Music

Conspiracy theorists believe the Beatles never existed

by Mark Teo

December 9, 2014

As silly as they can be, we’re absolutely obsessed with fan theories. Even if they’re not credible, most of them are simultaneously hilarious and creative—a cursory scan of the Shitty Fan Theories subreddit, for example, yields topics like “Back to the Future 2 confirms Half Life 3,” “Eric Forman from House is Eric Forman from That 70’s Show grown up,” and our personal fave, “Scarface, the Joker, John Conner, and Scar from Lion King, are all very terrible at cunnalingis [sic].”

Most are meant to be funny, but on the flipside, some veer into outrageous truther territories—like, for example, the theory that the Beatles never existed.

Chuckle if you must, but thebeatlesneverexisted.com isn’t joking. In fact, the site, which was purportedly started by one-time Beatles fans, is dead serious. Here’s its intro paragraph.

This is a serious subject, not a joke, and this site is here to expose the actions of those who exploited these young men and defrauded us their fans. It is to defend the honor of everyone involved who did not take part in it willingly. It has become apparent to us in this extensive and painstaking research that there were never just four individual people known as “John”, “Paul”, “George”, and “Ringo” who comprised one Rock & Roll band known as “The Beatles”, and rose to fame as the world’s first supergroup. For all intents and purposes as far as we can tell, no one such group ever existed.

So, why does this group believe that the Beatles never existed? Let’s dive right in. The Fab Four, they believe, weren’t comprised of four people—in fact, these theories seem to hinge on the fact that there were multiple Beatles. Head over to the site’s message boards, and there’s an entire sub-forum dedicated to discussing the John, Paul, George, and Ringo multiples.

McCartney, according to one poster, had the most multiples, who had different facial features and tics.

So, why would someone fabricate multiple McCartneys—potentially from the DNA of one man? As user Silversong writes, the answer is vaguely paranoid and anti-government—it’s pretty standard truther stuff.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s all a fabrication, and it’s to destroy, assimilate and enslave us. Isn’t this what we’re hearing more and more about our governments doing to us in these current times?

Either way, there are various measures of truth-telling: For one, the site notes that the height of the Beatles fluctuates greatly over the years (and here’s the, uh, “evidence”). Their eyebrows reportedly change over the years, as do the shape and placement of their earlobes. The size and shape of their teeth also fluctuate.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the change in eyebrows.