Today's episode is brought to you by Manscaped On August 16th 1977 Elvis Presley passed away at the age of 42 and millions of people all
over the world went into mourning but almost as soon as the news broke rumors started that he
faked his death and went into hiding on today's episode of Strange and Unusual Tales we're gonna
dive into the history of this conspiracy theory and try to separate fact from fiction in order to
answer the question did Elvis Presley really die? but before we get into all the details if you like
these kinds of videos take a second and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already it's a small
thing that makes a big difference all right with all that said let's get into it Did Elvis Presley really pass away? I saw Elvis Presley at Weinsberg Inn in Clyde Ohio the search is over ladies and gentlemen Elvis lives and we're gonna prove it Now the gist of the Elvis is alive conspiracy
theory claims that in December of 1970 President Nixon swore in Elvis as a Federal Agent at Large.
Elvis then spent the following years working undercover with the Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs and through this appointment he eventually gave up information to the FBI that
led to the takedown of an international crime syndicate with ties to the mafia. In retribution
the mob put a hit on him and Elvis was placed into the witness protection program. His death
was fabricated by the U.S. Department of Justice using a wax dummy in the open casket funeral. Since
going into hiding Elvis has remained in contact with his family and has been seen in the public
on rare occasions. In the early 90s believers of the theory thought that he would return to
the public spotlight within the next few years This of course has yet to happen. Now the bulk
of this theory comes from three key components his real-life involvement with the U.S. Government,
the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death, and lastly the various sightings of Elvis over
the years. Let's start with his connection to the U.S. Government By 1970 Elvis had become an avid
fan of law enforcement and started to acquire a large collection of police badges, often getting
one from every city he performed in. Some of these even carried honorary titles such as captain in
reserve with the Memphis PD and this is important because when he wrote a letter to President Nixon
in December of 1970, i think he really just wanted a badge to add to his collection. But in his
letter, Elvis expressed interest in becoming what he called a Federal Agent at Large. Which
is something he either heard or made up because it doesn't really exist. He went on to say that
he was concerned by what he saw as a decline in America with rampant drug use and communist ideas.
He felt that he could be most useful in getting an anti-drug message to the youth because and i quote
"the drug culture, the hippie elements, the SDS, Black Panthers, etc do not consider me as their enemy or
as they call it the establishment" he later added i'm right in the middle of the whole thing where
i can and will do the most good" Also the fact that he asked not to be given a title or an appointed
position i think led some people to believe he became an undercover agent. Anyway after dropping
off the letter in the morning of December 21st 1970, a meeting was scheduled later that same day
between Elvis and Nixon at the White House. During the course of their conversation Elvis showed off
a few of his police badges and then reiterated his knowledge of drug culture and communist
brainwashing techniques. He expressed his desire to serve his country and help out with the drug
problem any way he could. Nixon agreed and towards the end of the meeting Elvis asked for a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to add to his collection Nixon asked his aide to look into it
and Elvis departed. Later that day he was appointed as a special assistant to the BNDD and received
his badge but that's as far as it went. It was an honorary position with no real authority he wasn't
sworn in nor did he become an undercover agent Alright let's fast forward a bit to May of 1976.
Elvis was looking to sell his JetStar airplane at this point he had several private planes and he
needed to let this one go because it wasn't even air worthy. His father Vernon who handed all of
Elvis' finances, was tasked with finding a buyer and through his search he met with a man named
Frederick Pro who encouraged Vernon to agree to a very complicated leasing arrangement with his
company World Aircraft Exchange Unknown to Vernon was that Frederick was actually a con man and a member of a criminal ring with ties to the mob by the Spring of '77 Frederick and his partners
managed to siphon off more than a million dollars from the Presley estate. Now at the same time the
FBI were conducting an undercover investigation into this group. By mid-August of 1977 they were
ready to bring their case to a Grand Jury and by pure coincidence Elvis died around the same time
so you can kind of see how people got the idea that Elvis ratted on these guys but here's the
thing the case really didn't involve Elvis at all he was purely a victim in the whole thing and
even the FBI agents involved the case say that elvis had no idea their investigation was going
on before he died which brings us to the fact that we really don't know what killed Elvis we know that his girlfriend found him
unresponsive on the floor of the upstairs bathroom and even though he was officially pronounced dead at 3:30 pm he most likely passed away between the hours
of 9am and 11am that morning. An autopsy was performed at 7pm the same day but the report
was never publicly released and even stranger the Memphis Medical Examiner announced that
the official cause of death was a heart attack but this was in the afternoon way before the
autopsy. The pathologists performing the autopsy thought this was possible but also suggested that
he could have died from polypharmacy since he had at least eight prescription drugs in his system at
the time of his death in the years since several medical experts have looked the report but
none of them have come to the same conclusion which leads some believers to claim that this is
evidence of a cover-up but determining a cause of death isn't an exact science and Elvis wasn't
in the best shape. We know that at the time of his death he was suffering from diabetes, glaucoma,
an a regular heartbeat, high blood pressure, liver damage and constipation. The last of which was most
likely caused from all the drugs he was taking this fact alone led at least one medical expert to
conclude his heart stopped when he was straining too hard on the toilet as those who saw him lying
face down on the bathroom floor say it looked like he slumped forward from the toilet. Believers will
also point to the fact that the autopsy report is private and not available to the public meaning
it's another piece of the cover-up however the reality is because the overseeing doctor concluded
that he died from natural causes and not from a drug overdose or foul play the report remains
private. Had he concluded otherwise then it would become public record ultimately this has more
to do with Tennessee law rather than a carefully arranged cover-up. Then there's the issue with the
medical examiner's report in which some people claim Elvis wrote himself. Even a 1991 TV special
got a handwriting expert to claim this as fact but When i look at both documents cited i don't
see a connection it looks like two different people to me And this brings us to the funeral
which happened two days later on August 18th now there's a theory that a wax dummy was used
in place for the open casket viewing and this comes from a photo of Elvis on the cover of the
September 6th issue of the National Enquirer a lot of people thought it didn't look like Elvis
of the 70s but more like a 1950s Elvis with a weird pug nose Those that were at the viewing say
Elvis looked really bad in the casket and that he might have even been wearing a wig which contrasts
with the photo. Most likely there was some photo manipulation done and / or they faked the photo
using a picture of a younger Elvis. We'll never really know the full story since the original
negative was conveniently destroyed in a fire Also with over a thousand people in attendance you
would think one of them would notice a wax dummy There were also reports that the 10 pallbearers
had trouble lifting and moving the coffin which supposedly weighed 900 pounds much more than a
normal casket this led some to speculate that it was fitted with some sort of cooling system which
made it heavier this system was used to keep the wax body from melting under the warm Memphis sun.
However when i look at the footage of the funeral the pallbearers look more like they are struggling
to walk as a group. Plus Elvis' long time friend and road manager Joe Esposito said the casket weighed
900 pounds because it was made of solid copper And finally we have the curious case of his
gravestone spelling his middle name with two A's when his birth certificate has it listed with
one A. Many see this misspelling as another clue but i think it has more to do with his grieving
father respecting his son's wishes According to Marty Lacker, Elvis' close friend and co-best man
at his wedding, in 1966 he asked Elvis why he spelled his name with one A. Elvis replied it's because his
parents weren't great at spelling when he was born Elvis then turned to his father and said from
now on i want my middle name to be spelled with two A's just like in the bible His 1972 divorce documents confirm his legal name status with two A's And this brings us to the last component,
arguably the most infamous and entertaining the Elvis Sightings Now i don't have time to cover
them all but i'll go through the most well-known starting with the earliest in which someone claims
to have seen Elvis at the Memphis International Airport on the same day he died. Elvis reportedly
bought a ticket to Buenos Aires and went by the name of Jon Burrows which is what he used
when checking into hotels to avoid attention The only problems the Memphis Airport did not
offer flights to Argentina at that time, there's no record of a passenger by the name of Jon
Burrows and there's no source witness. The next big sighting occurred on a New Year's Day tour
of Graceland in 1978. Mike Joseph snapped a pic of the pool house and only after getting the film
developed that he noticed what looks to be elvis sitting in the pool house. It was later determined
to be a photo of Elvis' security guard and touring wardrobe manager Al Strata but that didn't stop
the photo from making the rounds within Elvis fan circles and probably fueled the conspiracy theory
around the US. Also in 1978 the book Orion was released and it was about how a famous southern
singer faked his death. The singer character was very clearly based on Elvis, in fact many of the
details of this conspiracy theory come from this book and it even inspired singer Jimmy Ellis to
don a mask and call himself Orion. His first album was released in 1979 titled Reborn with a cover
featuring a very Elvis looking guy in a coffin because he sounded so similar to Elvis this caused
some listeners to believe he really was Elvis and of course his record label did nothing to
stop such notions as it was good for record sales Eventually he became his own artist releasing
several more albums throughout the 80s and even scored a few hit singles
for himself on the country charts 1981 saw the emergence of the singer Sivle Nora
or Elvis Aron spelled backwards this included a book, an album, and even a videotape of the back of
Sivle which was meant to be proof that Elvis was still alive but now going by Sivle to avoid
attention. In reality Sivle was just a really good Elvis voice impersonator by the name of
David Darlock. Then in 1984 a photo was published showing Muhammad Ali with Jesse Jackson and lo
and behold in the background is Elvis Presley Now this wouldn't be that far-fetched if Elvis
was alive since he and Muhammad Ali were friends but the truth was the man in the photo was Ali's
agent Larry Kolb. 1988 saw the release of the book Is Elvis Alive? bundled with a cassette featuring
an exclusive interview with someone claiming to be Elvis In truth the voice on the tape was David
Darlock again. As for the book, this was really a rebranded version of the earlier book Orion, with
the same ideas but now in direct reference to Elvis Regardless the book became a huge seller
and led the author to give TV interviews on Geraldo and Larry King Live, further popularizing
the conspiracy theory. Also in 1988, a string of sightings occurred in the Kalamazoo region of
Michigan beginning with a report of Elvis at a Burger King. These sightings became a lucrative
subject matter for the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News, whose outlandish coverage turned
the conspiracy into a phenomenon in league with UFOs and Bigfoot sightings. But i would say
the peak of the conspiracy theory revolves around two live TV specials: one in 1991 titled The Elvis
Files and the '92 sequel The Elvis Conspiracy. Both were hosted by actor Bill Bixby who worked with Elvis on two movies. Both of the specials featured interviews with experts authors eyewitnesses and even has some glorious, over-the-top reenactments And even today the conspiracy persists even
in strange places such as the 1990 film Home Alone A recent theory claimed the bearded
gentleman in line behind Catherine O'Hara was Elvis but he was later identified as Gary
Grott, Then in 2016 this footage of a man on the grounds of Graceland surfaced leading some
to believe this was Elvis hiding in plain sight Of course this later turned out to be an employee of Graceland. So yeah i think it's pretty clear that Elvis is dead
and not coming back anytime soon i think back in the late 80s and early 90s most people accepted the fact that Elvis died
but the books and TV shows selling the conspiracy as well as all the Elvis sightings gave some sense
of hope and I think that hope is what fueled the conspiracy i mean who wouldn't want
Elvis to come back for one last tour but even if you're still convinced Elvis is alive, these sightings can't go on forever even if you live to 100 we only have a few more years of plausible sightings.
In the end I believe elvis really left the building in 1977. As you may already know Elvis' motto was "Taking Care
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be sure to let me know what you think of the conspiracy theory. Have you seen Elvis?
Let me know with a comment below Until then, thank you all so much for watching i'm your
Vinyl Geek and i'll catch you on the flip side You know it's funny when i was looking through
the White House files from when Elvis stopped by one of the funniest things i found was a couple of ideas
that the White House came up with on how best to work with Elvis One was an hour-long
TV special where Elvis would sing popular songs and then translate the lyrics to educate parents
on the drug and anti-government themes present And another idea was having him record an album at
the Federal Narcotic Rehabilitation and Research Facility with the theme being "Get High on Life" I
can't help but think this was inspired by Johnny Cash's Live at Folsom Prison album. Sadly none of
these ideas came to fruition. Anyway thanks again for watching uh if you haven't already check out
this playlist for more music conspiracy theories or watch my video on my Elvis decanters over
on my other channel Mixing with the Geek
