The monster pig story is a hoax and I can prove it.

[Fridays Child]

Screen caps of two pictures shown on Countdown will prove that the photo of the boy and pig in the woods was photoshopped.

First, the two original photos:



Now, in the second picture, I removed the backgrounds of both photos and repositioned the boy and the pig from the hanging pig photo so that they're in the same approximate position, relative to one another, as in the woods picture:



In the third picture, I isolated and superimposed the boy's head on the pig's head, in both pictures, to show how much smaller the boy's head is, relative to the pig's head, in the woods photo, than it is, in the hanging pig photo:



Bottom line? The boy probably did kill a big, wild pig but it's not nearly as big as the woods phot makes it appear to be. I think the woods photo was definitely photoshopped to make the pig look bigger than it really was.

And, in case anyone is wondering, I did all of this because I'm avoiding some real work that I need to get done. :P

[Elidor]

1. Simpler than photoshop

In the first shot, he's several feet behind the pig, pretending to be right next to it.

[LeftyMom]

2. Which is why he's in focus and the feral pig is not.

Edit: If he were leaning on the dead pig or right behind it, both would be in focus.

PS I've seen pigs almost as heavy as that, and while huge they were nowhere near the size the one in the first shot appears to be. I can dig up pics if anybody wants to compare.

[Richard Steele]

3. Yup. I'm afraid it's just that simple.

That's probably the oldest "camera trick" known to man:

[Fridays Child]

10. I wonder why the media aren't seeing that it's fake.

This has been in the news for a few days, now, and I've yet to hear anyone say anything other than that they suspect it could have been photoshopped. Until tonight, I'd seen only the woods photo and I didn't notice that the boy was more out of focus than the pig. But, tonight, when I saw the photo of him standing next to it, the pig didn't look as large.

Meanwhile, the kid and his father are selling posters of the pig in the woods photo and the whole thing has earned the kid a part in some movie about a monster pig.

[Fridays Child]

6. Wherever the boy was, originally, they clipped him out, enlarged him...

...and put him right behind the pig. When they pasted him into position, they forgot to fill the area just below his left elbow, with any backgtround material.

[MonkeyFunk]

27. that white area

is the kid's shorts.

[Redneck Socialist]

4. (Shrug) It's still a really fucking big pig. n/t

[BikeWriter]

5. How dare you try to disprove my religion! You heretic!

:cry:

[Fridays Child]

7. And you worship what?

Giant feral pigs? Boys who hunt them? :shrug:

[BikeWriter]

8. Monster pigs that look like rhinos, mostly.

[BikeWriter]

9. ...and copy cat threads, but I can't think of one for this one.

[Crewleader]

11. Good job Pal...

:hi: I saw this on the news last night,I doubted it and the one reporting doubted it but his news partner,
she believed it was real...you proved it isn't. :-)

[Fridays Child]

13. Hi, Crew!

:hi:

Thanks, my friend. :hug:

I doubted it, too, and fiddling around with the pictures seems to prove that the woods photo has been faked. But, apparently, the media and I aren't quite as savvy as some DUers who knew it, all along.

Oh, well. It was fun to analyze the situation, anyway. :)

[Schema Thing]

12. Focal length and distance from camera to subject, and

from subject to subject, can make objects even in the same general scene look radically different in size between images taken where those things change.

[LostinVA]

14. I'm doubting that first picture is even the pig he killed -- here's why:

The first photograph is a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig:


The second photograph is a feral pig:


Notice the differences between the two: snout length, body-type, color & texture of the hair. The differences are very similar between the two photographs. The pig in the first picture does not look like the pig in the second photo.

I hadn't seen the photo of hanging pig before. When was it released?

[Fridays Child]

23. The first time I saw the hanging pig picture was tonight on Countdown.

It's also up at the kid's web site, www.monsterpig.com. Evidently, father and son intend to make a little money off of this dubious enterprise. P.T. Barnum would approve, I'm certain. ;)

[Wetzelbill]

15. but the real question is, how and why did Bill Clinton...

put that pig out there in the first place? That's what I'm curiouser about.

[Fridays Child]

22. ...

:rofl:

[wildhorses]

16. was there ever any doubt?

:shrug:

[guitar man]

17. My bullshit alarm went off

Pretty early on this one. Sans the size of the pig or anything else, the story doesn't add up. The first thing I want to see is some video of the kid, a range is fine, shooting that .500 S&W, rapid fire and reload. That's a whooooole lotta pistol he's purportedly packing.

I owned a .44 Mag revolver, shot it quite regularly and hunted with it, so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to shooting a high powered handgun. It can be very intimidating for an experienced adult shooter. let alone a kid. That .500 packs a lot more recoil, muzzle blast and wallop than my .44 did for sure.

So, they say the youngster pumped 8 rounds into hm before he ran off and had to chase him down. From a 5 shot revolver? So he had a chance to empty and reload a revolver, shoot 3 more rounds and then the pig ran off and had to be chased down?

I want to see the kid shoot the gun before I believe any of it :eyes:

[LeftyMom]

18. There was a discussion of this in GD

It looks like the Dad is in the canned hunting business and needed some publicity. Dad was the one who released the thing, but it doesn't really make sense to do that and then have his kid kill it rather than a paying customer unless no paying customers were forthcoming and they're exploiting the media for free advertising.

[Richard Steele]

20. I think you've nailed it: "unless no paying customers were forthcoming".

The kind of people who would be "paying customers" for this
sort of business are people who are feeling some serious financial
stress in the Dubya economy circa 2007.

The folks who actually shoot REAL feral hogs for food are the
same as they ever were;
the rich assholes who fly to Africa to shoot semi-caged endangered big cats
are doing better than ever......

But the ones in between, the middle-class "wannabe" assholes who
used to scrape up 5 grand to shoot a semi-caged pig here in the States,
so they could PRETEND they were one of the RICH assholes...

Well, there aren't nearly as many of them who can still scrape up
that 5 grand these days. Not after 6 years under the Dubya regime.

That 5 grand that they were saving up to go on one "canned hunt" every
other year back in the Clinton era has been going into their GAS TANKS
since B*sh took over. And that's assuming that their business is still
steady enough to buy gas.

A lot of them aren't. Not anymore.

[guitar man]

21. that sounds about right

I still want to see that kid shoot one of these

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHkBkh5fx04

[SPKrazy]

19. Wow, okay!

I feel better :rofl:

:D

:hi:

good work!

:rofl:

(waving from Arkansas)

[chknltl]

24. Something screwy with the color around kids legs.

The kid and dad look kinda strange in the second shot too...there is almost an "aura" of color around the kids legs...as if that background were somehow different from the one he has been pasted into. I notice it around his left arm as well where it overlays his dads pants...I am not sure what could have caused this but it makes the shot look weird to me...it would look weird regardless of the subject matter. Further inspection shows similar smaller color bleeds around the father's and son's heads. Maybe just a computer thing...hard telling without seeing the actual negative...if there is one.

[alphafemale]

25. Countdown also showed a clip of the kid holding a pig skull.

It was big, but no where near as big as those photos would indicate.

[Fridays Child]

26. Yep. I agree. By the way, the skull photo can also be seen at...

www.monsterpig.com

[seemunkee]

28. like at the size of the skull next to the kid

looks a bit smaller than it does in the first picture.

[Deep13]

29. Not photo shop but forced perspective. nt.