A Happy Eyewitness to the Return of Elvis

Television news is at its best when it relates to you in a very personal way.

For example, KABC-TV Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News” today is concluding a three-part series on “Beyond and Back,” about people who report having died briefly or having “near-death” experiences. That happened to me once while watching “Eye on L.A.”

On Sunday and Monday, meanwhile, “Eyewitness News” investigated reports that Elvis Presley still lives, asking in a banner trailing from a plane over Dodger Stadium: “Is Elvis Still Alive?”

Meanwhile, an on-air promo declared: “On the 16th of August, 1977, Elvis Aaron Presley died of an apparent drug overdose at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn. Today, there are those who believe the King still lives, that his death was a hoax, and that he has been living in complete seclusion ever since.”

I’ll buy that. As a matter of fact, I have in my possession a remarkable photograph of the White House taken just last year. If you look very carefully, you can see Ronald Reagan peering from a second-floor window. And at his side is Elvis.

In addition, Elvis even spoke to me during the first week of the November ratings sweeps period. It was an admonition--delivered, coincidentally, while I was watching “Eyewitness News.” He said: “You ain’t nothin’ but a hounddog!” I understand that he later joined the writing staff of “Dynasty.”

Maybe Elvis has been “beyond and back” himself. Maybe he’s one of the “millions of people” who, reporter Kent Dana said on Monday’s “Eyewitness News,” have undergone brief-death or near-death experiences. Dana’s solid sources included “near-death researcher” Jana Excel, who described the experience:

“You’re very detached and you begin to feel pull or drawn towards a tunnel, and then they begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and even feel so drawn to the light that you wish to go on farther. And at that point you may have what is called the life review: You’re watching your life in the presence of unconditional love.”

That’s exactly my feeling when I watch “Mr. Belvedere.”

“It was total love, total peace,” Joe Geraci said about his own experience. “It was as if I had always been there, that my life was just an instant, just a very brief existence, and I felt as though I would always be there.”

I wrote something similar in my diary the last time I watched “The Facts of Life.”

“I didn’t know where I was, but it didn’t matter,” said Sharon Grant. “I was supposed to be here.”

Exactly my feelings about “Alf.”

In the same 4 p.m. newscast Monday, Tawny Little announced that some people claimed to have “incredible evidence” that Elvis lives. As she spoke, I believe I saw a blurry image of Calvin Coolidge over her right shoulder.

The King-is-alive theorists include Gail Giorgio in Atlanta. She said that Elvis couldn’t be dead because his family hadn’t collected life insurance on his death. If true, that would mean that the insurance companies were colluding with Elvis on a death hoax. Either that, or he didn’t have any life insurance, or it was invalidated when the cause of death was ruled a drug overdose--questions that reporter Kathy Walsh neglected to pursue with Giorgio.

Giorgio also claimed to have a tape of Elvis’ voice recorded four years after his reported death. We heard what sounded like Elvis say he was in a “good place to hide.” Probably at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel.

But how did Giorgio gain possession of the tape, and who made it, and was Giorgio really alive herself, as she claimed, and did she have life insurance? If so, was it term or whole life?

Meanwhile, a Houston voice expert maintained that the voice on Giorgio’s tape was Elvis’, but he added that the tape had been edited and that he could not determine its age.

The next bit of “incredible evidence” came from Fort Worth, Tex., record producer Major Bill Smith, who claimed to have a tape of Elvis made March 30, 1981, the day of John W. Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of Reagan. Wherever he is, Elvis is obviously doing a lot of recording.

Smith said that Elvis had been singing “Loving You” that day, when he suddenly stopped and commented on the shooting of Reagan. Smith played a tape on which an Elvis-like voice said: “Somebody just told me that President Reagan and some other people have been shot. I’d just like to, uh, I’d just like to say that, that, uh, I hope they’re not hurt badly.”

Dead, but still a caring human being.

But he’s not dead, Smith said. Elvis lives. If Smith were so smart, however, why wasn’t he a colonel instead of a major? Was he really Elvis in disguise? Or was Tawny Little really Elvis?

Walsh ended her piece by noting that both Giorgio and Smith have a financial interest in promoting the Elvis-lives theory in that both have books out on the subject.

After the Walsh report, skeptical Jerry Dunphy remarked: “One must ponder the plausibility of what we just heard.” He might consider making that his “Eyewitness News” sign-off.

But there was more at 11 p.m., where the Elvis-is-dead crowd got its chance, but in conjunction with one devastating piece of evidence that Elvis was alive. As the story went, his casket weighed 900 pounds because it contained an air conditioning unit to cool the wax image of Elvis that was inside.

Could Elvis really be alive? Walsh asked. She answered her own question and shot down the whole premise of her report: “We think not, but certainly his memory and his music live on.”

Yet an eerie thing happened as she spoke, for in the background there appeared briefly the image of Nostradamus.

Now, about some of this column: One must ponder the plausibility.