Updated September 24, 2021 3.4K votes 665 voters 39.6K views
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Vote up the wacky theories about John Lennon's death that are the most fun to think about.
In the decades since John Lennon’s death, his murder on December 8, 1980, has taken on a mythic quality. John Lennon murder conspiracies have taken on lives of their own, and have entangled themselves into his status as a folk hero. The death of John Lennon wasn’t just a blow to the world of pop music, it was essentially a nail in the coffin of the anti-war movement. But who killed John Lennon? The official story is that it was Mark David Chapman, a loner who had just flown to New York from Hawaii. But was it really the bookish nerd who was allegedly one of Lennon’s biggest fans? Or was someone pulling his strings?
Most of the John Lennon murder theories are predicated on the idea that someone, or some group of people wanted Lennon to put a sock in all of his positive, peace and love BS. All of his sleep-ins and talk about being a dreamer didn’t jive with the way the shadowy somebodies wanted the rest of the world to think so he was put down. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Keep reading to explore all of the possibilities behind John Lennon’s death.
Vote on the theories about the former Beatle’s death that you think are most likely to be true. And if you have your own theories about why John Lennon was killed, leave it for us in the comments – and whatever you do, don’t reveal your true identity.
This is essentially a seed for the conspiracy tree that branches off into a million other conspiracies about Nixon, Reagan, or Bush Sr. wanting to kill the former Beatle, but it's an interesting idea. Was Lennon such a powerful force amongst left-leaning voters in America that he needed to be taken out? Some people seem to think so.
Many of these people believe that the government was placing cryptograms about their plan to kill Lennon with bold words and headlines that ran in a variety of newspapers across the country. Messages like "Johnny Comes Marching Home," "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Ouch Ouch," and "The Job Richard Nixon Really Wanted" that were printed in papers supposedly telegraphed their plans while setting off sleeper agents.
It's no secret that Lennon believed that he was under government surveillance for the final few years of his life. And if the revelations brought on by Edward Snowden have taught us anything, it's that Lennon probably was being monitored to some degree. But did the government really want to kill him for leading sleep-ins and releasing art rock records? Maybe.
Was Mark David Chapman actually a Beatles fan who was seeking out John Lennon's approval before he murdered the singer? Or was he a CIA patsy who had never listened to rock 'n' roll in his life? Author Phil Strongman believes that Chapman wasn't actually the attention seeker that people believe he was. As Strongman says: "If he was an attention-seeker, then why did he turn down the chance of what would have been the trial of the century? By pleading guilty, Chapman missed all of this attention he was supposedly seeking. Why?"
The biggest tip off for Strongman that Chapman was actually a CIA operative was his calm demeanor after shooting the former Beatle. He suggests that Chapman had been recruited by the CIA and trained during his travels around the world. He explains that if Chapman looked like a zombie after killing Lennon and waiting for the police, it was because that was exactly what he was.
While most of the theories surrounding John Lennon's death concern the government wanting to take out the former Beatle because of his lefty political activism, the idea that Chapman was being controlled via MK-Ultra mind control is one of the most prevalent. Much has been been discussed of Mark David Champan's pre-assassination timeline, and its similarities to other assassins from history. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, he went on an extensive cross-country road trip that took him through the eastern hemisphere before landing in Hawaii, and then making his way to New York to take out Lennon.
It's possible that Chapman had no idea why he was going to New York and the catalyst for his trip was a thought put into his head by his handlers. While there are a variety of things that could have set Chapman off, most people tend to believe that it was his tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye that synced up with an MK-Ultra trigger word that caused him to kill John Lennon in broad daylight.
The scariest, and least attractive conspiracy theory about John Lennon's murder is that Mark David Chapman was simply acting on his own recognizance on the evening in 1980 when he murdered the former Beatle outside his apartment. Was John Lennon a thorn in the side of the US government? Sure, but even though Richard Nixon tried and failed to deport the singer, no one was trying to kill him. In the decades that have passed since Lennon was murdered people have tried to make sense of the singer's death, but no conspiracy theory is as frightening as the possibility of one unhinged man taking matters into his own hand and killing someone whom he felt deserved his own brand of lone justice.
Mark David Chapman using The Catcher in the Rye as inspiration to murder John Lennon is a well-known urban legend, and it seems like it is at least partly true. After Chapman shot Lennon, he remained at the crime scene, calming reading the novel. Much conspiratorial hay has been made of the fact that the assassin was obsessed with Holden Caulfield, the main character of Salinger's breakthrough novel. Chapman believed that he and Caulfield were kindred spirits: they both loved children, they both believed that people in power were "phonies," and they were both drawn to New York City.
From interviews with Chapman, many have deduced that he wanted to kill Lennon because he thought that Lennon had become a phony - something to be despised. Chapman said that he "would pray for demons to enter my body, to give me strength to pull that gun out" so he could rid the world of people like Lennon.
Most agree that Chapman wanted to use the murder to draw attention to the book. "Everybody's going to be reading this book--with the help of the god-almighty media," he told his lawyer. Chapman called himself "the catcher in the rye for this generation."
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John Lennon Is Alive and Well and Living in Mexico
Have you ever thought that John Lennon wasn't actually killed in 1980? What if the entire plot of Mark David Chapman approaching the star (who really should have been traveling with bodyguards) and shooting him at point blank range before waiting patiently for the police was just a ruse to help the singer live in peace for the rest of his life? While it's an outlandish idea, it wouldn't be impossible to accomplish, and there are a few facts that prove that this might be what happened to the former Beatle.
One thing that points toward Lennon's plan to disappear is the fact that the tapes he recorded on the night of his "murder" were erased by the session's producer. In an interview, Jack Douglas the producer, said: "The [tape of the] last day got tossed. I tossed the last day. Doesn't exist. It was the end of "Walking On Thin Ice." It was the last day of mixing, but there were things, there were some strange things said in the control room." What does that even mean? Could Lennon have been telling the producer about his plans to take off? Maybe.
If Lennon is out there, should we be trying to find him? If we do find the aging pop star on the beaches of Cozumel, would he want to return to the limelight? Probably not. And after all, finding John Lennon might be putting him in danger all over again.
