The Tourist Guy Biography

The Tourist Guy appeared in a faked photo which was spread by e-mail shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the photo an unsuspecting tourist, in a stocking cap and backpack, appears to be standing on a World Trade Center observation deck as a jetliner behind him is about to crash into the building. The photo was not real, and it was quickly debunked, but it just as quickly became an Internet fad: other doctored photos appeared showing the Tourist Guy at the explosion of the Hindenberg, at the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald and at other famous events.

In November of 2001 a Brazilian businessman, José Roberto Penteado, announced that he was the Tourist Guy, saying friends had inserted his face into the photo. Shortly after that a Hungarian man named Peter (who withheld his last name) made a much better case that he was the real Tourist Guy by posting the original photo plus other tourist photos from the same day online.