One of the world’s biggest conspiracy theories of all time. Paul McCartney is actually dead and was replaced. It might seem silly to think about. How can people actually think that The Beatles would be able to cover something up that big. I found myself thinking “Why on earth do people even believe this?” That is what I tried to figure out.
It is the ninth of November 1966. Paul McCartney gets into a heated argument with the members of The Beatles and he speeds off in his car furious. Paul completely crashes his car and dies. The members of the Beatles fear that if the news breaks to the public it would severely damage their band as it wouldn’t be the fab four anymore. They also feared that many die hard Beatles fans would go very crazy and might even commit suicide after the news broke. So they had a “Paul McCartney look alike contest” to see who would replace him. The winner was William Shears Campbell, a man from Scotland. The story is that he went on to replace Paul and that the Beatles taught him how to act and play music like the Paul that passed away.
My question is how the heck did people come up with that story and why do people believe it? Well believers in this theory say that the other 3 Beatles felt very bad about covering it up so they left clues about his death in their music, album covers, and other forms of media. For example some people claim at the end of the song “I am a walrus” if you play it backwards you hear the chant “Paul is dead Haha” at the end of their song “Strawberry fields forever” some fans claim to hear John lennon sing “I buried Paul” The album cover of Abbey road you see all the Beatles walking on the street but if you look Paul is barefoot which makes people think of a corpse.
I personally do not believe in it. I think for most of the hidden messages in the songs it’s really hard to hear, and all other things are just coincidences. In the song “glass onion” John Lennon sings “Here’s another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul.” The Beatles are basically making fun of the fans trying to look for clues on the death of Paul. If the death of Paul was true, there is no way they would say that,they would probably try to hide it. Also if Paul died in 1966 that means in my opinion the “new” Paul is better at making music than the dead one. For example the most famous song of all time “Hey Jude” was written in 1968 which means the old Paul had nothing to do with the song. Paul also went one to have a very good solo career. There is absolutely no way The Beatles were that incredible at teaching music to a random guy from Scotland. I understand why people might believe it though. Do you believe this theory?
Rafael Barron, De La Salle Institue, DMSF
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