Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / The Death of Elvis Presley Pt. 1: Orion

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The Death of Elvis Presley Pt. 1: Orion · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 1: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Heidar.
0:33
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm your host,
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Speaker 2: Adam Todd Brown joining me is co host this week,
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Speaker 2: my favorite co host of all no co host. I
0:45
Speaker 2: don't even have guests this week. I am going it alone,
0:49
Speaker 2: which is a thing I haven't done in quite a
0:52
Speaker 2: while on this podcast. But here's the thing. I'm diving
0:55
Speaker 2: back into the theory that music icon Elvis Presley faked
1:01
Speaker 2: his death. Now, this is not NPR, so I won't
1:05
Speaker 2: insult your pop culture knowledge and pad this out by
1:09
Speaker 2: spending the next ten minutes explaining who Elvis Presley was
1:13
Speaker 2: and why he mattered to people the way he did.
1:16
Speaker 2: Everyone knows that part. And hey, if you don't just
1:19
Speaker 2: google it, you know why am I doing this episode alone?
1:23
Speaker 2: I don't know. In my opinion, this is one of
1:25
Speaker 2: those conspiracies where it borders on pointless to even try
1:30
Speaker 2: to talk to people about it anymore. Granted, I'm wasting
1:35
Speaker 2: that time talking about it with you, but you can't
1:39
Speaker 2: fire back your objections at me in real time. That's
1:43
Speaker 2: what I'm trying to avoid by not having a co
1:46
Speaker 2: host here, because I will be the first to admit
1:48
Speaker 2: there are several parts of the Elvis faked his death
1:52
Speaker 2: theory that seem pretty damn unbelievable, and I'm going to
1:58
Speaker 2: talk about a bunch of them today. Over the years,
2:01
Speaker 2: and this is another reason I don't have a guest
2:03
Speaker 2: on this episode. The idea that Elvis might have faked
2:06
Speaker 2: his death has come to be viewed as more comedy
2:10
Speaker 2: than anything else, and if you even sort of believe it,
2:15
Speaker 2: you are now part of that joke also. But it
2:18
Speaker 2: wasn't always that way. If you listen to my series
2:21
Speaker 2: on Jonestown, you might recall that back when Jonestown happened,
2:26
Speaker 2: there were plenty of mainstream outlets and even an elected
2:30
Speaker 2: official or two who legitimately questioned if the CIA was
2:34
Speaker 2: behind what happened there. But since then, the idea that
2:38
Speaker 2: the CIA might have been involved in Jonestown has become
2:42
Speaker 2: complete conspiracy theory nonsense in the eyes of most people.
2:47
Speaker 2: Same thing here in this case. The ABC News program
2:50
Speaker 2: twenty twenty dedicated an entire hour to the very valid
2:55
Speaker 2: questions surrounding the medical Examiner's report. In the Death of
3:00
Speaker 2: Elvis Presley, and on the next episode, I will dedicate
3:04
Speaker 2: an hour, probably not a whole hour, to talking about
3:08
Speaker 2: that hour of television because it conveniently still exists online.
3:13
Speaker 2: As for today, I want to talk about a different
3:15
Speaker 2: piece of Elvis conspiracy media. It's a nineteen eighty eight
3:19
Speaker 2: book called Is Elvis Alive by a writer named Gail
3:24
Speaker 2: Brewer Georgio. If you don't know, and you almost certainly
3:28
Speaker 2: do not, Gail Brewer Georgio is, for all intents and purposes,
3:32
Speaker 2: the architect of the theory that Elvis faked his death,
3:37
Speaker 2: and the story of how she got to that point
3:40
Speaker 2: in her life is covered in this book. It's one
3:43
Speaker 2: of two of her books that I want to cover.
3:47
Speaker 2: If you've listened to me talk about the Elvis theory enough,
3:50
Speaker 2: you know my theory of choice is that he faked
3:53
Speaker 2: his death and joined the witness protection program. And you've
3:57
Speaker 2: probably heard me mention that a woman wrote a book about
4:00
Speaker 2: that theory back in the day. Gail Brewer Georgio is
4:04
Speaker 2: that woman. Is Elvis Alive is not that book. As
4:08
Speaker 2: it turns out, Gail Brewer Georgio kind of made a
4:11
Speaker 2: career out of writing books about Elvis's death. Is Elvis
4:15
Speaker 2: Alive was the first, although it was initially titled The
4:19
Speaker 2: Most Incredible Elvis Presley Story Ever Told? And indeed, Gail
4:24
Speaker 2: Brewer Georgio does have a highly incredible story to tell,
4:28
Speaker 2: and we'll get to that shortly, But first let's talk
4:31
Speaker 2: about a little bit of weirdness surrounding the availability of
4:35
Speaker 2: those books. A lot of her books are out of
4:38
Speaker 2: print now, but most of them are readily available on
4:41
Speaker 2: eBay and book reseller sites for real cheap, most of them.
4:47
Speaker 2: One book, nineteen ninety seven's Elvis Is Alive is hard
4:52
Speaker 2: to find and approximately ten times more expensive than all
4:57
Speaker 2: of her other books. And wouldn't you know it? That
5:00
Speaker 2: is the book that's about the theory that Elvis teamed
5:04
Speaker 2: up with the FBI on an investigation into a criminal
5:07
Speaker 2: syndicate and then joined witness protection afterward. Go figure, But
5:12
Speaker 2: don't worry, provided the Feds don't intercept it. A copy
5:15
Speaker 2: of Elvis Is Alive is on its way, and I'll
5:19
Speaker 2: cover that book on a episode in the very near future.
5:22
Speaker 2: As for now, let's get into Gail Brewer Georgio's first
5:26
Speaker 2: Elvis book, which again is called is Elvis Alive. The
5:30
Speaker 2: first thing I want to talk about is the cassette.
5:32
Speaker 2: This version of the book, the version called is Elvis Alive,
5:36
Speaker 2: comes packaged with a sixty minute cassette that features Gail
5:40
Speaker 2: Brewer Georgio being interviewed about a mysterious recording that was
5:46
Speaker 2: given to her that it was claimed, was Elvis talking
5:50
Speaker 2: to an unnamed friend in nineteen eighty one. Pretty tough
5:54
Speaker 2: to pull off if he actually died on August sixteenth,
5:58
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven. The recording was sent to a voice
6:01
Speaker 2: expert of some sort and they concluded that the voice
6:05
Speaker 2: on the recording is Elvis. She has a copy of
6:09
Speaker 2: the report from that voice expert in the book, so
6:12
Speaker 2: that's exciting. However, there's another book out there that is
6:16
Speaker 2: also called Elvis Is Alive by a writer named Xaviant Hayes.
6:21
Speaker 2: Okay one, judging from the reviews, people seem to clean
6:25
Speaker 2: goddamn hate that book. But I did read a little
6:28
Speaker 2: bit of it on Google Books, and it claims that
6:32
Speaker 2: the tape included with the Gail Brewer Giorgio book is
6:35
Speaker 2: the voice of Elvis because that recording is pieced together
6:40
Speaker 2: from two previous recordings that existed before he died. What
6:44
Speaker 2: I find interesting about that claim is that the first
6:48
Speaker 2: version of Gail's book, back when it was called the
6:51
Speaker 2: Most Incredible Elvis Story Ever Told, did not include that cassette.
6:56
Speaker 2: So after publishing the claims in this book, someone approached
7:00
Speaker 2: Aale Brewer Georgio and said, hey, you have no idea
7:03
Speaker 2: how right you are. Here's a tape that proves it.
7:05
Speaker 2: And it turns out that tape is a fake, but
7:08
Speaker 2: also one that's faked well enough that it could sort
7:11
Speaker 2: a fool a voice expert. Do you really have no
7:14
Speaker 2: other questions here? Guy who wrote the other Elvis Is
7:16
Speaker 2: a Live book? Who made that tape? Why did they
7:19
Speaker 2: make it? Why did they give it to Gail Brewer Georgio?
7:22
Speaker 2: Those are all things I would love to know, because
7:25
Speaker 2: it sounds like it could just as easily be a
7:28
Speaker 2: mirage men kind of thing, where the government will give
7:31
Speaker 2: a person who's on to something fake information so they
7:35
Speaker 2: can discredit them once they go public with that fake information.
7:40
Speaker 2: Here is Gail Brewer Georgio talking about receiving that tape,
7:45
Speaker 2: and this is from the cassette that comes with the
7:47
Speaker 2: Is Elvis Alive book.
7:49
Speaker 3: A lot of things had happened during that period. Of course,
7:52
Speaker 3: that's why I've written a book about the book. But
7:54
Speaker 3: last year I was presented with a tape in front
7:57
Speaker 3: of witnesses. There were two ladies that that presented me
8:00
Speaker 3: with a tape.
8:01
Speaker 4: It was just an audio taper, videotapeer.
8:04
Speaker 3: Audio, strictly audio. I was told right up front that
8:09
Speaker 3: the tape had been doctored. The person that the voice
8:13
Speaker 3: is talking to has cut their voice out deliberately. The
8:18
Speaker 3: voice on the tape had been talking on the telephone
8:21
Speaker 3: to someone who was recording. The women who had given
8:25
Speaker 3: me the tape really didn't want to say too much.
8:27
Speaker 3: There are other reasons for that, their identity, their personal
8:31
Speaker 3: involvement with Elvis Presley, and also they believed that Elvis Presley,
8:35
Speaker 3: or more than believed. They told me he was alive
8:39
Speaker 3: and that they understood why the things happened to my
8:42
Speaker 3: book that did. I was told to get a voice print.
8:45
Speaker 3: While the voice print expert was in Texas had some
8:48
Speaker 3: association with the Watergate tapes, etc. And they compared it
8:52
Speaker 3: with known interviews with Elvis Presley. The voice print came
8:56
Speaker 3: back December fifteenth of eighty seven, and it came.
8:59
Speaker 4: Back as positive positive meaning.
9:02
Speaker 3: Meaning that the voice on the mystery tape and that
9:05
Speaker 3: of the known element being Elvis Presley, with a reasonable
9:08
Speaker 3: assurance with one and the same. What they were unable
9:13
Speaker 3: to ascertain is when it was actually done.
9:17
Speaker 2: So the writer who says this tape was spliced together
9:21
Speaker 2: from other recordings says it's from a monologue that Elvis
9:26
Speaker 2: did at a show and a nineteen sixty two interview.
9:31
Speaker 2: Those two things are spliced together to make this recording,
9:35
Speaker 2: and they also very helpfully add this clue. Fans should
9:40
Speaker 2: check out the Elvis Aaron Presley box set for the
9:43
Speaker 2: monologue and Golden Celebration for the interview. Helpful but also
9:48
Speaker 2: easier said than done. The Elvis Aaron Presley box set
9:52
Speaker 2: seems to not be on any streaming services, so my
9:56
Speaker 2: only course of action here is to buy it on CD.
10:00
Speaker 2: Golden Celebration is on YouTube, and it is three hours
10:04
Speaker 2: long with no helpful chapters to tell you what track starts,
10:09
Speaker 2: where or where in this three hour recording this interview
10:13
Speaker 2: that ends up being about ten minutes. Where's it at
10:17
Speaker 2: in there? I don't know, but I'm going to fucking
10:20
Speaker 2: look into it and I will get back to you.
10:22
Speaker 2: I trust that I will find everything Elvis says on
10:26
Speaker 2: this tape in those two recordings, But who knows, Maybe
10:30
Speaker 2: I won't until then. There's plenty of other weirdness to
10:33
Speaker 2: get to when it comes to the book Is Elvis Alive.
10:37
Speaker 2: Weirdly enough, Gail Brewer Giorgio's version of events starts with
10:42
Speaker 2: a novel called Orian. She says she started writing this
10:45
Speaker 2: book a few days after Elvis died, and that it
10:49
Speaker 2: took all of fifty four days to finish, as if
10:53
Speaker 2: the book just wrote itself. Here's a quote from the
10:56
Speaker 2: book Is Elvis Alive about the plot of Orion Hero.
11:00
Speaker 2: Orion would be a singer, would win a great prize
11:03
Speaker 2: and would possess psychic attributes because of his gifts, his
11:07
Speaker 2: life would suffer and he would be in great danger.
11:10
Speaker 2: He would sing one last time, then fake his own
11:13
Speaker 2: death by going to a distant shore end quote. Or
11:17
Speaker 2: even better, here's Gail talking about it on that tape
11:20
Speaker 2: that comes with the book.
11:21
Speaker 3: And I created Orian out of a combination of mythology religion,
11:26
Speaker 3: brought it together into a singer. I wrote the book
11:29
Speaker 3: in about fifty four days, at least the first draft.
11:32
Speaker 3: You have to remember, there were literally no books or
11:36
Speaker 3: biographies out about Elvis Presley, so I didn't have anything
11:39
Speaker 3: to copy, and I didn't want to copy. If I
11:41
Speaker 3: had wanted to write a biography, I would a Basically,
11:44
Speaker 3: I wanted to create a hero of fiction, and I
11:46
Speaker 3: wanted that hero to hoax his own death.
11:49
Speaker 4: Now, how did you come up with that idea?
11:51
Speaker 3: Well, in mythology. Basically, the legend Orion has a derivative,
11:57
Speaker 3: which is oriyan aar io n It's about a man
12:01
Speaker 3: who sang. He was being penalized for being a great singer.
12:07
Speaker 3: His life was in danger, and so in order to
12:10
Speaker 3: save his life, he's out to sea and he bakes
12:12
Speaker 3: a sailor floo him sing once more. He jumps to
12:15
Speaker 3: the ocean and is saved by the dolphins and is
12:18
Speaker 3: taken to an island and they think he's dead. The
12:21
Speaker 3: whole story actually comes from the mythology Orion, and it's
12:25
Speaker 3: amazing how close it may have come to the life
12:28
Speaker 3: of Elvis Presley. I guess that's when my troubles began.
12:32
Speaker 2: She includes the prologue from Orion in this book about Elvis,
12:37
Speaker 2: and it will be clear why when this story gets
12:40
Speaker 2: even goddamn crazier in a few minutes. But she claimed
12:44
Speaker 2: she was not trying to write about Elvis directly, but
12:47
Speaker 2: instead quote decided to use the story of Jesus together
12:51
Speaker 2: with mythology and create a contemporary hero, a man who
12:55
Speaker 2: via music, was given the gift of tongues. Now this
12:58
Speaker 2: is where it starts to get real.
12:59
Speaker 3: Well.
13:00
Speaker 2: Gail says a friend of hers read the Orion manuscript
13:03
Speaker 2: and suggested that she send it to a woman named
13:06
Speaker 2: Mae Axton, who, as it turns out, was the co
13:09
Speaker 2: writer of the Elvis hit song Heartbreak Hotel. Gail says
13:13
Speaker 2: she did not know that part. She also says that
13:15
Speaker 2: one of the first things may Axton said to her was, quote,
13:19
Speaker 2: I can't believe what you've written. How do you know
13:22
Speaker 2: so much? End quote? And by how do you know
13:25
Speaker 2: so much? She meant, how do you know so much
13:29
Speaker 2: about Elvis? And Gail brew Er Giorgio does not know
13:32
Speaker 2: that much about Elvis, at least not at this point
13:35
Speaker 2: in her life. And keep in mind, Elvis died young,
13:39
Speaker 2: so the market wasn't flush with Elvis biographies like it
13:44
Speaker 2: started to become after his death. She was basically writing
13:48
Speaker 2: this book at the same time, the people responsible for
13:52
Speaker 2: that glut of Elvis biographies after his death would have
13:55
Speaker 2: been writing their books also, so she could not have
13:57
Speaker 2: used them for source mati. She also includes a copyright
14:02
Speaker 2: from Orion that is dated June nineteen seventy eight, so
14:05
Speaker 2: at the very least, that would put it on the
14:08
Speaker 2: market right around the time that glut of other Elvis
14:12
Speaker 2: biographies showed up. But nevertheless, she apparently nailed a bunch
14:17
Speaker 2: of details about Elvis that the public didn't necessarily know
14:22
Speaker 2: at the time, weird stuff. One example, according to may Axton,
14:26
Speaker 2: was the fact that the hero in Orion had medical
14:30
Speaker 2: issues relating to his eyes, and Elvis was apparently secretly
14:35
Speaker 2: struggling with glaucoma right before he died. There are letters
14:39
Speaker 2: from may Axton about Orion included in this book where
14:42
Speaker 2: she confirms that the book seems like it was written
14:45
Speaker 2: directly about Elvis. So may Axton suggests that she send
14:49
Speaker 2: this manuscript to a guy named Bob Neil at the
14:52
Speaker 2: William Morris Agency, one of the most prestigious literary agencies
14:57
Speaker 2: in the whole world. He was a former radio DJ
15:00
Speaker 2: who was instrumental in some of Elvis's early success and
15:03
Speaker 2: Gail claims that in their first phone call, he had
15:06
Speaker 2: the same question, how do you know so much? Meanwhile,
15:09
Speaker 2: in Gaile's mind, she's just written a work of fiction
15:12
Speaker 2: based on details she made up. But this book starts
15:16
Speaker 2: getting a lot of interest, especially within William Morris. That
15:21
Speaker 2: part will be important later, an uncomfortable amount of interest. Actually,
15:25
Speaker 2: as far as Gail was concerned, here's a quote, they
15:28
Speaker 2: were giants in the literary world. We meaning her and
15:32
Speaker 2: her husband, also shared a feeling of something happening beneath
15:36
Speaker 2: the surface. I was not famous or powerful enough to
15:39
Speaker 2: warrant this type of courtship. I felt uneasy end quote.
15:44
Speaker 2: So she decided to not sign with William Morris, which
15:49
Speaker 2: in and of itself is a very bold move, and
15:51
Speaker 2: she starts shopping her book around to other publishers, and
15:55
Speaker 2: that is when this story takes the first of many
15:58
Speaker 2: very weird twists. By nineteen seventy nine, Gail Brewer Georgio
16:03
Speaker 2: had signed a hardcover publishing deal for Orion, and almost
16:06
Speaker 2: as soon as she did, a mysterious masked singer named Oriyan,
16:12
Speaker 2: who sounded a whole lot like Elvis, released his first
16:16
Speaker 2: album on Sun Records. Elvis's original record label. I'm gonna
16:35
Speaker 2: put you in my Washington machine.
16:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna washing Washington. You complete now.
16:41
Speaker 4: When I get do with you.
16:42
Speaker 1: You're gonna know when soon you'll see you.
16:47
Speaker 4: I'm gonna put.
16:48
Speaker 2: You in my machine. Even weirder, the liner notes of
16:53
Speaker 2: the album included names that were lifted directly from Gail
16:57
Speaker 2: Brewer Georgio's orian in manuscript. Also, I mentioned earlier that
17:03
Speaker 2: she put the prologue for Orion in this book about Elvis.
17:08
Speaker 2: That prologue is on the back cover of this Orion
17:13
Speaker 2: album in its entirety. In other words, a few short
17:16
Speaker 2: years after his death, Elvis's original record label started releasing
17:21
Speaker 2: albums by a guy who sounded exactly like Elvis, had
17:26
Speaker 2: hair like Elvis, wore a mask to conceal his identity,
17:30
Speaker 2: and his first album was called Reborn. You can google
17:33
Speaker 2: all of these things. I will link to the album
17:36
Speaker 2: in the show notes. Everything about it is so aggressively weird,
17:42
Speaker 2: and it all definitely happened. You can listen to this
17:45
Speaker 2: Reborn album on any streaming service of your choosing. You
17:49
Speaker 2: can buy it on vinyl. This really happened, and all
17:52
Speaker 2: of it was done without Gail Brewer Giorgio's permission. She
17:56
Speaker 2: says she approached Sun Records about this and that the
17:59
Speaker 2: meeting end with them telling her quote, so sue us
18:03
Speaker 2: end quote, And as far as I can tell, Sun
18:05
Speaker 2: Records has never disputed that claim. The book actually came
18:09
Speaker 2: out after the album, so Gail spent a lot of
18:12
Speaker 2: time in interviews answering questions about the real life Orion,
18:16
Speaker 2: and she says she just kind of played along with
18:19
Speaker 2: it because one, it was good promotion for her book.
18:23
Speaker 2: Sun Records started promoting the book also, but they bought
18:26
Speaker 2: him at wholesale, so Gail didn't make any money from it,
18:29
Speaker 2: so there was that. And also she didn't have the
18:32
Speaker 2: money or the power to sue a company like Sun Records.
18:36
Speaker 2: So when she's out trying to promote her book, she's
18:38
Speaker 2: just getting questions about this other Orion guy. And at
18:42
Speaker 2: one of these stops where she's promoting her book, she's
18:45
Speaker 2: taken aback by a question she gets about Orion, which is,
18:49
Speaker 2: why are there two Orion's. She said she was taken
18:53
Speaker 2: aback by that question because, to the best of her knowledge,
18:56
Speaker 2: Orion was just a guy named Jimmy Ellis. He's a
18:58
Speaker 2: country singer who does actually sound a whole lot like Elvis,
19:03
Speaker 2: and I think at one point he just started recording
19:06
Speaker 2: as Jimmy Ellis, so there was nothing weird there. She
19:10
Speaker 2: knew that this Orion fella wasn't Elvis, but she also
19:15
Speaker 2: thought there was only one this person she was talking to.
19:18
Speaker 2: She went to an Orion show and claimed that after
19:21
Speaker 2: the show, she approached the tour bus and since the
19:24
Speaker 2: door was opened, she just walked up that little flight
19:26
Speaker 2: of stairs that's on every bus, at which point she
19:30
Speaker 2: saw two men in the back of the bus, both
19:32
Speaker 2: dressed like Orion, and that when they saw her, one
19:35
Speaker 2: ducked into the bathroom, the other came out and started
19:38
Speaker 2: signing autographs for people later. There's another story from a
19:42
Speaker 2: girl who was the president of one of the litany
19:44
Speaker 2: of Elvis fan clubs. She went to an Orion show
19:47
Speaker 2: and at one point he stopped to run off stage
19:50
Speaker 2: and grab a drink of water, and she says that
19:52
Speaker 2: when he left he had huge sweat stains under his arms,
19:55
Speaker 2: and when he returned he did not, But also he
19:58
Speaker 2: wasn't off stage long enough to change clubs. And then
20:00
Speaker 2: she claimed that she was convinced that the person who
20:04
Speaker 2: came back out was actually Elvis, and that she could
20:07
Speaker 2: tell because he had dimples in his butt that the
20:10
Speaker 2: first Orion did not. So what they're getting at here
20:13
Speaker 2: is that Orion was a front that Elvis used to
20:18
Speaker 2: keep recording and performing after he faked his death. Ah.
20:22
Speaker 2: I don't know if I believe that. I think Gail
20:25
Speaker 2: might have been getting gaslighted a little bit on that front,
20:29
Speaker 2: But that doesn't make the fact that someone took her
20:31
Speaker 2: novel and turned it into a real person without her
20:34
Speaker 2: consent any less weird. It does seem like someone somewhere
20:39
Speaker 2: was interested in making sure this book did not raise
20:44
Speaker 2: a bunch of questions about the real Elvis, and so
20:47
Speaker 2: from there she gets into some of the various clues
20:51
Speaker 2: that Elvis fans have obsessed about over the years that
20:55
Speaker 2: they think point to Elvis having faked his death. Honestly,
20:59
Speaker 2: the the most compelling piece of evidence to me is
21:03
Speaker 2: one that I have always dismissed, and it's one that
21:08
Speaker 2: I think people dismissed the quickest in general, which is
21:12
Speaker 2: that his middle name is misspelled on his gravestone. My
21:16
Speaker 2: question about that has always been to what end, What
21:19
Speaker 2: would be the purpose? As it relates to the conspiracy itself.
21:24
Speaker 2: Gale Brewer Georgio I think maybe nails it in this
21:28
Speaker 2: book when she points out that Elvis and his parents
21:32
Speaker 2: both were highly religious and highly superstitious. Putting your living
21:38
Speaker 2: child's name on a gravestone, to that family would have
21:42
Speaker 2: been seen as tempting fate. And I know that seems
21:47
Speaker 2: like a silly explanation, but I would argue that it
21:51
Speaker 2: was just an accident that no one ever fixed is
21:54
Speaker 2: also a silly explanation, even on its surface. If it
21:58
Speaker 2: was just an error, you could just have it corrected.
22:02
Speaker 2: We're talking about a plaque on a gravestone. You can
22:05
Speaker 2: remove it and put a new one there. Why would
22:08
Speaker 2: they not fix it if it was just a mistake.
22:12
Speaker 2: And Elvis was beyond being religious, a very spiritual guy,
22:17
Speaker 2: he was obsessed with mysticism and parapsychology, all that weird shit.
22:22
Speaker 2: So that might seem like a silly concern to you,
22:26
Speaker 2: But to someone like Elvis and his super duper religious family,
22:31
Speaker 2: putting a living person's name on a gravestone is not
22:34
Speaker 2: a minor thing. And the other problem with the idea
22:38
Speaker 2: that well, it was just a mistake, they probably didn't
22:42
Speaker 2: fix it because it wasn't that important to them. Bullshit.
22:45
Speaker 2: Elvis's middle name is a reference to his twin brother,
22:50
Speaker 2: who did not survive the pregnancy. Elvis was supposed to
22:54
Speaker 2: be a twin. It's twin died in childbirth. I think
22:57
Speaker 2: maybe even before so, Elvis's mom still named that kid.
23:02
Speaker 2: And she gave Elvis and that kid weird middle names
23:07
Speaker 2: for the sole purpose of them rhyming and seeming similar.
23:11
Speaker 2: And she did it so every time Elvis said his name,
23:14
Speaker 2: he would think of his twin brother. And in this book,
23:19
Speaker 2: there are so many documents, bills, receipts, everything where Elvis
23:24
Speaker 2: signs his name Elvis Aaron Presley one A. There is
23:29
Speaker 2: no point in his life where he for some reason
23:31
Speaker 2: switched to doing two a's. Why would you? Why would you?
23:35
Speaker 2: That makes no sense. And I think the name was
23:39
Speaker 2: important enough to him and important enough to the family
23:42
Speaker 2: that if it was just a mistake, they would have
23:44
Speaker 2: fixed it. And so while that might seem like the
23:47
Speaker 2: weakest evidence of all, I think that's just because it
23:50
Speaker 2: seems like a trivial detail, when the truth is it's
23:52
Speaker 2: not trivial at all. It's just not a mistake that
23:56
Speaker 2: would have been made and not corrected. Don't buy that.
23:59
Speaker 2: The book also goes a little bit into the weirdness
24:02
Speaker 2: with the medical examiner's report, but seeing as how that
24:05
Speaker 2: is the entire focus of the twenty twenty episode that
24:08
Speaker 2: I'll be covering next, I'll save all that for later.
24:11
Speaker 2: But another detail that comes up in this book that
24:13
Speaker 2: I so far have not found an explanation for is
24:16
Speaker 2: that while Elvis definitely had a life insurance policy, no
24:19
Speaker 2: one ever cashed it in. That's a highly weird thing
24:22
Speaker 2: in a case like this, unless the person didn't actually
24:25
Speaker 2: die and you're trying to not commit fraud about it.
24:28
Speaker 2: There's also the detail that he was supposed to leave
24:30
Speaker 2: for a sixteen date tour the day he died, but
24:33
Speaker 2: had ordered absolutely zero costumes for said tour. His hair
24:38
Speaker 2: and sideburns were also not dyed, and tell me one
24:42
Speaker 2: time you saw Elvis performing with gray hair. He dyed
24:45
Speaker 2: his hair and his sideburns before his tours. There's also
24:48
Speaker 2: the question of why there was so much Elvis merch
24:51
Speaker 2: available in stores immediately upon his death, and the answer
24:55
Speaker 2: to that is that he had a tour planned. But
24:58
Speaker 2: then that raises the other quot question of did they
25:01
Speaker 2: plan a tour because he was going on tour or
25:04
Speaker 2: did they plan a tour as an excuse to have
25:06
Speaker 2: a shit ton of merch to sell when he died?
25:09
Speaker 2: Because weird detail about Colonel Tom Parker, Who's going to
25:12
Speaker 2: come up again later, Elvis's manager terribly played by Tom
25:16
Speaker 2: Hanks in the movie. When it was announced that Elvis
25:19
Speaker 2: had died, Tom Parker did not go to Memphis. Tom
25:23
Speaker 2: Parker flew to New York and signed a new merchandising deal.
25:27
Speaker 2: I mean, make of that what you will, I guess.
25:30
Speaker 2: But it's also pointed out here that Gail wasn't the
25:33
Speaker 2: only one asking those questions. Here's a bit from the tape.
25:38
Speaker 3: Why isn't this out?
25:39
Speaker 4: Why are people running around with bringing.
25:41
Speaker 3: Actually it is out? That's the strange part about it.
25:44
Speaker 3: Merle Haggard made a comment in People magazine about he
25:48
Speaker 3: feeling that Elvis Presley was alive. People have reported seeing him.
25:53
Speaker 3: But let's face it, Jeff, if you were sitting on
25:55
Speaker 3: an airplane next to someone who looked like Elvis Presley,
25:59
Speaker 3: you might look at him and say, you know, he
26:02
Speaker 3: looks like Elvis Presley or an older Elvis Presley, and
26:05
Speaker 3: even if he told you he was, you probably wouldn't
26:08
Speaker 3: believe him.
26:08
Speaker 1: Number one.
26:09
Speaker 3: Number two, if you did believe him, there's very few
26:11
Speaker 3: people will believe you.
26:13
Speaker 4: That's right.
26:14
Speaker 3: So I think that was his cover. Also, is that
26:17
Speaker 3: people just simply aren't going to believe it.
26:20
Speaker 2: There was also a magazine called Photoscreen that in nineteen
26:23
Speaker 2: eighty ran a cover story questioning if Elvis faked his death.
26:27
Speaker 2: There's also Merle Haggard famously told a People magazine interviewer
26:32
Speaker 2: at the time that he wouldn't be surprised if Elvis
26:35
Speaker 2: and Colonel Tom Parker cooked up a scheme to fake
26:38
Speaker 2: his death. As this all started coming out and coupled
26:42
Speaker 2: with the reactions she received to Orion, Gail Brewer Giorgio
26:46
Speaker 2: starts wondering if in writing Oriyan a work of fiction,
26:50
Speaker 2: she'd actually written about something real. This is a quote
26:53
Speaker 2: the sudden appearance of a masked singer the late night
26:56
Speaker 2: telephone calls, the two Orion's the sun Wrecord's connection. May
27:01
Speaker 2: Axton Bob Neil twenty twenty's independent investigation of a cover
27:06
Speaker 2: up the misspelled name on the grave. The contradictions and
27:09
Speaker 2: the medical examiner's report constantly made me wonder if, indeed, unwittingly,
27:15
Speaker 2: I had tuned into something that written as fiction was
27:18
Speaker 2: instead fact end quote, And if that sounds silly, take
27:23
Speaker 2: this next thing into account. She eventually signed a deal
27:26
Speaker 2: to publish the book in paperback, and later received a
27:29
Speaker 2: letter saying she was not to mention Elvis at all
27:33
Speaker 2: in relation to the promotion of the book lest they
27:36
Speaker 2: get sued again. This is purely fiction. She was not
27:39
Speaker 2: suggesting that Elvis faked is death. She wrote a fictional
27:43
Speaker 2: book about a dude named Oriyan that was moderately inspired
27:48
Speaker 2: by the fact that Elvis had just died. Given the
27:52
Speaker 2: timeline we're working with, she could not have based the
27:56
Speaker 2: book on the conspiracy because the conspiracy didn't exist. Yeat
28:01
Speaker 2: Orion exists. It's also very hard to find, but it's
28:04
Speaker 2: out there. It's a book about a singer ino feked
28:06
Speaker 2: his death, and it happened to come out shortly after
28:08
Speaker 2: Elvis died. It really does seem, though, like she struck
28:11
Speaker 2: a nerve with someone somewhere in the Elvis camp. And
28:15
Speaker 2: I'd sure like to know why if he did really
28:18
Speaker 2: die in nineteen seventy seven. It seems like of all
28:21
Speaker 2: the books that came out about Elvis, including one called
28:25
Speaker 2: Elvis What Happened that came out before he died that
28:28
Speaker 2: was highly critical of Elvis made some shocking claims about Elvis.
28:35
Speaker 2: There were no threats of legal action over that, but
28:38
Speaker 2: for some reason, this book about a fake singer named
28:40
Speaker 2: Orian was going to get this woman sued, and not
28:43
Speaker 2: long after her book was released, an actual biography called
28:46
Speaker 2: Elvis was released. She bought a copy and one was
28:50
Speaker 2: startled to find how much her character Orion, did actually
28:54
Speaker 2: sound like Elvis, especially the part where her character and
28:58
Speaker 2: Elvis himself both thought they had a special connection with Jesus.
29:03
Speaker 2: But what really shocked her was chapter ten, which was
29:06
Speaker 2: all about Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis's connection to who
29:10
Speaker 2: the William Morris Agency, the same people who so very
29:15
Speaker 2: enthusiastically pursued her book and then almost certainly passed it
29:20
Speaker 2: on to Sun Records so they could craft a fake
29:24
Speaker 2: character around it. Her suspicion was that they wanted to
29:26
Speaker 2: buy the book to kill the book. She says she
29:29
Speaker 2: was also told by a literary agent that when Orion
29:32
Speaker 2: did finally get published, Colonel Tom Parker approached that publisher
29:36
Speaker 2: Simon and Schuster and encouraged them to quote hang the
29:39
Speaker 2: book out to dry, which basically means they stopped promoting
29:43
Speaker 2: it and stopped sending it to bookstores. And that is
29:46
Speaker 2: what happened. After Orion hit shelves, it sold something like
29:50
Speaker 2: seventy thousand copies right away and then just disappeared. And
29:56
Speaker 2: the singer Orion, who mysteriously appeared when that book first
30:00
Speaker 2: came out, he also vanished around that same time. Weird.
30:04
Speaker 2: Here's a quote. It was obvious there was little I
30:06
Speaker 2: could do. I could prove my connection with the William
30:08
Speaker 2: Morris agency. I could prove the colonel in Elvis's connection
30:12
Speaker 2: with the William Morris agency. I could prove a connection
30:14
Speaker 2: between the William Morris Agency and Simon and Schuster. I
30:17
Speaker 2: could prove Oriyan was gone. What I couldn't prove was
30:21
Speaker 2: did it all connect? And again, this book is not
30:24
Speaker 2: the one that makes the connection between Elvis, his dad
30:27
Speaker 2: and that FBI investigation, but she does get close when
30:31
Speaker 2: she talks about how, aside from peanut butter and bacon sandwiches,
30:35
Speaker 2: two things Elvis truly loved were law enforcement and the
30:40
Speaker 2: idea of living a double life. That last part has
30:42
Speaker 2: been documented in a bunch of Elvis biographies, and it
30:46
Speaker 2: all ties back to that twin brother. As for law enforcement,
30:50
Speaker 2: we all know about that famous trip to meet Richard
30:52
Speaker 2: Nixon and how the government made Elvis an actual government agent.
30:56
Speaker 2: That's an incident that we all laughed up about like
30:59
Speaker 2: it was just some bull shit ceremonial thing, but not really.
31:02
Speaker 2: There's a quote in this book from a couple of
31:04
Speaker 2: writers who were researching their own book about Elvis, and
31:08
Speaker 2: the quote comes directly from correspondence they had with the ATF.
31:13
Speaker 2: Here goes during the period of nineteen seventy four to
31:15
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, mister Presley provided one of our undercover
31:19
Speaker 2: narcotics agents who was a musician a job cover. Mister
31:23
Speaker 2: Presley confirmed to anyone inquiring that the agent slash musician
31:28
Speaker 2: was a member of one of his traveling bands. End
31:31
Speaker 2: quote and listen acab includes Elvis. But also it's pretty
31:35
Speaker 2: clear that his ties to law enforcement went a little
31:39
Speaker 2: further than just ceremonial badges. It's also brought up to
31:42
Speaker 2: Colonel Tom Parker knew a thing or two about crafting
31:45
Speaker 2: a new identity and not being found out. There have
31:48
Speaker 2: for a long time been rumblings that he was actually
31:51
Speaker 2: from Holland and was in the country illegally the entire
31:55
Speaker 2: time he was representing Elvis, and he was just so
31:58
Speaker 2: good at that shit that he did not get caught,
32:01
Speaker 2: which also explains why Elvis never toured overseas. Tom Parker
32:04
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to worry about going in and
32:06
Speaker 2: out of the country and getting fuck and deported, and again,
32:09
Speaker 2: he also seemed to be completely unbothered by Elvis's death.
32:13
Speaker 2: Instead of going to Memphis the day died, again, flew
32:16
Speaker 2: to New York sign a merchandising deal. The matter of
32:19
Speaker 2: the public viewing of Elvis's body comes up in this
32:21
Speaker 2: also for starters, having a public viewing was apparently way
32:25
Speaker 2: out of character for his family. Elvis and his dad
32:28
Speaker 2: both got really upset when Elvis's mom's funeral turned into
32:32
Speaker 2: a publicity circus, so it's kind of unlikely that Vernon
32:36
Speaker 2: Presley would seek out a public spectacle type of funeral
32:41
Speaker 2: for his son, but doing it this way gave people
32:44
Speaker 2: something to look at to confirm Elvis was dead and
32:46
Speaker 2: that there were no questions to be asked. But it
32:49
Speaker 2: didn't exactly work because people have asked questions. For one thing,
32:53
Speaker 2: Pictures of Elvis in that coffin eventually circulated and people
32:57
Speaker 2: remarked that it didn't really look like him. Here's a
33:00
Speaker 2: quote from a country singer named LaCosta, who is the
33:02
Speaker 2: sister of also country singer Tanya Tucker. Here goes, we
33:06
Speaker 2: went right up to his casket and stood there, and God,
33:09
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it. He looked just like a piece
33:12
Speaker 2: of plastic laying there. It didn't look like him at all.
33:15
Speaker 2: He looked more like a dummy than a real person.
33:18
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people think it was a dummy.
33:20
Speaker 2: They don't think he's dead. And finally, here's Gail Brewer
33:23
Speaker 2: Giorgio talking about the funeral service in that casket, and.
33:28
Speaker 4: Of course that raises a very very basic question. Who
33:31
Speaker 4: was that then in the coffin at Graceland on August seventeenth,
33:36
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy seven, lying in state as hundreds thousands of
33:41
Speaker 4: people passed by the coffin inside the including.
33:45
Speaker 3: You, I understand, I would like to know who that was.
33:50
Speaker 3: There's a lot of speculation, obviously, the majority of the
33:54
Speaker 3: fans have written in their newsletters and periodicals. I've had
33:58
Speaker 3: journalists call me I journalists that guess it was a
34:02
Speaker 3: wax stummy. There's been questions as to why the coffin
34:07
Speaker 3: weighed nine hundred pounds. Some have speculated that it had
34:12
Speaker 3: a cooling unit in it to cool wax dummy. I
34:15
Speaker 3: don't know who was in the coffin, but that seems
34:18
Speaker 3: to be the number one guess, and.
34:21
Speaker 4: It seems to be the number one question I think
34:23
Speaker 4: among a lot of the skeptics. Does it matter well, A.
34:25
Speaker 3: Lot of people wonder why Vernon would have even put
34:29
Speaker 3: his son on display. It was thou protest too much
34:33
Speaker 3: kind of thing. When Elvis's mother died, he was very upset,
34:36
Speaker 3: and so with Vernon that her funeral had turned into
34:39
Speaker 3: a circus. It seems very very odd that, with great deliberation,
34:45
Speaker 3: that this particular viewing and funeral had turned into a
34:49
Speaker 3: circus by invitation. So the only thing I can think
34:53
Speaker 3: of is if they had had a very very quiet, dignified,
34:57
Speaker 3: private kind of funeral, people would not have believed he died.
35:01
Speaker 3: Therefore put the body or whatever on display. And again,
35:05
Speaker 3: this is all guesswork, and it's not simply my guesswork.
35:09
Speaker 3: I'm mimicking thousands of fans out there, put something on
35:12
Speaker 3: display and say, there he is. Now you can leave
35:15
Speaker 3: him alone, go away. There's nobody here anymore for you
35:18
Speaker 3: to see. I can't come up with another reason.
35:21
Speaker 2: And that's where this episode ends. I have, by no
35:25
Speaker 2: means covered everything there is to cover in this book.
35:27
Speaker 2: So if you want to know more, just go buy
35:29
Speaker 2: a copy. They are all over eBay. If nothing else,
35:32
Speaker 2: I will warn you that my copy serves as a
35:35
Speaker 2: stark reminder that the notion that paper books are superior
35:40
Speaker 2: to digital books is crazy talk. The only thing my
35:44
Speaker 2: copy of this book has over an ebook is that
35:47
Speaker 2: it reeks of Grandma perfume, and I feel like I
35:50
Speaker 2: need to wash my hands every time I touch it.
35:53
Speaker 2: All this despite it being factory sealed when I bought it.
35:56
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's out there if you want to read it.
35:58
Speaker 2: I know a lot of the evidence covered here today
36:01
Speaker 2: in this episode is kind of circumstantial, bordering on superficial.
36:05
Speaker 2: That's because I skipped over all of the Medical Examiner
36:07
Speaker 2: report stuff, which I'll talk about next week when we
36:11
Speaker 2: dive into that twenty twenty report. Spoiler. It's got Heraldo
36:14
Speaker 2: Rivera in it, but it's back when he was still
36:17
Speaker 2: a journalist so it's fine and hey, that's it for now.
36:20
Speaker 2: Please go read my writings over at Adam Toddbrown dot
36:23
Speaker 2: substack dot com before the government crafts a fake character
36:27
Speaker 2: around him to discredit me. And thanks, goodbye everybody. We
36:30
Speaker 2: love you people,