Obviously when you hear the name Elvis Presley dropped in a conversation it’s likely intended to be tongue in cheek. Elvis’ life after 1977 along with his connection to aliens, ghosts, and various conspiracies has been documented by tabloids with a jibe here and a joke there. But was the King of Rock and Roll actually directly associated with paranormal phenomena? And where do these legends come from in the first place?
There’s no doubt that Elvis Presley was associated with more than his fair share of weird stuff, but aliens? This is more often than not traced to issues of the tabloid periodicals such as Weekly World News which would generally cover stories that had a kernel of truth (sometimes) and then run them into wild and spectacular directions. But was Elvis a believer in UFOs and aliens? The answer may be surprising to some, but he was in fact a firm believer in UFO visitations according to a book by Michael Luckman entitled Alien Rock: The Rock & Roll Extraterrestrial Connection. In fact, though it may sound like a story straight out of the tabloids, the night Elvis was born the delivering doctor noticed a strange light in the sky hovering in the distance above his childhood home.
And as for his connection to ghosts, Elvis was originally a twin, but the only surviving one of the pair. Nonetheless, he would often tell stories of his deceased brother and even referenced his twin brother several times. Some legends and eyewitness accounts even suggest Elvis was in touch with his brother in the afterlife before his death. And as is the case with so many well known and loved celebrities, after his death Elvis was reported to have been spotted thousands of times by believers all over the world. He is reported to haunt several locations, but occasionally has been rumored to make the rounds at random long Nevada highways at night. And the thousands of Elvis impersonators that would follow him certainly do nothing to reduce this number.
But perhaps the most intriguing element of Elvis’ life and death is the idea that the King of Rock and Roll may still be alive, though if he were he would be 75 as of January 8th of 2010 with a birthday coming up again soon. This would certainly not make him the oldest person in the world, though his legend will no doubt outlast any life he or anyone else could have led. Elvis sightings were once again often propagated by tabloids, although the internet certainly had a very real Elvis sighting community in the late 1990’s – often mixed with an alien interpretation or Elvis ghost sightings.
So Elvis was definitively one of the Kings of Rock and Roll in his era and his style would be reinterpreted and even emulated all the way to today. But behind this mask of glamour and sex appeal there is a great deal of mystery surrounding Elvis, his death, and his life. Even the circumstances around his death were heavily investigated and suspected of conspiracy. But perhaps the strangest theory out there – one that appears to have sprung out from the state that once brought us legends of Area 51 is that Elvis was abducted by aliens at the end of his life and lives eternally with them in bizarre interpretation of a technologically driven rapture. But even if the King is dead, he will remain alive for quite some time still in the hearts of his fans.