Elvis died on August 16, 1977, at home at Graceland. His body was discovered by his girlfriend Ginger Alden, who called down to members of the Memphis Mafia who were always in the house day and night. The star's daughter Lisa Marie ran in from her bedroom next door while his father Vernon cried out in shock. Elvis' cousin, Billy Smith, lived next door with his own family, and received a phone call with the news as the star was taken to Memphis Memorial Hospital in an ambulance.
That is a lot of people, a lot of eyewitnesses, a lot of stories to line up if someone who was also one of the most famous people on the planet wanted to somehow fake their own death.
There were more at the hospital, from the doctors to Marian Cocke, a nurse who had also looked after Elvis at home during the last two years of his life.
And yet, numerous people have claimed to have sighted Elvis over the years, or spotted him in photographs and even in films.
It's easy to dismiss it all as a bit of harmless fun, but that's not what it is like for his family.
The very first sighting was alleged to have taken place on that same terrible day, August 16.
A man supposedly checked in to a flight to Buenos Aires, using the name John Burrows – the alias Elvis often used when travelling. It should be noted that there were no international flights out from Memphis at that time.
Elvis was also famously spotted in another airport, this time in the background of a scene from the 1990 movie Home Alone.
Other, more bombastic theories suggests he was in a witness protection programme whilst on the run from some sort of mobster organisation.
Further rumours stemmed from Kalamazoo, Michigan, in which Elvis was, again, “spotted” out in public.
Eyewitness report claims a man who resembled the King was sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Even more suspicious was the fact that the man was surrounded by bodyguards. The witness, Kelly, was so eager to prove it was really Elvis that she ran home to get her camera.When she returned she took some photos of the Elvis lookalike, prompting the bodyguards to run after her in an attempt to stop any further photos from being taken
Across the decades there have been endless sightings and conspiracy theories, endlessly recycling the idea that Elvis had not, in fact, left the building.
His family described their memories of that day, and the way conspiracy theories make them feel all the way to today.
Jo Smith said: "When I hear somebody get on those kicks and say about him being alive here and there…
"You don’t realise how bad that hurts people that was with him and saw him and lost him. That’s not funny to us.
"That’s like with the birthday celebration – we don’t mean to be ugly or rude about it, we hardly every go because that’s like a bittersweet time to us, it’s not happy to us."
