SANTA ANA, CA — When a little boy showed up at his neighbor's house "white as a ghost" and claiming he saw a viper in an Orange County neighborhood, neighbors mobilized, police responded, and news outlets blasted warnings.
However, the reported sighting was false, and the accompanying photo of the African Gaboon viper roaming the streets of Santa Ana was found to be AI-generated, police announced Tuesday.
The truth came out when the man who reported the poisonous snake sighting fessed up to the fakery himself during a Tuesday interview with detectives, according to the Santa Ana Police Department.
According to police, Joel Ciprian, who originally reported seeing the snake, claimed it measured four to five feet long and that he saw it Monday in a tree in his residential neighborhood.
The report and photo were cause for alarm.
The African Gaboon viper is a massive snake with a deadly bite — a known killer in Central, East and West Africa.
According to Natalie Garcia, Santa Ana Police Department spokesperson, this was not the first snake-related call to come out of the neighborhood near Main Street and Edinger Avenue. It was the third.
Ciprian, a man described by Garcia to be in his early early-to-mid 20s, made the first and the third calls reporting the snake to the Santa Ana Police Department. His neighbor made the second, Garcia said.
Two snake experts were called to the scene to canvas and assist police in locating the reported snake.
"We knew the photo being AI was a possibility. We had experts come out to the neighborhood who told us the photo looked AI," Garcia told Patch.
In addition, Garcia said several officers tried to find out for themselves whether or not the purported photo was real or not by feeding the image into AI detecting programs.
"There's not one specific AI detecting program for law enforcement, unlike facial recognition that's privy to just police," Garcia said. "People are asking us where [police] were running the photo, but they were getting mixed responses from different AI programs."
To make matters more complicated, Ciprian denied any fabrication and insisted that "he saw what he saw," Garcia said.
"In our minds, there is still a slim chance that this could be real," Garcia said. "Because the reporting party is sticking to his story."
However, that would all change on Tuesday, when police visited Ciprian at his place of work to share the expert's opinions on the photo being AI-generated.
According to Garcia, Ciprian confessed to police that he had fabricated the entire story and used AI to create the image.
"It took a long time for him to finally admit that, hey, this is wrong," Garcia said. She noted that while Ciprian did give a reason for the deception, she would not repeat it.
"At this point, he's just a liar and he's lied — so I can't take anything he says for fact," Garcia said.
The Santa Ana Police Department is working to submit charges to the county district attorney's office against Ciprian for reporting a false emergency to police, Garcia said.
According to FindLaw, a person convicted of reporting a false emergency to the police may receive up to a year in jail, a fine of $1,000 or both.
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