Young boy surprisingly sociable despite his hairy little body

[Happy Lendervedder]

Doctors baffled by boy, 6, covered in ape-like hair


I wonder if he was born covered in hair, and if he'll keep getting hairier as he ages. And I wonder, if he's able to reproduce, if he'll pass this on to his kids.

So many questions....

But what an unfortunate way to go through life.
Anyway, at least he's flexible.






Happy

[LolaCocaCola]

Poor little bugger.

Maybe they can do laser hair removal or Nair or sompin'.

[Happy Lendervedder]

I was thinking maybe a dip in the Nads.


At least Fantastic Sams could offer to give him a decent haircut.



Happy

[Ferrous]

Hmm. I actually think it's kind of cute. I don't suppose that will be the common reaction though. Poor kid.

[World Eater]

Well a long sleeve shirt & a mach 3 can work magic, so lets keep hope. I'm glad they didnt send him to the circus, that would have been fucked up.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Hyperpiliosity by L. Sprague De Camp.

It's short story in The Best Of L. Sprague De Camp. Read it, & you'll understand.

If it was made into a film, this kid has a starring role.

[The Wrong Girl]

Hmm, I know that disorder exists, but does that picture on the bottom look a little fake to anyone else?

[Nightsong]

It does to me also... almost like the lighting doesn't match: the shadows don't look right. (There's a shadow from the pillow: where's the shadow from the little guy? There doesn't seem to be enough shadow there....)

But, if the tale is true: poor guy has a long hard road ahead of him, though no fault of his own. Ouch.

___
<< There is no spoon... >>

[Tsubaki]

Agree with The Wrong Girl.

The top pic doesn't look quite right to me, either.

[blanx]

this is the greatest thread title.

[Ruffian]

I agree with The Wrong Girl and others who've suspected this is a fake. Not only does the lighting look off, but the boy's expression in both photos appears identical; in fact, the face in the bottom photo just looks like a reversed mirror image of the top.

Things like this do happen, but I don't believe it is the case here.

[iampunha]

Also, there's no indication that the boy's putting any sort of weight on the bed. No crinkling etc. of fabric, and you know he ain't weightless...

[Eats_Crayons]

Looking at the bottom picture, there is a pretty harsh shadow under the kid's chin, but no shadow at all anywhere on the gurney on which he sits. There should at least be a shadow similar to the one you see on the "doctor's" jacket.

The kid's thighs should be better lit too with all that top-light (compare to doctor's arms).

Bogus.

[Guinastasia]

That is such an obvious photo shop job. Hell, pictures on the Onion look more realistic!

[Happy Lendervedder]

Didi a Google search for various terms relating to the story and...nada.


Last time I ever get my news from here.



Happy, who knew it was fake all along. Seriously....

[Daoloth]

C'mon guys, it's obvious they're giving him an ultrasound via finger!

[Coldfire]

OK, here's what I want to know. How come Ananova.com keeps falling for this shit? This is what, the third time this year they publish something that's obviously false. Aren't they aspiring to be a reputable news source? Or are they just an internet gimmic with no scrupules about journalistic integrity?

[Daoloth]

Personally, I'd never heard of Ananova. Maybe a European thing. Furthermore, it seems rather sensationalistic in some regards, headlining articles about various rare medical problems or bizarre fatalities.

[bifar]

It's a UK site, linked to the Daily Mail group, I think. Not sure though. It is meant to be reputable and is very good for breaking news but also has loads of quirky stuff. It's the equivalent of a UK tabloid, I think, and maybe has the same dictum of never letting veracity get in the way of a good story.

[jackelope]

There were two Brazilian brothers, about my age, who had this condition but worse; I mean they were covered with hair like a dog is covered with hair. When I lived in Japan (1986-87) I saw them on a Japanese TV show that was completely devoted to showing what freaks and degenerates foreigners are. (I tried to get on there, but they didn't seem to want you if you thought it was fun.)

Then about ten years later I saw them on some other show in the U.S., I forget what it was. But they were still my age, and still completely covered with hair (they were wearing shorts, for those who are interested).

Both times I saw them were almost unbearably sad. The first time, they were about 15, same as me, and they came out, one of them carrying a soccer ball hopefully, as if the audience might want to see what great soccer players they were. Once out on stage, they just stood there looking slightly stunned.

[yosemite]

The hair growth on the picture of the boy looks quite authentic. The picture may be a fake, I don't know. But if the hair on the boy is Photoshopped, whoever did it did a DAMN good job.

[pulykamell]

Originally posted by Charmian
Looking at the bottom picture, there is a pretty harsh shadow under the kid's chin, but no shadow at all anywhere on the gurney on which he sits. There should at least be a shadow similar to the one you see on the "doctor's" jacket.

The kid's thighs should be better lit too with all that top-light (compare to doctor's arms).

Bogus.

Where exactly would the shadow on the gurney be? Below and behind? Which we can't see, so it's not going to appear in the picture. So I have no problem with those shadows. Highlights seem to be consistent from what you expect from a front-flashed photo.

My initial guess what that the bottom photograph looked a bit off to me. The head was a wee big for the body, IMHO. There does seem to be texture on the bed, where the body is sitting and there are wrinkles where the hand is pressing. The individual hairs of his arm are fairly distinct (as far as you can tell at this size) against the background. Cut-outs involving hair and fur are very difficult to do well.

The bottom photo is certainly not the reverse of the top. Look at the kid's hair, look at the exact expression and you'll note that they are different expressions, and that the part in his hair is the same in both photos.

If I were a betting man, I'd have to go with my gut and say it's a fake.

[Bad News Baboon]

When I saw these pictures I thought it was a joke site.



What especially looks odd to me is the bottom picture, specifically the area of his right arm.

It looks so harsh.
The shadows throw me off, too.

Has anyone used the new 'bandaid tool' on photoshop?
I just installed the new version but havent had time to play.
I hear its really awesome.

[tevya]

They look like fakes to me too. My first though on seeing this was to double check to make sure it wasn't from the Weekly World News.

Maybe he'll join up with Bat Boy and become half of the new dynamic duo.

[Max Torque]

I'm guessing that the kids jackelope saw were these two, circus performers billed as the "Mexican wolf boys". They perform with a circus, but not in a freak show; they do a trapeeze act.

[Daoloth]

I e-mailed Ananova about the pictures. This is the exchange:

-----Original Message-----
From: John Arterbury [mailto:Mazurian1@aol.com]
Sent: 27 June 2002 08:13
To: corrections@ananova.com
Subject: Ananova: Hairy Kazakh Child


The article in question
(http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ienceanddiscov
ery) is most certainly a fraud. As it is noticeable, the lower picture is an
obvious Photoshop job. The lighting is off, there is no weight on the bed,
and they're giving the child an ultrasound via finger. Please correct this
glaring error.

Reply:

Hi John,

Thanks for your queries on these images. I agree they do look amazing don't
they?
However I'm satisfied they are genuine as we obtained them from one of our
most trusted freelance journalists in India and the images we published are
2 of many.
From a technical point of view, I'm not sure what you mean about 'the
lighting is off'. It looks to me like the photographer has bounced the flash
off the ceiling, look at the shadows under his chin, and under the chair in
the foreground. I can't see any unnatural shadows or highlights any where in
the image.
To tackle the second point, you mention there is no weight on the bed. This
would be shown by creases on the bed, but look at the exposure of the image,
nearly all the whites are bleached out due to the flash, so I wouldn't
expect to see any. Also, if it's a doctors surgery wouldn't it be a hard
examination table rather than a bed? so again, you wouldn't expect to see
any indentation.
You're final point, the doctor is holding the child's hand, something i
suspect the photographer asked her to do when composing the shot.


Hope this is of some help, and you continue to enjoy the photographs and
quirky stories we publish,

Best Wishes,

Jonathan Smith
Picture Editor
Ananova.com



Make of it what you will.

[Max Torque]

The problem isn't "unnatural shadows", it's the lack of shadows where there should be shadows. If the flash were bounced off the ceiling, we would be seeing shadows under the boy's left arm on the very white sheets. If it were coming from above and to the left of the camera lens (as it appears to have), we would still see the shadow of his left arm cast on the bed under and behind him. And not only do we have an ultrasound machine in the picture, it's an ultrasound with, apparently, an image on the screen.

After flipping the top picture horizontally and reducing its resolution to compare it with the second picture, I'm convinced that the face is a cut-and-paste. The condition of hypertrichosis does exist, and the first picture appears legitimate; I have no idea why they'd bother to fake a "hospital" picture.

[pulykamell]

Nah, it's certainly not the top picture flipped.

I tried it in Photoshop and there's several things that don't jibe with that theory. OK, there's the part in the hair, but any computer artist would be able to spot that right off and preserve the proper part.

1) The cheekbone highlight. If you flip the top photo and compare it with the bottom photo, the highlights on the cheekbones do not match. The highlight in the flipped photo is noticably further away from the nose than the highlight of the bottom photo.

2) The right eye in the bottom photo is slightly closed. In the flipped photo, both our eyes are wide open. Yes, even when I matched resolutions this was clear.

3) The shape of the cheekbones is off. When I keep the top photo unflipped, the shapes of his cheekbones and the relation of his lips to the edge of his face, his eyes, etc, are preserved. When the top photo is flipped, while certain features (like his nose and lips) look quite similar to the bottom photo, his cheeks simply look wrong. They look flipped.

I would say with 99% certainty that the bottom photo is NOT a flipped version of the top photo.

And there IS texture in the bed. Look at the space between his legs. There's clearly an indentation there. Look at his right hand. I can see little creases, but, hey, it could be JPEG compression. It's difficult to make out the details with such a JPEGged photo, but there. As for shadows, from my experience, I'm not certain we'd be sure to see them in the bedsheet, anyway. I mean, look at how much light is reflecting around to begin with.

[jackelope]

Originally posted by Max Torque
I'm guessing that the kids jackelope saw were these two, circus performers billed as the "Mexican wolf boys". They perform with a circus, but not in a freak show; they do a trapeze act.

Max Torque, that looks exactly like them. I had thought they were Brazilian, but Mexican is (to a dumbass like me) close enough. (Also when I first saw them they were introduced in Japanese, which I don't speak.)

Best of luck to those boys, and I hope they meet women who have uncontrollable fetishes for hairy guys.

[Flamsterette_X]

Originally posted by Max Torque
I'm guessing that the kids jackelope saw were these two, circus performers billed as the "Mexican wolf boys". They perform with a circus, but not in a freak show; they do a trapeeze act.

I was going to reply to this last night, but then my computer mouse decided to act up.. grr.

Anyways, what I was going to say was that when I saw this thread title, I was reminded of a segment I once saw on Guinness World Records Primetime about the Mexican wolf boys. In the segment, at least one of them had a girlfriend, and the members of their family all had this condition, though to varying degrees.

F_X

[Dijon Warlock]

More about the Mexican Wolf People. The boy's jaw looks like the early stages of a syndrome I've seen discussed on TV before ("Maury", et al.)...can't find it right now and don't recall the name of it, but it causes the lower jaw/mouth/neck region to grow abnormally large for the rest of the head.