Elvis Presley never left the building or checked out of Heartbreak Hotel. He’s simply lying low and ordering room service, diehard fans insist 30 years after his alleged death.
Sightings of Elvis began being reported almost immediately after he died on August 16 1977, at the age of 42.
According to the Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board (ESBB) website, where internet users can post when and where they saw Elvis, the King has been spotted everywhere from Oman to Norway, London to Kalamazoo, Michigan since his death.
He’s also been seen in local supermarkets, swimming pools, and, often, in fast-food restaurants, according to the ESBB.
”I was in line at Costco waiting to purchase a Nathan’s Hot Dog when I heard the customer behind me softly singing Love Me Tender,” the latest sighting posted on the bulletin board, reads.
”I turned around to compliment him on his singing voice and that’s when I realised it was The King.”
Marilyn — could it be that other immortal star? — wrote on the bulletin board earlier this month: ”I never believed Elvis was alive until July 2005, when me, my mother and my grandson were in Burger King in Kalamazoo for dinner. ”I saw Elvis and I know it was him. He was alive and doing fine.”
Elvis has been sighted driving a blue race car near Boston, and ”dressed as an Arab buying 24 cans of diet Coke in Carrefour supermarket” in Oman.
But none of the Elvis spotters has ever come forward with hard proof that they really did see The King.
Should anyone be able to supply concrete evidence that Elvis still lives, they could scoop a $3-million reward offered by British bookmaker William Hill.
In the United States, 7% of the population, or 20-million people, still believe that Elvis — who would be 72 today — is still alive, a survey conducted by the CBS national television network has shown.
Conspiracy theorists say Elvis was working with US drug-control agencies, and was given an identity change to allow him to live anonymously.
As part of his identity change, he travelled around the world — which would explain the many sightings of the King in places as far flung as Muscat, Oman or Norway.
Ardent believers in Elvis’s immortality cite what they say is irrefutable proof that his death was faked and he’s still among us.
His middle name, Aron, was misspelled — with two As — on his gravestone, they point out.
His coffin was too heavy for it to be him, some argue. Too light, say others.
He sang Blue Christmas shortly before he died — his way of warning his fans that he wouldn’t be around to celebrate the end-of-year holiday, others say.
Others have theorised that Elvis was kidnapped by aliens.
”I saw Elvis a few weeks ago in the market and he told me he was kidnapped by some aliens who took him to their planet. But they did some weird stuff to his brain and now he forgot most of it,” a Belgian visitor to the Crazy News website wrote.
In Norway, Elvis was spotted under someone’s bed eating a pizza. He shared it.
In Berlin, he was seen in a delicatessen ”purchasing an extra large pastrami on dark rye, pickles and chips”. Some Elvis spotters say he is showing his age: one said he was a down-and-out, looked about 80-years-old and asked if he could take a shower.
Others insist he looks as good as he did in the 1960s, at the height of his pelvis grinding, rock ‘n’ rolling career.
Even ex-Beatle John Lennon has posted an Elvis sighting on the internet bulletin board — although Lennon appears to have forgotten that he spent the last few years of his life in New York, not Liverpool, from where his sighting was signed.
”We used to hang out all the time and laugh at Paul McCartney, but then Johnny Cash turned up, and now he doesn’t even return my calls,” the message read. — Sapa-AFP