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Koi Alien Photo 10

Keywords:Alan Lewis alien in incubator

This photo apperas on numerous UFO websites with a caption attributed to "Alan Lewis" which states "While cleaning out his house, I ran across the attached photo. If you look in the bottom right hand corner of the 'container', there is an Area 51 badge. I can't provide any proof that this is a genuine photo, however, the original didn't look faked to me.”

In fact, the "alien" in Koi Alien Photo 10 is a prop produced by Don Post (apparently dubbed by many as "The Godfather of Halloween"  most famous for creating rubber masks for commercial sale and use in movies - including the Star Wars and Halloween film series), as discussed below.

The photograph was taken at the "Aliens: Worlds of Possibilities" exhibition developed by the Pacific Science Center, which opened in Seattle in 1998 and has been traveling the country ever since.

The Manager of Exhibt Development of the Pacific Science Center was kind enough to generously answer a few questions I posed to her about the photograph back in 2007, including:

(1) Stating that the "alien" was purchased for $160 in 1997 at a local party supply store.

(2) Indicating that, prior to my email in 2007, the Pacific Science Center was unaware that a photo of their alien was being used as "evidence" of extraterrestrial life.

(3) Stating that the relevant exhibit was designed with a chain link fence/corrugated metal fence surrounding the space so visitors could not get near the case.  This caused her to suggest that the individual in the photo may have been someone would have had access to the set before it was completed and sealed off from the public.

Her comments also included the following:

"I imagine someone posted the image as a joke and it has just taken off.  The thing looks so incredibly fake it’s hard to believe any serious discussions have taken place as to its authenticity.  I can tell you I have personally always been disappointed this cheap and tacky doll has been the focus of newspaper photos and stories about the exhibition since we opened the show here in Seattle.  We spent considerable time, money and effort to create 5 incredible, imaginative robotic aliens (1 no longer travels with the show), that are grounded in scientific theory, and they hardly ever get photographed." (Email to Isaac Koi dated 1 May 2007).

 

Sections below:

1. The relevant image

2. Stories and claims relating to this image

3. The real background to this image

4. Relevant online forum discussions

5. Further references and resources

6. Other material

 

 

1. The relevant image

 

 

 

2. Stories and claims relating to this image

 

An archive for Art Bell's website as at November 2001 includes a webpage relating to this image. That webpage includes the following text:

“Alan Lewis writes: I have been a faithful listener for years and never thought that I would have any content for your show. Recently, my Father passed away and while I always thought that he worked in the "Black Ops Arena", I never thought that he had anything to do with aliens. Certainly, he never mentioned it. While cleaning out his house, I ran across the attached photo. If you look in the bottom right hand corner of the "container", there is an Area 51 badge. I can't provide any proof that this is a genuine photo, however, the original didn't look faked to me.”

 

Ryan Wood published this photograph in his book “MAJIC Eyes Only” (2005) (available on Amazon USA and on Amazon UK) at page 45 of the Wood Enterprises hardback edition. His discussion referred to this photograph as being "one of the most intriguing" images of alien entities - without indicating the real background to this image:

“… We have no certain photographs [of alien entities], though intriguing images do exist.  One of the most intriguing is printed here for the first time in the book’s photo section”.

Photo section, final photo : Caption includes : “This image was reported emailed to radio host Art Bell by someone named Albert Lewis who said it was found with his father’s effects after his death. There is a badge shown at the right front of the cart that reportedly showing the word ‘Majestic’”

 

Various websites include this photograph with little or no commentary.

For example, the popular ufocasebook.com website has this photograph on a webpage entitled "best alien pictures" with the brief caption "Alien, reportedly from Area 51".

 

Some websites have given this photograph more in depth consideration. For example, the "Stopabductions.com" website has a webpage that includes the following:

"The following information also corroborates that the photo is authentic.

The photo was found by the wife of a special operations officer in the Air Force after he died. She did not know he had it until she had permission to review his papers. The photo was obtained from another investigator.

There is an area 51 tag on the alien which may be hardly visible on the screen but can be seen better in the original photo.

The photo is cropped but the real background is steel sheets and a chain link fence which look hastily erected, the kind that would be found in a military facility outpost.

There is a dent in the plastic shroud around the alien which is not faked, indicating some kind of accident in transporting the creature."

 

3. The real background to this image

The photograph of an "alien" in Koi Alien Photo 10 was taken at the "Aliens: Worlds of Possibilities" exhibition developed by the Pacific Science Center, which opened in Seattle in 1998 and has been traveling the country ever since.

As can be seen from a photograph of that exhibit (below, labelled "koi_ap_10_d") the "alien" is the same one, the rippled corrugated iron background is the same and that the mesh fence on the right hand side of the photograph is the same:

 

The fact that the "alien" was in fact part of the exhibit was confirmed to me by the Manager of Exhibit Development of the Pacific Science Center. When I raised various questions with her, she kindly responded answers:

(1) Stating that the "alien" was purchased for $160 in 1997 at a local party supply store.

(2) Indicating that, prior to my email in 2007, the Pacific Science Center was unaware that a photo of their alien was being used as "evidence" of extraterrestrial life.

(3) Stating that the relevant exhibit was designed with a chain link fence/corrugated metal fence surrounding the space so visitors could not get near the case.  This caused her to suggest that the individual in the photo may have been someone would have had access to the set before it was completed and sealed off from the public.

Her reply included the following (Email to Isaac Koi dated 1 May 2007):

"Mr. Koi,

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.  Aliens: Worlds of Possibilities is indeed an exhibition developed by Pacific Science Center.  It opened here in Seattle in 1998 and has been traveling the country ever since.  While I have tried to keep an eye on UFO sites through the years, I was unaware a photo of our alien was being used as “evidence” of extraterrestrial life.  In answer to your questions:

 

This fake alien is in a section of our exhibition about debunking UFO’s.  In the normal layout of the show it is staged near a section showing numerous Hollywood images of aliens, illustrating the real power of aliens as marketing tools.  There is also a news clip about someone who thought they captured video of an alien craft while filming a music video.  The clip shows the process of how the footage was investigated and later proved to be an insect flying through the scene.  There are also photos of famous UFO images that were later debunked.  The Debunking Area is usually followed by a timeline of space exploration showing all of the research activity conducted throughout the last several decades, with no resulting hard evidence of extraterrestrial beings.

 

The intent of the overall exhibit is not to prove or disprove the existence of aliens.  In fact our advisory committee was quite optimistic we will find evidence of life in our galaxy, but the were also clear that life will likely be microbial, not flying around in spaceships kidnapping people.  The Debunking Area shows there have been many claims, much interest, and a lot of research, but still no hard, scientific evidence of intelligent, extraterrestrial beings.

 

Yes.  I am certain the photo was taken at our exhibition.  I know nothing about the person in the photo, or how he got on that side of the set.  The Area 51 set was designed with a chain link fence/corrugated metal fence surrounding the space so visitors could not get near the case.  The alien and plexiglass case are strictly props and not hardy enough for visitors to touch or play with.  The children in the photo on our website were allowed back there under supervision as part of the press opening. I will ask a couple of current and former staff members if they recognize the person as this might have been someone who helped set up the exhibit and would therefore have had access to the set before it was completed and sealed off from the public.  If you can tell me when this photo started to circulate I could probably make a good guess at which venue the photo was taken.

 

The alien was purchased for $160 in 1997 at a local party supply store.  Our exhibits staff rigged the rubber doll to “breathe”.  My staff tells me the exhibit team at the State Museum in Columbia, South Carolina (where the exhibition is currently on display) have at least 2 similar dolls they added to the exhibition.

 

Sadly in 1998 when the exhibit opened digital cameras were just coming on board.  All of our publicity photos, except for what you see on the website are slides and not digitized.

 

I’m not sure what one can say regarding this.  I imagine someone posted the image as a joke and it has just taken off.  The thing looks so incredibly fake it’s hard to believe any serious discussions have taken place as to its authenticity.  I can tell you I have personally always been disappointed this cheap and tacky doll has been the focus of newspaper photos and stories about the exhibition since we opened the show here in Seattle.  We spent considerable time, money and effort to create 5 incredible, imaginative robotic aliens (1 no longer travels with the show), that are grounded in scientific theory, and they hardly ever get photographed.

 

Have you tried contacting the person whose email appears on the side of the image?  I would be very curious as to their motivation for posting the photo with that story.

 

Thank you for your time and effort in contacting us about this hoax.  While I don’t believe there is anyway of stopping it now that the image is being passed around the web, it has provided an interesting footnote to a 10-year project."

 

The Manager of Exhibit Development of the Pacific Science Center subsequently emailed some further information.  She stated that : "We have identified the person who appears in the photo with our fake alien.  He is Victor Morales who was the head of exhibit maintenance at Fort Discovery, The National Science Center, in Augusta, Georgia. Fort Discovery hosted the exhibition in 2004" (email to Isaac Koi dated 15 May 2007).  In a further email, she suggested that Mr Morales "has the same hair pattern, forehead shape and mustache as the person in the hoax photo" (email to Isaac Koi dated 16 May 2007)..

I had some doubts about this identification of the relevant individual as Victor Morales - at least if he only become involved with the relevant exhibit in 2004 - since the photo appears to have been circulating on the internet for several years before that. At least one webpage as stored on the Web Archive website in November 2001 (i.e. several years earlier) includes this photograph.

However, I contacted Mr Morales, who took the suggestion in good humour.  He replied : "I found your email to be very amusing. Though the person in the photograph has some similarities to me, it is not me in the photo. We did have the exhibit here in the summer of 2004 but I do not have any pictures of this piece. It is indeed part of the exhibit, to include the back ground" (email to Isaac Koi dated 16 May 2007).  A photograph of Mr Morales is included below with the label "Koi_ap_10_h".

 

:

 

 

It would have been a nice finishing touch to my research into this particular photograph to have identified the man pictured with the "alien", but given the timing problem mentioned above I was not very surprised to hear that it was not Mr Morales.

Anyway, I'm glad Mr Morales found my email very amusing. I hope others will share his amusement upon learning the actual backgroud to this photo (and various other photos and videos that I've researched in the last couple of years).

 

The website for "Dapper Cadaver" (a "specialty store for the finest death related props, Halloween props, haunted house decor, and oddities") includes the image below (labelled "koi_ap_10_i") of an item for sale.  That item has the caption "Alien Body : Autopsy your own alien with this lifesize (we think) classic grey alien. Spaceship not included".  I contacted "Dapper Cadaver" and its owner generously commented upon this photo (and several others on this website) to confirm that it showed a prop developed by Don Post (apparently dubbed by many as "The Godfather of Halloween"  most famous for creating rubber masks for commercial sale and use in movies - including the Star Wars and Halloween film series). Mr Winslow confirmed  that "The prop in the photo is definitely the Don Post prop, they even used to sell it in the tube. It amazes me that something so obvious could be mistaken for real. It's clearly the same prop and there are so many photos of tourists at the same set" (email dated 4 January 2011 to Isaac Koi from BJ Winslow).

Mr Winslow went on to say that "Just because a photo is easily faked doesn't mean they're all faked. I fake crime scenes and crime scene photography for a living, for television shows, but it doesn't mean all crime scene photos are fake. It's kind of embarrassing that anyone who sincerely wants to prove the existence of aliens would cling to photos that are so clearly staged. It's like a bigfoot researcher trying to pass off photos form Disney's Matterhorn ride as proof of Yet"i.

 

 

To make it easier to compare that "alien body" prop with Koi Alien Photo 10, I have flipped the image around and superimposed the black-and-white photo of an "alien" from Koi Alien Photo 10 (see image below labelled "koi_ap_10_j").

 

 

 

 

4. Relevant online forum discussions

This photograph has been discussed in numerous threads on the AboveTopSecret.com discussion forum, including the following:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread24294/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread27653/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread42946/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread177556/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread282988/pg1

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread322292/pg1

 

It has also been discussed on various other online forums, including The Paracast forum and the ufocasebook forum:

http://theparacast.com/forums/showthread.php?t=352

http://www.ufocasebook.com/bestalienpictures.html

 

5. Further references and resources

 

 

 

 

6. Other Material

Kentaro Mori wrote an article on his blog in 2009 entitled "The Container Alien" about this photograph.

 

"It’s now quite popular. As with most of the alien photos, most people wouldn’t vouch for its authenticity (including the original sender, in this case), but many wonder “what if”.

There’s no if in this case as the alien should be familiar. It’s one of the most readily available alien props. It can be bought from Amazon for a couple hundred dollars.

Although the identification of the alien as a common latex prop conclusively explains the image to any reasonable person, there’s still the question as to where and who created that exact display.

During the preliminary research for this series of posts, I stumbled by accident with the following image:

It’s from Nick Kask’s flickr, published on October 2007. It was taken at the South Carolina State Museum, during the “ALIENS: Worlds of Possibilities” exhibit.

The exhibit seems to have started in 1998, and perhaps one of the first versions of the display was the one photographed with Lewis father – if we are to believe the original story. It seems to have received some other tubes since.

It’s yet another case where the photo of an alien display is being promoted as the real thing."

 

The Clydelewis.com website has a webpage that includes the following:

"The Naked Alien and the Area 51 Worker Photo

...
The Photo in question allegedly shows a military officer posing for a picture sitting behind preserved alien which allegedly is laying in a stasis chamber at the Area 51 military site in Nevada. Once again this story has its roots in the Coast to Coast AM cornucopia of crap that has been explained away ad nauseum and yet it still continues to come back like a bad potato salad.

P3N in a statement claimed:

"The picture was found in the belongings of a serviceman by his children after his death. The picture was supposedly taken at Area 51. If anyone has any information relating to the authenticity of this photo, please contact P3N,"

The Coast to Coast bulletin boards have mentioned that the photo is indeed a hoax and yet [Peter Gersten] has somehow decided (it is assumed) that people are too stupid to figure it out on their own so he released this statement on his site.

"We are especially interested in hearing from present or former military or intelligence personnel who might know something about this photo.
To encourage military and government witnesses to come forward with information, CAUS provide legal protection for their information." "

... Gersten can sleep well knowing that the little alien picture is a complete and total joke"