6 Bizarre John Lennon Stories That Will Make You Question the Universe

John Lennon was a bizarre man. He was a musical genius, of course, but he was strange. He often said and did questionable things, but that’s what makes him one of the most intriguing Beatles. John was destined for greatness, and certain signs told him that from a very young age.

Starting from childhood, John experienced many unexplainable things. You might say that most of these experiences were due to all the drugs he took, but that can’t really explain some occurrences. John experienced things that make one wonder if there’s some higher power controlling our destinies. Maybe it was all in his head. Either way, here are 6 bizarre stories about John that will make you question the universe.

6. John Lennon knew he’d be famous

From a very early age, John knew he was special. In his book, Lennon, Ray Coleman writes that the ex-Beatle once said, “I had a feeling I was either a genius or a madman. Now I know I wasn’t a madman, so I must have been a genius.” But a bizarre occurrence happened when John submitted artwork for an art exhibit at school when he was 10. He drew a creepy portrait of what looked like Jesus Christ, with his thin nose, almond eyes, and bushy beard. It later startled many of his peers because twenty years later, that’s exactly how John looked. In Jude Southerland Kessler’s book, Shoulda Been There, which takes real events from John’s life and turns them into conjecture, the same events are described, only John tells his aunt that the portrait is him.

5. He used to sleep in a coffin

According to Allan Williams (per Mental Floss), The Beatles’ first manager, John enjoyed sleeping in an old coffin. The band used to play shows at Williams’ coffee bar, The Jacaranda. In the back, Williams had an old coffin that John liked to take naps in.

4. John Lennon had visions

The story of how The Beatles got their name comes from another strange occurrence in John’s life. In a 1961 interview, John said the band’s name came to him in a dream. “Many people ask what are Beatles?” he wrote. “Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision – a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an ‘A.’ Thank you, mister man, they said, thanking him.” John was 12 at the time. Later, Paul McCartney named an album Flaming Pie.

3. He saw a UFO and met with aliens

John wrote, “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O” on the cover of Walls and Bridges. But John’s relationship with UFOs and aliens goes much deeper. History.com writes about John’s sighting, saying he got an unexpected urge to go out to his balcony one night. There, he saw a flying disk with red and white lights with May Pang. John said he was sober at the time, even though the event happened during his infamous “Lost Weekend.”

John didn’t just see a UFO; he made contact with aliens as well. Uri Geller, a British magician and John’s friend, claims that John told him that aliens visited him one night.

“One night he was lying in his bed in the Dakota building where he lived in New York and suddenly noticed an extremely bright light pouring in from around the edges of the bedroom door. It was so powerful, he thought it was someone aiming a searchlight through his apartment,” Geller told The Weekly News. “He got up, crossed to the door and flung it open. The next thing he could remember was four thin-looking figures. He said that the figures came over to him as he just stood there.

“Two of them held his hands and the other two gently pushed his legs and he was gently guided into this tunnel of light. He was shown all of his life, just like watching a movie, and he told me it was the most outstandingly beautiful thing he’d ever seen. John recalled something being given to him. That was all he remembered, but when he opened his hand there was this odd-looking, not quite egg-shaped, ball of metal – very smooth and very heavy, about an inch or so wide…Then he put his hand in his pocket, pulled out the object the aliens had given him and gave it to me.”

Allegedly, John gave him the egg because it was too weird for him. “If it’s my ticket to another planet, I don’t want to go there,” he said. Geller still has the egg.

2. The number 9 followed him around

John was under the impression that the number 9 followed him around his entire life. Upon closer inspection, it all adds up. John was born on Oct. 9, lived on 9 Newcastle Road in Wavertree, Liverpool. “Newcastle,” “Wavertree,” and “Liverpool” are all 9 letters. McCartney is 9 letters too. The Beatles had their first gig at The Cavern Club on February 9, 1961, and 9 months later, on November 9, Brian Epstein discovered them. They signed with EMI on May 9, 1962, their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show happened on Feb. 9, 1964, and John was in The Beatles for nine years, leaving in 1969.

John played with the eerie phenomenon by putting 9 into lyrics and song titles, including “The One After 909,” “Revolution 9,” and “9 Dream,” which made it to No. 9 on the charts.

Even creepier, his son Sean was born on Oct. 9 as well, and there are nine ‘o’s in the combined John Ono Lennon and Yoko Ono Lennon. They lived in apartment number 72 (7+2=9) at the Dakota on West 72nd Street. John died on Dec. 8, 1980, but it was Dec. 9 in England. They took him to Roosevelt Hospital (9 letters) on 9th Avenue in Manhattan (also 9 letters).

John knew all of these weird connections and studied numerology, believing that there’s a divine connection between a number and a person or event. Whatever the truth is, these coincidences are strange.

1. The white feather

Almost like the number 9, John had a deep connection with the color white. There’s The White Album, for instance. He wears white on the cover of Abbey Road, and he had a white room with a white piano in his apartment in the Dakota. White signified something to him. The color also coincides with a promise he made to his first son, Julian.

“Dad had said to me that if there was a way of letting me know that he was going to be all right, or that we were all going to be all right, it would be in the form of a white feather,” Julian told TODAY Parents. Low and behold, when Julian toured Australia, he met with some aboriginal leaders who “asked him to use his voice and fame to bring attention to their plight.”

They presented him with a white swan’s feather, and Julian got goosebumps. Later, he started the White Feather Foundation, which raises money “to help support environmental and humanitarian causes.” But he also started it because it would have meant a lot to his father.

Whatever you believe, John did experience some strange things in his life. Things that seemed to guild him in a way. We’ll never know if any of it was real, but these stories are fascinating and make John even more of a legend.