Scott Norton Taylor: Beatles Hoax

I’m the last person to believe in conspiracies, simply because they seem more like wishful thinking of a paranoid mind than anything else. The World Trade Towers were brought down by a government conspiracy that managed to organise, control and then conceal the most shocking event since the atomic bombs on Japan? Really? The most competent member of Bush’s team shot a man in the face while duck hunting. Just saying.

So conspiracies, not something I go looking for. Even the JFK shooting with its magic bullet seems unlikely to me. Maybe that bullet ricocheted, maybe the bodies were at odd angles, who knows. The only thing I do acknowledge about JFK’s shooting is that if it was organised and something conspiratorial, the sixties and possibly the seventies were the last time this sort of thing could have occurred.

Today, everyone has a camera and news coverage of big events, even CC security footage means there’s very little chance of any conspiracy theories being taken seriously because we can see the events as clearly as if we were there and usually from multiple angles.

A few months ago I posted a blog on this website entitled, ‘Mick Jagger and Keith Richards aging’ - a post that attracted 4000+ hits in its first month and has continued to be read by about half that number every month since.

That’s an odd segue I hear you screaming, but I’m just trying to explain how I got here so I can underline the fact this post, on the subject of the Paul McCartney hoax, is not written with any conclusion in mind. In other words, I’m just going to explain how I got on to the subject and present the facts as I came upon them without trying to sway anyone one way or the other.

I decided to put together a similar post to the Mick and Keith post, but using the rock and roll bookends to the Rolling Stones, of course this being the Beatles. I did Mick and Keith, so I could also do Paul and Ringo. It seemed simple enough.

I started sourcing pictures and dates and two things happened. First, Ringo got better looking as he aged and secondly, I noticed in a number of photos I didn’t recognise Paul McCartney as the Paul McCartney I know and love from the Beatles, Wings and then his solo career. There were pictures that simply didn’t look like him.

That’s when I stumbled onto a story I'd heard many times before and, if its true, it's the greatest deception of modern times. I have to admit I became fascinated as I read the countless sites of people showing evidence they feel proves that the real Paul McCartney died and has been replaced. I also read countless fan sites where die hard McCartney fans refuse to consider the notion and supply a huge amount of evidence to refute the claim. And the evidence from both sides seems credible.

One of the best 'Paul is Dead' sites.

One of the best Paul is Alive sites.

Of course I’d heard of the hoax of the Beatles sending clues to fans that Paul had died. The cover art of many albums, in lyrics of countless songs and the now famous backwards messages hidden in their music. It was a ruse to sell more records. I’d never really given it any more thought outside of that. It seemed a very clever idea from a very clever band who were years ahead of everyone else when it came to making great music.

But why were there so many pictures of Paul McCartney that I didn’t recognize and even more perplexing, why, of the photos I didn’t recognize were there many of a baby faced Paul before 1966 and then many from 1967 on that suddenly look nothing like the baby faced boy prior to 1966?

So here we go. The great Paul McCartney is dead question. Is it a hoax to sell records, or the greatest celebrity deception of all time.

If it is a deception then the set up, as rumoured, for the switch is:

There are a number of stories.

1/ Paul left Abbey road studios after a long recording session on 9th November 1966. He and John had argued over the key a song should be recorded in. Paul jumped in his Aston Martin on a wet night and drove away. He picked up a young lady on his way home and when she realised who he was she became so overwrought, Paul missed a set of lights and crashed. He was effectively scalped or decapitated and then burnt. The girl, allegedly named Rita, managed to get out and survived. Paul was unrecognisable from his injuries. John, George and Ringo were brought in secrecy by police to identify the body. Paul was dead.

2/ Shortly after arriving back from the world tour, specifically the US leg where John had uttered his famous - “Beatles are more popular than Christ” line, fanatics kidnapped Paul and Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager. Both were later found dead after the kidnapping went awry. Paul was horribly disfigured and partially burnt as the kidnappers attempted to dispose of the body so it couldn’t be found. Again - pretty dead.

Pictures ... Taken from...this site.

3/ Paul was in a car crash in 1966 - let’s say for argument sake, the crash followed the scenario of story no.1. He was badly injured and scarred and had to undergo extensive plastic surgery. A lookalike replacement was found who stepped in for filming and photos until Paul had recovered enough to retake his place amongst the fab four, or not.

Now, story 2 sounds far fetched to me simply because the result, as conspiracists claim, was the band sought lookalikes for both Paul and Brian. Brian’s replacement didn’t work out so his suicide was staged a year later. However, if only Paul died as a result of a botched kidnapping then we arrive at the same end as story 1. But why replace the manager? Or was Brian not killed, only Paul?

Story 3 seems odd, because if Paul was injured, why not just come forward and say this. Sure he’s out for a while, but there’s no real reason to go to so much trouble.

So we come back to story 1 - or at least a premise that the real Paul James McCartney died in 1966. Some accounts differ as to whether it was the 9th November or the 11th September, so lets just say late in 1966.

Again according to the conspiracy theories, a lookalike was found and again it’s very easy to find conflicting stories here as to whether it was a result of a lookalike contest that was conducted around the time by Dick Clarke’s American bandstand or whether the mysterious William Shears Campbell, also known and recording until late in 1966 as lead singer Billy Pepper of Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots fame, was the one chosen to be the new Paul McCartney.

The possible motives for the switch:

The reasons given range from the simple but greedy money aspect - in that the Beatles were at their peak and the power behind them, I assume recording companies, managers etc, wanted that income generating phenomenon to continue.

Another story has the UK government playing a role because of the tax income being generated by the Beatles.

Another has the government so worried that young besotted fans would be devastated by news of Paul’s death they’d commit suicide in their droves.

Another plays John as the culprit, insisting that the band stays together to allow the huge songlists of original McCartney songs to be recorded, thereby giving his long time friend the credit he deserved.

The only one of these stories that seems to have any credibility is the concern over the young fans. Remembering this was the sixties and beatlemania was at its height, this could have been considered a serious risk. It is also the most valid reason of how the remaining Beatles were swayed to go along with what was an audacious and very risky plan.

This idea is backed up by some sort of understanding that it would at least buy the band time and let the craziness of beatlemania ease. Some time later the remaining band members could go their own way and the substitute McCartney could fade into oblivion. Supposedly the angst between band members and their end came about because of the substitute Paul’s refusal to give up his fame or his new identity.

These are the stories that form the basis of this long lived rumour. They are at the heart of how the switch came about and they push the hoax of Paul dying as a publicity stunt into one giant ongoing conspiracy still being perpetrated to this day.

It’s fascinating stuff because it’s such a huge stupendous lie if it’s true.

On April 1st 2004, Paul finally opens up about the whole thing in an interview with Bruze Spizer. http://beatle.net/paul-mccartney-admits-beatles-planned-death-hoax/
With this significant note at the very end of the article...

Bruce Spizer is a well-know Beatles author and historian who has not only written a series of critically acclaimed books on the group’s American records, but also has been known to tell a tall tale or two for April Fool’s Day. This article originally appeared in the April 1, 2004 issue of Goldmine Magazine.

Once again, I suspect we are being toyed with as the greatest rumour/hoax/deception is given one more twist.

The article claims Paul says they wanted the rumour of his death to go undetected for as long as possible. Certainly not for it to be uncovered straight away. But why would there be any concern at all as to when or how the hoax was picked up and debated by fans? If the idea was to seed this rumour out to the public to increase sales, then they would have wanted it out there doing what it was supposed to do. Letting it lie dormant until 1969 when it was first reported by an American DJ, after the first clues were uncovered by American university students doesn’t make sense. And then, of course, once the first clues were found people went searching and found so many more. So this to me sounds like an April Fool’s day article that uses the most famous, most talked about and best known rock mystery/rumour as its base.

The clues: Visual

Audio:

And plenty more on Youtube.

So let’s say we do believe the most plausible story of the car crash and we assume Paul is dead: He died in a car crash late in 1966. He was replaced by a lookalike and everyone was fooled by the deception and continue to be fooled to this day.

Reasons this is unlikely:

1/ The people who had to know: The lookalike McCartney, John, George, Ringo, Jane Ashher (Paul’s Girlfriend prior to 1966), Paul’s parents, Paul’s brother Mike, Brian Epstein, George Martin, Rita (or the girl in the car, if Paul did pick up a girl), senior police involved, government officials, the plastic surgeons.

I’m placing at least one police and government official in this group (and likely to be more than one) because it makes little sense, if Paul’s death went somehow unnoticed, possibly because of the body being so disfigured, that having duped the public the remaining Beatles would go to so much effort with so many clues to alert the public - so it stands to reason, if it happened, somehow they were forced into believing substituting Paul was their best option. They then tried to tell people about the deal with the devil they'd made and then, again if true, the clues suggest they regretted.)

2/ People likely to know: Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Boyd (George’s Girlfriend), Astrid Kurchherrh, Klaus Voormann, Pete Best, Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, and anyone who had more than a passing relationship with Paul pre 1966.

Once again the idea of a conspiracy so large, and encompassing so many people stretches the imagination when you lay down the cold hard facts. The only caveat being the amount of money on offer. It’s not hard to imagine there was enough to buy silence.

Other clues and mysteries discovered along the way:

In 2004, two Italian researchers set about to put this rumour to rest. They sourced two clear photos and set to work with the best forensic techniques, expecting to put an end to the rumour once and for all. Their findings only added fuel to the fire and resulted in, according to their work, a high likelihood that Paul McCartney pre 1966 and post 1966 are two different people.

http://www.erichufschmid.net/TFC/FromOthers/Paul-McCartney-Italian.html

In 1984 Bettina Krishbin filed for paternity over a child she claimed McCartney had fathered while in Germany in 1960. She claims she signed a contract to stay silent for 12 years, although says she openly listed McCartney on the child’s birth certificate and in 1967 McCartney is said to have begun paying significant child support payments to them. However, the paternity test proved McCartney was not the father. Ms Krishbin has now filed fraud charges against McCartney claiming he somehow falsified the DNA test. This whole rumour could be ended very easily right here - a simple DNA test of McCartney’s brother would prove if he and Paul are brothers and probably whether Paul fathered this child. End of speculation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1552030/McCartney-fraud-charge-over-love-child.html

Paul McCartney allegedly paid 200,000 pounds to buy back Linda McCartney’s stolen/missing tapes that reportedly have intimate details of their life together. Heather Mills reportedly threatened to use this evidence in her divorce case. Little is known about the contents, although the man who was paid, Peter Cox, did say in an interview that Linda had described Paul as such a frustrated man, though enigmatically she didn’t say why. So Paul McCartney, the greatest creative contributor, worth hundreds of millions and lauded wherever he goes, able to do artistically whatever he wants is frustrated. Wow! I can think of many things he could be, driven, a perfectionist, paranoid etc - but frustrated?

Heather Mills was interviewed on GMTV and clearly states she has a huge secret about Paul that she is trying to keep safe to protect him because he is terrified of it being known and that she feared for her life to the extent she has gathered evidence and arranged for it to be sent to someone in case she meets with foul play. Could it be that rumour again, or does Paul like dressups in the bedroom? He can certainly afford the gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJWiZ4V8mR0&feature=related

The Beatles, living and dead, never seemed to address the Hoax in any interviews. Their answers were and are short and dismissive of the idea that Paul was dead. They were/are often asked the question and they all offhandedly laughed in interviews I’ve seen. They quickly label it a hoax and move on. Am I the only one fascinated by the extraordinary lengths the Beatles went to to seed this hoax with their clues.

Over and over again they came back to the same story in artwork, in lyrics and in hidden messages. If it was such a trivial thing why? They produced over a 10 year period the greatest original playlist of songs in our history. Were they so mindlessly bored in their spare time as to spend the countless hours it must have taken to concoct clues for no good reason? And if so, why have they not been willing to talk about it later?

If it was a genuine hoax that was so elaborately played, why do they not accept and understand that people want to know about it and have it explained in detail. It’s hard to find any explanations about why so much effort went into such a huge hoax. And from all the Beatles and those associated with them. Why is no-one willing to really go into detail about this most fascinating chapter in the history of the greatest band in our history. Do we really need to know so much about Snooki when this information is still being glossed over and left behind so easily?

http://www.examiner.com/article/why-did-the-beatle-cross-the-road-paul-is-dead-hoax-still-haunting-us

But there are also blatant fakes around that try to confirm this conspiracy. Obviously people want it to be true because it would be such a monumental deception if it could be proved, but these instances of faked evidence only make it harder to sort any real evidence from fake.

Here’s an example. An original George Harrison interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=CETR-zQTzdc

And the doctored version that tries to back up a story that John Lennon coined the nickname ‘Faul’ for the Fake Paul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9_uhn5XnI8

Another good example of the conspiracy theorists getting carried away or not being hard enough on questioning 'found' evidence is an often sourced photo of Paul, a left handed guitarist, playing guitar right handed after 1966.

I don't play guitar, but it didn't take me long to research that Paul often played a right handed guitar, restrung and held upside down. When this is done the plate the hand usually rests on is also reversed and appears on top of the guitar instead of on the bottom.

This picture is a still taken from footage of Paul playing guitar in India and it's clear the footage is reversed. Looking at the stills I can see why. Even to my eye the angle of the footage reversed is somehow more aesthetically pleasing. It doesn't take much work to find sites using this very shot as part of their evidence. I'm not saying other evidence isn't compelling, but everything should be questioned and examined

The facial hair suddenly arrived after 1966. Long sideburns, moustaches, beards, long hair. On it’s own it means nothing. It was the late sixties and the Beatles were leading the flower revolution. But add it to the hoax and the conspiracy theory of the cover up and it’s interesting and timely.

And 1967

1966

The beatles were the greatest touring concert band of the day from 1960 to 1966. The reports are, if you could hear them over the screaming, they were a staggeringly good live act. Then after 1966 they stopped all live performances and even pioneered music videos as they released new material. The argument is they did it because the fans had become so unruly and out of control that it was safer and better to actually hear their music. But this also fits with the conspiracy theory.

In July 1967 it was reported the Beatles visited Greece with the intention of buying a greek island where they could all live and work. They wanted to get away from the craziness of being Beatles in the UK.

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1967/07/26/beatles-visit-greek-island/

Greece, by 1963, had it’s own certified board of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery and this is where, apparently, Billy Shears became Paul McCartney.

http://www.hespras.gr/el/eepeax-etaireia/diatelesantes-proedroi.html

With the passage of time and the huge publicity machine that sent the Beatle's faces out on everything from mugs to posters, it’s conceivable that our memories have replaced the baby faced Paul with the ‘new’ Paul and now cannot tell them apart.

If there was a switch, then the most extraordinary part of the whole thing is the man who took Paul James McCartney’s place has turned out to be an incredible singer/songwriter and musician.

“Wings had 12 top 10 singles (including one No. 1) in the United Kingdom and 14 top 10 singles (including six No. 1's) in the United States. All 23 singles released by Wings reached the US top 40. Of the nine albums released by Wings, all went top 10 in either the UK or the US, with five consecutive albums topping the US charts.

All of the band's songs that were released as singles were at least co-composed by Paul McCartney, with the exceptions of "Seaside Woman" and "Walking in the Park with Eloise," both of which were released under pseudonyms.

Wings toured regularly and enjoyed hit singles and albums the world over.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_(band)

In 1982 McCartney collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin-produced number-one hit "Ebony and Ivory", and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller.[115][nb 23] The following year, he and Jackson worked on "Say Say Say", McCartney's most recent US number one as of 2012. McCartney earned his latest UK number one as of 2012 with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".[117][nb 24]

In 1984, McCartney starred in Give My Regards to Broad Street, the soundtrack album reaching number one in the UK and producing the US top-ten hit single "No More Lonely Nights".In September 1989, they launched the Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade. The following year, he released the triple album, Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained select performances from the tour.[133][nb 29][nb 30] In 1990, the US publication Amusement Business presented McCartney with an award for the highest grossing show of the year; his two performances at Berkeley earned over $3.5 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney

Switch or not - This Paul McCartney has musical credibility. And that leads to an interesting bi-product if this rumour of the switch were true, a double tragedy. First the death of a great singer songwriter in his prime and second, to besmirch the current Paul’s reputation in spite of the extraordinary body of work that no-one can deny him.

And what happened to William Shears Campbell. Where is he? Why can’t he be produced? What happened to the man who was lead singer of the produced and touring band known as the Pepper pots? We want answers! Clear these loose ends up. Now we have the internet and 7 Billion research assistants let get some facts to why so many of these oddities still cannot be explained.

This is supposedly William Campbell.

I did find it interesting that no-one seems to have photos of William Campbell AKA Billy Shears or Billy Pepper from the Pepper Pots. They released albums and singles, including covering a number of pre '66 Beatles songs and also toured in many clubs - how are there no photos anywhere of him?

And we come back to all those pictures to look at. And I have to admit while sourcing through the hundreds, thousands on offer, I wavered back and forth about whether this was one man or two. I admit I got pretty good at spotting the baby faced pre 1966 faced Paul, there were also many pre 1966 photos of Paul, on albums, in concert, in general publicity shots that look and are clearly of a younger version of the man I recognise today as Paul McCartney.

So the only way the switch is possible is if these earlier photos have been re-released and touched up or distorted to match the face of the man who took the place of Paul. Try a search and see for yourself, it’s not hard to find a pre 1966 picture of young Paul with an expression that perfectly translates with the Paul McCartney we can all easily identify with the man we know today.

Again because the sixties didn’t provide us with the best quality of images and recordings, it’s often hard to tell when the Paul we know today looks different to earlier photos because of poor quality film, or a shot taken with an inferior camera or taken at a strange angle or bad lighting. Some of the early photos do seem to show Paul’s face a little cleaner of image than the others shown in same pictures around him, but some are magnificent manipulations if they are doctored images.

Remembering it was the sixties and almost everything the Beatles touched has been re-released many times since. If the switch took place, then management within the releasing company, first EMI and then Apple, to some degree, must have known the truth and therefore, doctoring and flooding the market with photos of a younger Paul to match the older isn’t impossible. Implausible, maybe, but not impossible.

But when you start searching it quickly becomes clear the baby faced cute Beatle suddenly becomes a much older, harder face around 66/67. A couple of possibilities are that 1966-68 would make Paul 24 to 26 years and that’s a time in an average aging pattern where a person does transform quite a lot.

The big changes in a persons looks usually come at 3-4, 12-15, 22-27, 35-45 and 65-75. The years in between are years where most of us don’t change much at all, but we transition significantly and in a relatively short time from baby to child, from child to teen, from teen to young adult, young adult to middle age and then finally old age. So maybe the photos that don’t look much like Paul pre 1966, suddenly void of the baby face, are just a natural process of aging. Throw in the mind altering drugs the Beatles admit to doing at this time and there’s a good argument that post 1966 Paul is just a simple loss of youth.

There is the famous 1967 interview Paul gave about doing LSD where he really doesn’t look like earlier Paul. And he doesn’t have the same charm either. In every way the boy has left him. Maybe he’d grown tired of the circus and was having a bad day. And he suddenly seems to be completely naive about his place as a celebrity and his relationship with the media and the consequences of anything he says.

The conspiracists do tend to try and fit the facts to the story so Paul’s use of marijuana is attributed to his need for pain relief from his plastic surgeries. Of course! The idea that a rock musician from the 60’s would be doing drugs for any other reason is just absurd.

If you look at Paul now, you can see a face that looks remarkably similar to something we recognise quite easily today because of its growing prevalence as a face that’s had significant plastic surgery.

And it’s surgery that is long past. It’s dropping badly and making his face look unnatural. Why wouldn’t he have it done again to tighten things up? He certainly has the money. It could be a telltale sign of the substitute’s plastic surgery to match the real Paul, or maybe there was an accident?

William Campbell was reportedly taller by 2.5 inches than Paul. Had bigger feet. Different ears. Different nose and was 7 years older

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiI1q3WaiKY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ruwft0KB98

There’s also one report I found that claims Mal Evans, Paul McCartney’s friend and security/PA/driver? had been associated with Billy Pepper and the Pepper pots in some way. Mal Evans certainly spent a lot of time with Paul when he travelled and his Wiki entry (however accurate or not it may be), gives the most detailed account of exactly what Paul was doing and where he was during the period. If he was Billy Shepherd and became Paul then this was supposedly the time he was under the knife being re-figured to match original Paul. Mal Evans died in 1976 under odd circumstances.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal_Evans

http://www.hooksandharmony.com/decline-death-mal-evans/

The physical changes that do throw doubt over pre and post Paul are his eye colour. Young Paul had brown eyes and was even described as the ‘good looking beatle with the soulful brown eyes’ in one newspaper report very early on. Later in life his eyes are green. When he has brown eyes he’s supposed to be wearing contacts. Could it be a trick of lighting or the poor quality of images pre 1966? Maybe the early reports of his eye colour got it wrong?

His ears seem to change, as does his nose, chin and the size of his brow. But again this could all be plastic surgery as the result of some accident, but it seems odd that the further he gets away from 1967 in the photos the more he resembles the photos pre 1966.

His height and stature changes. Early on he’s slight and small. There are even a few photos that come around 1966 at the end of the US tour where he looks short and dumpy. Certainly not taller than John by any large degree. Post 1967 he’s considerably taller and his shoulders become broad. Again, maybe he simply filled out and the earlier shots were at odd angles or an optical illusion regarding depth of subject.

And finally, the Beatles are so loved many fans kept whatever memorabilia they had. What I found most interesting were the photos now being posted online by fans, taken from magazines, programs, clippings and personal photos that had been kept since before 1966. These images are the ones I most often identify as not looking like the Paul I know today. Again, they may be just an odd angle, lighting or equipment. But the more you search for definitive photos to make comparisons and the fewer you find that are suitable, the more you start to question why and that all adds to the mystery.

Did I become obsessed by this... note sure. I’m certainly intrigued. And where did I come out - a believer or not? I have to say I think it’s actually plausible, but highly unlikely. So officially - I’m leaning towards Paul being Paul forever and always. I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in 1967 he went on a giant bender, playing with whatever drugs he could find and that more than anything else robbed him of his baby face. The earlier picture of his banged up face and the fact he has photos of a chipped front tooth from a car crash somewhere in 1966 makes me think he did go in for plastic surgery. It also makes his bizarre change of appearance at that time seem more credible.

Another thing that interested me while compiling this post was the creation of the gifs that try to mirror Paul from pre 66 with pictures post 66. To do this I always tries to match the eyes and nose as much as possible, but any slight difference in his head angle often made it necessary to transform the photo slightly in width and height. I always did this to scale, no distortion out of scale, but often photos that are widely available and that look nothing like the Paul I recognise became more recognisable as Paul - so it makes me feel many of the photos may have been slightly distorted by a change in ratio to facilitate fitting a photo into the copy of a magazine or poster.

As published.

Altered.

Whatever the case, the Paul I grew up with has added quite a lot to the soundtrack of my life - so whoever he is - long may he reign.

Enjoy the photos and follow the links to the many great pro and anti conspiracy sites and make up your own mind. And if you’ve got anything to add send it and I’ll update with anything new we can find.