Conspiracy Encyclopedia

A common story for the alleged death is that on Wednesday, 9 November 1966 at 5 am, McCartney, while working on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, stormed out of a recording session after an argument with the other Beatles and rode off in his Austin-Healey which he subsequently crashed into a lamp post, and died.

That story was pieced together from the lyrics of multiple Beatles songs:

1. “He didn’t notice that the lights had changed” (“A Day in the Life”).
2. He then crashed into a lamp-post (a car crash sound is heard in “Revolution 9″ and “A Day in the Life”).
3. He was pronounced dead on a “Wednesday morning at 5 o’clock as the day begins” (“She’s Leaving Home”)
4. Nobody found this out because the news was withheld: “Wednesday morning papers didn’t come” (“Lady Madonna”).
5. A funeral procession was held days later, as was supposedly implied on the Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles’ clothing. (John Lennon dressed all in white, like a clergyman. Ringo Starr wore a black suit, like an undertaker, Paul McCartney wore a blue suit without shoes, as, supposedly, a corpse would, and walked out of step with the other Beatles, and George Harrison dressed in blue jeans, symbolising a gravedigger).

According to believers, McCartney was replaced with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest. The name of this look-alike has been recorded as William Shears Campbell, Billy Shears (the name of the fictitious leader of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band), William Sheppard (based on the alleged inspiration for the song “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”), or some combination of the names.

McCartney said of the rumour: “Anyway all of the things that have been, that have made these rumours, to my mind have very ordinary, logical explanations. To the people’s minds who prefer to think of them as rumours, then I am not going to interfere, I am not going to spoil that fantasy. You can think of it like that if you like. However, if the end result, the conclusion you reach is that I am dead, then you are wrong, because I am very much alive, I am alive and living in Scotland.”