It’s the Great Doors Hoax, Charlie Brown: Jim Morrison ghost photo revealed just in time for Halloween

I hate to break this to you, stoner conspiracy theorists, but Jim Morrison, the incendiary lead singer of the Doors, died at age 27 in a Paris bathtub in 1971.

I’ll repeat that. He is dead. He is not running guns in Africa. He has not been reincarnated as a Navajo shaman. He is not writing funky post-modern poetry under a banyan tree, or under a pseudonym.

I wrote those words not three minutes ago, but almost three years ago, reviewing a new repackage of Doors audio and video for the Chicago Tribune. You would think that in the time since, the rumors of Morrison’s post-death incarnations and sightings would slow a bit.

But no.

No less a source than rock historian Brett Meisner now claims that, in a tourist photo taken of him at Morrison’s Paris grave in 1997, you can see Mr. Mojo Risin’ hanging out in the background all Jesus-like and slimmer than a polecat. Funny; wasn’t the Lizard King pudgy from alcohol abuse when he gave up the ghost? Or is death a fabulous weight loss plan for celebrities?

This article from Spinner breathlessly proclaims how “experts” have concluded Meisner’s photo cannot be fake, though it makes me wonder why Morrison decided to appear in the photo of a rock historian … as opposed to, say, a Doors groupie from Scranton.

As of this writing, 25,000 people have seen the video I’ve posted here. Yet any assertion the Morrison photo is authentic ranks as beyond laughable once you see the “ghost” image magnified many times. My 5-year-old daughter, who’s pretty handy with a mouse, could probably Photoshop this up in five minutes. Then you just take the bleary photos of that doctored image, send the negatives in for analysis and …. OOOOHHHH! A GHOST! Just in time for Halloween, too.

How utterly sad and predictable. When people get into paranormal stuff—past lives, for example—they never say, “I used to be an ugly Russian woman who milked yaks.” Instead, everyone is a princess, a general or a concert violinist. It’s as if people live vicariously through their past lives, a real contortionist twist if you ask me.

To wit: Bring on the photos of departed, hunched-over accountants from Teaneck appearing at their gravesides. Let’s see some ghosts of middle managers formerly of the human resources department at Pizza Hut striking the Jesus pose. And for the love of Jimbo, let’s let his soul rest in peace. Don’t we have enough smug classic rock jocks calling him immortal already?

I remember asking Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek about the most annoying Doors question he has to deal with. Now, this is a guy who will talk about the Doors any old time; Jim Morrison has made him quite a bit of money over the decades. Still, one point gets tedious to the point of aggravation.

Which is?

“That Jim’s alive,” Manzarek told me. “He’s alive; Elvis is alive; Tupac is alive. They never said John Lennon was alive, but Morrison is alive. After his death, he was sighted all the way around the world. I get people telling me that his spirit has leaped into their bodies … And that’s what I have to put up with.”