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On this day in 1935 Elvis Presley was born. Several myths with a Fortean flavour have sprung up about the singer, not least that he faked his death and it was a lookalike that had died, allowing Elvis to leave the building undetected, or that his ghost stalks Memphis and Graceland (ala Marc Cohn’s song ‘Walking in Memphis’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRjPhFbvfZ4).
My favourite Elvis story has to be his vision of Josef Stalin. There is little question that this actually happened because he had a crowd of witnesses with him at the time. The story goes that in 1964 Elvis was driving through the desert on his way to film ‘Harem Scarem’ when he looked up at the sky. Presley was shocked to see the clouds parting to form a man’s face, but not just any face, the face of Joseth Stalin. Because the cold war was in full swing this perturbed Elvis somewhat and he asked the various people in his entourage if they saw it too and they did. Elvis ran into the desert to try to get a better look at the clouds, shouting out for the other people who were on his bus to follow him. Eventually his spiritual advisor Larry Geller caught up with him. According to Geller this is what happened next:
"It's God!" Elvis cried. "It's God!" Tears streamed down his face as he hugged me tightly and said, "...I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You got me here. I'll never forget, never, man. It really happened. I saw the face of Stalin and I thought to myself, Why Stalin? Is it a projection of something that's inside of me? Is God trying to show me what he thinks of me? And then it happened! The face of Stalin turned right into the face of Jesus, and he smiled at me, and every fiber of my being felt it... Oh, God. Oh, God," Elvis kept saying.
Then he paused and added a peculiar aside. "Can you imagine what the fans would think if they saw me like this?"
"They'd only love you all the more," Geller said.
"Yeah," he said, "well, I hope that's true."
Make of Elvis’s road to Damascus moment what you will but this goes to show unsual things can happen to anyone. Regular readers of Yesterday’s News Today will also know I’m a bit of a fan of Al Stewart so I can hardly mention this incident without providing a weblink to Al’s song based upon it: http://www.last.fm/music/Al+Stewart/_/Elvis+At+The+Wheel
While I’m on the subject of Elvis and songs, though, it would be remis of me not to post a link to an Elvis song for you to listen to while you read today’s Fortean zoology news so here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEO7uu1Pp8I
But enough talk of Elvis; here’s the real reason you’re here: it’s time for the latest Fortean zoology news:
'The bat swooped down and bit each of the men'
Why Nessie may have sunk without trace
Melbourne Zoo's pregnant elephant
Taiwan scientist discovers 'strawberry' crab
Alan & Fleck have an "Arctic Fox" of a time
“Where do you think that Arctic fox comes from?”
“Alaska.”
“Don’t be silly, Arctic foxes can’t speak!”
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