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The "tourist guy" standing on the roof of the World Trade Center, seemingly seconds before the plane hits the tower.

The "tourist guy" was an internet phenomenon that featured a photograph of a tourist on the observation deck of the World Trade Center digitally altered to show a plane about to hit the tower in the background during the September 11 attacks.[1] The photo went viral in the days after the attacks as many manipulated pictures spread online. The man in the photograph was later identified as Hungarian Péter Guzli, who took the photo in 1997. Guzli said he edited the photo as a joke for his friends and did not intend for it to spread across the internet.

He is also called numerous other names, including the "accidental tourist" (a reference to the novel and film The Accidental Tourist), "Waldo" (a reference to Where's Waldo?), the "WTC Guy",[2] and the "tourist of death".[3]

Origin

[edit]
September 11 attacks
Timeline
Victims
Hijacked airliners
Crash sites
Aftermath
Response
Perpetrators
Inquiries
Cultural effects
Media documentation
Miscellaneous

Shortly after 9/11, the image surfaced on the internet, spreading via spam emails. The emails would claim that the picture was found inside of a camera retrieved from the World Trade Center wreckage, alleging that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had developed the picture for evidence and had recently released it online.[4]

Composition

[edit]

The image showed a man, dressed in a beanie,[4] heavy jacket,[3] and backpack, standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Center.[3] Below him, a jet plane can be seen flying towards the building. Because of its closeness and low altitude, it seems certain to collide with the tower. The picture was purported to be one taken mere seconds before the attacks on the World Trade Center began.[5]

Inconsistencies

[edit]

Hoaxapedia, the Museum of Hoaxes' online encyclopedia, lists some of the inconsistencies that ultimately confirmed that the photograph was a hoax.[5] These include:

  • The temperature in New York City was 64 to 68 °F (18 to 20 °C) on the morning of the attacks, yet the man in the photo is wearing heavy clothing consistent with winter weather.
  • The man would have been standing on the South Tower, which had an observation deck; yet the North Tower, without such a deck, was the first to be hit, thus refuting the claim that the photo was taken prior to the beginning of the attacks. It is unlikely that anyone would be posing for a photo after the North Tower was hit.
  • Within seconds of the first impact, the South Tower’s rooftop was engulfed by smoke from the North Tower, which was directed southeast by prevailing winds from the northwest. Not only would this have prevented the man from standing on the observation deck for any length of time, but the forgery depicts the observation deck as being clear of smoke and debris.
  • United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower from the south. However, it is evident from the fact that Midtown Manhattan is in the background behind the man that the plane in this photo is approaching from the north, consistent with American Airlines Flight 11. The plane in the picture clearly displays the American Airlines livery on its nose.
  • Both planes that were flown into the towers were Boeing 767s, whereas a Boeing 757 is shown in this photo.
  • The plane likely would have been blurred in the photo due to its high speed before impact.
  • Both planes crashed while banking to the left. Here the plane is seen flying perfectly level, with no banking.
  • The photographer was not likely to proceed with taking the picture after seeing the airplane about to crash into the building.
  • If the photo was taken on a digital camera, the camera would not have likely survived such a fall.
  • The observation deck on the South Tower normally opened at 9:30 a.m. but Flight 175 struck the south tower at 9:02:59 a.m.
  • The white balance of the two photographs is far off. If the plane were part of the photograph, it would appear more yellow. This can be confirmed by comparison with the deck rail at the bottom of the photograph; the plane had nearly the same tint as the deck, while in the photo the two parts show obviously different color.
  • The image’s timestamp appears to have been added during post editing with a paint program, rather than one created by an actual camera.
  • Shadows of certain items are not cast correctly in the photo. This proves that the image was edited, as certain objects in the image do not cast shadows corresponding to the same light sources in the picture.[6]

Later appearances

[edit]

The picture became a widely known example of an internet meme. As its fame spread, internet users started to edit the same tourist into other pictures. Users edited him into photos of various disasters and events, such as the sinking of the RMS Titanic, at the John F. Kennedy assassination, the destruction of Air France Flight 4590, and at the Hindenburg disaster.[1] In one version, the aircraft has been replaced with a Melbourne tram. Other edits showed him present at disastrous events in movies, like the destruction of the White House in Independence Day, Godzilla demolishing Tokyo, or as the bus driver in Speed.[3] There are also pictures of him together with people from other famous digitally manipulated pictures, such as Bert from Sesame Street.

Identity

[edit]

The first person who claimed to be the tourist was the Brazilian businessman José Roberto Penteado.[5] When Penteado started to get media attention, including an offer to be in a Volkswagen commercial, a 25-year-old Hungarian man, Péter Guzli, came forward as the real tourist.[3] Guzli said, however, that he does not want publicity and did not originally disclose his surname.

Guzli took the photo on November 28, 1997, and was also responsible for the initial edit. He said he edited the image for a few friends, not realizing it would spread so quickly across the Internet. He first provided the original undoctored photo and several other photos from the same series as proof to a Hungarian newspaper.[7] Later on, the show Wired News examined the evidence and confirmed that Guzli was the real tourist guy.[8]

References

[edit]
[edit]
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Tourist guy

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from Grokipedia
The Tourist Guy refers to a digitally manipulated photograph that emerged online in the days following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, depicting a smiling man in casual tourist attire—white shirt with "I ♥ New York" print, khaki shorts, socks with sandals, and camera—standing on the South Tower's observation deck with the fuselage of American Airlines Flight 11 visibly approaching from behind. The image falsely suggested the subject was oblivious to impending doom moments before impact, fueling early speculation and emotional responses amid the tragedy. Created by Péter Guzli, a Hungarian resident who had photographed himself in similar pose during a 1997 visit to the towers, the hoax involved superimposing the plane and smoke effects using Photoshop software as a morbid joke shared privately with friends after Guzli viewed attack footage on television. Guzli, then 25 and working in the United States, did not anticipate its viral dissemination via email chains and forums, which propelled it into an early example of internet memes and exploitable templates often repurposed for dark humor or further alterations at other disaster sites. The fabrication's rapid exposure as inauthentic, confirmed by Guzli's admission and original unedited images, highlighted vulnerabilities in pre-social media digital verification and the propensity for fabricated content to exploit collective grief.

Origins and Creation

Original Photograph

The original photograph depicts Péter Guzli, a 25-year-old Hungarian man, posing on the observation deck of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in during a family visit. Captured on November 28, 1997, the image shows Guzli in a lighthearted tourist stance, attired in a black cap, eyeglasses, light blue short-sleeved shirt, white pants, and with a camera strap visible around his neck. The unedited background consists of the outdoor viewing area and distant city skyline, devoid of any aircraft or structural damage. Guzli later confirmed the photograph's authenticity by providing a scanned copy of the original print, along with multiple companion images from the same 1997 trip, to Wired News and the Hungarian news outlet Index.hu. These submissions, dated November 2001, served as direct evidence that the image predated the and formed the unaltered base for subsequent digital modifications.

Post-9/11 Alteration

The original photograph, depicting a tourist posing casually on the observation deck of the World Trade Center's North Tower with both towers visible in the background, was digitally modified shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks using software. The alterations superimposed an image of a airliner in livery—resembling Flight 11—approaching the tower directly behind the subject, creating the appearance of an imminent collision. Further changes obscured or removed the South Tower from the skyline, substituting billowing smoke to imply its earlier impact, while adding details such as a camera strap around the subject's neck and a sign in his hand reading "Where is the WTC?" to heighten the ironic contrast between his cheerful demeanor and the impending disaster. These manipulations, executed as a form of gallows humor in the days following the attacks, transformed the innocuous pre-9/11 snapshot into a fabricated scene purporting to capture the final moments before the North Tower strike. The edited image first circulated via email chains in late September 2001, often accompanied by captions emphasizing its supposed authenticity and the subject's oblivious fate, rapidly amplifying its viral spread amid widespread grief and shock. Despite its evident artificiality to forensic scrutiny, the gained traction due to the era's limited digital verification tools and the emotional potency of post-attack imagery.

Viral Dissemination

Initial Circulation

The Tourist Guy image emerged in widespread online circulation via chains in late September 2001, roughly two to three weeks following the . These transmissions often framed the photograph as an authentic image captured moments before Flight 175 impacted the South Tower, asserting that the tourist's camera had been retrieved from the debris at Ground Zero. The emails leveraged the raw grief and uncertainty of the immediate post-attack period, prompting rapid forwarding among recipients who initially accepted the narrative at face value. Dissemination occurred primarily through spam and personal emails, bypassing formal websites or outlets in its earliest phase, which allowed unchecked propagation across personal and professional networks. By this mechanism, the altered image reached thousands of inboxes globally within days of its debut, amplifying its visibility amid a surge of unverified 9/11-related content online. No centralized origin point for the emails has been documented, though their viral nature reflected the nascent state of sharing in 2001, reliant on manual attachments rather than platforms.

Public Reception and Early Skepticism

The Tourist Guy image began circulating widely via email chains in late September 2001, roughly three weeks after the September 11 attacks, rapidly evolving into one of the first major viral phenomena on the early internet. It garnered intense public attention, with many recipients initially accepting it as authentic, evoking visceral reactions of horror, sympathy for the unnamed victim, and a stark reinforcement of the tragedy's immediacy. The photograph's composition—depicting a smiling tourist oblivious to an approaching plane—tapped into collective shock, prompting shares as a haunting "what if" snapshot recovered from the rubble, though no verified origin story accompanied early distributions. Skepticism surfaced concurrently with its spread, driven by glaring visual and factual discrepancies that savvy observers quickly identified. Photoshop artifacts, including inconsistent shadows between the figure and background, unnatural blending at the edges of added elements like the plane and tower outlines, and mismatched fonts in overlaid text (such as the visitor pass), betrayed amateur digital editing. Logistical flaws compounded doubts: the man's lightweight clothing and lack of cold-weather gear clashed with September 11's cool, clear conditions around 70°F (21°C); the depicted was indoors without the open-air vista shown; and the timing was implausible, as the public observatories did not open until 9:30 a.m., postdating the first plane's impact at 8:46 a.m. The aircraft portrayed also mismatched , a , resembling instead a . These inconsistencies prompted informal online discussions and early media probes, with outlets like Wired publishing analyses by November 9, 2001, debating the image's veracity amid reports of its unchecked proliferation. Public forums and skeptics highlighted the hoax's insensitivity, noting how raw post-attack emotions facilitated initial despite the evident fabrication, foreshadowing patterns in digital . While some defended it as possible amid chaos, the preponderance of technical eroded belief swiftly, curbing its traction as "proof" of overlooked victims and underscoring the internet's dual capacity for and rapid correction in 2001.

Analysis and Debunking

Identified Inconsistencies

Several visual and contextual anomalies in the "Tourist Guy" photograph prompted early skepticism about its authenticity, indicating digital compositing rather than a genuine 9/11 snapshot. The image depicts a man in heavy winter attire, including a coat and wool hat, posing on what appears to be an outdoor observation deck of the South Tower (World Trade Center 2, or WTC 2) with the North Tower (WTC 1) burning in the background; however, September 11, 2001, featured mild late-summer weather in New York City, with morning temperatures around 70°F (21°C) and clear skies, rendering such clothing implausible for a tourist. The photograph's purported timing—moments before the second plane struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.—conflicts with operational details of the WTC observation decks, which typically opened to the public at 9:30 a.m., after both impacts had occurred (the first at 8:46 a.m.). While the South Tower had both an indoor deck on the 107th floor and a limited outdoor area above the 110th floor accessible via elevators, the image's depiction of an open-air setting with visible mismatched the primarily enclosed indoor experience most visitors encountered, and the man's hand position relative to foreground rails suggested inconsistent depth and occlusion. Forensic indicators of manipulation include misaligned shadows across elements like the man's body, the railing, and background structures, which fail to conform to a single light source from the sun's position that morning. Additional digital artifacts, such as jagged edges around the composited figure and discrepancies in the flame patterns on the North Tower compared to authenticated impact photos (where damage centered on floors 93–99 from , a ), further evidenced editing; some circulating variants erroneously incorporated a silhouette, incompatible with the event's aircraft. These flaws, observable without advanced tools, contributed to rapid online debunking within days of the image's emergence in mid-September 2001.

Forensic Examination

Forensic examination of the "Tourist Guy" image revealed multiple digital manipulation artifacts and contextual discrepancies indicative of alteration. (ELA), a technique that highlights compression differences from recent edits by comparing resave levels, applied to the image at 95% quality identified anomalies including an added digital date stamp, the United Airlines stripe on the airplane fuselage, and subtle modifications to the figure's outline. Multiple resaves of the file further obscured but did not eliminate evidence of the airplane's composite insertion, as ELA overlays showed uneven error levels around the aircraft and damaged building edges. Structural inconsistencies in the depicted damage further undermined authenticity. The image portrayed the incoming aircraft striking precisely at the observation deck level (floors 106–107 of the South Tower), whereas impacted floors 77–85 on , 2001, leaving the upper decks intact until collapse. The North Tower, lacking a comparable public , was incorrectly implied as the setting, as the plane's approach direction and impact zone mismatched documented footage of either tower's strikes. Additional visual forensics highlighted splicing artifacts, such as mismatched lighting and shadow directions between the foreground figure and background elements, inconsistent motion blur on the relative to the static observer, and unnatural pixel seams along the building's "" perimeter, consistent with layer in tools like Photoshop. The absence of corroborating metadata, such as timestamps aligning with the claimed capture, and the image's failure to appear in contemporaneous media archives despite widespread 9/11 documentation, reinforced conclusions of fabrication. These findings, derived from pixel-level scrutiny and contextual cross-verification, predated the creator's confession and established the image as a deliberate .

Identity Revelation

Creator's Account

In November 2001, the creator of the altered "Tourist Guy" image was identified as Péter Guzli, a 25-year-old Hungarian from who was living and working at the time. Guzli took the original photograph of himself on the South Tower observation deck of the World Trade Center on November 28, 1997, during a visit to relatives in New York while employed at a in . Shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Guzli digitally edited the image by superimposing an image of an airplane approaching the tower, creating the illusion of an impending collision. He described the edit as a private intended solely for a small circle of friends, stating, "This was a meant for my friends, not such a wide audience." Guzli emphasized that he had no intention of disseminating it publicly and was surprised by its rapid viral spread across the , which he attributed to its unintended release beyond his personal network. Upon the image's identification linking back to him, Guzli expressed concern over potential misinterpretation of his motives, noting, "I was afraid that some people might have misunderstood my intentions." He provided additional unaltered photos from the same 1997 trip to corroborate his account and later viewed the episode positively, as it facilitated reconnection with long-lost acquaintances. Guzli's revelation quelled speculation about the image depicting a genuine pre-attack photo, confirming it as a post-event fabrication.

Confirmation and Aftermath

The identity of the man in the altered photograph was confirmed in late November 2001 when Hungarian news outlet Index.hu identified him as Péter Guzli, a 25-year-old Budapest resident who had lived and worked in the United States in the late 1990s. Guzli admitted to digitally manipulating the image in September 2001 as a private joke for friends, adding the approaching airplane, smoke effects, and a falsified date stamp of September 11, 2001, using Adobe Photoshop software he had recently acquired; he emphasized that he never intended for it to circulate publicly. Guzli provided media outlets, including Wired, with the unaltered original photograph, timestamped November 28, 1997, taken during a visit to the South Tower's observation deck, which irrefutably demonstrated the pre-9/11 origin and debunked claims of authenticity. This confirmation followed earlier false claimants, such as Brazilian businessman Roberto Penteado in early November 2001, whose purported matching photos were inconsistent with the hoax image's details, including backpack color and facial features. Following the revelation, the hoax's viral spread via chains—reaching millions within weeks—underscored the vulnerabilities of early dissemination in amplifying unverified content amid national trauma, with no centralized mechanisms at the time. Guzli avoided immediate publicity, citing concerns over the ridicule faced by other accidental online figures, and faced no legal repercussions, as the alteration was deemed non-malicious dark humor that escaped his control. The episode prompted initial discussions on forensics, contributing to heightened media scrutiny of post-9/11 visuals, though the image persisted in niche online circulation as a cautionary example of pre-social media dynamics.

Cultural Legacy

Parodies and Adaptations

The viral spread of the prompted widespread parodies, primarily in the form of digitally manipulated photographs that repositioned the figure into other historical disasters or perilous scenarios, often shared via chains and early forums in late 2001. These spoofs typically retained the original's ironic obliviousness, with the tourist posing cheerfully amid impending catastrophe, serving as an early example of reactive Photoshop memes that commented on the absurdity of the itself. Common parodies included inserting the Tourist Guy onto the deck of the RMS Titanic as it sank on April 15, 1912; near the Hindenburg airship explosion on May 6, 1937; aboard the USS Cole during its October 12, 2000 bombing; and in the path of the Concorde's fatal crash on July 25, 2000. Additional variants placed him in fictional or pop culture contexts, such as evading the from the 1984 film or amid the Titanic film's sinking ship parody. While no major adaptations into , , or commercial media emerged, the parodies influenced subsequent internet humor by popularizing template-based for dark comedy, predating formalized formats. Their proliferation highlighted the era's nascent digital culture, where anonymous users rapidly iterated on viral hoaxes before widespread debunking diminished their novelty by early 2002.

Influence on Internet Hoaxes

The Tourist Guy hoax exemplified early digital image manipulation as a vector for viral deception, circulating via email chains mere weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks and deceiving many into believing it depicted a genuine pre-impact photograph from the World Trade Center's observation deck. This rapid dissemination highlighted the nascent internet's vulnerability to unverified visuals, where rudimentary Photoshop edits—such as compositing a 1997 tourist photo with an approaching aircraft—could mimic authenticity and exploit collective trauma, predating widespread social media platforms. Its success underscored how hoaxes thrive on timeliness and emotional resonance, setting a template for fabricated content that masquerades as eyewitness evidence during crises. The image's proliferation spurred a wave of derivative manipulations, with online communities photoshopping the Tourist Guy into other historical disasters, such as the Titanic's sinking or the Hindenburg explosion, thereby normalizing iterative image-based pranks and memes in the pre-social-media era. These adaptations amplified the original's reach, transforming a singular into a of that blurred with , and demonstrated how one viral fake could catalyze collective creative deception across forums and email networks. By exposing the toward digitally altered photographs amid grief, the Tourist Guy incident foreshadowed broader challenges in online verification, influencing the of hoaxes that leverage accessible editing tools to fabricate "" for conspiracies or sensational claims. Its debunking in November 2001, via creator Peter Guzli's admission, prompted early discussions on and source , though it did little to stem subsequent hoaxes, as the ease of replication encouraged imitators unburdened by ethical restraint. This legacy persists in how modern internet deceptions exploit similar mechanics, from deepfakes to event-specific fabrications, underscoring the hoax's role in normalizing visual as a cultural staple.

Controversies and Ethical Debates

Sensitivity to 9/11 Victims

The Tourist Guy image, which depicted a smiling man posing on the World Trade Center's observation deck with an airplane superimposed behind him seconds before impact, elicited accusations of insensitivity due to its timing and tone following the September 11, 2001, attacks. Critics labeled it a tasteless exploitation of the , arguing that the lighthearted tourist motif undermined the gravity of the event's human cost. The hoax's rapid dissemination via chains, often initially presented as authentic, amplified concerns that it could distress those searching for real victim photos or closure amid widespread grief. Peter Guzli, the Hungarian man whose unaltered photo served as the base , defended the edit as an innocuous private shared with friends shortly after the attacks, insisting it reflected no lack of toward the victims. He noted that recipients initially found it amusing without broader connotations, and its unintended viral spread occurred beyond his control. No documented complaints from 9/11 victims' families specifically targeting the have surfaced, though the episode underscored tensions between early humor and during national mourning periods. The controversy contributed to wider ethical scrutiny of post-9/11 digital content, where fabricated visuals risked blurring lines between and , potentially eroding public trust in online imagery at a time of collective trauma. This reflected nascent debates on responsible online behavior, prioritizing factual integrity over provocative edits that might inadvertently perpetuate or emotional harm.

Broader Implications for Digital Media

The image, emerging in September shortly after the 9/11 attacks, represented an early instance of widespread forgery facilitated by accessible tools like , which allowed ordinary users to composite unrelated photographs into seemingly authentic scenes. Circulated via chains and nascent web forums, the altered photo depicting a smiling tourist on the World Trade Center's moments before impact reached millions globally within days, exploiting the emotional rawness of the tragedy to gain traction before forensic scrutiny revealed inconsistencies such as mismatched shadows, impossible perspectives, and the absence of corroborating witness accounts. This rapid dissemination underscored the pre-social media internet's vulnerability to unverified visual content, where lack of centralized gatekeeping enabled hoaxes to propagate unchecked, often amplified by chain-forwarding behaviors that prioritized sensationalism over source validation. The hoax's persistence, despite quick debunking by image analysis— including pixel-level examinations showing layered from a pre-9/11 tourist photo—highlighted foundational challenges in establishing authenticity, prompting initial advancements in forensic techniques like and metadata scrutiny to detect tampering. In an era before widespread infrastructure, it exposed how fabricated visuals could erode in photographic evidence, particularly during crises, as recipients suspended critical judgment amid and , a dynamic later echoed in more sophisticated campaigns. This event contributed to early scholarly on memetic photos' interplay with truthfulness, where overt fabrication paradoxically reinforced toward all online imagery, fostering a cultural shift toward questioning visual narratives rather than accepting them at face value. Long-term, the Tourist Guy incident prefigured enduring issues in ecosystems, influencing journalistic protocols to mandate multi-source verification for and accelerating research into automated detection methods amid rising Photoshop-era forgeries. By demonstrating how a single manipulated image could fuel conspiracy-adjacent speculation—despite the creator's confession—it illustrated causal pathways from individual pranks to societal mistrust, informing contemporary debates on regulating without curtailing legitimate expression, and emphasizing the need for to counter innate human biases toward compelling visuals.

References

  1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tourist-wtc-911/
  2. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/nov/30/september112001.ethicalliving
  3. https://www.wired.com/2001/11/hes-the-real-tourist-guy/
  4. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/911-tourist-guy
  5. https://hoaxes.org/photo_database/image/tourist_guy
  6. https://septterror.tripod.com/touristguy.html
  7. https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2019/11/29/underunderstood-9-11-hoax
  8. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470412914546577
  9. https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/media/232238-brian-williams-is-now-tourist-guy/
  10. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us/2021/09/how-9-11-internet-culture-created-a-blueprint-for-modern-conspiracy-theories
  11. https://www.quora.com/What-would-it-have-felt-like-to-be-on-the-rooftop-observation-deck-of-the-World-Trade-Center-on-the-morning-of-9-11
  12. https://blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-08/Krawetz/Whitepaper/bh-dc-08-krawetz-WP.pdf
  13. https://www.nuketown.com/last-second-tourist-snapshot-of-wtc-plane-faked/
  14. https://www.wired.com/2001/12/48397/
  15. https://www.wired.com/2001/11/tourist-guy-is-he-or-isnt-he/
  16. https://www.rosario.gob.ar/inicio/sites/default/files/2024-09/Memes%2520in%2520Digital%2520Culture%2520-Limor%2520Shifman.pdf
  17. https://sn.eferrit.com/the-9-11-tourist-guy-parodies/
  18. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20170216-five-photographs-used-to-prove-conspiracy-theories
  19. https://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/81252712/photoshopped-images-that-fooled-the-world
  20. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1306.6737
  21. https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-compromised/
  22. https://academic.oup.com/jcmc/article/27/2/zmab024/6503843
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