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UFO Hoaxes 113 Jersey, decided to play a joke on his friends. He built a model of a flying saucer, dangled it outside his bedroom window, and took a photograph. The photo turned out to be very convincing. At first it seemed like a harmless prank. But when several adults believed in the case, and then the next day the photograph appeared in the newspapers, things got out of hand. The police and other investigators became involved, and the witness was forced to reveal that he had hoaxed the entire incident. What started as a joke turned out to be a big embarrassment. Many UFO hoaxes involve photographs, usually of a UFO or an alien body. The reason for this is because most UFO cases involve no physical evidence. Hoaxsters apparently believe that a photograph will convince people that their case is genuine. UFO photographs may be easy to fake, but they are also easy to detect. One of the most famous examples of this kind occurred on May 8, 1988, when Puerto Rican hotdog vendor Amaury Rivera claimed to have been abducted by E-T's. In support of his story, he produced sev- eral clear photographs of a UFO being chased by a Navy F-14 Tomcat jet fighter. The case electrified the UFO community, and the story and photos were widely published. A few months later, however, the truth was revealed. Wilson Sosa, the lead investigator who had originally supported the case, now declared that it was a hoax. It turned out that inconsistencies in the photographs (including shadows and other technical details) revealed that Amaury Rivera, who had sold his photos for thousands of dollars to various media outlets, had actually faked the entire incident using models. Professional photographer Manuel Fernandez also analyzed the photos and agreed that they were hoaxed. Writes Fernandez, “The photos are false and two small models were utilized to make them.” Another striking UFO photograph that turned out to be a fake was first revealed by Russian cosmonaut Marina Popovich at a 1980 UFO conference in Munich, Germany. In this case, the photograph showed the body of an alleged gray-type E.T., supposedly one of the aliens recovered from Roswell. The E-T. in the photo had huge eyes, a large