OBSERVED BI-LOCATION OF POPE JOHN PAUL I, SEPTEMBER 28, 1978, IN NEW YORK CITY, AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH IN THE VATICAN

"A certain smile, a certain face, can lead an unsuspecting heart on a merry chase"

by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"


New York City, September 28, 1978. It was early evening and bone-chilling cold. I was on 5th Avenue, directly across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, before the statue of Atlas, buying a selection of those pen and ink drawings of New York scenes. Looking to my left, I noticed a man wearing glasses, who seemed vaguely familiar to me, though from where, I was not certain.

He was wearing a short sleeve shirt, which disconcerted me because it was such an unusually chilly evening. He was looking at me with a paternalistic, loving smile that confused me somewhat. I couldn’t understand why someone would be out in this cold air with no jacket and why in the world was he smiling at me in that manner?

I remarked to the vendor, “Look at that guy over there with no coat on. He must be freezing.” (Though there was no indication that he was affected by the cold.) “I don’t see anything,” the vendor replied. “There! Right there! Don’t you see him?” I shouted. “I have to get him something warm to wear.”

Looking again, he was gone; I assumed that he had disappeared into the crowd. The following day, September 29, I realized who that man was. 

He was Albino Luciani, “The White Light,” Pope John Paul I, our last Italian Pope. The airwaves were full of reports that he had died in his Vatican bedroom at around the same time that I saw him in New York City.

How could he be in two places at the same time? What did all this mean? In 1984, David Yallop published “In God’s Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I.” 

The muddy waters were becoming more clear to me. It was the Archdiocese of Chicago that sabotaged The National Interfaith Pro-life Crusade of 1976 and John Paul I was going to replace Cardinal John Cody. The Vatican Bank was under investigation and administrative changes were going to be made everywhere within the Church.