Image copyright @sidaxmejicano/Twitter Image caption Claims that this man "Alfonso" was on Flight MS804 were false 
 
 When news of the missing EgyptAir flight emerged on Thursday morning people began sharing details of the unfolding story - but not everything was genuine. 
 
 Flight MS804 was en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 passengers and crew when it vanished. 
 
 EgyptAir posted on Twitter that the plane had "disappeared from radar". 
 
 This prompted a response on social media from someone claiming to have a relative on board. 
 
 A Twitter user called "Perro" posted a photo purporting to be of his brother Alfonso, prompting several retweets from fellow users. 
 
 "My brother traveled (sic) there... please help me," he wrote. 
 
 But a Google reverse image search showed that the photograph had been used before online, and had been linked to a series of different Twitter handles. 
 
 'My mom was there' 
 
 One user distorted the same picture and tweeted: "My mom was on the plane. I'm afraid. Tell me what I have to do please." 
 
 Other Twitter users also claimed to have missing relatives using the hashtags #EgyptAir and #MS804. 
 
 The hoax posts came from Twitter accounts in Mexico and there is speculation they may have been linked to the same person. 
 
 Montel Williams tweeted: "It takes a sick and twisted person to fake having family aboard a crashed airplane. #MS804 @Support plz ban him." 
 
 It is unclear exactly where the photo is from and who the man pictured is, but it has been circulating online since December 2015, sometimes in reference to a dispute at a shopping centre in Mexico. 
 
 Ball of fire 
 
 As speculation grew over what happened to the EgyptAir flight more incorrect information was being shared. 
 
 A video on the website viral-videos.today claimed to show a ball of fire supposedly spotted by witnesses around the time the jet disappeared. 
 
 Image copyright viral-videos.today 
 
 The footage was tweeted by @githii with the post: "SAD.... A woman recorded this ball of fire in the sky, believed to be #EgyptAir #MS804". 
 
 It was also picked up and included in a news report by 7 News Sydney, which tweeted: "Residents of Greek Island claim they saw a ball of fire in the sky around the time #MS804 disappeared.@ChrisReason7" 
 
 But the fireball was in fact footage recorded last year in California. 
 
 Image copyright You Tube 
 
 The tweet has since been removed from 7 News Sydney's account. ||||| Archive-It Partner 1067: The Political TV Ad Archive, a project of the Internet Archive, collects political TV ads and social media sites in key 2016 primary election states, unlocking the metadata underneath and highlighting quality journalism to provide journalists, civic organizations, academics, and the general public with reliable information on who is trying to influence them & how.
– He's gone missing in the Istanbul airport attack and the May EgyptAir crash, as well as been named a victim of the Pulse Orlando shooting and as an official who ordered police to shoot at a group of Mexican protesters in June, but who "he" is remains a mystery—sort of. Photos of the man shown have ended up online after a bunch of recent tragedies, including in a New York Times video of the Orlando attack, and back in May, the BBC did a reverse image search to determine his likeness has been circulating since at least December 2015 and that (obviously) he doesn't keep dying or disappearing in terrorist attacks. But France 24 decided to do some further sleuthing to find out who this guy is, and why his picture is everywhere. Going on the BBC's find that social media accounts that initially posted the mystery man's pic after the EgyptAir crash had originated in Mexico, France 24 contacted some of those posters—and they all had a similar tale. Namely, that the guy was a scam artist of sorts and had cheated them out of amounts up to $1,000. Their revenge: to link his picture with high-profile news events. "He still hasn't given us back our money, [so] we decided to punish him by posting his photo online," one of the parties says. "Our goal is to ruin his reputation. We want the whole world to recognize his face." France 24 says it even managed to track down the actual guy, whose name it's not revealing, and he didn't exactly refute the stories. "My photo is everywhere because of someone who started it as a prank after a legal dispute," he says, adding that he never bothered reporting the joke "because, in Mexico, nothing ever happens in these kinds of cases." He also says he's asked the BBC and Times to dump his photo and never heard back. (His image has since been deleted from the Times video and replaced with text explaining why at the 2:32 mark.)