The 'Casper' Alien Pic

Hi. I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

Can anyone give me any details on the 'Casper' alien pic?
It's the one that is used as the avatar for this very board.

Does anyone know the story behind it, or whether it has been debunked as a fake?

The picture is fake. Is actually just a kid I believe, that has been "Photoshopped" as people say to look like an alien. While it does look pretty damn good in my opinion, find the full size picture; then you can really tell that it is fake because of the stance of the subject.

I wish there was a picture to accompany the post here.

He didn't post it because it's the icon of the forum




I too would like to know the source, it's everywhere. I heard the photoshop of a little kid story, but never actually saw a source for it.

OP is there a specific reason you are interested in the pic? Or just general curiosity?

Accessdenied - I've seen the pic around for a number of years, but have never seen a story attached to it. I've seen the same pic with a copyright mark on it from Whitley Streiber's Communion site, but again no story attached to it.
It just seems to be such a common pic, but difficult to track down in terms of it's origin.

OK I see.

[removed quote of entire previous post]
Mod Edit: Quoting – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 30-7-2007 by sanctum]

How ironic would it be if that picture were actually real and it's been sitting under our noses all this time without anyone even questioning it, while we all scramble to get any info at all from poor quality pics when that's up there in the corner! Not likely, but who knows eh!

my suspicion was that it was a photoshopped person, child to be specific...

I would expect the head to be more bulbous...

Originally posted by BlackstarUK
I've seen the same pic with a copyright mark on it from Whitley Streiber's Communion site, but again no story attached to it.

Hi BlackstarUK,

I haven't previously had an entry for this photo in my database of infamous UFO videos and photos, so I don't have many details to share at the moment. I've just created a relevant entry and will look into the photo. For now, I can only supply the following details (which you may well already have - but since no-one has posted these facts so far in this thread I might as well mention them).

The photo is online on various websites. In addition to being the avatar for the ATS "Aliens & UFOs" forum, it also appears on the following websites:
thebiggestsecretpict.online.fr...
www.reflectionsinthenight.com...
ufologie.net...

The last of the above links includes the following:

author and ET witness Whitley Strieber has seen this photo of some origin unknown to me and studied it. Although Strieber was quite moved because the alleged being in the image resembled those he says he has encountered, he dismissed the image as being computer fabricated.

With those details, you can track down additional facts.

Whitley Strieber wrote a short article in 1996 giving (in frustrating vague fashion) the background to the photo.

The relevant article was entitled "Is This The Real Thing? : The Most Authentic Alien Image Ever".

His summary of the background of the photo simply stated the following :

“This image came as a GIF file entitled "Andy.gif" to a correspondent in the US from a source in the UK. I have copyrighted it in the name of the Communion Foundation, and it is not for distribution without permission. Copyright will be returned to the originator of the image upon presentation of proof of identity.

Whitley Strieber expressed the opinion that the image was "almost certainly made by altering a video frame of a child with Kai Power Goo or a similar program". However, he also stated that it:

"remains the most authentic looking photograph of an apparent alien that I have ever seen. The reason that I feel this is that it seems to reveal anatomical structures around the black eye covers that I have observed but intentionally never reported anywhere" ... “Whether this is a model or not, it is terribly authentic, so authentic that I believe that it can be used to acclimatize oneself to the actual grays, which is not easy to do you wake up in the middle of the night with one of them peering into your face.”

When time allows, I may contact Whitley and ask for more details about the relevant correspondents in the US and UK, then follow up on this.

Kind Regards,

Isaac Koi

Alienating a Human

Showing you can manipulate an image of a human into an alien rather easily. Note the comment-

"The realism is due to the fact that there are not any other images sources used, just modifying portions of the original. "

Hi Isaac,

thanks very much for taking the time to have a look into this, I really appreciate it.

I've always wondered about whether the pic was a photoshop job. However, and this is merely speculation on my part, the picture seems to have been around for soooo long, I wonder whether it was around before the whole photoshopping of images had really taken off, unless of course, it was one of the first.
The fact that the original image was in a .gif format rather than .jpg or .bmp could also point to it's relative age?
Probably grasping at straws, but it has always been the most convincing looking image I have seen.

i remember seeing this picture years ago, and if i remember correctly, this is part of a larger picture, where the alien peeks through a window. Im not 100% sure about this, but ill try to find it.

A .gif is just a different file format for web images. In some kinds of images (sharply contrasted with solid fields of color, or with transparent backgrounds) the quality can be higher than a .jpg because there is no pixel dithering on the fields of color. An .eps logo can be saved as a .gif and is able to be placed on any type of background on the web and there won't be a box around it like there would with a .jpg. .gifs can also be animated if they are made up of multiple frames.

Not that this has much relevance to the image at hand but the fact that it was sent as a .gif is not going to be any indication of it's age.