Scientific American.com: Turn Me On, Dead Man -- What do the Beatles, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Patricia Arquette and Michael Ke

"In September 1969, as I began ninth grade, a rumor circulated that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was dead, killed in a 1966 automobile accident and replaced by a look-alike. The clues were there in the albums, if you knew where to look.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's 'A Day in the Life,' for one, recounts the accident: He blew his mind out in a car / He didn't notice that the lights had changed / A crowd of people stood and stared / They'd seen his face before / Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. The cover of the Abbey Road album shows the Fab Four walking across a street in what looks like a funeral procession, with John in white as the preacher, Ringo in black as the pallbearer, a barefoot and out-of-step Paul as the corpse, and George in work clothes as the gravedigger. In the background is a Volkswagen Beetle (!) whose license plate reads '28IF'--Paul's supposed age 'if' he had not died." (Full article at link)

(pattern'd from boing boing)
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