The report was the culmination of a month's speculation that began in the school newspaper of tiny Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. The article, "Is Paul McCartney Dead?" (published on this date in 1969 and written by staff writer Tim Harper), pointed out that the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album marked the "death" of the old mop-top, "yeah yeah yeah" Beatles and represented something completely new. His theory was that Sgt. Pepper sounded so different because one of its principal players was different. Citing a liturgy of signs on Beatles album covers and recordings, Harper theorized that the evidence was indisputable: Paul is dead.

Harper claimed the evidence was everywhere. On the cover of Sgt. Pepper, a mysterious hand is raised over his head, the death symbol in many cultures. The "grave" at the band's feet is covered by a left-handed guitar, clearly in reference to the dead Macca. On the back of the album, as the rest of the band smiles for the camera, Paul turns his back…on the living. In that same shot, George points to the lyric from "She's Leaving Home" that says, "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" — an obvious clue to the time of death (Harper, incidentally, confuses this lyric with "A Day in the Life" and conveniently rolls that line together with the "Day in the Life" line, "He blew his mind out in a car." This lyrical puzzle was meant to indicate that Paul had died in a car accident during the recording of the album, with 5 a.m. being the time of death. The last sign on that album is Paul's black armband in the center spread, the sign of mourning. But Sgt. Pepper wasn't the end of it.
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