Koi Alien Photo 57 has appeared on several UFO websites, generally with no accompanying text.
In fact Koi Alien Photo 57 first appeared on the front cover of the satirical newspaper "Weekly World News" (in October 1993). The prior edition of the "Weekly World News"had a front page story about Abraham Lincoln being revived with the next edition suggesting that JFK was alive and had just been reunited with Jackie...
Amusingly, in 2009 Linda Moulton Howe denied that the original photo came from the Weekly World News. Instead, she claimed that the Weekly World News "got the photo from a document leak" (see the relevant post on the AboveTopSecret.com discussion forums by a person using the username "DoomsdayRex" that contacted Linda Moulton Howe about this photo). However, the purported leaked "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe is in fact a composite of (a) two genuine UFO documents and (b) the photo from the Weekly World News. Relevant documents are shown below to demonstrate the falsity of the leaked "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe.
Various other articles also appeared in the "Weekly World News" purporting to show aliens, including Koi Alien Photo 19 ("alien" with President Bush), Koi Alien Photo 24 ("alien" with President Clinton) and Koi Alien Photo 64 ("alien" in handcuffs).
Greg Sandow, a UFO researcher that participates in discussion on the UFO UpDates email discussion list, wrote the following in a post on that list on
"“I do know a thing or two about the Weekly World News. I wrote a feature on it, got to know the editors, and even worked there for a week. … I went through the photo files one day, and found the outtakes from the alien/president photo shoots. What a pathetic alien -- you could see, in half the shots, flagrant cracks in the papier mache. Similarly, I doubt that intelligence agencies influence the paper's content. They'd hardly have to; as I've said, on a good day, the staff has an uproarious time thinking these things up.”
Sections below:
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
1. The relevant image
2. Stories and claims relating to this image
Koi Alien Photo 57 has appeared on several UFO websites, generally with no accompanying text.
Amusingly, in 2009 Linda Moulton Howe denied that the original photo came from the Weekly World News. Instead, she claimed that the Weekly World News "got the photo from a document leak" (see the relevant post on the AboveTopSecret.com discussion forums by a person using the username "DoomsdayRex" that contacted Linda Moulton Howe about this photo). However, the purported leaked "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe is in fact a composite of (a) two genuine UFO documents and (b) the photo from the Weekly World News. Relevant documents are shown below to demonstrate the falsity of the leaked "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe.
The purportedly leaked document relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe is shown below (labelled "Koi_ap_57_g").
This "document" (labelled "Koi_ap_57_g") was fabricated from two real documents relating to UFOs, together with a photo from the Weekly World News.
The first of the two documents used to fabricate this leaked "document" is shown below (labelled "Koi_ap_57_h"). This document (a memo dated September 4, 1946 from Mr Lyon to Mr Morgan about the "ghost rocket" sightings in Sweden that year) provided the top and right hand side of the fabricated leaked "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe. Note the "Department of State" stamp on the top right, and the reference numbers on the right hand side (e.g. FW 811.20200 Family /8-2946 and the stamps on the bottom):
A second document was used to provide the CIA letterhead, such as the document shown below (labelled "Koi_ap_57_i"). Note that this particular document has the same reference number as that used in the "document" relied upon by Linda Moulton Howe.
The real background to the photo used in this fabricated document is outlined below.
3. The real background to this image
Koi Alien Photo 57 appeared on the front cover of the satirical newspaper "Weekly World News" under the headline "Space Alien Baby Survives UFO Crash".
The front cover of the relevant edition, dated 12 October 1993, is shown below (labelled "Koi_ap_57_b").
The relevant pages inside that edition are shown below:
In case anyone is unfamiliar with this source and is wondering whethe it is credibible or not, I think it is worth glancing at the headlines at some other issues of the Weekly World News.
The prior edition of the "Weekly World News" had a front page story about Abraham Lincoln being revived with the next edition suggesting that JFK was alive and had just been reunited with Jackie...
Those covers are shown below:
The Weekly World News returned to the story of the relevant alien baby a few years later.
That later article included the following:
SPACE ALIENS WANT THEIR BABY BACK!
. . . or else!
WASHINGTON -- Aliens from space are demanding the immediate return of the so- called "star child" who was recovered from the wreckage of a UFO by the U.S. military six years ago.
But the Clinton Administration is reportedly balking on any return of the child. And government insiders fear that if not resolved, the escalating dispute could lead to an interstellar war!
Officially, the government maintains it doesn't even know the whereabouts of the alien tyke.
"The United States has never confirmed the crash-landing of any vehicle of extraterrestrial origin and no infant was ever recovered from such a site, nor is the child at this time in the custody of U.S. authorities," a government spokesman said in a brief written statement.
But off the record, insiders admit that after the accident, the pointy-eared, bug-eyed girl -- who is called Amy -- was whisked away to a top-secret New Mexico installation for study.
"That kid is of tremendous scientific importance," a Pentagon insider said. "There is no way our researchers are going to just turn her over."
The crisis reminds many of the emotionally charged custody case of 6-year-old Elian Gonzales, who became the pawn in a struggle between Cuban immigrants in Miami and dictator Fidel Castro after the boy's mother died at sea while trying to flee with him to America.
The star child, as she has been dubbed by the press, was the sole survivor of a UFO that slammed into a desert mesa. The charred bodies of four adult occupants -- among them perhaps the newborn's parents -- were also found at the site. News of the dramatic discovery made headlines worldwide and was featured in the Oct. 12, 1993 issue of Weekly World News.
Since that time the star child has been raised at the base by a loving nurse she calls "Mom" and tutored by top scholars from around the world.
"Amy is only 6 years old but she's doing calculus and speaks 17 languages," said a researcher at the base who leaked rare photos to the NEWS. "Her I.Q. has been tested at over 190."
Cuddly little Amy is shy but affectionate. She has incredibly large, warm eyes and long fingers that taper down to suction-cup-like tips -- which she often uses to cling to her beloved nurse.
As reported in the NEWS, officials recently made an effort to have the girl moved to a bigger lab where more extensive tests could be conducted on her incredible brain. But when the plan became public, an outpouring of letters from around the world -- including from concerned NEWS readers -- convinced authorities to leave the star child right where she is.
No word from the aliens about the stranded girl came until January 1, 2000, when a radio message was reportedly received from deep space, stating, "Give us the child or else." But researchers claim that beyond the star child's scientific importance, there is a humanitarian reason for keeping her on Earth.
"Amy has a good home now and is more human than alien in her behavior," insists the nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity and has asked for permission to adopt the star child.
"She thinks of herself as an Earthling girl now and would be terrified about returning to space. It would be wrong and cruel to send her back."
Various other articles also appeared in that publication purporting to show aliens, including Koi Alien Photo 19 ("alien" with President Bush), Koi Alien Photo 24 ("alien" with President Clinton) and Koi Alien Photo 64 ("alien" in handcuffs).
Greg Sandow, a UFO researcher that participates in discussion on the UFO UpDates email discussion list, wrote the following in a post on that list on
"“I do know a thing or two about the Weekly World News. I wrote a feature on it, got to know the editors, and even worked there for a week. … I went through the photo files one day, and found the outtakes from the alien/president photo shoots. What a pathetic alien -- you could see, in half the shots, flagrant cracks in the papier mache. Similarly, I doubt that intelligence agencies influence the paper's content. They'd hardly have to; as I've said, on a good day, the staff has an uproarious time thinking these things up.”
During 2010, I emailed Greg Sandow to seek further details. He kindly took the time to provide the further comments (below, email to Isaac Koi dated 23 December 2010) which included stating that
"It's amusing to be reminded of all this. And amusing, too, to think of people citing these photos on the web, as if (I gather from your email) they could be real.
Here's what I know. Like many people in the US in the 80s and 90s, I read the Weekly World News with a lot of enjoyment, not believing a word of what they wrote. In the '90s, when I worked for Entertainment Weekly magazine, I did a feature article on the WWN, which — given that EW is a major national magazine — will show you how prominent the WWN had gotten.
By doing the feature, I got friendly with the editors of the WWN, and they invited me to come down to Florida, where their office was, and work for them for a week. So I did it. I think they hoped I'd come to work for them permanently, but I wasn't thinking of that. Just thought I'd have some fun.
Which I did. Almost all the stories are made up. The exceptions were stories about peculiar items of human interest that had been reported in the US press — a man, let's say, with 15 wives. The paper might run that story, and might even do original reporting on it. There was an easy way to tell which stories in the paper were real and which were faked. The real ones had bylines from actual staff members (whose names could be seen on the paper's masthead). The fake ones were written by names you wouldn't find on the paper's stafff list, and which were completely made up. The photos that might run alongside those names were photos, often, of friends of WWN staff members, who contributed their photos for a small fee. When I did my week=long stint on the staff, I was asked to make up a name to use.
The editors of the paper would make up headlines. Hubble Space Telescope Photographs Heaven. Werewolf Captured by the FBI. Dinosaur Seen on California Highway. Woman Eaten by Her Own Fur Coat. And then staff writers (such as myself, that week) would be assigned to write the stories. We also made up small items on our own. My big triumph, during my week, was having the editors like one of my small items so much that they wanted it expanded into a full-length article. It was about a girl who could read two books at the same time, because she had two brains. Typically, we made this happen in Bulgaria. That's because in the story I made up, I quoted an imaginary scientist.
The rule at the WWN was that such people couldn't live in the English-speaking world, in case someone tried to contact them to verify the story. Similarly, when we wrote a story that took place in the US, and quoted imaginary Americans, we had to make sure the names of these people (which we'd made up) weren't listed in the telephone directory for the city where the people supposedly lived. Again, that was to make it impossible for anyone to find these people and check on the story.
I don't know anything about how the stories about the political alien were concocted, apart from what I wrote online about what I saw in the photo file. But I did watch a photo being concocted about the dinosaur on the California highway. I joined a group standing around a computer terminal, watching as two staff membered debated exactly where the phony dinosaur should be Photoshopped (as we'd say now) into the photo of the highway.
I could write a lot more about this, but I think you get the idea. These stories and photos are entirely imaginary, and even when they were quoted in the press, the editors of the WWN barely tried to pretend that they were real."
The article about "a girl who could read two books at the same time, because she had two brains" mentioned by Greg Sandow appeared in the 21 January 1997 edition of the Weekly World News (at page 6) and a copy appears below to illustrate the points made by Greg Sandow (labelled "koi_ap_19o").
4. Relevant online forum discussions
This photo is discussed on the AboveTopSecret.com forum in a thread entitled "Could this be a genuine photograph of a hybrid taken from a crashed disk?" started by an individual using the username "spacevisitor" in 2009.
5. Further references and resources
There is a rapid turnover of UFO material on the Internet. Many links to material on UFO websites quickly become out of date. Therefore, instead of giving many links to specific webpages I have instead included below a search box which can be used to search various leading UFO websites at the same time. You can then click on tabs at the top of the search results to list only results from forums, only results from websites I have labelled as "skeptical" etc. I have included tabs for a couple of specific websites that I find particularly useful, including the valuable archives of the UFO UpDates email discussion List. The relevant websites are all listed in the discussion of the "UFO Searchillion" search engine in Section 2.4 of the "Free UFO Researcher Starter Pack" and continues to evolve...
The relevant search box is one of the two main tools on this website which are intended to help reduce the amount of reinvention of the wheel within UFOlogy. The other main tool is the collection of tables of references to discussion of UFO incidents, personalities and other matters in various books. Those tables can be sorted by author, length and date. I hope these tools are useful.
6. Other Material
Please use the comments section below to share references to any particularly interesting relevant articles.