Is Paul McCartney Dead?

http://digilander.libero.it/p_truth/

This explosive accusation first reached me last year and I immediately sent it to my friend Barry. Barry is a big Beatles fan and also a photographer and he was very perturbed by it. The narrative in the link is complete, but it is an abridgement of a very convoluted and disturbing tale. Wikipedia calls it an “urban legend” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead). Basically what happened was that in 1966 Paul McCartney was killed, some say murdered, in mysterious circumstances and his body turned up on a beach in France. The Beatles’ manager Brain Epstein was so concerned that the loss of Paul would ruin the Beatles’ unprecedented success that he arranged for the death to be covered up and an actor employed to permanently masquerade as Paul. The other three members of the band agreed and a man was found to be the fake Paul; he underwent plastic surgery, make-up and voice training to look and sound as much like Paul as possible and life went on for the “Fab Four” as normal. The real name of “Faul” varies: William Sheppard, Phil Ackrill etc, although the black and white photo of the imposter is the same in all sources. In his former life he was a Canadian policeman and was employed by either British Intelligence or a talent company, or both, to become Paul and live his life in every aspect after the real Paul’s death. The Beatles’ songs, album covers, visual merchandise and multimedia are supposedly encoded with clues of what is really going on, either deliberately or subconsciously by those in the know. There is even supposedly an embedded subliminal image of a forensic photo of poor old Paul’s badly-corrupted body in the video of Free as a Bird, a song that was only released as a single in 1995, more than a quarter of a century after the band split up.

If I hadn’t come across the fact that cover-ups on this scale in fact do occur I’d immediately dismiss this theory as nonsense. Also I can appreciate the distinct difference in the sets of images comparing Paul with “Faul”. What’s more this cover-up has an analogous event: The long-running children's TV show Blue Peter (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/) always has pets in the studio. In 1962 they introduced a new puppy called Petra. Petra suddenly died a few days later and the show producers decided to go out to a pet shop and find another identical puppy and pretend that it was Petra. This was thought of as preferable to announcing to the programme's young viewers the heartbreaking news that the puppy was dead. The secret replacement of Petra was kept secret until 2002 (presumably giving time for the show's 1962 audience to grow up). I know replacing Paul McCartney with a double is far more extreme than the Petra II Strategy, but the principle is the same.

Let’s say all this is true. An obvious question springs to mind: How many people know? Apart from Epstein and the surviving Beatle, Ringo Starr, who else had to be involved? The Intelligence officers, talent, make-up and plastic surgery team would know, but none of them have come forward, if they exist. Were they “reassigned with extreme prejudice” in order to protect the secret? Paul, or “Faul” married his first wife Linda in 1969. After three whole years of being Paul he’d probably have become accustomed to the role. By today it’s possible he’s even convinced himself! Secret agents working undercover in foreign governments often forget their true identities even after five years of living another life, not only acting but thinking like the person they’re pretending to be; this is why they’re so vulnerable to being recruited as “doubles”. What effect would 42 years of such duplicity have on “Faul’s” psyche? He’s also living an enviable lifestyle; the Guinness Book of Records lists him as the richest and most successful musician of all time; plenty of distractions to make his former life seem like just a dream! It’s possible that when he first met Linda in 1967, supposedly only a few months after the great switch-over, he let her in on the secret. However Linda died in 1998 and Paul remarried in 2002. His current wife (and soon to be ex-wife) Heather is probably not briefed in and most likely totally believes she’s married to the real Paul McCartney; as I said, “Faul” may well believe that too.