14 DAY TRIAL // If we’re to believe reports online, Elvis Presley faked his own death for a variety of reasons, went into hiding and is probably chilling with Michael Jackson and Tupac Shakur, who followed his lead and did the same when they thought their life wasn’t one they felt like living anymore.
Theories about Elvis’ grand escape, which he may have orchestrated with help from the feds or not, have been around since shortly after his death in August 1977, or should we say, “death.” Because of this, making a false story go viral is quite an easy feat in this day and age when everything posted on social media is taken at face value and no one bothers to double check anymore.
Elvis was alive, in witness protection
Apparently, Elvis didn’t die when we thought he died, but rather staged his death so he could go in witness protection and forge for himself a real life, the kind he could no longer enjoy because he had become the biggest star in the world.
His body showed up in San Diego, where a homeless man identified as Jessie Doe was found dead under an overpass. DNA testing on the body proved that this was, in fact, Elvis Aaron Presley, aka the King of Pop.
Empire News, a website that claims to be a “satire” site, ran this story, complete with quotes from the lab technicians who ran the DNA test and a spokesperson from the FBI, over the weekend, and it’s now getting a lot of traction online, fooling people into thinking that it’s true.
To the credit of the site, it is well-written and contains enough details as to be convincing, including statements from lab technician Robert Brensdale and lab assistant Madeline Hedgespeth, who recall how shocked they were when the DNA matched Elvis’ and how they initially thought this was a prank from their supervisor.
Even a fake FBI spokesperson, Philip Hunter, is fake-quoted, saying that the singer had been in the witness protection program since his reported death, and that all the people who had known about it were now dead.
“Mr. Presley was placed in the program under a voluntary basis. He was not a witness to any crime or anything like that. Once he had met President Nixon, the two became great friends, and Mr. Presley wanted out of his life, he wanted to be an unknown, so President Nixon made this possible. Yes, it is official – Elvis Presley was really alive all that time,” Hunter says.
Rumor spreads like wild fire
Though the website claims to deliver “satirical” texts, the disclaimer isn’t visible unless you know what you’re looking for, so no wonder people believed they were reading an actual news website. Social media and the blogosphere did the rest, with word of this spreading like wild fire.
Some loyal fans who fell for the hoax were happy that, at the very least, Elvis got to live a normal life for so many years, away from the pressures of fame. Some were sorry that he, a man adored by millions, would die homeless and alone, as if there was no one to care about him in the world.
Of course, those who didn’t buy into the hoax were furious that someone would exploit his memory like that and play games with his fans, just to get more clicks.
In the end, the lesson we should all take from this is that we shouldn’t believe everything we read online, especially if it sounds too unbelievable to be true. A Google search tops a tweet in terms of credibility, especially with a story as big as this one: had Elvis been really found dead under an overpass at 80, this would have been in all the headlines.