Elvis Presley:
Hound-dogged by hauntings
Elvis Presley is the King of Rock and Roll, but that was after the history books had pretty much been written. Prior to his ascension to rock’s highest throne, he actually considered himself more of a country and western singer. The King went by a much less dignified title: the Hillbilly Cat.
A pioneer in blending musical styles, the Hillbilly Cat skirted the edges of country music and was never fully embraced by the establishment until much later in his career. He eventually shared one other thing with country legends, like Hank Williams and Roy Acuff, though: ghost stories.
Since Elvis’s passing in 1978, ghost stories have swirled around the places that the King graced with his presence during his life, including his home dubbed Graceland, Nashville recording studios where he laid down a golden path of hit records, and, oddly, at the Ryman Theater, after all it was one of the places where Elvis’s raw and somewhat raunchy brand of music was rejected. We’ll discuss Elvis’s haunting at the Ryman a little later when we review the haunted history of this hallowed site of country music.
The Graves of Graceland
If you were looking for Elvis from the late 1950s to the late 1970s, you would travel to Graceland, the King’s homey mansion in Memphis. If you’re looking for the spirit of Elvis, you would still travel to Graceland.
Graceland, which was originally owned by a newspaper publisher, S. E. Toof, is one of the most haunted spots in the city. Toof, by the way, gave Graceland its serene name after his daughter, Grace, who eventually inherited the property.
Elvis snagged the property off the Memphis real estate market in 1957. His fans had finally overwhelmed his family’s modest home and forced him to seek a place with a little more property, privacy, and security. Of course, this white-columned, neoclassical mansion was the site of the last breaths of the King of Rock and Roll, who died in the mansion in 1978.
You might think that the stories that spirits haunted Graceland began to appear after Elvis’s death. You would only be partially correct. Graceland’s reputation as a haunted locale began way before that. Big personalities—just as big as Elvis’s ample personality, some say—inhabited the mansion and may have left their psychic mark on the property. There are four graves at Graceland: Vernon and Gladys Presley, Elvis’s parents; Minnie Mae Presley, Elvis’s grandmother; and Elvis’s own resting place. There’s also a memorial for Elvis’s stillborn twin brother, Jesse Garon.
Where you find big personalities—and especially where you find graves—you’ll probably find ghosts. Everyone knows that. Family members with huge spirits, like Elvis’s mother, Gladys, and his grandmother, Minnie Mae, whom he nicknamed Dodger, are said to haunt the property with the King. There’s a good chance that Elvis heard stories about encounters with the spirits of his family members and perhaps even told his friends and hangers-on about his own brushes with the spirit world.
Some people claim to have seen the apparition of Gladys on the property. These reports do not necessarily come from the omnipresent Elvis fanatics who surround Graceland on a daily basis, but from reliable witnesses, such as friends and family. Staff members, too, have seen the figure of an older woman. While the image is often described as fleeting and transparent, most people quickly match the image with pictures of Elvis’s beloved mom.
Years before these sightings, though, the spirit of Gladys was making her presence known to her beloved family members. Minnie Mae said she heard strange noises in the mansion’s attic. She described them as rustling noises—like someone was rummaging through the boxes and mementos that the family stored in the attic. She believed it was Gladys’s ghost. The stories spread through the family, eventually reaching Elvis’s new bride, Priscilla.
Priscilla was all alone in the home—which seemed bigger and emptier when Elvis was gone—and a rain storm moved in. Maybe she, like hundreds of victims of horror movies, was just one of those people who when they are alone in a giant, spooky mansion during a thunderstorm decide to go to the attic in search of ghosts. Whatever the reason, Elvis’s wife decided to explore the attic. She made her way up the steps and tried to find a light to illuminate the pitch black room. When she finally found the switch and clicked on the lights, Priscilla saw racks and racks of dresses and clothes once owned by Gladys.
Intrigued, Priscilla stepped closer. Like the lightning crackling around the home, an electric sensation sizzled through her body. She sensed the joy of her departed mother-in-law.
Priscilla began to try on Gladys’s clothes. She put on some of the hats, too. As she did, Priscilla felt what could only be described as a hug. She felt like Gladys—the mother-in-law she never really knew—was reaching from the beyond to give her a hug. Elvis’s wife wasn’t scared; in fact, she said it was a special moment that she’ll never forget. She bonded with Gladys again that night.
It wasn’t just family members and staff who have had an unexpected encounter with the supernatural at Graceland. Since Elvis shared so much of his life with his fans, there’s no reason to doubt that he wouldn’t share a hunk of his afterlife with them, too.
There is one encounter that still provokes debate among the Elvis Presley loyalists. Soon after Elvis died and his home was open to visitors, one man said he strayed from the tour and saw someone in the pool house—someone who looked familiar, but, if news reports were correct, shouldn’t be there. The witness said he saw Elvis in the pool house talking to people. He quickly snapped a picture. The photo made the rounds and the fans quickly divided into three camps: There was the “It was a fake” camp; there was “It was the ghost of Elvis” camp; and there was the “Elvis is still alive” camp.
In fact, right after Elvis died, people began to see him—or his twin, or his ghost—all over the country. He was seen scarfing down a Big Mac at McDonald’s. He was working as a gas station attendant. A whole genre of truck driving ghost stories centered on stories about truckers who pick up Elvis, sometimes he’s heading to Graceland, other times he’s trying to escape Memphis.
After a lot of those accounts were labeled urban legends, some fans began to believe that Elvis may be dead, but he wasn’t exactly gone. A story circulated that at least one tour of Graceland went from a fun afternoon remembering Elvis to a supernatural brush with the departed King of Rock and Roll.
It goes like this: A father, mother, and daughter were moving along with a group of fans touring the mansion. They had just entered the trophy room, a gymnasium-sized room that contains a lot of the awards that were given to the singer, along with costumes and other Presley paraphernalia. It’s a tour highlight for most fans.
The mother, who could have sworn her daughter was right at her side, checked around the crowd making its way through the trophy room to find her daughter. She wasn’t around. It was strange because the daughter was sticking pretty close to the mother’s side throughout most of the tour. The panic level began to increase as the mother wandered through the aisles looking for her daughter but was unable to spot her. Panic turned to pandemonium. Security put the property under lockdown and each member of the tour began to look for the girl.
With a huge collective sigh of relief, the girl was found unharmed near the tiny graveyard that Elvis referred to as Meditation Garden. The sighs of relief turned to sighs of exclamation when the once-lost girl told her parents and the other members of the tour group about the tour of Graceland she received from a special guide.
She said that a nice man in a white suit took her by the hand and gave her a quick tour of the mansion and then, when he was done, dropped her off by the grave. He then, in her own words, “disappeared.” There was no one on the tour who was wearing a white suit, nor did security officials see anyone who fit the descriptions. Some people immediately began to suspect that this wasn’t a mortal guide, but an angelic helper—and a few even suggested it was Elvis. These people say that details of the description fit Elvis perfectly. He was fond of white clothes, he loved kids, and he loved Graceland.
Other witnesses have had peripheral encounters with Elvis’s ghost—and maybe even the ghost of Elvis’s horse. One woman said that while visiting Graceland, she noticed a magnificent black horse. No sooner did she see it then it reared up and bolted toward the barn, almost as if someone was calling it. But the woman neither saw nor heard its handler.
Intrigued, the witness sought out a guide and asked if Elvis’s horses could still be at the barn. He replied that, no, the horses that Elvis kept, or their lineage, are being groomed at another site and no horses were at the barn that day.
The woman, however, was convinced that she saw the horse.
Elvis’s Other Haunts
As we’ll see in upcoming stories, the ghost of the Hillbilly Cat is prowling other places in Memphis and Nashville, but Elvis’s spirit isn’t just relegated to places in Tennessee. Elvis’s career took him all around the country, and his spirit apparently became attached to certain cities that matched his larger-than-life appetite for adventure, cities such as Las Vegas and New Orleans.
Believe it or not, Elvis suffered his first career dip when his rockabilly juggernaut rolled into Sin City. Right after he had steamrolled through the South and then conquered television, Elvis’s management thought he would blow away the crowds in Las Vegas. The audiences who watched him were polite, but, let’s face it, he was no Frank Sinatra. Viva Las Vegas would have to wait.
Over the years, Las Vegas and the musical tastes of its casino goers began to change. They started to embrace Elvis. Heck, they didn’t embrace him, they gave the King and his white jumpsuit a big old bear hug. To say thank you, Elvis left a little hunk of his burning love—and his smoldering spirit—in the city.
It’s no wonder the King haunts the Heartbreak Hotel in Las Vegas. It’s almost his namesake. Named after an iconic Elvis tune, the hotel continues to be the site of some of the most vivid paranormal encounters with the singer. Long after Elvis left Las Vegas permanently, guests, workers, and performers at the hotel have claimed to see him. And hear him.
The Wedding Chapel—scene to countless Elvis-themed weddings—is one place you’ll want to visit if you’re looking and listening for Elvis’s spirit. Witnesses say they’ve heard Elvis songs when no one was around—and the sound system was turned off.
We all know how photogenic Elvis was. That hasn’t stopped in the afterlife either. Some patrons to the Heartbreak Hotel claim there are photographic anomalies in the pictures they took at the hotel. The phenomena range from simple orbs—often discounted by skeptics—to ghostly shadows that resemble the King, which are a little harder to explain away.
If you can’t make reservations at the Heartbreak Hotel, Elvis’s legacy and haunted legacy still shines on at the Las Vegas Hilton. The hotel was the site of some of the legend’s most famous Las Vegas concerts. He stayed in the thirtieth floor of the Hilton—and he hasn’t checked out yet.
People—especially people who work backstage at the Hilton—have said they saw the spirit of Elvis. The workers say it’s the flashy Elvis that’s haunting the Hilton. They claim to have seen a man in a white jumpsuit appear out of nowhere and walk around backstage. The spirit disappears as quickly as he appears. The ghost has also been seen near the stage elevators.
Big E in the Big Easy
As Elvis toured the South during those heady early days of his career, he found a certain affinity for the people and the party-filled atmosphere of New Orleans, Louisiana. He loved performing in the city, but he loved hanging out there, too. One of his first movies, Kid Creole, was sort of a homage to the King’s love of the city.
When Elvis died, the people of New Orleans were among the most shocked. They weren’t shocked, however, when his ghost started to show up in some of his—wait for it—haunts.
When Elvis was alive, he stayed in the city’s famous French Quarter, known for its historic balconies that are the perfect perch for slinging beads during Mardi Gras festivities. Some of those revelers have claimed to see Elvis on the balcony. Before you start to doubt the sobriety of these eyewitnesses’ accounts, some of these people have gathered photographic evidence. In some cases, the ghost of the King appears as a full-bodied apparition, to the point that witnesses think it’s an Elvis impersonator. Other times, his image must be traced in a thin film, or fog, and still other times, he shows up in photographic anomalies, like weird flashes of light or orbs.
Elvis’s ghost in New Orleans is not stuck in one era. Though most people have seen the Hillbilly Cat version of Elvis haunting the streets of New Orleans, there have also been reports of movie star Elvis ghosts, Las Vegas Elvis ghosts, and even chubby Elvis ghosts.
This all just goes to show that in the afterlife, just as in real life, Elvis always wanted to give the fans what they wanted.