Playground

THE PLAYGROUND

WHO IS THE GIRL ON THE GRASS?

The playground photo is one of the few photos from the McCann's time at the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz. For a long time it was assumed this was a photo of Gerry McCann playing with his 3 children, Madeleine, Sean and Amelie. A closer look at the girl on the ground reveals that it can't be Amelie because Amelie has blonde hair. Who then is the girl sitting on the grass?

THE MYSTERY MAN

This photo has been looked at by many in the months since Madeleine disappeared. Many forums discussed the man standing behind Gerry wearing sunglasses. Some have even suggested that if you look closely enough, you can see a person in the plastic climbing frame taking a photo of the children. That has made this photo become known also as the "Mystery Man" photo.

TruthForMadeleine has a far different line of questioning. Who is the girl sat on the grass with her back to the camera? Clearly it is not Amelie McCann.

Has this girl been confused by witnesses who claim they have seen Madeleine? Could this girl be the reason why so many reports have said they saw Madeleine at various other times and places? The infamous Tapas Bar where the Tapas 9 ate dinner on the evening of May 3 is behind the palm tree in the photo.

PHOTO LOCATION AT OCEAN CLUB RESORT

The playground photograph was taken on the grass area between the small circular children's pool and the Tapas Bar shown here at the right on an aerial shot of the complex. The circular pool is where the famous "Last Photo" was taken on May 3, 2007 at 2:29pm. Click here to read about that photograph.

TruthForMadeleine believes that the girl in the above photograph is a reasonable Madeleine lookalike and could quite easily be confused for Madeleine by people working at the Ocean Club Resort or in the town of Praia da Luz.. Clearly, Gerry McCann was seen with both his own daughter and this other girl. One can only presume that she is the child of one of his friends.

What makes the similarity even more striking is the way the two girls are dressed. Could this girl be the one who actually went to the crèche at 2:30pm on May 3? If this girl was seen instead of Madeleine, it is quite feasible that the various witnesses were easily duped by a case of mistaken identity!

ASPECT RATIO

The aspect ratio of a photo is the relationship between the width and the height. A normal image from a digital camera is in the ratio of 4:3. That means an image 1600 pixels wide (the "4") would be 1200 pixels high (the "3"). As the image on Sky News' page is almost square, it is clear that the image has been cropped. Looking on the Internet for variations of this image, TruthForMadeleine has put together the known images in an effort to see how much was cropped from an original image assuming a 4:3 aspect ratio.

The interesting part of the picture is the shadow cast on the ground from the person who took the photo. This is missing and all we can see is a small shadow to the bottom right. Was the image cropped by the McCanns or did the newspaper crop the photo. Interestingly, there are very few copies of this picture on the Internet.

CONCLUSION

The playground photo was released on or about Saturday May 26. An article appeared (shown right) on the Sky News website on May 27. It says that the photo was taken on May 2. More concerning is that the article says that it shows Madeleine and her younger twins Sean and Amelie playing with their father Gerry. As we have shown here quite conclusively, this is not Amelie McCann sitting on the grass. Why then did Sky get this story so blatantly wrong?

It is so easy to take those words for granted and not sit and stare at a photo to see if the caption matches the picture. In this case someone has made a big mistake. Not only has the public been fooled by this picture, but in the context of the other discrepancies, what possible reason did the McCanns have to want to deceive with this picture? A mistake is easily rectified and Sky could have fixed the error by now. Our conclusion is that all the photos taken at Praia da Luz were engineered and released for a reason yet to be discovered.