Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

In 1979, Barry Greenwood, from CAUS, obtained a version of this photo from the FBI files through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It was originally sent to the Bureau by an unknown informant on May 1950, who said it showed “a Martian in the USA”. Soon it made its way to the seminal book “The Roswell Incident” (1980), by William Moore and Charles Berlitz.

The explanation for this photo was quickly found and reported by James Oberg in his 1982 book. German researcher Klaus Webner had seen the image on Moore and Berlitz’s book and was amazed because he had previously discovered it on the Wiesbadener Tagblatt newspaper archives, from Wiesbaden, his home town.

But it was originally published on April 1st, 1950.

Webner contacted the original author of the story, Wilhelm Sprunkel, as well as the photographer, Hans Scheffler, and got confirmation it was indeed an April Fool’s prank. In fact, the confirmation it was an April Fool’s was already published on the same newspaper on April 3, 1950.

Sprunkel told Webner he was inspired by a flying saucer story he read about earlier. It was the tale told by Ray L. Dimmick circulated the month before. It referred to a “pigmy-sized man, about 25 inches tall”, a “tiny visitor reputedly had a large head and a very small body”.

With the idea for the joke, they contacted the Wiesbaden US Army base and amazingly got their cooperation. The soldiers are thus actually American. But the alien? It was photographer Scheffler’s 5-years-old son, Peter.

After some collage and airbrushing, the photo of the child was turned into a one-legged alien with “a large head and a very small body”.

Reportedly, “Webner informed Moore of the fraudulent nature of the image but the latter just replied that it was "bullshit!", and published a sour response in the Swiss magazine Ovni-Présence, complaining about that he was tired with Klaus Webner”.

For anyone wondering the original photos could be real, as Luis Ruiz Noguez noticed the hose between the alien and the soldier don’t cast a shadow. As you can see in the original images with Scheffler’s son, that’s because the hose was airbrushed in.

Interestingly, this photo and the story by Dimmick referring to pigmy-sized visitors would influence the common Gray alien archetype we came to recognize in recent years. Martin Kottmeyer discusses the subject on a series of articles published on Magonia:

• Varicose Brains, Part 1: Entering a Grey Area
• Varicose Brains, Part 2: Heading Towards the Future
• Varicose Brains, Part 3: Headhunt

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Sources

• Noguez, L., “El Hombre(cito) de la Máscara de Gas”, Perspectivas, Fundación Anomalia, 2006
• Gross, P., “April 1, 1950, Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany, The US Military”, URECAT, UFOs at close sight, 2009

It’s an impressive image. With an unimpressive source: even hardcore believers will tell you this came from an ad published in the late 1980s:

“In November of 1989 AMOCO placed a full-page advertisement in Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine headlined "Technology so advanced it will help you answer some big questions." On the back was a full-page color photo of an alien head and shoulders with his four-fingered hand raised in a gesture of friendship.” [Donald M. Ware]

The photo of the alien was on page 51 (got it?). As we have seen, the fact an image has a very prosaic origin is no obstacle for it to enter UFO lore. Even when some UFO buffs know from the beginning what it was and where it came from. So this was no different: it wasn’t simply an ad. That would be too boring.

AUFORN quotes three stories related to the photo. The first one is the most widely known:

“Explanation 1. In a video of a UFO conference the speaker, the late William Cooper states “ the official explanation was that this is a photo of a BRONZE statue. How can it be BRONZE…if you look closely you can see pores in the skin, fine hairs coming out of the side of the neck, and moisture in the eyes and nostrils. Linda (Moulton) Howe says she saw the statue, but she couldn’t be sure it was the thing in this picture”.”

It’s no surprise this is the explanation that Mexican UFO buff Jaime Maussán promotes, almost verbatim. In the clip below details of the image are highlighted and the bronze statue story is questioned:

Bob Dean (whom you may recall) gives a slightly different story:

“Explanation 2. In another video, this time from a UFO conference in Brisbane in 1996, Robert Dean shows the same picture but has a different story. He tells how the image is “supposed” to be one of a CLAY MODEL. And the artist, this time a woman…was asked if she would sell the model for $100,000 US. She never produced the ‘bust’ for sale. Dean then goes on to say he does not think the picture is one of a model, and then he shows a photo of an ancient skull, which resembles the shape of the alien picture…especially the top rear area of the head.”

And finally, for the most plausible explanation:

“Explanation 3. When this picture was recently posted on the AUFORN list, I received many emails from interested list members. One was from an American who works in the film industry, in special effects. He claimed that it was a model…this time by yet another artist…named William Bosco. He said he could prove it without a doubt…that his daughter has photos of the Alien model in the artist’s studio and that he will send me copies of the pictures . Nothing has ever arrived …and that surprises me because this guy was so definite in his manner when explaining what he “knew” about it.”

This is a no-brainer. Some people claim, or speculate, that an image published in an ad looks too real to be fake. And that’s it. They claim that an actual alien would pose for such a photo, and that the image would be published in an ad for AMOCO. Of course, those that suggest it are Cooper, who doesn’t need introductions; Bob Dean, who also promoted an alien from the Intruders movie as the real thing; and Jaime Maussán, who recently promoted a skinned monkey as an alien (and that’s just the most recent of his adventures). Suspension of disbelief, quite simply.

I don’t think the sculpture was made of bronze, as Cooper claimed was the “official explanation”. Bronze could have been used in the creation process, but it’s probably not a bronze bust. It could be made of clay, which could also be part of the sculpting stages, but my bet is that that’s a latex alien bust.

It’s highly detailed, with what seems to be pores and even veins. But then, even E.T. had those.

The best thing about the AMOCO alien is the lighting, which leaves much to our own imagination.

Reportedly, the ad didn’t boost AMOCO sales, but they got a lot of calls asking about the alien. That was viral marketing two decades too early, and not capitalized on. In any event, we are now calling it the AMOCO alien, so in the end it may have been worth it. [via ATS, with thanks to internos and Luis Noguez!]

The image was originally sent to Art Bell and published in 1999:

“From the Producers of Strange Universe: Two young men in Michigan who are wedding videographers said they had received an anonymous package in the mail with an out-of-town postmark. Inside the package was a videotape of what appears to be the dead body of an alien being. The two said since they received the package, they feel as though they’ve been followed and that there was a mysterious fire at their office.”

I’m told (thank you, you know who!) it’s a still from the original “Men in Black” (1997) movie. It’s an excellent suggestion and it does look like the tiny Arquillian alien inside the old man’s head:

But! Not only I couldn’t find the exact frame source for the image in the movie, there seems to be some differences between the original Art Bell image and the Arquillian alien – nose, neck and skin wrinkles, for instance.

So I will put this into a so far unsolved image category. It could be a promotional shot of the Arquillian alien from MIB, or an alien from some other movie. It very probably was taken of a movie because horizontal streaks can be seen in the original image, suggesting it was another photo captured of a screen.

If you know where this alien came from, please email us.

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PS.: Please accept my apologies, I know I’m a couple of days late, until the weekend I will resume normal schedule. There will be 30 alien images this month! That unless the MIB silences me. They already tried.

The image above is a frame from "UFOs: Fifty Years of Denial", produced by James Fox. The clip lasts for three seconds and is a camera scan of a still black and white picture, which we will show further down below.

It apparently came from Bob Dean, who writes:

“Is this real? Several years ago I was attending a UFO conference in Mexico City when a Mexican policeman approached me. He had a photo he said was a legitimate picture, he stated he knew it was an authentic photo of a small grey that had been captured by the Mexican Federal police at a crash site.

His sincerity and serious demeanor impressed me. Being as always cautious and somewhat dubious of such situations, I accepted the picture and thanked him for his efforts.

Over the years I have encountered other pictures that I learned were authentic and reflected on the legitimacy of the present picture. I submit this to the viewers as a very likely authentic photograph of a small grey."

Peregrine Communications called it therefore “the 3 second Eben”. The original still is this:

Among the many strange elements on the photo, including the twisted neck (“evidence of crash injuries?”), one has to wonder why does this photo is so tall and thin, that is, it’s not in any common picture format. It was probably cropped from an original photo.

Well, not probably. It was cropped from this original photo, found by Mexican researcher Luis Ruiz Noguez, which as we once again repeat, is the source and reference for most of our information in this Alien November:

It doesn’t look very authentic now, does it? It’s a backstage photo from the movie Intruders (1992). Yes, yet another major (made for TV is something) ufological movie is the source for another major “authentic” alien photo.

Believers would immediately say the woman was inserted in the photo to discredit the “3 second Eben” photograph. It’s possible. But if you look at the Brazilian cover for the movie:

It’s clear that it’s the “3 second Eben” from Fox’s “50 years of denial”. The outfit, head, eyes, even wrinkles between the eyes. You can’t deny it.

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Did I mention that Noguez is publishing a series of books about alien photographs. Oh yes, I did.

“An Alien at the Forestal?” asked Chilean ufologists back in 2004. The image was quite the sensation at the time, going from Chile to Japan in no time, where it was even compared to a Kappa, a Japanese water imp.

But what was the business of a Japanese water imp strolling along at a Chilean park?

First things first. The photo was captured by Germán Pereira, a civil engineer, while visiting Concepción. On May 10, 2004, at around 5:40PM, he took the shot of the mounted policemen. The next day he realized what looked like a strange little fellow. From there to the local UFO groups, and then to local and soon international press, it was a matter of days.

Unfortunately, the photo is very blurry. The camera was set at a relatively long exposure time (0,1 seconds), which only made things worse since he used the optical zoom (10x). So any slight shaking of his hands would result in a badly blurred image, and that’s exactly what we see.

Apparently the image came first to the “IIEE” (Institute for Exobiological Investigation and Study) UFO group, but “CIFAE” (Aerial Phenomena Investigation Corporation) was first to get press.

The many subsequent “analysis” went from the ludicrous to the quite reasonable. Of particular interest was the summary by Camilo Valdivieso of “9 theories” for the creature, translated by Scott Corrales. It was:

1. Alien (“its macrocephaly or its elongated arms”);
2. Imp or Gnome (“Without a doubt one of the most accepted theories by the public regarding the strange creature.”);
3. Ghost
4. Tree branch
5. Child
6. Monkey
7. Light and shadow play
8. Hoax
9. Prank

There was already talk about another photo showing the spaceship from which the creature came, and then “skeptical” analysis by rival local UFO groups claiming the photo was manipulated (of which there’s actually no evidence), and/or that the creature was simply pareidolia (possible, but not probable).

A reasonable suggestion finally came to public light when IIEE, which as you will remember, is the other local UFO group with a curious acronym, suggested not only that it was a dog, but showed filtered images of it:

Soon CIFAE came to defend their case. In “Restoration of the Parque Forestal Image” (scroll down), they actually replied quite reasonably that the image processing done by IIEE was somewhat arbitrary, and that a correct attempt at restoring the image for its several artifacts, mainly the motion blur, would result not in a clearer but in a lot more bizarre dog.

The deconvoluted image by CIFAE at right:

So, the creature wasn’t a dog?

Well, it most probably was. In the end, or actually, from the beginning, not only IIEE, but local skeptic Diego Zúñiga suggested it.

CIFAE did manage to restore clarity to most of the image, which was motion blurred by the camera’s movement. What the restoration didn’t correct was any additional motion blur caused by the creature itself.

That is, besides the camera shaking, if the creature was also moving at a different, and significant direction and speed, then its motion blurring would be much more complex and the deconvolution applied to the whole image would not restore with much clarity the “unblurred” image of the creature. The fact it doesn’t look exactly like a dog is therefore not a refutation of the idea.

Weighing the evidence, the height of the creature is that of a common dog. It does seem to have legs. It didn’t startle the policemen, nor the photographer. Though analysis of the image doesn’t allow us to extract the exact image of a dog, pending further evidence this is not a mystery at all.

And the funniest thing is, of all the wild theories listed, a dog was not included among them.

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References
- El Desmadre de los ufólogos por perro del Parque Forestal
- Ufologists go wild about a dog in the Parque Forestal
- Chile: An Alleged Non-Human Caught on Film