“There are plenty of good reasons for Elvis to come out of hiding now,“ says Wes Thomas, an investigative reporter and Presley expert who has written extensively on the performer.

“He’s certainly no spring chicken. And after the recent death of Michael Jackson, he might have stopped to reflect on his own mortality and decided that if he‘s ever going to tell fans the truth, he better do it now.

“That the kind of man Elvis was. He loved his fans and he never wanted to lie to them or cheat them. If he faked his death to escape the pressures of being a star, those who know Elvis would tell you they always expected him to come out of hiding and explain everything.

“What’s really got me about that picture is the wheelchair. It could mean he’s had a stroke and lost the use of his legs or maybe he has an unsteady gait. Then again, he might be using a prop to generate interest among fans.

“When you see Elvis Presley in a wheelchair 32years after he ‘died’, well, that’s something the whole world will want to see.”

Photo analysts commissioned by YourWorldReport.com say the photograph taken by a 53-year-old woman who sneaked onto the grounds of Graceland through an unlocked gate “absolutely, positively has not been altered or retouched” in any way.

And while they can’t say for sure whether the senior citizen in the wheelchair is Elvis or a mere look-alike, a nationally known aging expert says: “It’s The King.“

“Judging from my analysis of blowups, the man is Elvis or, if not Elvis, someone who aged exactly as our computer models say Elvis would have aged – which is a virtual impossibility,” says Phil Telers, of Washington, D.C. Telers has worked closely with police departments nationwide to “age” abducted children in computer models that are used to help find the kids years after they went missing.

As Elvis fans know all too well, circumstances surrounding The King’s “death” in 1977 were mysterious at best. Officially, he suffered a drug-induced heart attack while reading a book on the Shroud of Turin in the opulent bathroom adjoining his second-floor bedroom at Graceland – while girlfriend Ginger Alden slept just a few feet away in his bed.

But reports from mourners who said Presley was sweating profusely as he lay in his open casket before his funeral fueled persistent and compelling rumors that he was, in fact, alive.

Those rumors intensified when Presley insiders told friends that anybody who bothered to dig up the performer’s coffin would find – not Elvis – but a wax dummy inside.

In fact, Presley’s dad, Vernon, had the casket moved from Forest Lawn Cemetery, where it was originally buried, to Elvis’s beloved “Meditation Garden” at Graceland to keep overzealous fans from digging it up to find out who – or what – really was inside.

“If it’s truly Elvis I saw I’ll just die,“ says the excited fan from Cheraw, South Carolina, who took the wheelchair-bound man’s picture and requested that her name be withheld “so other fans won’t think I‘m trying to take advantage of anything.”

“I just had time to take the one picture and the camera was set to take black and white because my son is studying photograph at the junior college and they’re using black and white,” she adds.

“I was pretty far away and had to use my zoom lens. But I know he saw me because we made eye contact. I felt like it was Elvis and my heart was beating out of my chest. I tried to say something but my mouth was so dry all I could do was croak like a frog.”

The woman says security guards caught up with her “and they were real nice about escorting me out, not mean like you’d think they’d be.

“By then I could talk and I kept saying, ‘That was Elvis! I saw Elvis.’ The funny thing is, they didn’t deny it. And they didn’t make fun of me, either. But when I turned back around, Elvis was gone.