A look at the various alleged sightings of Madeleine.

[John]

Well said Benice !!

I don't know how many times I heard poster's saying the McCann's had arranged these sightings.   It is ludicrous.     As you say,  they would have a lot of faith in these people not to spill the beans,   how tempting it would be for them to sell their story 'I was paid to fake a sighting'    journalists would pay good money for that scoop wouldn't they.

Kennedy sent two Metodo 3 investigators to Morocco. There were reports that Moroccans were offered money if they would claim to have seen a child looking like Madeleine. During the Leveson enquiry, Daily Express journalist David Pilditch admitted the Express had indeed paid one such person 500 euros.

Shortly after being summoned by the McCanns to give evidence at the McCanns’ libel action against Goncalo Amaral (which was later postponed), lawyer Marcos Aragao Correia fled to Brazil,  saying he would never return to Portugal.  Within a few weeks of his move to Brazil, the media reported another sighting of Madeleine McCann in Brazil. Once again this turned out to be false.

The Arade Dam fiasco which Correia set up in conjunction with Método 3 was yet another scam intended merely to attract publicity to the case.

[Cariad]

Oh right.   I obviously misunderstood your post.   Sorry for that.       Can I take it that you don't believe the conspiracy theory that the McCanns pay members of the public to support them and to also come up with false sightings?    It's a theory which pops up at regular intervals on the internet.

It's much more likely that these sightings are brought to the attention of newspapers by people who are either looking for a quick buck or 15 minutes of fame.

Not to say that all the reported sightings were fabricated, I'm sure that at least some were people just trying to help. I assume that most of the latter went straight to the police though.

I don't personally believe that the Mccanns or people working for them had a hand in it.


edited to add that I've just seen John's post and it seems I was wrong!

[stephen25000]

Who mentioned the McCanns?

My original comment was asking how much some of these people might have received for their exclusives.

Now does that include serialization rights in the 'sun' ?

[Carana]

It's much more likely that these sightings are brought to the attention of newspapers by people who are either looking for a quick buck or 15 minutes of fame.

Not to say that all the reported sightings were fabricated, I'm sure that at least some were people just trying to help. I assume that most of the latter went straight to the police though.

I don't personally believe that the Mccanns or people working for them had a hand in it.


edited to add that I've just seen John's post and it seems I was wrong!

Personally, I believe that there were various reasons.

- People who genuinely believed that they'd seen her.
- People who had visions or whatever.
- A few people who had contacted the media and were paid for their stories.

Not all would be mutually exclusive, but the media machine involved big bucks and they simply had to file copy, whether anything was verifiable or not.

A fascinating documentary on the media by Al Jazeera (IMO)

The first part:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epZEpwVXgyw


You can then follow on to the following parts.

ETA: it won't embed. Sorry.

[Wonderfulspam]

Brit’s new Madeleine McCann claim: 'I'm 100% certain I saw her'

A BRITISH woman claims she saw Madeleine McCann with a man who looked “like a gypsy”.

By Ross Kaniuk/Published 23rd February 2012

Yvonne Tunnicliffe said she was certain the girl was the missing youngster as she was the spitting image of Maddie’s dad Gerry.
 
Yvonne, 63, saw the girl at a ­supermarket in Alhaurin el Grande in Spain and contacted police a week later.

But when they took the ex-sales assistant to examine CCTV tapes from the shop, the manager said footage was ­routinely deleted after seven days.

The sighting was in 2009, but Yvonne has come forward again to expat news site The Olive Press after she read ­other claims Maddie could have been snatched by a gypsy gang.

Yvonne said: “My whole body shook when I saw her. She looked just like her daddy.

“The girl’s demeanour ­bothered me. I don’t think she belonged to the man ­because she didn’t look anything like him.”

Madeleine vanished just before her fourth birthday in 2007 while on holiday with her parents in Portugal’s Praia da Luz, 220 miles west of Alhaurin el Grande.

A spokesman for the McCanns said: “Any verifiable information will go to police and private investigators and they will act where appropriate.”

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/236873/Brit-s-new-Madeleine-McCann-claim-I-m-100-certain-I-saw-her

[Brietta]

In my opinion a main driving force of the Drs McCann determined search might be that they have identified Madeleine from one of the photographs or CCTV images we have been discussing.

Indeed, what they have seen may not be in the public domain.
 
We do not know how many alleged sightings were in the PJ files handed over to the McCann lawyers in 2010. 
But we do know that there was huge distress that they had not been investigated because they were considered to be irrelevant.