Elvis vs the Body Snatchers

 

In late 1978, a remake of the classic science fiction thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers was defying expectations. The movie, which starred Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy, was a box office hit and to some degree helped legitimize the remake in cinema. The tense and paranoid film overshadowed the movie on which it was based, which came out in 1956- the same year Elvis Aaron Presley released his first full length album with RCA Victor. The year before the term "body snatchers" came back into the cultural fore in reference to aliens, Elvis had allegedly passed away- and contended with some all-too terrestrial body snatchers of his own.

Clipping passed along to me by the one-and-only Tim Binnall, who insisted I do a deep dive on it...

The broad strokes of the story, as presented in the above clipping, raise a few questions- even the headline seems dubious, in its presentation of the "police claim". One wonders about the identity of the arrested men, and that of the informant; further, how any of them had expected to pull off such a scheme. In looking for answers, the saga of Elvis vs the Body Snatchers can either become a sprawling, mind-bending web of conspiracy or it can simply be the machinations of a few hackneyed criminals and their tall tales. Our narrators are unreliable, our facts are unsatisfying. All of it is, however, very interesting.

The story begins on August 16th, 1977, when news broke about the death of the King. He had apparently died while reading a book about the Shroud of Turin in Graceland, his Memphis estate. Theories about his death being faked began almost immediately afterward, while those presumably more accepting of reported facts were already angling to cash in on the rock star's death. After a funeral he was interred at Forest Hills Cemetery, in a copper coffin inside a mausoleum. The men were arrested for the attempting corpse-napping on August 28th, and by October 4th the charges were dropped in favor of a lesser charge of trespassing. What happened in the gaps of this timeline depend on whom you wish to believe. Those charged were Ronnie Lee Adkins, Bruce Nelson, and Raymond "Bubba" Green- all crooks between the ages of 25 and 30. The fourth man, mentioned in the article as having been arrested at the hospital, seems to have been released without charges. Nelson seems to have been an accomplice. Adkins and Green then will be our star unreliable witnesses.

Ronnie Lee Adkins played the role of the police informant who tipped off the cops. Within a week and a half of the arrests, his credibility was called into question with the police telling the press that the bodysnatching attempt was little more than an elaborate hoax. They had previously considered him reliable enough as an informant, and had helped Memphis law enforcement bust low level offenders over the course of a few years in exchange for reduced time at a penal colony, where he had been held on burglary convictions. Just how much the police had been strung along on Adkins' bogus claim, as they characterized it, is unclear- but by Ronnie Lee's account, which was published in newspapers at the time, the police had encouraged him to go along with the plot in order to catch the ghoulish crooks involved. Adkins spins a yarn about a mysterious man who had offered $40,000 to the four men in exchange for Elvis's coffin and remains; this was to be ransomed back to the Presley family for $10 million. This part wouldn't involve the body snatchers. Initially, Adkins claimed, the plot was to steal the remains of the King from the funeral home prior to the service at Graceland. In cooperation with police, he allegedly entered the funeral home and hot-wired a hearse; Green and Nelson were supposed to take it from there. Both being criminals out on bond, however, they were spooked by a squad car in the area and got cold feet at the last minute. This meant they would have to wait, and dig up Presley later.

In the days that followed, Adkins claims to have been in contact with both Nelson and a police sergeant named Hester. Nelson and Green were happy to learn that Elvis would be interred in a mausoleum, and not buried, as this would make the job similar to their familiar pastime of burglary and less like grave robbing. Their first attempt was on Saturday, August 27, but the crooks were once again hesitant when they spotted Sgt. Hester's unmarked car. On the night of the 28th, in Adkins' car with plates stolen from another vehicle, a trunk full of tools and a shotgun, the trio ventured back to Forest Hills for their crime. The plan was to break into the mausoleum, pull out the coffin, remove Elvis into a body bag, and hit the road. They would then meet their benefactor at a nearby Armour Packing Plant at 2 a.m. for the hand-off. Before they could get into the crypt, the gang panicked and ran, having heard police radio chatter nearby. A brief high speed chase led to a roadblock, where Green and Nelson were arrested in one car and Adkins was brought to another; he was subsequently bailed out by Hester and told he had done a fine job.

This version of events was published in newspapers alongside the official statement from Memphis Police Director E. Winslow Chapman, who presented the idea that the entire plot had been a hoax perpetuated by Adkins. Even if, he said, they had planned on bodysnatching he doubted it would have gone very far. All inquiries from the press were directed to him, and all other law enforcement personnel were instructed to stay quiet on the matter. Chapman suggested there was no evidence of an attempt to break into the crypt, because the men had no tools- although Adkins claimed that there were tools, and a gun, which had been confiscated by the cops. He had seen them himself. Charges were eventually dropped in early October, with the missing tools playing a large role. Adkins' reliability as both an informant and a witness was torpedoed a few days prior to the dismissal, when he went to a hospital and claimed to be a police officer himself in order to use city police insurance. He was then arrested for fraud, while Green and Nelson got lesser penalties for trespassing along with their pre-existing bail agreements.

It has all the trappings of a bizarre conspiracy, as though Adkins was some manner of patsy in a weird and pointless scheme. This, however, is only the case if you believe what he said. Director Chapman confirmed that he had been a reliable informant up until this caper, but everything else about his account is without corroboration. A look at where Ronnie Lee pops up in the news after the whole affair gives a clearer perspective of the man, and lends credence to Chapman's assessment. 

A 1981 article in the Memphis Press-Scimitar, for instance, identifies Adkins as an assistant to Timothy Snider, the head of the Memphis klavern of the Ku Klux Klan. Snider had been charged with kidnapping a former klansman along with another man. Adkins denies holding an official post in the organization, but is quoted as saying he was a "supporter of the Klan." The article goes on to describe his arrest record, which included over 20 arrests of petty crimes such as theft and fraudulent checks. He appears as well in a book called The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. by William F. Pepper. The controversial author's claims in the book which is reviewed here by Martin Hay, include statements made by Adkins, who apparently also used the alias Ron Tyler. The elaborate story he tells Pepper involves his father, Russel Adkins, who he claims was a 32nd degree Mason and a high-ranking klansman with powerful friends and a job as a fixer and hitman. If we're to believe Adkins here, his dear old man had a direct line to Deputy Director Clyde Tolson of the FBI, who worked directly under J. Edgar Hoover. Reverend Doctor King's assassination had been in the works for years before it actually happened, according to Ronnie, with the orders coming from the very top- he further says that as early as 1956, when Invasion of the Body Snatchers was thrilling teens along with Elvis's eponymous debut album, the FBI man Tolson had handed a list to the senior Adkins scumbag containing the names JFK, RFK, and MLK, insinuating that all three assassinations were part of the same plan. Having died before getting the chance to shoot Dr. King, Russel's duties got passed down to Ronnie which, one assumes, is how such things work. Ronnie Lee claims to have delivered the rifle to the gunman who shot MLK, at the age of 16 no less, and, according to him, it was not James Earl Ray. For more details on the insanity of these claims, the reader is encouraged to read the linked book review...

The final tragic nail in the coffin, as it were, for Adkin's credibility comes in 1992 when his mother was gunned down, and either his own children or nieces and nephews of his were injured. It seems Adkins had been given money to bail out a Memphis woman who was being held on drug charges, but the bail was never posted. Presumably, Adkins pocketed the money and his own mother paid the ultimate price for it.  

This is all to say that perhaps it isn't wise at all to trust his account of the attempted bodysnatching. The yarns he spins would have you going down all manner of ugly rabbit holes, which can be tempting but is from the outset obviously fruitless. A simple crook and stool pigeon for the Memphis PD, whose story constellates outward to include secret societies, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, along with government involvement and cover-ups is a familiar and well-trodden path in the zeitgeist of the late 20th century. Not to mention the synchromystic connections, with the King of Rock and Roll, Martin Luther King, and the "Camelot" dynasty of the Kennedys, which all are tangential to paranoid screeds like King Kill 33. This writer draws the line here, as this well trodden path is also laden with horseshit. It was tempting to draw a line between the American Memphis and its namesake in Egypt, where the body of Alexander the Great was once interred, before being removed a generation later to Macedonia and reburied in a now unknown location; and perhaps its worth mentioning, as we include Egyptian burial rites alongside Elvis and JFK; the absurdity of it all is exemplified by this combination in the form of the movie Bubba Ho-Tep. That is to say, the purely batshit logic one employs to construct a narrative around such claims can be fun, but at the end of the day is still batshit.

The present writer would be remiss in at not at least mentioning one of his favorite movies

This brings us, in a circuitous fashion, back to another Bubba- Ray "Bubba" Green, who in recent years came out with his own version of events for a short documentary called The Man Who Dared to Steal the King. In this scenario, Ronnie Lee Adkins was little more than an acquaintance and the wheel-man for the caper who ratted on Green, Nelson, and the fourth man who he only refers to as "Mike". In Green's telling of the story, it was he who was charged with the duty of stealing Elvis's remains and was linked up with the mystery man behind the plot through his bail bondsman, Barron Blue. The characters certainly don't get more colorful than this, especially because the "yankee" who put up the money for the scheme gets referred to as "Mr. Cincinnati". Meeting in a dimly lit Tiki bar, Green was patted down and made to surrender his butterfly knife before the meeting. Mr. Cincinnati had two briefcases with him; one was filled with money, and the other detailed maps, arial photos, diagrams and other useful information related to Elvis's would-be-final resting place. The deal was for two million dollars; Green would need to recruit three men, pay them whatever he liked, and deliver the body to be ransomed for ten million. Green seems proud of himself in the documentary for the line "My own mother ain't safe for two million", which eerily harkens back to the fate of Adkins' mom. Green never mentions any plans for the funeral home, but he does account for the tools- "Mike" was waiting on the other side of the cemetery in a stolen appliance truck containing them, and got away, never to be seen again, well before things went haywire in the graveyard. 

Green credits his lawyer with the reduced charge, as Adkins was allegedly made to commit insurance fraud under threat of bodily harm from Green and Nelson at his attorney's suggestion. The case was thrown out with Adkins' flagrant unreliability as a con artist, and while Green was still in trouble he was looking at a much smaller sentence.

The story again begins to inflate with wildness as only an ex-con can deliver. Green goes on to explain that while in prison he met a Cape Cod mobster he calls "Moose", who let him in on some secrets related to Presley. In a narrative that will sound familiar to any enthusiasts of "Elvis is Alive" theories, or anyone who read the National Enquirer a lot back in the day, Moose explained that at Elvis's funeral was seen to sweat in the coffin. "Wax sweats," says Green, "dead bodies don't." 

Moose spins a tale to Bubba, or so we're told, that Elvis was beholden to the mob during his Vegas days and had been convinced to transport large sums of cash using his personal jet for them. This didn't sit well with the King, as Elvis had always thought of himself as the Good Guy and had tried to ingratiate himself with law enforcement at every opportunity. So, the story goes, Elvis made note of the serial numbers on the bills he transported and tipped off the feds, leading to arrests in the upper echelon of the underworld. 

Elvis meeting Nixon in order to become an honorary agent of the DEA

So, in Green's telling of events, Elvis didn't die at all. He was being sent to steal a wax dummy out of the mausoleum, for purposes unknown. Elvis presumably would be in hiding, from either the mob, the feds, or both. Elvis's remains, along with those of his mother, were interred at Graceland following the events at Forest Hills. The documentary seems to suggest that the whole point of the alleged attempted body snatch was to justify the move- but why such an elaborate scheme? It does bear the hallmarks, as previously mentioned, of a patsy arrangement. That Mr. Cincinnati had $2 million to burn on some low-level druggie and crook, who obviously wasn't very good at crime since he kept getting caught, in the hopes that he'd deliver the goods; that this mystery man hoped he could recoup $8 million at the end of it all boggles the mind and invites further questions. The idea that Vernon Presley and / or Colonel Parker would need some convoluted scheme to bury Elvis where they wanted to seems equally absurd, given the outrageous amount of money, sway, and sympathy they had in the wake of Presley's death. 

The brief documentary featuring Green's story ends with a screen of text, listing some of his crimes- which include manslaughter- and state that his current whereabouts are unknown. 

If we are to try that old, well-trodden and shit-strewn path of building an unbelievable narrative here, we might suggest that the Bubba Green in the documentary isn't the man who got away with attempted corpse-napping in 1977. We could also speculate wildly about the identity of Mr. Cincinnati, or be more sympathetic to the bizarre claims of the klansman con artist who almost literally threw his own mother under the bus. We might just as easily believe the characters involved were actually pod people, having replicated and displaced their original forms. Perhaps there was a rogue mummy involved, and Elvis is still out there, on the lam.

"Elvis is out there, I tell you! He's out there!"

As with seemingly everything around Elvis, there are so many divergent narratives that finding the truth of the matter often means settling for the most boring story. Like the final resting place of Alexander the Great, perhaps some things will never be known. We have "official stories" for a lot of these tales of intrigue, and for those who enjoy tugging on the conspiratorial threads there will never be a satisfactory explanation. In this case, with either unreliable narrators or authorities who brush the crime off as a hoax we may never know what really drove the miscreants to attempt the crime and you know... that's alright, mama. That's alright with me. 

Blue Moons, Blue Lights, and Elvis Disclosure

 "Blue Moon, 

Now I'm no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own..."

At the time of this writing, we are on the cusp of a Blue Moon- and a Super Moon at that. It occurs to me that the Moon gets a lot more attention these days than it ever used to, although that can be debated. I also don't consider that a bad thing, because the Moon is pretty danged cool. Blue moons happen just infrequently enough to inspire a colloquialism - "once in a blue moon"- which is about every 2.7 years. This one just so happens to be arriving in time for my birthday, while the last one, on Halloween of 2020, coincided with my wedding. 

Monsters in love

On this most auspicious date, and lunar arrangement, I thought it would be a good time to share a little more Elvis weirdness. I recently joined Steph Quick to talk weird Elvis on Project Archivist, and in the course of discussing the alleged connections between Elvis and UFOs I told the story of the mysterious blue light that appeared over his birthplace in Tupelo, right after he was born. Unfortunately the descriptions of this, based on recollections from Elvis's dad Vernon, are rather vague. I said during the recording of the show that I had meant to look into naturally occurring phenomena that might cause such a light, but had never really gotten around to it... so naturally, after recording the show, I did. I ended up finding this article from a few months after his birth in 1935, from the Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA).

The article appeared on March 31 of 1935, and referenced a reported Blue Moon "a few months ago" which would seem to be around the time of Elvis's birth in January. Current news articles about this effect say that it could result from diffraction of light through particles in the atmosphere, such as those thrown up from wildfires or volcanic eruptions. Such was the case in the 1880s, when green moons were reported after the eruption of Krakatoa. If you haven't already, please check out my post UFO Rope Tricks and Threads From Nowhere for a really weird example of a green moon story. 

At any rate, the blue light and blue moon idea seems to have had a profound effect on Elvis and informed his choices about songs he recorded. The author(s) of The Elvis/UFO Connection, Richard Daniel, make it a point to list some such songs: Blue Moon, Blue Moon of Kentucky, Blue Christmas, Moody Blue, Blueberry Hill, When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold, and of course, Blue Suede Shoes. While some of these might be a stretch, there does seem to be some numinous significance to the motif in Elvis's life and perhaps as a symbol for us all. Consider the Moon in Tarot, numbered 18 in the Major Arcana. I included Salvador Dali's version up at the top of the post, which includes a lot of blue and gold in its presentation. The usual interpretation of the card has to do with illusions, fear, and madness. After all, the word "lunatic" is derived from the idea that a full moon causes people to lose their minds. I suppose it's fitting, then, as Elvis surely lived a life fraught with hidden insecurities and became more of a mythic figure than an easy-to-pin-down historical one. Furthermore, my bestie SJ and I can attest to exactly how crazy the Elvis synchronicities we experience together are... but they would take far too long to explain here.

Which brings me to a very odd thing indeed- the leak from Secret Sources of a song Elvis wrote himself, and recorded, only to have the demo swiped by the Men in Black. Said Secret Sources were not able to recover the recording, but they were able to send me the chords and lyrics to the song. I was told Uri Geller knows about it, but he's being pretty coy about confirming or denying anything. You know what THAT means... wait, what does that mean?

Anyway, here's the song. I hope you enjoy it. Also, happy birthday to me, and happy Super Blue Moon to you all! 

Elvis by the Numbers or: The King and the Tower of Death

 It's been 45 years since Elvis left the building one final time. August 16, 1977, Elvis Aaron Presley was found dead in the bathroom of his home, Graceland. For millions of fans around the world, this was a dark and life-changing event indeed. One writer named Gail Brewer-Giorgio, who wasn't necessarily a big fan of the King of Rock and Roll, was so moved by the effect that the death of the idol had that she wrote a fictional story that coincidentally mirrored many of the events in Elvis's life. This set in motion the events that led her to write her book Is Elvis Alive? which, along with several other books and groups of dedicated fans led to the belief that the King had merely faked his death. But we're not here to talk about that so much; I would refer you to my appearance on Conspirinormal for that. Today we're talking about the numbers.

"50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong" is a phrase that has stuck in my mind since I heard it as a kid in TV commercials that advertised Elvis box sets while I watched reruns of 60s sitcoms. One can get philosophical about such a statement- does majority opinion really determine actual quality? Or, one can nitpick the numbers to determine how they were generated in the first place. I'm doing neither here, but rather using it to illustrate the importance of numbers on our common perception of people and things. If the box office sales for the 2022 Elvis movie are any indication, the numbers suggest an enduring interest in the King. According to Brewer-Giorgio, Elvis was very concerned with the numbers indeed.

She claims in her book that Elvis had been turned on to the occult science of Numerology by his hair dresser, Larry Geller. He had given the King a copy of Cheiro's Book of Numbers, which, she says, he was so enamored with that he always kept it with him and based his big decisions around dates that the numbers showed to be auspicious for whatever it was that he planned. Naturally, when I learned about this I had to get my own copy of Cheiro's book. 

The above mentioned books in front of my Velvet Elvis. Unfortunately, my copy of Is Elvis Alive? does not have the cassette tape.

Reading Cheiro's Book of Numbers it becomes apparent why it would have struck a particular chord with Elvis, as the author makes specific mention of his birth number. Born January 8, 1935, not only was he saddled with the "peculiar influence" of the number 8 as his birth number, Cheiro also indicates that those born between the 21st of December and the 26th of January are 8s born under the House of Saturn (Positive) which intensifies these peculiar vibrations. These influences make for a particularly fatalistic role of those bearing the birth number to play; they often feel isolated and misunderstood throughout their lives, have intense natures and great passion, and usually will either succeed in the most dramatic ways or fail spectacularly in life. In most cases, Cheiro recommends decisions be made on days that align with your birth number, but in the case of 8s born in January, particularly when they have other 8s and 4s in their chart, it's best to avoid them. He returns to this very specific date range several times throughout the book, and to Elvis it must have seemed that Cheiro was talking directly to him. It's worth mentioning here as well that David Bowie shared Elvis's birthday... make of that what you will. 

Since you can't change what day you were born, Cheiro recommends changing your name if you'd like to change your lucky numbers. Letters can be converted to numbers and added up, and it's possible to affect your fate by calculating a name with the number you wish to have. Much was made of Elvis's birth name being different than the one on his grave marker in Brewer-Giorgio's book, and true-believers have sometimes pointed to the difference in the spelling of his middle name (Aron to Aaron) as a clue that he had not died after all. It seems possible that he changed the spelling of his middle name, which by some accounts occurred around the time Geller introduced him to Numerology, in order to change his lucky numbers. If this indeed is the case, it would have been right before Elvis's big comeback at the end of the 60s. This is a bit odd though, because to Cheiro the name you're most known by is the one that's really important; having your middle name change from a 6 to a 7 shouldn't mean much if nobody calls you by that name. Instead, ELVIS = 18, which reduces to 9 (1+8), as does PRESLEY (27, 2+7=9), and if you add the first and last names you get 45 and then 9 again. 

This brings us back to the date of August 16th. Much speculation about the significance of that date in Is Elvis Alive? is aimed at proving that had Elvis wanted to fake his death, then that would have been the date he would choose to help him succeed. Brewer-Giorgio says that Elvis often expressed that he thought he would die at the same age his mother did (42) and on the same day, August 14th. Through a bunch of playing around with numbers, she determines that although he would have preferred to use August 14th as a date to fake his death, the cosmic influence of that day would not have worked, and that he invariably would have chosen the 16th instead. Having no mastery over Numerology myself, but having read Cheiro's book, I'm not sure her accounting adds up. But let's take a look at what Cheiro wrote about the number 16:

16. This number has a most peculiar occult symbolism. It is pictured by "a Tower Struck by Lightning from which a man is falling with a Crown on his head." It is also called "the Shattered Citadel". 

It gives warning of some strange fatality awaiting one, also danger of accidents and defeat of one's plans. If it appears as a "compound" number relating to the future, it si a warning sign that should be carefully noted and plans made in advance in the endeavour to avert its fatalistic tendency.

So, probably not a great day to plan a cunning deceit like faking one's own death then...

What's striking here though is that Cheiro uses the Tarot's Major Arcana to illustrate the meanings behind the numbers. He is of course referring here to The Tower, numbered 16 in the deck. The image of lightning, which calls to mind Elvis's custom "TCB" symbol, striking a Tower and causing the fall of a crowned figure really is evocative. The simplest meaning of this card in the Tarot is Chaos, but the more nuanced read of it is the clearing away of the old to encourage new growth. As my friend, author and Tarot reader Kiki Dombrowski commented when I shared this on Twitter - "I wonder if we could say that a fairly decent interpretation of the Tower card is 'taking care of business!'"

     Oddly enough, had the date been aligned with Gladys Presley's death date of August 14th, the card that would have been Temperance. As Cheiro explains, it's a number of "movement, combination of people and things... This number is fortunate for dealings with money, speculation, and changes in business..." He adds that there is an element of risk and that caution should be employed when planning for this day.

Now we can get into how odd August 16th is as a death date. The image of a fallen monarch isn't exclusive to the King of Rock and Roll, because just a few years after he was born another King had died on that same day. 

Robert Johnson, sometimes referred to as the King of the Delta Blues Singers, died by poisoning on August 16, 1938, at the age of 27. It can here be noted that 27 reduces to 9, and we again see 9 as significant. Further, Johnson was also in the 8 club, his birth date being May 8, 1911. His early demise makes him perhaps the founding member of the so-called "27 Club" - the odd grouping of musicians who left us at that age. This list includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison, and in more recent decades Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. 

Much of Johnson's life story is mixed up in legends told about him, including the idea that he met the Devil at the Crossroads in order to sell his soul for his guitar playing ability. This story is likely apocryphal, and it's likely that Robert had been confused with another bluesman called Tommie Johnson, for whom that claim had often been made. Still, Robert had songs like "Me and the Devil Blues" which probably didn't help discourage the idea. It's worth noting that the card immediately preceding the Tower in the Major Arcana is The Devil, and Cheiro says of 15 that people born under 4 or 8 can be unscrupulous in employing it. It has an association with "good talkers", musical and artistic gifts, and charisma. So it seems that a bargain with the Devil isn't off the table, in this sense.

Another musical monarch, the Queen of Soul, also died on August 16th. Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942, making her birth number a 7 ultimately. 25 is, according to Cheiro, indicative not so much of luck but of strength and benefits through hard work and trials early on. Passing on at age 76, she is the longest-lived of the crowned heads who fell on the 16th. It is odd that this pattern holds up so well, and what it ultimately means is really just a matter of perspective, just as the opinion of 50,000,000 Elvis fans is. 

A few non-musical entries can also be added to this list - Babe Ruth, sometimes called "The King of Swing", the "Sultan of Swat", etc, died August 16th 1948. One could say that numbers were significant with the Great Bambino, as his was the first player number to be retired in his honor. The number 3 was his when he played for the New York Yankees, and it originally signified his place at bat in the line-up. Prior to that, when he played for the Red Sox, players didn't have numbers. His leaving the Sox led to what was called The Curse of the Bambino, an 86 year period during which time Boston never won a world series.

Finally, Bela Lugosi also died on August 16, in 1953. Though not labelled a king of anything, he was pigeon-holed into horror roles after his depiction of Count Dracula. Toward the end of his life, he costarred with the Amazing Criswell in several Ed Wood movies. Criswell's actual name was Jeron Criswell King, and his birthday was August 18th. Close, but no cigar, to the dates already mentioned, but too fun not to include especially since he had the surname 'King'. The 18th of August, 1999 was also when he predicted that the end of the world would occur, after the planet became enveloped inside a "black rainbow". Cheery, that.

On a final and more personal note, August 16th was the birthday of my best friend Jeff Siegrist, who passed away earlier this year. Worcester Magazine was kind enough to publish my tribute to him, and it occurs to me writing this now that I referenced Elvis in that tribute. I also made reference to Jeff's gold jacket, and in finding images for this post the album cover that came up features the King in a gold suit. It's bittersweet, these synchronicities, and although I sometimes worry that I get too granular and go on too long about these things, over all it seems sometimes like reality rhymes with itself quite often. There are systems at work and underlying structures which can only be peripherally perceived; like numbers, they can be played with, made to support the messages we want to hear. My hope is to inspire the reader to consider these odd coincidences and decide for themselves what they mean. I truly hope you take away something useful from this.

That's all for now... and Thank you, thank you very much for reading!