Elvis’ Friend Said the Presley Family Had ‘Scary’ Psychic Abilities: ‘It Was Eerie’
One of Elvis Presley’s longtime friends and bodyguards got to know the singer’s family well over the years. West worked as Elvis’ bodyguard long before the singer had the need or means to hire more people. His parents were glad about this. According to West, they seemed to have the psychic ability to tell when Elvis was in trouble. Elvis shared similar abilities.
Elvis’ friend and bodyguard thought the Presley family had psychic power
West began working with Elvis early in his career. He grew used to dragging Elvis out of mobs of fans and other sticky situations. He also grew used to Elvis’ mother’s seemingly psychic ability to know when her son was in danger.
“There was always something very eerie about the things she would say like she was psychic or something like it,” West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “Whenever we had a particularly wild scene on stage or if a riot broke out, whenever Elvis called her she would somehow have some premonition that someone got out of hand even before reading the newspapers.”
West noted that Elvis and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, all slept walked and had vivid dreams. He believed this connected to their seemingly psychic abilities.
“I mean, I believe all this sleepwalking and dreaming were somehow related to some kind of special powers, something like psychic powers or something I don’t really understand or could put my finger on,” West said. “A lot of that psychic stuff is a lot of bunk, but to some degree I believe in it. Elvis proved it to me again and again.”
He recalled the time a family member could sense Elvis was in danger
West believed Gladys had a particularly strong psychic link to her son. In 1955, West and Elvis were driving between shows when their car burst into flames. They escaped unharmed, though shaken.
“The next day, Elvis made a telephone call to his mother. And what happened was scary,” West said. “She had absolutely no way of knowing what had happened. It wasn’t in any newspaper or anything. Nobody knew about it. Apparently at about two in the morning she just sat bolt upright in bed, snapped clean out of her sleep. She nudged Vernon awake and said, ‘I see our boy, he is in a blazing car.’”
The next morning, Gladys told her son about the frightening vision.
“When Elvis called that morning, she said, ‘Oh, thank God, you’re all right. I dreamed you were trapped in a blazing car,’” West recalled. “Elvis said he was all right and nothing had happened. Of course, he would never do anything to worry his mama. Now I was there at the other end of the telephone when that conversation went on, so I know that it was true. After the telephone conversation, Elvis and I looked at each other as if someone had just walked across our graves. It was eerie.”
Gladys Presley wanted to make sure her son was safe
West grew used to Gladys Presley’s protective nature. Every time they spoke, she told West to watch out for her son. She grew more insistent about it toward the end of her life. West believed she wanted to make sure Elvis was safe after she was gone.
“Man, that dear lady knew she was dying,” West said. “She never said anything like that, but the way she was talking, it was as if it was all over. She knew she didn’t have long. When I got up to say goodbye, she just sort of called me back, and she said what I had heard her say a hundred times: ‘Bob, look after my boy.’ When she said it this time it was different. There was a sort of, I don’t know, a sort of finality to the sound of her voice, like as if that was the last time she would ever say it to me. It was.”
