
The above photo initially set me off on a journey that resulted in the discovery of the McCartney twins, Paul and Mike. Just guessing about it back then, I placed it in New York in maybe 1964.
In fact, according to a reliable source who claims no interest in the subject, it was set in the Hudson River in 1968. It was a meeting of Apple executives and the Beatles, with at least John, Paul and Mike present. I do not see George or Ringo.
In the background then would be the Washington Bridge.
I am told that the man leaning against the rail on the left is not Paul McCartney, but rather a “young John Lennon.” While the photo is simply not clear enough to make such fine distinctions as to his true identity, he is clearly not Lennon. I was supplied the photo below of Lennon, taken on that very trip.
See he is not wearing a tie, as is the man in the left. So in addition to not even vaguely resembling Lennon, he is dressed differently too.
Here’s another shot from that day:

That is Mike McCartney, as I know him anyway, the twin who is also known as our current “Paul” McCartney. I can quickly tell by the hair parted on the right, caused by his cowlick. That was always there from his early childhood days.
For all I know, his name could be Paul, and the original Beatle we knew as Paul could be Mike. The point is, he is the twin. He starred in most of the movie Help!, while original Paul sat out. I have no clue why, but do speculate that Mike had more musical talent than Paul, which is why the original was consigned to caretaker of the McCartney family home.
Which Beatle wrote Yesterday, you ask? Probably neither. That might well have been George Martin, or at least a collaborative effort including George, as the melodic tones are so different, so much more sophisticated than the other music they were putting out at the time. But authorship of Beatles music is, as I see it, a mystery.
Why are they in a boat in the Hudson River? That’s easy. Since If both Paul and Mike were present, they had to be out of public view. That was a major consideration in management if the group. The twins could never be seen together, could not even be in public at the same time, much less place. (For instance, one could not be sunning on the beach in the Bahamas while the other was performing in New York.)
How did the boat photo become public? We can see that here are at least two cameras on board, as the photo with Lennon has a man with a camera [Mal Evans] in it. I would imagine security around photos was tight, and that all film was documented and confiscated at the end of that day. So the photo was not the result of someone just taking a candid shot and keeping it secret.
So the boat photo might have become public by either of two means … accident, or deliberate leak. I would guess the latter. It seems to me that this gathering of publicity agents, Intelligence types (spooks), musicians and performers called the Beatles liked to toy with us. They leaked it to see if anyone would catch on.They could always deny the photograph to have any substance, and most people would accept the denials.




In order to be thorough, I grabbed four more photos of Goodman against those I already had of Joplin, but encountered difficulties. Some matched beautifully, others not.




The second photo has been stretched out and compressed, the object to give her a gaunt and wasted look about the mouth. The eyes are sunken like a corpse. That is easily shown to be fake by putting it next to the real living Karen Carpenter to the left here. Pupil distance is the same on both sides of that photo. They obviously monkeyed with her image, stretching it out like a plastic sheet.
This first one is odd, his original “mug shot.” Keep in mind, there are important pieces of information that prison officials want from a mug shot – height, scars, facial features, date of arrest, prisoner number. For that reason, mug shots are taken with bright lights in front of a camera that slides up and down so as to shoot straight at the face. When the photo is taken, the top of the skull is precisely even with the correct height line. Notice on this mug shot there is no height scale, and that Chapman’s face and neck are shadowed. That is because this is not a mug shot (even as someone is holding up a NYPD prisoner number in the lower left, not seen here). This is a portrait shot of Chapman, not taken in jail. We were easy to fool in 1981, so it worked.
Next we have what I call “Chapman 72,” a man six feet tall. I have scrolled the number 72 on each side of his forehead for reasons that will be clear later. Make no mistake, this man and the young man up above line up nicely, and are very close in appearance. In fact, I would say they match up perfectly, even as the one on the right is in his middle years, while the one above is in his twenties.
Next we have “Chapman 70.” He is two inches shorter than the one above. You might think it trivial that there is a two-inch difference in height between these two, and indeed that could be the case. Even though prisons try to do their best work, they cannot always be perfect, so it could be that camera angles were not working properly, and that these are the same man. But I doubt it. This man also has a narrower face. But I will do side-by-side comparisons down below.
Finally, we have old Chapman. Again, trust me on this, as this man, Mark David Chapman 72, is the same man as seen above with the numbers “72” on his forehead, and the same man as the young man showing at the beginning of this piece.
I was certain that all photos with “72” were the same man, as you can see at the left … we get perfect alignment of features.
And again, the young man and the old man, perfect alignment.
Now it begins to get a little murkier. This is Chapman 72 and Chapman 70. If it were a mere matter of camera angles, they would match up after the pupil distance is adjusted. And at first glance, they do line up. But look closer … 72 has a much lower ear, and the eye is lower. However, the mouth and nose align perfectly. I would guess here that we are dealing with identical twins, neither of whom is in jail.
Here I have done my best to align the features of Chapman 70 and young Chapman, but they are off just slightly, as with 72 and 70 immediately above. While I can get nose and eyes (mostly), the mouths are off, and the chins and ears do not match up.