One of the more tantalizing and persistent myths in rock lore contends that “ Paul is dead”—that Paul McCartney died in a 1966 car accident and was secretly replaced with a lookalike. There are countless sites and rambling YouTube videos attempting to support this claim—based not just on the well-known middle-school myths about the cover of Abbey Road but on arcane evidence surfaced from the depths of pop-culture obscurity.

In February of 2009, a man waving signs interrupted a meeting of the Sarasota City Commission to stand before the microphone and make a remarkable claim: John Lennon—shot and killed on December 8, 1980—had not been murdered by deranged Catcher in the Rye fan Mark David Chapman, but by none other than popular author Stephen King.

Hollywood loves a fairytale, and on March 29, 1993, it got one all to itself.

On Me Against the World, the 1995 album from Tupac Shakur, the prodigious rapper foretells his death. "I'm having visions of leaving here in a hearse/ God can ya feel me?/ Take me away from all the pressure/ and all the pain/ show me some happiness again," he raps on "So Many Tears." Eighteen months later, while riding in the passenger seat under the iridescent glow of the Las Vegas strip with Marion "Suge" Knight at the wheel, Tupac was gunned down and mortally wounded. Or was he?

In the summer of 2012, shortly after she filed divorce papers to dissolve her marriage to Tom Cruise, the actress Katie Holmes moved into a Manhattan apartment complex called the Chelsea Mercantile. The prewar building has 354 units, a private garage, and, on the street level, a Whole Foods Market, where Holmes began appearing with her and Cruise’s then-six-year-old daughter, Suri. Celebrity photo databases contain blurry pictures of Holmes and Suri strolling the organic grocer’s aisles, and clearer ones of them leaving through the front entrance.

What would Princess Diana be doing if she were alive today? Would she be on a reality show? Would she wear peplums? Would she have solved global hunger? Admittedly I think about this more often than I should, because so much potential, so much intrigue, so much gossip was lost when Lady Di, the Queen of Peoples' Hearts and One-Piece Bathing Suits and Foofy Blond Short Haircuts and Being a Humanitarian but Not in a Weird, Scary Self-Righteous Way Like Angelina Jolie, died. Or rather: was murdered.

Have you ever been to Colorado? You should go. It has skiing, the pot is free, and my sister lives there. It also has Denver International Airport (DIA) (or DEN), the largest airport in the U.S. and the second largest in the world. The airport is also home to a secret underground city built to shelter the world's elite in the event of a nuclear holocaust. And the runways form a swastika.

The five gyms I've used as an adult have had one thing in common: All of the elliptical machines—or the "good ones," at least—are always in use during peak hours. Every other machine—stairs, rowing, treadmill, etc.—usually have at least a vacancy or two, but not the fancy ellipticals.