With the recent publication of my complete analysis in BYU Studies, I thought I’d answer the ten most common questions I’ve received about Elvis Presley and the Book of Mormon. (Page numbers in parenthesis are from the article.)
Q1. Did Elvis Presley write in this copy of the Book of Mormon?
A. No. The handwriting is clearly forged and the provenance is highly improbable.
Elvis Presley did not write in the Book of Mormon held by the Church History Library. The story of the book’s provenance—its being given to Elvis fourteen days before his death and being read and digested from first page to last—does not fit within the constraints of a period in which he hosted his daughter, prepared for a tour, and responded to an exposé about his prescription drug abuse and erratic behavior. Further, analysis of the handwriting in the Book of Mormon volume—a signature and three dozen smoothly written annotations—reveals dramatic departures from Presley’s authentic handwriting as well as differences in the style of his marginal annotation. After nearly three decades of uncertainty, this investigation can turn on the popular culture public announcement system to declare without hesitation: “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the library.”
(page 72)
Q2. Didn’t the Osmonds say that Elvis wrote in this book?
A. Yes. Multiple times. They are one of the many victims of this forgery. I personally shared the findings with Alan Osmond.
When I shared the findings of forgery with Alan Osmond, he was both surprised and saddened . . . . Though clearly a victim of the forger, Alan quickly recognized the strength of the evidence and said, “The Church is true, and it doesn’t need Elvis’s name. I am thankful that you have checked this out. We want to put closure on this.” To me, Alan provides an inspiring example that it is okay to change one’s view when new evidence is uncovered.
(page 75)
Q3. Did Elvis ever read from the Book of Mormon?
A. Probably. He was an avid reader, he was interested in religions and philosophies, and he discussed Latter-day Saint beliefs with professional acquaintances.
Both Ed Parker and the Osmonds gave copies of the Book of Mormon to Elvis and reported discussing the text with him. To date, every claim of an active full-time missionary teaching Elvis has turned out to be false—the missionary did not serve in the right mission, or served in the right mission at the wrong time, or the missionary name did not even exist . . . . Parker provides an important check against overspeculation: Elvis “often told people what he thought they wanted to hear; not in attempt to be dishonest, but simply in an attempt to be accommodating.”
(page 76)
Q4. Are there other copies of the Book of Mormon connected to Elvis?
A. Yes. A couple of missionaries gave him copies in Hawaii, and many fans sent him printed materials.
One of Presley’s secretaries reported that “Mormons sent literature and books to Elvis, Jehovah’s Witnesses mailed issues of the Watchtower to him, and he received copies of the Living Bible and dozens of other Bibles in the mail from people who asked that he read them. (When stories circulated that he was losing his eyesight, someone sent him a Bible in braille.)”
(pages 69-70)
Q5. Do we know what Elvis thought about the Book of Mormon?
A. No. There are no surviving records that indicate his thoughts. And one should not leap to inferences.
One lesson to learn from this forgery is not to draw conclusions that reach beyond the evidence. For example, just because someone gave Elvis a Book of Mormon does not mean that he read it; and just because he read a copy (or marked it) does not mean that he believed it and desired baptism . . . . Thus, when a video published by the Graceland Archives reveals a paperback copy of the Book of Mormon among Elvis’s books, what does it mean? It means simply that a copy made it into his collection. Are there annotations? Yes, but not in Elvis’s handwriting (most likely by a missionary). Did Elvis read it? We can’t be sure. Did he believe it? The book won’t reveal that.
(pages 75-76)
Q6. So why does this finding matter?
A. This is the only copy that claimed to report what Elvis thought about the book. This hoax gave celebrity-seeking Saints just what they hoped.
Forgeries are often accepted because they provide something that people already want; in this case, the story of a changed heart, the conversion of a celebrity, and a testimony of the Church.
(page 69)
Q7. Is it really a hoax?
A. Yes. The handwriting was very poorly imitated, and the messages in the margins are laughable. Someone was clearly messing with us.
For example, the forger underlined passages about excessive drunkenness (2 Ne. 15:11) and King Noah’s whoredoms (Mosiah 11:2). Beneath a photograph of an ancient gold tablet, the smooth-handed forger wrote, “gold records—real ones.” Underlining “Thou shalt have no other God before me” (Mosiah 12:35), the forger wrote, “Fans = Not me either.” But the forger also wanted readers to see a change in Elvis’s heart. Underlining Alma’s warning to his sexually promiscuous son Corianton about unpardonable sins (Alma 39:6), the forger dialed up two ampersand I’s to write the book’s longest annotation: “I could never deny that which I know in my heart to be true.” Yes, there was still hope for Elvis. Next to the underlined words “They were desirous to be baptized” (Mosiah 21:35), the forger wrote “me too.” But these forged desires would not come to pass, as the forger suggested that Elvis seemed to know all too well. Next to the underlined words “And now I go unto the father” (3 Ne. 18:35), the forger wrote “me too.” If this imagined Elvis had a premonition of his own imminent death, he also found hope for the future in the most widely quoted forged annotation—beneath an underlined warning from Mormon that “awful is the wickedness to suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism” (Moro. 8:16), the forger wrote, “My Lisa needs this church. She’s only 9. Help her for me.” The annotations in this volume are fabrications manufactured to deceive.
(page 69)
Q8. Who did it?
A. I don’t know.
Unfortunately, it is easier to disprove the writing of a single individual than it is to identify the writing of one of potentially millions of living persons. One might look to the handwriting of the obsessive superfan who followed Elvis across the country and back, but . . . the evidence in the book does not suggest that the “quiet fan” became an open forger.
(page 72)
Q9. Why didn’t anyone report this earlier?
A. Today there are better histories of Elvis available, and more samples of his authentic handwriting.
As I examined the volume, the annotations on its pages immediately raised more questions than answers. Internal records revealed that others had likewise questioned the book’s authenticity, as early as 1991 and as recently as 2008. My research accelerated, drawing on a host of recently published works that document Elvis’s life and activities more clearly than ever before. The passage of time has introduced more authentic samples of Presley’s handwriting into the market, as well as more forgeries to be identified by collectors, dealers, and auction houses.
(page 53)
Q10. How can I learn more?
A. A summary of the evidence has been published in the Church News and on lds.org. The complete details are in the December 2018 issue of BYU Studies.
Bonus. Anything else to share from your research?
A. My favorite real connection between Elvis and the Church is that he spent a week at the newly opened Polynesian Cultural Center filming Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966).
The center had opened in 1963 and is featured twice on screen—first as the main character (Elvis) flies his helicopter over the PCC, lands in the Tongan village, and rides a canoe through all of the villages while singing; later, as the film ends with Elvis singing a reprise of two songs from the film on the stage of what is now part of the Hale Aloha theater.
(page 74)
In Real vs. Rumor I share a variety of interesting reactions from people to these findings of forgery. Further, I use this forgery to illustrate how developing good thinking skills can help protect us from being faked (see pp. 136-137).
My 9,000-word analysis of the forged Elvis Presley annotations in a Book of Mormon held by the Church History Library has been published in BYU Studies Quarterly. The journal’s website describes the piece as follows:
In 1989, a copy of the Book of Mormon was donated to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints containing, purportedly, marginal annotations made by Elvis Presley. Over the next several years, various speakers, newspaper columnists, and even a documentary film producer made claims that Elvis really had made these markings. The author of this article, who is director of the Church History Library, conducted an in-depth analysis of the book and its markings. He worked with Elvis Presley handwriting authenticators and studied the final weeks of Elvis’s life. His analysis concluded that none of the annotations in the book came from Elvis, nor did he likely have time to read the book between the time it was given to him and his death. The evidence presented in this article shows that this story deserves to be discarded.
Download the entire article at the BYU Studies website.
Citation: Keith A. Erekson, “Elvis Has Left the Library: Identifying Forged Annotations in a Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018): 51–77.
This article was published online in the Church News on November 14, 2018, and a notice appeared the same day in the Deseret News. The story ran in the print version of the Church News on November 18 (pages 18-19) and was posted on lds.org on November 20.
Elvis Presley’s copy of the Book of Mormon ain’t nothin’ but a forgery, Church history experts say
By Keith A. Erekson, Church History Library Director
Published 14 Nov 2018 8:46 am
For almost 30 years, a copy of the Book of Mormon has been preserved in the historical collections of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The book was published in 1976 with a soft, light blue cover featuring a golden Angel Moroni. Within the book there are handwritten markings on nearly one of every six pages — the majority are underlining or curved brackets, but three dozen of the pages contain handwritten words. The first page contains the signature “E. A. Presley” and on the last page (in the index) was written, “Father, I want more! I need more now. Help me!” The content and placement of the annotations suggest that Elvis Presley read this copy of the Book of Mormon from cover to cover.
The idea of Elvis Presley cherishing the Book of Mormon has captured the popular imagination of Latter-day Saints. The story of this book has been told by fireside speakers, classroom teachers, newspaper columnists, and an independent filmmaker. And the story continues to circulate throughout the market for “uplifting” books and social media.
However, after carefully analyzing the historical opportunities for Presley to have read this volume and the handwriting throughout its pages, I affirm that Elvis Presley did not write in this Book of Mormon. A detailed presentation of the analysis with photographic evidence will be published in a forthcoming issue of BYU Studies, but my findings about the book’s history, its forged signature, and its forged annotations are summarized here.
The book’s donor claimed to have given the book to Elvis Presley on Aug. 2, 1977. He died 14 days later, and the book was allegedly returned to the donor who shared it with a few people before it was transferred to the Church in 1989. The last two weeks of Elvis’ life were very busy. His 9-year-old daughter, Lisa Marie, had arrived on July 31 and he entertained her by renting out a local amusement park, screening several films, and spending an evening visiting the family of his then-current girlfriend. The day of his death was supposed to be the day he departed on tour, so much of those two weeks were spent reviewing plans and details, avoiding and reluctantly starting a liquid diet, and playing racquetball once. And, Elvis also reeled from the Aug. 6 publication of a devastating exposé of his prescription drug abuse and violent behavior. It is very unlikely that Elvis read and pondered nearly 600 pages of scripture during these 14 event-filled days.
The signature on the first page of the book is a clear forgery. Elvis signed his full name for autographs, but he did sign with just his initials on formal documents. Despite a general resemblance to his signature, significant differences appear in nearly every letter, the most dramatic being that the “P” is connected to “resley,” a closed-bottomed “s,” and the omission or serious misformation of the second “e” in Presley.
Whatever effort the forger put into making the signature look authentic was not spent on the rest of the annotations. Elvis’s authentic handwriting was erratic, jerky, and childish-looking — and grew worse over time due to stress and drug abuse. He was, in fact, a reader and an annotator of books, underlining text and writing in the margins in printed block letters. In contrast, the handwriting in this volume is cursive script and so smooth and mature that it is clearly forged.
Experts in authenticating Elvis Presley’s handwriting corroborate these findings. Music industry autograph authenticator Roger Epperson wrote: “In my opinion this is not written or signed by Elvis. The signature has some similarities to an authentic signature, but the writing is not really even close.” Rich Consola, owner of Elvis Presley Authentication, concluded: “After reviewing the signature of Elvis Presley and all the writing in this book, it is my opinion that NONE of the writing and the signature are that of Elvis Presley. To this end I am very certain.”
Elvis Presley did not write in the Book of Mormon now held by the Church History Library. Annotations suggesting that Elvis wanted to be baptized, that he believed his daughter needed the Church, and that he suspected his death was imminent are fabrications manufactured to deceive. Forgeries are often accepted because they provide something that people already want; in this case, a story of the conversion of a celebrity.
Did Elvis have any verifiable connections to the Church? Yes. He spent a week at the Polynesian Cultural Center filming the movie “Paradise, Hawaiian Style.” He was also acquainted with the Osmond family, exchanging gifts and sharing the same drummer and jumpsuit designer in Las Vegas. Elvis’s best-documented Latter-day Saint friend was his karate instructor and later bodyguard, Ed Parker.
What about those who felt inspired by a story that now turns out to be false? One lesson to learn is to seek corroboration before retelling a story. Errors arose in the repeated tellings of this story — that Elvis underlined “king” throughout, that he wished “Priscilla” would read it, or that he wrote “There is only one King.” The last two errors originated in a book marketed to Latter-day Saint readers as a “Mormon bathroom reader” — providing pungent reminders that you should judge a book by its title and that you get what you pay for. If you build the strength of your conversion on the stories of celebrities, then you face the possibility of later getting “All Shook Up.”
Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the library.
The Saints sacrifice to build the Kirtland Temple. The first Twelve Apostles of the Restoration are chosen by the three witnesses. Joseph Smith and his brother William resolve a difficult personal conflict. Keith Erekson, Ph.D. Historian and Director of the Church History Library, shares his insights on these important events.
[I was interviewed by Kaitlyn Bancroft for this story that ran in the Church News on July 17, 2018. Read the full story or see an excerpt.]
Think you know pioneer history backwards and forwards? These 3 facts will make you think again
If you think all the pioneers came by handcart, you’re wrong.
If you think they all suffered extreme illness and death? Also wrong.
And if you think Utah was a desolate desert when the pioneers arrived? Wrong again.
“Unfortunately there are many misconceptions about pioneers,” said Keith Erekson, director of the Church History Library. “Across the board, the pioneers were just living the normal 19th century life. They had fun, they played games, they worked, they walked, they fell in love. It was just life.”
In honor of Pioneer Day, here are three misconceptions about the people who walked the plains, and the truths behind them:
1. Only between 3 and 5 percent of the pioneers came by handcart. Erekson said the perception of all pioneers coming by handcart is in art, movies and commemorations, but of the nearly 400 pioneer companies, only 10 were handcart companies.
Thomas Alexander, who was the president of the National Society of the Sons of Utah Pioneers in 2015, explained that more people came to Utah by wagon than handcart between 1856 and 1861.
“So that’s the irony, is that if a pioneer came back for Pioneer Day and saw all the handcarts, the pioneer would say ‘What is that? I came by wagon. I came by horse. I walked.’ The handcarts were very rare,” Erekson said.
2. The mortality rate of the pioneers was about the same as the rest of the United States. Though there are notable exceptions like the Willie and Martin handcart companies, Erekson said for the most part, pioneers were just as likely to die staying home as they were walking the plains. Alexander added most pioneer companies averaged about a 3 percent mortality rate.
“Again, we like to portray this in lessons and community events and pageants that the pioneers were walking alone in the wilderness suffering, their children were dying, but in reality… the mortality rate of the pioneers was just about the same as the rest of the United States for those years,” Erekson said.
3. Utah was not a desolate desert when the pioneers arrived. Alexander, who is also a former Brigham Young University history professor, said there’s a misconception that the Salt Lake Valley was a desert without trees and with difficult-to-plow ground when the pioneers arrived. The average rainfall in the Salt Lake Valley, however, is 16 ½ inches a year, and farming is possible with 15 inches a year in the right season; because most of the precipation in the valley comes in the winter and spring, it is not available for farming during the growing season, and under those conditions, the pioneers had to irrigate in order to grow crops. They also found cottonwood trees and grass up to 10-feet high, and used water from the mountains for irrigation.
Perpetuating false realities
Erekson said perpetuating these misconceptions about pioneers is similar to how people perpetuate false realities about themselves on social media. If people only focus on how hard it was to walk the plains — even though realities like cooking over a fire and walking for miles were everyday realities for pioneers — then the lessons drawn from pioneers is distorted and people miss their true sacrifice.
“For these pioneers, the sacrifice was their conversion to a new faith. It was the adoption of a new culture,” he said. “And so that points us to different lessons that we draw about culture, about change, about being around new people, and those are lessons that I think are very helpful in the 21st century.”
The misconceptions, however, do affect the way pioneers are celebrated in Utah, seen particularly in the over-emphasis on handcart re-enactments.
“Among all of the possible experiences that pioneers could’ve had, we’ve focused on this one,” Erekson said.
He also said a better way to honor pioneers is to understand what their actual experiences were like and then tell those stories; Alexander added that people should be concerned with the truth and recognize what pioneers did was “extremely important.”
“They established the basis for the society and culture that we have here in Utah,” he said. “And I think it’s right that we honor them for what they did.”
Two chapters in Mormon Women’s History have received awards from the Mormon History Association:
The award for the best article on any topic went to Amy Harris for “Early Mormonism’s Expansive Family and the Browett Women” (chapter 4).
The award for the best article on women’s history went to Andrea G. Radke-Moss for “Silent Memories of Missouri: Mormon Women and Men and Sexual Assault in Group Memory and Religious Identity” (chapter 3).
The Mormon History Association announced the awards on June 8, 2018, at its annual meeting, held in Boise, Idaho.
