Tourist Guy (2001)

added Jul 18, 2009 at 09:56PM UTC

About

The “Tourist Guy” was an Internet phenomenon that featured a fake, manipulated photograph of a tourist who appeared in many manipulated pictures after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

He is also called numerous other names, including the “accidental tourist” (a humorous reference to the novel and film The Accidental Tourist), “Waldo” (a reference to Where’s Waldo?), the “WTC Guy,” and the “tourist of death”.

Origin

Shortly after the events on September the 11th, 2001, an image surfaced on the internet, purportedly from a camera found in the debris of the World Trade Center. The image showed a man, dressed in a wool cap, heavy jacket, and backpack, standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Center. Below him a jet plane can be seen flying towards the building. Due to its closeness it seems certain to collide with the tower. The picture purported to be one taken mere moments before the attacks on the World Trade Center began.

Spread

After the picture’s fame spread, other people started to use the same tourist for other pictures. They included the tourist present at the sinking of the RMS Titanic, at the John F. Kennedy assassination, the destruction of Air France Flight 4590 and at the Hindenburg disaster. In one version, the aircraft has been replaced with a Melbourne tram. Other pictures show him present at disastrous events in movies, like the destruction of the White House in Independence Day or as the bus driver in Speed. There are also pictures of him together with people from other famous photoshopped pictures, such as Bert or a man holding a huge cat. There even appeared a picture of the Yalta conference where Stalin is replaced by the man with the cat, with the tourist and Bert on the background.

Identity

The first person who claimed to be the tourist was the Brazilian businessman José Roberto Penteado. When Penteado started to get media attention, including an offer to be in a Volkswagen commercial, a 25 year old Hungarian man named Péter Guzli came forward as the real tourist. Guzli says, however, that he does not want publicity and did not originally release his last name.

Guzli took the photo on November 28, 1997, and was also responsible for the initial edit. 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. Later on, the show Wired News examined the evidence and confirmed that Guzli was the real tourist guy.

Mr. Penteado