But the real proof of Mr. McCartney’s death was found in the words and music of the Beatles themselves. For instance:
- Reference to “Billy’s here” in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is, in fact, a slurring of the words Billy Shear – referring to Billy Shear Campbell– the alleged look-a-like that replaced Mr. McCartney.
- Lovely Rita refers to the meter maid who distracted Mr. McCartney thus causing the crash that took his life.
- In Strawberry Fields Forever John Lennon is heard singing ”I buried Paul.”
- On All You Need is Love again Mr. Lennon is heard to sing: “Yes, he dead” (Subsequent examinations however show that Mr. Lennon is actually saying “Yesterday”)
- And the most telling one is found on the White Album’s I’m So Tired where the ending refrain when played backward at altered speeds says “Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him.” (Again subsequent examination shows that it unintelligible gibberish.)
The above are just a sampling of the lyrics supposedly confirming Mr. McCartney’s death. The more often these myths were debunked, the deeper that those dedicated to the conspiracy dove and the more murky and tangential their connections and proofs became – they would never be deterred. (Again, is this sounding any more familiar?)
Then there were the people knowledgeable about what “actually occurred” – the insiders, the people in the know, the well-placed sources, the bona fide loons. These were the people who “actually” witnessed the crash, or witnessed the team of men in black vans who removed all evidence of the crash – including the body of Mr. McCartney, or witnessed the burial of Mr. McCartney in a remote escarpment in the Scottish Highlands complete with a mysterious veiled woman. But when questioned, we find out that they didn’t actually witness this at all; rather it was a third cousin who got it from a neighbor who heard from a man who delivered flowers to the woman living across the street from Mr. McCartney’s one-time neighbor. But they were not deterred and the more one pressed the more imaginative the story became and the more certain the teller that it actually occurred. All of this without a single fact. (Are you sure you haven’t heard something similar recently?)
Despite the absolute certainty of those promulgating the grand conspiracy, the truth of the matter is that Paul McCartney did not die in a fiery car crash and that, in fact, he is still very much alive. But still many are not deterred and never will be.
Fast forward fifty years and you now have the grand conspiracy wherein President Donald Trump engaged, in person, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a conspiracy to rig the 2016 presidential election. That is the first iteration – personal communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. When it turned out that Mr. Trump had never met Mr. Putin, never talked to Mr. Trump and particularly was not in Moscow for the alleged “sex party” organized by Mr. Putin for Mr. Trump, the accusers were not deterred.
And how did this allegation of a conspiracy between Mssrs. Trump and Putin? Well, it appears that it arose from the fertile mind of former President Barack Obama’s Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Brennan. Mr. Brennan who had previously committed perjury before Congress in order to protect Mr. Obama noted in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee that he had heard from unnamed sources (probably the man in the mirror) that Mr. Trump had conspired with Mr. Putin to rig the election and turned that information over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Washington Times reported on May 29:
“What caused the Barack Obama administration to begin investigating the Donald Trump campaign last summer has come into clearer focus following a string of congressional hearings on Russian interference in the presidential election.
“It was then-CIA Director John O. Brennan, a close confidant of Mr. Obama’s, who provided the information — what he termed the “basis” — for the FBI to start the counterintelligence investigation last summer. Mr. Brennan served on the former president’s 2008 presidential campaign and in his White House.
“Mr. Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee on May 23 that the intelligence community was picking up tidbits on Trump associates making contacts with Russians. Mr. Brennan did not name either the Russians or the Trump people. He indicated he did not know what was said.
“But he said he believed the contacts were numerous enough to alert the FBI, which began its probe into Trump associates that same July, according to previous congressional testimony from then-FBI director James B. Comey.”
But the repudiation of the dossier and the actual meetings between Mssrs. Trump and Putin did not deter those alleging conspiracy in the slightest.