But there’s a lot that’s fishy. Every year, there is a noted spotting or two (he was relaxing at a resort in New Zealand last year, but others caught him on video in Cuba), or evidence of a new, more complex cover-up emerges. The quantity of distinct theories might seem to surpass those of any other public figure’s death — in most cases, people tend to stick to a few favorites. This week, one of the weirdest and most chilling to date materialized: a retired cop on his death bed wants to let the world know that ‘Pac paid him $1.5 million to help the rapper take his own life. ‘Pac also paid an extra $50,000 for a fake body to be transported to the morgue. He claims that Suge Knight and his posse were privy to the plot (of course they were). Because the man’s motivations for claiming such a thing are so obscure, this latest explanation has a “You can’t make this shit up” air that most ‘Pac narratives lack. We’ve heard about the FBI setting him up (there’s a whole book you can read about this stuff), the significance of the number 7 in ‘Pac’s art (oh you haven’t? Please check out this handy Tripod site for reference), the ambiguities surrounding his cremation, the fact that Machiavelli — after whom ‘Pac dubbed himself “Makaveli” — wrote about faking death to fool enemies in battle. But with this latest story, we’ve got sums of money being exchanged, and a living, breathing person taking responsibility for the charade. Could the machinations have been less cosmic than we thought? “I heard rumors that I died, murdered in cold blood/Traumatized pictures of me in my final states...” Some forum users are even more cynical; ‘Pac didn’t just do this to get away from fame. Unexplained Mysteries user “Alien Embryo” may have the key to the reason why we’ve lost so many of the greats: capitalistic greed. Lenin was right. “2pac had been talking about the Don Killumanati, One Nation and The Outlaw Immortalz LPs amd the Gridlockd and Gang Related, (name was changed to Criminal Intent) movies being completed for over a year before he died. Plus, almost every musician who died had unreleased material that would sell more if he/she was dead. Does that mean that Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Eazy E, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, Biggie, Jimi Hendrix etc all faked there deaths?” But if you need more evidence that’s a bit more concrete, the proof is in the photos. A dominant and lengthy theory in the forum world concerns the disparity between Pac’s facial hair in the two last photos that were supposedly taken of him on the night he was shot. They are clearly different beards, no question — because of course…his military photo was superimposed on the photo of him in the car! Why would someone fake this? Well, who knows — this is just the tip of the iceberg of weird photo problems relating to the night of the murder. The shots of Pac’s crashed BMW after the shooting don’t match up — the damage appears to be completely different in each of them. Pac’s autopsy photo has his tattoos mixed up, and if you do your research (LIKE A REAL ‘PAC FAN WOULD) you would notice that it simply had to be generated from stills from the “California Love” video, one of the few times ‘Pac was captured on camera sleeping. Look, you can call me crazy, but even ‘Pac’s mom knows he’s still out there: It would be cool if any of the many Christ-related theories were true. They are inspired mostly by allusions in Pac’s lyrics and the cover of Makaveli (the nickname for 1996’s The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory), which features a painting of ‘Pac decked out on a crucifix. This shows that … he was planning this, right? Sacrificing himself (the media was getting to him) and then rising again, in due time, to reclaim the throne. But the proof is really in this pudding: mysteriously, the Makaveli album is credited to “SIMON” — that’s right, that’s the name of one of the apostles who saw Jesus rise again. Is “Simon” Suge, ‘Pac’s normal producer? Will Suge be the first to know when ‘Pac hitches a flight back from his New Zealand grass hut/mansion to claim all that record sales, documentary, and future biopic money? No. Because he’s doing just fine where he is, and will be for the rest of this millennium: the planet Yilamhar. Yeah, you’re damn right this is an anagram of “Hail Mary,” just like the ‘Pac song. Get it now? Reocities.com spits the seedy truth about Yilamhar, whose resident (“Space Heads”) put their favorite Earth rappers in trances (Big’s up there too), put chips in their heads and forced them to “kick out rhymes over wack beats”. It’s cool though, because at least they are paying him well, mostly in the “phattest honeys,” and they are going to give him eternal life when his time is up with them and he comes back down to Earth in 3000. Stop calling Young Thug, Future, and all these other Atlanta rappers “aliens”: When ‘Pac gets back everyone is going to be computers, and his new bangers will just be strings of code programmed into our heads full of characters no one has ever seen before. The most absolutely next-level code will be the sequel to “music,” and let me tell you, it’s going to be way better. Your computer brain won’t miss this “ooh, NPR First Listen Mumford and Sons” bullshit.