Greetings Earthlings: An Alien Miscellany // Mexico City Mini-Man

Where: Mexico City (?)
When: March 21, 1949 (?)
Witnesses: Unknown

Introduction

While eyewitness sketches (and artist's impressions) of alien entities are almost always accompanied by colourful backstories - photographs of extraterrestrial visitors often stand alone. Details are generally vague, origins tend to be uncertain etc.

Although today's Greetings Earthlings image may be a frequently reproduced one, almost nothing is known (as far as I can determine) about the circumstances in which the picture was taken.

Event

In Faces of the Visitors, Kevin Randle suggests a "Reliability Rating" of zero for the image (meaning, of course, that it is totally unreliable and most probably fake). He does, however, acknowledge some of the rumours and stories that have attached themselves to it:

It seems that several discs were seen in Monument Valley on March 21, 1949. Not long after that, similar craft were seen discharging small cylinders over Mexico City. A small creature was inside one of them. He was captured and turned over to the proper authorities.¹

Thoughts

While U.S representations of similar scenes usually involve the handcuffed "alien" being (aggressively) bundled into the back of a truck by hostile marines, the Mexicans appear to adopt a more relaxed and welcoming approach. Instead of strapping our visitor to an operating table and chopping "him" to bits, the nattily-dressed individuals above seem to have decided (good hosts that they are) to take the little fella for a brisk walk.

Having said that, it's not entirely clear who's leading who. The "Monkey Man" (as Randle dubs him) may, in fact, have initiated the excursion - possibly after asking the question, "Hey lads. Who's up for a tour of my cylinder?"

All of which reminds me quite vividly of the following (enigmatic) UK road sign:

It's ambiguous meaning was first pointed out to me by my elder sister (who will, hopefully, be contributing a few sketches to the site before long) and I engaged in the following speculations about it over on fustar.org:

Either the figure on the left is a girleen (in her nightie) being taken to the mother ship by a visiting abductor, or it is (in fact) a tiny, beneficent E.T. (of the Close Encounters variety) leading a willing, adult human away on an inter-planetary adventure. Either way it seems clear that the British government has designated those areas where this sign appears as "abduction free-for-alls". At least the whole thing is regulated I suppose…

A final thought - Are they (one wonders) the creature's own underpants and socks, or was "he" forced to wear them to avoid charges of public indecency? Unlike the genitalia-less "Greys", he obviously has something to hide.

Images

Randle, Kevin, & Russ Estes Faces of the Visitors: An Illustrated Reference to Alien Contact (New York: Fireside, 1997), pgs. 241-242. [back]

8 Responses to “Mexico City Mini-Man”

July 10th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Graylien says:
I forget where I read this, but the monkeyman is apparently a picture that accompanied an April Fool's day prank article in a German newspaper.

I've seen the original untouched photo, which shows that the two 'officers' are actually holding a pram (hence the rather odd looking hand positions).
July 10th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
foolhardy says:
hallo,
from today's guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2122690,00.html
July 10th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Fústar says:
Graylien,

I think you might be confusing the above with a very similar image, i.e. this one:

As Patrick Gross points out on ufologie.net, this was indeed an April Fool's prank by a German paper:

German researcher Klaus Webner did prove that this photograph has been presented as an April 1st joke in the German newspaper "Wiesbadener Tagesblatt" (Wiesbaden Daily Newspaper) in 1950, by editor William Sprunkel, using a painted photograph from Hans Scheffler. Scheffler's son posed as alien on a series of the picture such as the one on the right, and Scheffner used one of them as background, adding a painted alien. However, the picture, and some slightly different versions of it, are still sometimes presented as "an alien in the hands of RAF officers."

The picture "on the right" he refers to is this one:

Sorry about the crappy quality, but they're the best I could find.

I've no doubt that the "Monkey Man" is a hoax (he may, in fact, be a drawing!) but I don't think "Wiesbadener Tagesblatt" is repsonsible.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Graylien says:
Ah, I stand corrected then. I'm still convinced that I've seen that doctored 'monkeyman' photo in a book somewhere next to the original photo showing the two men holding a pram.

But whatever book it was, I don't seem to own it any more. Or perhaps it was in a old edition of the Fortean Times.
July 11th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Fústar says:
Graylien,

I see that you've been asking the good folk at the Fortean Times message boards about the "Monkey Man".

I also note that while the Jenny Randle piece linked to from the forum mentions the "Wiesbadener Tagesblatt" April Fool hoax, it also seems to refer to the "Monkey Man" pic:

A better April Fool was played by another German paper in 1952. This time the alien was much smaller and naked, resembling a hairless monkey. Again, it contained clues pointing to a hoax – not least that the original authors of the accompanying piece translated roughly into English as ‘Mr Fraud’ and ‘Mr Make Believe’!

It'd be nice to have more precise details, but I'm happy to accept Ms. Randle's authority on this one.

Having said that, the name "Mr. Fraud" might simply be a coincidence…*cough*
July 28th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Fústar says:
Have found a reference to the "Mexican Mini-Man" in Alan Baker's Encyclopaedia of Alien Encounters (London: Virgin Publishing, 1999):

Another German Hoax, also produced in 1950, involved the supposed capture of a diminutive man from Mars, who is shown in the photograph between two trenchcoated "secret service agents". According to the story circulated at the time, the UFO pilot, whose craft had crashed near Mexico City, was sent to Germany for study (why he should have been sent to Germany was never made clear). The Danish Journal UFO-Nyt carefully examined the photograph, and concluded that it was fraudulent, drawing attention to the way in which the alien's tiny hand were held in the agents' closed fists, rather than their thumbs and fingers, as would have been expected. According to UFO-Nyt, the two men were actually holding a pram, which had been painted out of the photograph, to be replaced by the image of the small alien. (p. 188)

Alas there's no reproduction of the undoctored (or even doctored) photograph in the book, but UFO-Nyt presumably had an image showing the men holding Graylien's pram. Anyone out there have a scan of this (if it exists)?
December 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Illuminato says:
Guys, get lives. Seriously.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Fústar says:
Illuminato, Perhaps you might enlighten us as to what the "getting of a life" might entail? You're obviously the type of authority who could point out where we're going wrong.

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