, I asked for one more show of hands. This time, the results were almost the same as when the afternoon began: “Fires brought down buildings” (sixteen hands), “Unsure” (eight), and “Explosive controlled demolition” (six).

A few days after the talks, Gage posted only the first two votes on his Web site, misreporting the second vote severely (making his 56–44 percent margin of victory into an 86–14 percent landslide). After I protested, Gage corrected his numbers and even included the third vote, while dismissing it as “useless” because of the brevity of the presentations and the fact that some audience members arrived late.

Gage wants to debate me again, on Denver public television station KBDI. While I normally prefer not to provide platforms for conspiracy theorists to push their cases, in this instance KBDI has already been running Gage’s 9/11 “Truth” documentaries during fundraising specials. No counter-programming has been offered during these showings (the NOVA episode on why the towers fell would have been an excellent antidote). Negotiations for a debate in the spring of 2010 are underway.

Finally, I offer this caution for readers: don’t smugly assume this conspiracy is confined to the lunatic fringe. After years of polishing and refinement, 9/11 “Truth” efforts have persuaded many citizens, including some of my relatives and close friends, to consider the attacks of 9/11 an “inside job.”

I do not think it is fair to say that scientific naturalism ignores the subjective. While it is true that neuroscientists do not yet have an established material model of mind, they have considerable data on changes that occur in the brain during subjective mental activity. They have established beyond doubt that material processes are involved.

Nevertheless, Haught’s view seems to be the common refrain of theists arguing against a purely natural universe. In his book God Is No Delusion, Thomas Crean, a Dominican friar of the priory of St. Michael the Archangel in Cambridge, England, follows Haught in using the argument from ignorance fallacy, saying he cannot understand how thoughts could emerge from matter, and therefore they must have come from God. He asks, “How could a ‘material kind of thing’ cause an ‘immaterial kind of thing’ to exist?” Well, a computer is a material kind of thing that can solve mathematical and logical problems. It can write poetry that English professors are unable to distinguish from that written by humans. It can produce beautiful art and music. The aesthetic experiences of these products are immaterial “kinds of things,” but they result from physical brain activity.

Unaware of these facts, Crean continues in the same vein, “Materialism, then, is absurd. A thought cannot be a material thing, nor can it be caused by a material thing. The only possible conclusion is that thought as such is something independent of matter, that is, something spiritual.”

In their short book Naturalism, philosophers Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro attempt to show that naturalism is intellectually incoherent. The authors are theists who teach at Notre Dame University and St. Olaf College, respectively. They claim that a duality of the physical and the mental is necessary to explain mental causation, that is, how mental events cause physical events.

This strikes me as rather backward. If, as naturalism asserts, mental events arise from physical events in the brain, then there surely is no problem since we then have physical events causing physical events, just as when a cue ball hits an eight ball and causes it to go into a pocket. On the other hand, if mental events have their own nonphysical nature, then we have the problem of explaining how something nonphysical can cause physical events. Goetz and Taliaferro do not provide us with even a speculative model for how that can happen.

When theists such as Goetz and Taliaferro refer to gaps in the scientific record, the best they can do is say, “See, God must have done it.” This provides no more information and is less economical than the simple statement: “Nature did it.” But materialists can usually do much better than this simple assertion and give some idea of how nature did it. In a physical explanation we often have a theory, such as relativity or evolution, that provides detailed mechanisms for the events being observed. Even when we do not have an existing established theory, such as for the origin of life or mental processes, we have plausible proposals under consideration that agree with all existing knowledge and that require no supernatural elements. Theists can make only the simple assertion, “God did it.” Scientists can say, “We don’t know. But we’ll try to find out.”

Of course, mind-body dualism is a widespread “commonsense” belief among laypeople. Goetz and Taliaferro seem to think common sense is sufficient to adopt the dualist view.

Goetz and Taliaferro also claim to show the philosophical coherence of divine agency. So what if it is philosophically coherent? That says nothing about its reality. A fantasy computer game in which heroes come back to life after being killed is philosophically coherent; it wouldn’t run on a computer if it wasn’t logical. But the world is still not that way.

Philosopher Paul Churchland points out that throughout history people have expressed doubt that science will ever be able to explain some phenomena. The first-century astronomer Ptolemy (c. 85–165), the greatest astronomer of his age, said science would never be able to capture the true nature of heavenly causes because they were inaccessible. He didn’t have Newton’s inspiration that the laws of physics are universal, meaning they apply both on Earth and in the heavens. The nineteenth-century philosopher Comte (d. 1857) similarly argued that we could never know the physical constitution of stars. He didn’t know about atomic spectra. As late as the 1950s, most people were still expressing doubt that life could be explained purely materialistically and believed instead that some life force was needed. With the 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA and the great success of the theory of evolution by natural selection, science saw no need for, and indeed no evidence for, a special force of life.

When the mental dualist asks, “How can thoughtless matter give rise to thought?” he is expressing the same argument from ignorance fallacy used by those who say, “How can dead matter give rise to life?”

Many questions remain unanswered by those who claim that some immaterial spirit or soul is ultimately controlling the actions of the brain. How does this immaterial thing that carries no energy or momentum provide energy and momentum to particles in the brain? This implies violations of conservation of energy and momentum, which the theist believes are God’s laws. Why is it okay to break these laws of God and not his other laws, such as his ban on homosexual marriage and using condoms?

Further Reading

• Paul M. Churchland, The Engine of Reason, the Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey Into the Brain (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1995).
• Thomas Crean, God is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2007).
• Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, Naturalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Erdman Publishing Company, 2008).
• John F. Haught, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens (Westminster John Knox Press, 2008).

This is adapted from Stenger’s latest book, The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason (Prometheus Books 2009).

insights into the mythology that developed around the central figure of Christianity two millennia before. Here, we analyze Elvis’s developing myth, study a recorded séance, visit two sites—one where Elvis’s apparitions have been reported (figure 1) and another where the apparitions sometimes eat (figure 2)—and consider other sidelights.

Elvis

Elvis Aron Presley was born January 8, 1935, in East Tupelo, Mississippi. Influenced by the music around him (including that of the Pentecostal church he attended with his parents), he went on to blend largely white country-and-western music with predominantly black rhythm-and-blues to help create a new American pop-music genre, rock ’n’ roll. With songs like “Heartbreak Hotel,” “All Shook Up,” and “Jailhouse Rock,” plus more than thirty movies (beginning with Love Me Tender in 1956), he became a superstar.

However, by the late 1970s, Elvis’s performances were deteriorating, and his overweight appearance had begun to draw jokes. In 1977, allegations of drug abuse and odd behavior surfaced in a book by three of his former employees titled Elvis: What Happened? Before the star could respond to the charges, he was discovered dead on August 16 at his Memphis, Tennessee, mansion—Graceland. An autopsy revealed that drugs were a contributing factor (Collier’s Encyclopedia, s.v. “Elvis Aron Presley”).

Along with countless others, I can still recall where I was when the news came of Elvis’s death. I was in my apartment in West Los Angeles (where I was working as an armed guard while attending Paul Stader’s Hollywood Stunt School). As I noted in my personal journal for that Tuesday: “While [I was] writing, there was a knock at my door. I found a young man—about 19, drunk, beer can still in hand, tears streaming down his face—who told me Elvis had just died. That incident is evidence of the impact he had.”

Developing Mythology

Others, however, reacted with much deeper emotion. Many of Elvis’s followers began to exhibit a “deitific regard” toward the dead star (Banks 2004, 222), prompted in part by Elvis himself. Before his death, the biography Elvis: What Happened? reported:

While the rest of the world recognizes that Elvis Aron Presley is something more than an ordinary human being, the one person who believes that most passionately is Presley himself. He is addicted to the study of the Bible, mystical religion, numerology, psychic phenomena, and the belief in life after death. He firmly believes he has the powers of psychic healing by the laying on of hands. He believes he will be reincarnated. He believes he has the strength of will to move clouds in the air, and he is also convinced that there are beings on other planets. He firmly believes he is a prophet who was destined to lead, designated by God for a special role in life. (West et al. 1977, 157)

Now, following Elvis’s death, grandiose claims began to proliferate. Someone noticed that “Elvis” is an anagram of “lives.” Parallels have been drawn between Elvis and Jesus:

• For example, Elvis was said not to be buried in his grave but to be hiding elsewhere (Southwell and Twist 2004, 20). (In Matthew [28: 1–15], when Jesus’ tomb was found empty, the chief priests told the soldiers to say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.”)
• After his death Elvis was reportedly witnessed boarding an airplane (Southwell and Twist 2004, 20), and there were subsequently “numerous accounts of ‘Elvis sightings’ in malls, burger restaurants, and airports throughout the United States” (Banks 1996). An Elvis Is Alive Museum was even created by a Baptist minister with displays of photographs, FBI files, and other memorabilia that supposedly provide evidence that the singer never died (“Elvis Is Alive” 2008). (In the gospels, after his resurrection, Jesus made appearances to his disciples and many others [e.g., John 20: 19–29; 1 Corinthians 15: 4–8].)
• In time, Elvis’s mythological status began to include “tales that recount his healings of illness, blindness, and sorrow through dreams and his music” (Banks 2004, 222). (As related, for example, in Luke [4:40–41; 18:43], Jesus went about healing the sick, the blind, and the possessed.)
• On the wall around Graceland, Elvis’s followers have written inscriptions: “Elvis, we believe always and forever”; “Elvis, you are my God and my King”; and “Elvis, every mountain I have had to climb, you carried me over on your back” (Banks 2004, 222). (The New Testament contains passages such as these: “The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” [1 Timothy 1:14] and “I rejoice in the Lord…. I can do all things in him who strengthens me” [Philippians 4: 10–13].)
• Great numbers of the faithful—some 10 percent of the American public—have visited Graceland “as a place of pilgrimage” (“Elvis Presley” 2008). (Christians make pilgrimages to Jerusalem and other sites associated with Jesus in order to venerate him.)
• There have even been “weeping” effigies of the star, like a plaster bust owned by a Dutch Elvis impersonator (“Weeping” 1997). (The phenomenon of weeping icons—rife with misperceptions and pious hoaxes—is frequently associated with Jesus, Mary, or a Christian saint [Nickell 2004, 324–330].)

Encounters

The “Elvis sightings” are especially persistent. They stem from the notions of conspiracy theorists who believe the star faked his death. The “evidence” is generally laughable. For example, on his gravestone, Elvis’s middle name appears not as Aron but “Aaron,” as it if were “a method of saying, ‘It’s not me’” (Brewer-Giorgio 1988, 55). In fact, although it is clear he himself used “Aron” (probably for its similarity to the name of his stillborn twin, Jesse Garon Presley), the more common spelling often appears and may even have been the original form (Brewer-Giorgio 1988, 50–61; “Elvis Presley” 2008).

Nevertheless, a still-alive Elvis has reportedly been seen by thousands of eyewitnesses. Critics, on the other hand, have suggested that the sightings can be explained by glimpses of Elvis impersonators (“Elvis” 2008) or even simple look-alikes. Some modern sightings—which emphasize Elvis pigging out on fast food—are obviously satirical (“Elvis Sighting” 2008) and examples of jokelore.

Other close encounters of the Elvis kind involve his ghost or spirit allegedly communicating with others through such means as automatic writing (in which Elvis guides the sensitive’s hand), séances (spirit-communication sessions often held by a “medium”), and astral encounters (achieved through out-of-body experiences). All of these have been utilized by one Dorothy Sherry, “a simple housewife” who has been billed as a “psychic go-between” for Elvis. “Ghost hunter” Hans Holzer tells her story in Star Ghosts. He insists: “Dorothy Sherry has never met Elvis Presley. She has not been to any concerts of his, does not collect his records or consider herself a fan of his” (1979, 61–62). Yet he says her contacts with Elvis are among the most “evidential” of his career.

Why, Sherry can even be possessed by Elvis, or at least Holzer claims (though shows us no photos) that he watched “the usually placid face of Dorothy Sherry change to a near-likeness of Elvis” as the star supposedly “controlled her.” Elvis then provided statements “in rapid succession which left no doubt,” Holzer insisted, “about his identity and actual presence in our midst” (63). Through Sherry, Elvis not only provided information supposedly unknown to her but revealed to her that, in her words, “he had known me in a previous life, and that I had been his wife” (67). “Dorothy,” Hans Holzer tells us, “went astral traveling with Elvis practically night after night” (68).

We thus receive the distinct impression that far from being uninterested in Elvis, Sherry is obsessed with him. Moreover, she has several traits that are associated with a fantasy-prone personality (such as professing psychic powers, having out-of-body experiences, receiving messages from higher entities, seeing apparitions, and so on) (Nickell 2001, 215; Wilson and Barber 1983).

Holzer does concede: “Although I haven’t the slightest doubt that Dorothy never read any books about Presley, nor any newspaper stories concerning him, the fact that these sources exist must be taken into account when evaluating the evidence obtained through her entranced lips” (1979, 62). Indeed, Holzer must know that the very sources used to authenticate spirit communication may be used by a medium (consciously or not) to glean the information in the first place. Alleged psychics and mediums have long made a practice of conducting secret research using the results as evidence, convincing the credulous of their paranormal ability. (For example, according to his former secretary, notorious medium Arthur Ford [1897–1971] traveled with a suitcase crammed with notes and clippings about whomever was to attend one of his séances [Christopher 1975, 143–144].)

In fact, some of the very information Dorothy Sherry offered as coming from Elvis’s spirit (for example an incident about a friend’s leg injury [Holzer 1979, 64]) was readily available in the book Elvis: What Happened? (West et al. 1977, 165). Moreover, some of the alleged information is doubtful. Sherry has Elvis telling her his mother had a weakness for drink, “a fact which has never been publicized for obvious reasons,” says Holzer (1979, 65). Actually, the allegation had indeed been made by “some Presley detractors” but was emphatically denied by Elvis’s close companions (West et al. 1977, 139). In any event, why would Elvis—otherworldly or not—choose to reveal derogatory information about the woman he regarded as a saint?

Holzer’s use of “psychics” in ghost-hunting was once examined in the Journal for the Society for Psychical Research. The reviewer found that Holzer’s verification methodology was so unsatisfactory as to “cast considerable doubt on the objectivity and reliability of his work as a whole” (qtd. in Berger and Berger 1991, 183). I myself have reviewed Holzer’s work and reached a similar conclusion (Nickell 1995, 61–63).

Elvis’s Ghost

Among the places Dorothy Sherry claims to have astrally traveled with Elvis is the Las Vegas Hilton. His spirit reportedly haunts “numerous locations” in the building (“Haunted” 2008), and the site is listed in Dennis William Hauck’s Haunted Places: The National Directory (1996, 262). (Again, see figure 1.)

In hopes of catching a glimpse of the specter, I visited the Hilton during a stay in Las Vegas. (Although I was there to receive an award, I decided to make the trip a working one as well.) I was accompanied to the famous hotel and casino by colleague Vaughn Rees (then with our CFI/West office in Los Angeles).

We prowled the spacious resort’s byways but were unable to see the King’s ghost. A security guard discounted the idea that Elvis haunted the site. So did an information agent, who responded, “Absolutely not!” She told us she had worked there for thirty-five years, extending back to the time when Presley actually performed at the hotel. (She added that her father had once received a Cadillac as a gift from him.) Yet she stated that she had never experienced—nor even heard of—Elvis’s ghost haunting the premises. Here, as elsewhere, it seems ghosts are only likely to appear to those with vivid imaginations.

Figure 2. The author at an Elvis-Eats-Here site (a restaurant at Underground Atlanta), part of American jokelore.

However, on one occasion I was challenged to explain a “spirit” photo of Elvis and his twin Jesse that supposedly depicted their visages and hands. In the photo, they appeared in mist behind an erstwhile Elvis impersonator who purports “to host the soul” of Jesse (“Best” 1994). The singer made highly emotional claims about the picture (a rejected shot from an entertainment magazine’s photo session). He called it “miraculous” and “supernatural.” However, I explained otherwise when he and I appeared together on the radio show The Night Side with Richard Syrett (CFRB Toronto, February 25, 2001).

I had in the meantime investigated the case with photo expert Rob McElroy. We learned from those on the photo shoot that the “mist” was cigarette smoke blown in blue light for effect. The photo effects were “an accident,” according to the art director. It was she who actually snapped that photo while a writer at the shoot darted in and out of the scene to adjust the singer’s collar. “I always knew it was me,” the writer admitted. The glitch was affected by the combined burst of light from the electronic flash and the slower (1/4-second) exposure from the camera’s shutter. The result was that the singer’s right hand and face were both sharp and blurred and that the intruding writer’s underexposed hand and face appeared as extra images (McElroy 2001). Not surprisingly, perhaps, the singer did not accept this explanation.

The impulse that prompts Elvis encounters is the emotional unwillingness of fans to accept his death. This is the same impulse that has helped fuel the Elvis-impersonator industry,2 just as it made possible the impostors of an earlier time who claimed to be the “real” death-surviving cult personalities of John Wilkes Booth, Jesse James, or Billy the Kid (Nickell 1993). However, no credible evidence that Elvis survived has surfaced since his reported death at age forty-two. And as the pathologist who performed the autopsy on him is quoted as saying, “If he wasn’t dead before I did the autopsy, he sure was afterwards!” (“Elvis” 2008).

Although his rocky life shows he was in many ways ill-suited for stardom—let alone mythology or, heaven forbid, deification—Elvis Presley does remain a larger-than-life figure for his influence on pop-culture and, especially, for music that will no doubt last for generations.

Acknowledgments

I wish once again to express my gratitude to Mel Lipman and the American Humanist Association for their coveted Isaac Asimov science award. I also want to thank Vaughn Rees and CFI Libraries director Tim Binga for their tireless help and John and Mary Frantz for financial assistance in my investigations.

Notes

1. Interviews by Joe Nickell (with Vaughn Rees), March 7, 2004. The information agent wrote her first name, “Roseanne,” on a hotel business card but did not otherwise want to be identified.
2. The “Elvis impersonators” phenomenon actually started years prior to the star’s death (“Elvis” 2008).

References

• Banks, Amanda Carson. 1996. In Brunvand 1996, 221–222.
• Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. 1991. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House.
• “Best epiphany.” 1994. Hamilton This Month (now Hamilton Magazine), summer, 40.
• Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1996. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing.
• Christopher, Milbourne. 1975. Mediums, Mystics and the Occult. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.
• Elvis Presley phenomenon. 2008. Wikipedia. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_sightings (accessed August 4, 2008).
• Elvis Is Alive Museum again for sale on eBay. 2008. Buffalo News, September 23.
• The Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board. 2008. Available online at http://www.elvissightingbulletinboard.com (accessed August 4, 2008).
• Holzer, Hans. 1979. Star Ghosts. New York: Leisure Books.
• McElroy, Rob. 2001. Report of February 18, together with interview notes, etc., in author’s extensive case file.
• Nickell, Joe. 1993. Outlaw impostors. In Stein 1993, 112–113.
• —. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
• —. 2001. Phantoms, frauds or fantasies? In Hauntings and Poltergeists: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. James Houran and Rense Lange. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co.
• —. 2004. The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky.
• Southwell, David, and Sean Twist. 2004. Conspiracy Files. New York: Gramercy Books.
• Stein, Gordon. 1993. Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Detroit: Gale Research.
• West, Red, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler. 1977. Elvis: What Happened? As told to Steve Dunleavy. New York: Ballantine.
• Wilson, Sheryl C., and Theodore X. Barber. 1983. The fantasy-prone personality. In Imagery, Current Theory, Research, and Application, ed. A.A. Sheikh, 340–387. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
• Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow and author of numerous books. His Web site is http://www.joenickell.com.

locales around the world. It is so ubiquitous, in fact, that many people simply assume that there are facts and figures to support the idea. So what are the actual facts? What is the basis of the debate? Is it really possible that Elvis faked his death and went into hiding only to reveal himself through various means many years later?

The answer is a resounding no. There are no facts to support the theory that Elvis faked his death, and the debate itself is not valid. It is time to set the record straight and properly frame the issue because this faulty debate has gone on far too long. Many Elvis fans are tired of it, the tabloids seem to have become tired of it, and certainly the Presley family has heard enough about it.

Let’s begin our look at the “Elvis is alive” debate with a stroll through Dealey Plaza, where in November 1963 one of the most complex, evidence-based debates in history was born.

The Texas School Book Depository still stands today on the corner of Elm and N. Houston Streets in Dallas, Texas. On November 22, 1963, bullets allegedly fired from the sixth floor of the Depository pierced the late autumn air and changed the course of history. President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. The facts were quickly assembled, disseminated, and written in the history books. Oswald did it; no question about it. But then came the questions and the alternate fact patterns. Could Oswald really have accomplished such a feat of marksmanship? What about the eyewitnesses who saw smoke and heard gunshots from the infamous “grassy knoll” on the northwest side of the plaza? What is fact, what is rumor, and what is strictly fiction? The debate continues to this day, but the debate is nonetheless based on the evidence and on one’s interpretation of that evidence. Thus, facts guide the debate and help to illustrate the shades of gray that comprise its mosaic.

Heading about 450 miles northeast to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, it’s August 16, 1977, and Elvis Presley’s lifeless body is discovered on the bathroom floor of his upstairs bedroom suite. An ambulance is summoned, and the paramedics, failing to resuscitate the victim, deliver the body to the Emergency Department at Baptist Memorial Hospital. Approximately thirty minutes later, Elvis Presley is pronounced dead, ostensibly from cardiac arrhythmia and heart disease. The ultimate finding from Shelby County medical examiner Dr. Jerry Francisco will baffle some people, and the cause of death will be debated and deconstructed for many years, but there will be no question that a death did in fact occur until a few years later.

Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, the Elvis “conspiracy” was introduced and propagated as a parallel debate alongside the cause-of-death debate. On one side was the cardiac arrhythmia vs. drug overdose debate. On the other side was the alive vs. dead debate and the faked death vs. actual death debate. The claims and allegations were amassed and became part of the Elvis lexicon: his middle name is misspelled on the gravestone, so Elvis must be sending us a message that he is alive; Elvis’s voice was recorded during a phone call to Gail Brewer-Giorgio, the godmother of the Elvis-is-alive underground; Elvis’s Lloyds of London life insurance policy was never cashed, meaning the estate did not want to commit insurance fraud after Elvis faked his death; and myriad other small bits of information that were woven into the fact pattern. Together, the “Alivers” contend, these pieces of information indicate that Elvis Presley faked his death.

In 2009, we are at the point where the Elvis-is-alive debate needs to be reassessed and then eliminated altogether. The reality is that there are no facts or figures to suggest, prove, or indicate that Elvis Presley faked his death. For more than two decades, the conspiracy debate has been framed as a battle between the “facts” to support a faked death and the “facts” to support an actual death. But the debate is not valid and can be boiled down to this: the “Alivers” have no facts, and their entire position is based on inaccuracy, faulty reasoning, and myth.

Let’s look at several primary pieces of so-called evidence used to support the notion that Elvis faked his death.

The Spelling on the Gravestone

Alivers allege that because Elvis spelled his middle name with a single A (Aron), the misspelling of the name (as Aaron) on the gravestone has sinister implications. It’s true that Elvis spelled his middle name with a single A, as there are numerous examples of his signature where he signs the name “Elvis Aron Presley.” Later in his life, he supposedly wanted to change the spelling to the double-A version, and his estate offers a reasonable explanation for the double-A spelling on the gravestone. The point, though, is that this “evidence” so often cited by those who believe Elvis faked his death is not evidence at all. First, we really don’t know how Elvis spelled or wanted to spell his name at the end of his life, and we don’t know why Vernon Presley, Elvis’s father, chose the double-A spelling for the grave marker. Before anyone can comment on whether the misspelling indicates something is afoot, we must first establish that the name is, in fact, misspelled, and so far there is no conclusive evidence that it is. For the Alivers’ position, then, this is not a valid piece of evidence.

Elvis Sightings

Elvis has supposedly been seen at various times and in various locations over the past twenty-five years or so. None of these sightings, however, has been proved to be that of Elvis Presley. The typical “sighting” has these, or a variation of these, components: The man had jet-black hair styled as Elvis had his in the 1970s; the man knew things only Elvis would know; the man made cryptic remarks about Elvis Presley, about Elvis’s family, and about Elvis’s death; the man acted in a suspicious manner, like he was trying to hide himself or was afraid of being seen; and the list goes on and on. Again, though, there is nothing to indicate that any of these sightings was of Elvis Presley post-August 1977. Thus, “Elvis sightings” are not valid pieces of evidence.

I would note that before the conspiracy talk began in the early 1980s, Elvis was never sighted after August 16, 1977. The only claim of someone seeing Elvis after the time of his death takes us to the Memphis International Airport where he was allegedly seen purchasing a ticket for travel to South America, but as I outline in my book Elvis Decoded, which addresses many of these conspiracy claims, there were no international tickets sold at the Memphis airport in August of 1977. Further, there is no one who can corroborate this claim, trace the claim, or give any insight into its origin. From my research, this ticket-purchasing tale has absolutely no basis in fact, so it appears that Elvis sightings began only after the conspiracy was introduced.

The Active Lloyds of London Insurance Policy

Alivers use this oft-cited claim to support the idea that Elvis faked his death, saying that since this insurance policy is still active, the Presley estate must have been aware that collecting on a life insurance policy when the policyholder is still alive is insurance fraud. Thus, the reasoning goes, Elvis must have faked his death; the active insurance policy tells us so. This theory is a glaring example of the Alivers simply not doing any research and regurgitating “talking points” year after year. The insurance policy in question was in fact never purchased and thus is neither active nor inactive (cashed). It never existed. This is yet another example of “evidence” cited by Alivers that is not evidence at all. It’s just a myth that no one who perpetuates the theory has ever bothered to investigate. Thus, the Lloyds of London insurance policy is not a valid piece of evidence.

The Replacement Body at Graceland

According to the “replacement body” theory, the dead body that was discovered at Graceland, delivered to the emergency room, autopsied, and ultimately buried at Graceland six weeks later (the casket had been placed in a mausoleum at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis on August 18, 1977, the day of Elvis’s funeral) was donated as part of an elaborate death hoax. The Presley Commission, a group self-appointed to investigate Elvis’s death, outlined this strange theory in their 1995 publication “The Presley Report,” which was supposed to be an in-depth analysis of Elvis’s death but in reality was a piece of death-hoax propaganda (if there is such a thing).

The replacement body theory is wholly illogical on its face, but if one delves more deeply into the plot, it is quite obvious that there was not even a simulacrum of critical thinking applied to this narrative and that the originators of this claim didn’t properly analyze the data. To put it simply, the Presley Commission applied medical data to the body on the autopsy table (that they claim was the body of someone else) that was extracted from the medical charts of Elvis Presley when he was hospitalized several years earlier at Baptist Memorial Hospital. That is, they applied Elvis’s medical conditions to the body that they claim was not Elvis Presley. And to make matters worse, they incorrectly interpreted that data and reached faulty conclusions.

On this replacement body theory and on all subsequent conclusions that pertain to this theory as presented by the Presley Commission, we find that this is not a valid piece of evidence.

Elvis in Witness Protection

Another standard claim is that Elvis Presley was a Federal agent appointed by President Richard Nixon, and in this capacity his life was in danger and he had to “disappear.” This theory further provides that Elvis was part of a broad investigation by the FBI into a group called “The Fraternity,” which was involved in many complex criminal schemes, one of which was the illegal acquisition of one of Elvis’s personal airplanes. The investigation in question was called “Operation Fountain Pen” (OPFOPEN). The Alivers take this string of connected claims one step further, contending that Elvis had to go into hiding because of his damaging testimony against “The Fraternity” before a grand jury on August 15, 1977, which put his life in danger.

A proper reading of the facts, however, leads us to the following:

• Elvis was not a Federal agent. Nixon conferred on Elvis the status of “Special Assistant” for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) and gave him the appropriate badge, but this was an honorary position and was in all likelihood an accommodating gesture on Nixon’s part. Elvis had volunteered his services as a Federal “agent-at-large,” and Nixon wanted to thank him in some way. Since such a title and position did not exist, however, Nixon did the next best thing: he appointed Elvis as an advisor of sorts. Badge in hand, Elvis returned to Memphis and proudly showed off his new acquisition. Did he ever assist or advise the BNDD? Of course not.
• Elvis did not testify in this case, though he may have testified had he not died during that particular time period. Vernon Presley, acting on Elvis’s behalf, was also involved in the OPFOPEN investigation—far more involved than Elvis was—and did testify via videotape before the grand jury.
• The grand jury was not seated, and no indictments were handed down on August 15, 1977, as the Alivers contend. The indictments against several members of “The Fraternity” were presented in October 1977, some two months later. If we remove the August 15, 1977, grand jury claim, then there is no foundation for the claim that Elvis had to disappear the following day, August 16, 1977.
• If Elvis Presley was in so much danger that he had to fake his own death and go into witness protection (why both?), we would have to ask the obvious question: Why wasn’t Vernon Presley also afforded Federal protection? After all, it was Vernon, not Elvis, who testified against “The Fraternity.” There isn’t any evidence that the Presley family was threatened in any way following Vernon’s recorded testimony.

The fact is, Elvis Presley was not a Federal agent, and he did not testify against this group of career criminals. As with the other examples above, the claim that Elvis had to “disappear” is not a valid piece of evidence, and the Alivers have created a tale of intrigue and suspense where none exists.

When all of this so-called evidence is added together, the Alivers contend that their case is strengthened. The reasoning is that while one piece of evidence on its own does not prove Elvis faked his death, the entire cumulative body of evidence does suggest—and to some does prove—that Elvis did not die as reported on August 16, 1977. However, if each piece of evidence cited has absolutely no value, what happens when it’s all added up? What happens when zero is added to zero? When all of the evidence is added up, the sum is still zero. There is simply no probative weight to any of the so-called evidence.

Returning to the comparison between the JFK-assassination debate and the “Elvis is alive” debate, we see that the former is focused on fact-based evidence, while the latter is based on an almost pathological misunderstanding of the data. There are voluminous facts and figures to debate when we look at how Kennedy was killed, and it is likely the strength and weight of the facts and the interpretations offered by both sides that keep the debate going after nearly forty-six years. This is not the case with the “evidence” in the “Elvis is alive” debate; this evidence is anecdotal at best and rises to no acceptable standard of evidence.

The body of evidence to support and prove that Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, on the other hand, is verifiable and unimpeachable. To wit, we have eyewitness statements from scores of Elvis’s family members, friends, and associates, as well as from others who saw the body from the time it was discovered on the bathroom floor through the closing of the casket following the funeral service two days later. In addition, we have the unbiased and disinterested statements and/or testimony from Elvis’s personal physician, the doctors on the autopsy team, the administration at Baptist Memorial Hospital, the emergency room personnel, the Shelby County medical examiner, the investigator from the Shelby County medical examiner’s office, the paramedics who responded to the emergency call, the staff at the Memphis Funeral Home, Dade County medical examiner Dr. Joseph Davis (who reviewed the autopsy materials in 1994), and the various guards and personnel who saw the body at Baptist Memorial Hospital and at the Memphis Funeral Home during the time period in question (the afternoon of August 16, 1977, through the afternoon of August 18, 1977).

Several years ago, another construct of the alive vs. dead debate was presented to me in the form of a question: “Can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977?” How did the burden of proof get shifted to the side where all the direct and circumstantial evidence supports the fact that Elvis Presley did in fact die on August 16, 1977? By asking this question, the Alivers are attempting to prop up the debate as if they bear no burden to prove their claims. They are insinuating that if I cannot absolutely prove that Elvis Presley died, he must have faked his death. It’s a nice trick, but it doesn’t work. The burden of proof, by legal standards, lies with the person who makes the charge. When a person charges that Elvis Presley faked his death—a claim that defies all wisdom, logic, and documented information—the burden to prove that charge falls squarely on that person’s shoulders.

Furthermore, the person making the charge must not only establish positive evidence of his claim but must also negate the oppositional evidence. Have the Alivers negated the statements of eyewitnesses who saw Elvis’s body after he was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm that day? No, they have not. Have they negated the voluminous body of documentation pertaining to the death? No, they have not. Have they negated the statements, many taken under oath, from the physicians who conducted the autopsy on Elvis’s body? No, they have not.

If there are two opposing sides and one side has no facts and no evidence, can there be a valid debate? The answer is no, which is why the idea that Elvis faked his death should be erased from our collective consciousness. The debate itself is not valid.