'Lost Symbol': Dan Brown's New Book Has Nothing on Real-Life Conspiracies

Sept. 19, 2009— -- Dan Brown's latest novel, "The Lost Symbol," is flying off the shelves -- but some of the greatest conspiracy stories can be found for free online.

Read the one about a troubled music icon's relationship with his skin doctor?

It sounds like more on the death of Michael Jackson, but in this case it's about Elvis Presley, who died 42 years ago at the age of 42.

There are books written on the FBI's Elvis files, but you can read them yourself, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Amid newspaper clippings and hard-to-read scanned copies of what seem to be mimeographed reports are some really interesting passages. In Part 3, for example, Elvis made a criminal complaint of blackmail against a South African dermatologist who was giving him skin treatments for an undetermined problem while Presley was stationed in Germany after being drafted into the Army. The blackmailer, it turned out, was not really a medical doctor.

There is also an account, in the first batch of papers, on Presley's tour of the FBI building in 1970. Presley did not meet with then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who had been advised against meeting with Elvis because of the King's strange personal appearance and the fact that he was then embroiled in a paternity suit, ultimately discredited, in Los Angeles.

On the tour of FBI headquarters, Presley told FBI personnel that "in his opinion on one has ever done as much for his country as has Mr. Hoover," and that he, Presley, considered the director the "greatest living American."

Presley also met with President Nixon -- a meeting for which there is photographic evidence -- and after his tour of the FBI, Presley "privately advised" that he has volunteered his services to the president in connection with the narcotics problem. Nixon responded by furnishing Presley with an agent's badge from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.