In the fall of 1969, millions of people became convinced that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash in November 1966, and that the Beatles had secretly replaced him with a lookalike named William Campbell. Fans stopped simply listening to their records and started interrogating them: studying album covers like crime scenes, spinning vinyl backwards until 2 a.m., and hunting for a confession hidden in the music. We walk through the famous âcluesâ and why they fall apart. Abbey Roadâs âfuneral processionâ and barefoot Paul. The Volkswagenâs â28IFâ number plate (Paul would have been 27). âTurn me on, dead manâ in âRevolution 9,â and âI buried Paul,â which John said was âcranberry sauce.â Then we follow how the rumor actually spread: a caller to Russ Gibbâs show on Detroitâs WKNR-FM, and a deadpan satirical article by Fred LaBour in the Michigan Daily that the national press reported as fact. Finally, we look at why so many people wanted to believe it. A generation shaken by assassinations, Vietnam and the Manson murders, a band that seemed to transform overnight, and an audience that found it easier to accept a dead Beatle than a grown-up one. More than fifty years later, it reads like a blueprint for how misinformation goes viral today.
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