Castelfidardo python scare: 9-year-old boy admits AI photo was a prank

A photo that sparked a town-wide hunt

In Castelfidardo, a town of nearly 20,000 people in the province of Ancona in the Marche region, a photograph of a python rising out of a toilet set off an alarm that lasted about two days. The picture had been generated with an artificial intelligence app by a 9-year-old boy, who then raised the alarm himself. Local news sites and newspapers picked up the story, and residents spent the following days hunting for a snake that was never found. Mayor Roberto Ascani had organised a conference on artificial intelligence in the town shortly before the episode.

Firefighters, then carabinieri

Firefighters inspected the house where the picture had been taken and found no animal. Their finding led to two working theories: that the snake had escaped through a bathroom window left open, or that it was still hidden somewhere inside the home. The carabinieri forestali from the Cites unit, the branch that protects exotic species and is led by commander Claudia Matera, began their own checks on site. They wanted to test whether the photo was genuine and to rule out any risk from the animal. Their inquiries first led them to the home of a friend where the boy had been playing, and the bathroom there matched the picture shown online.

How the hoax was exposed

Investigators established that the snake had been added digitally through a smartphone app. They then visited the boy's family home and asked to take the original image directly from the phone used to shoot it. Confronted with the checks, the boy admitted that no python had ever come out of the toilet. According to Tgcom24, he had been playing dress-up and makeup with his friend, and after one shot failed he went to the bathroom to try a better picture in front of the mirror. He came back with the image and said he had heard a strange noise from the toilet and had noticed the animal there. The boy said it was a prank and apologised for the alarm it caused. The carabinieri reportedly regard the matter as closed, with no consequences expected.

An expert warns about AI images

Paolo Clini, director of the artificial intelligence department at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, spoke to AGI about the episode and called it an incredible story.

“It is an incredible story that puts us in front of an enormous danger.”

Clini said the image looked suspicious because the edges of the snake appeared blurred, yet the alarm was accepted for 48 hours. He questioned how a nine-year-old gained access to tools that let users add images to real objects, programs already installed on many smartphones. He also said AI-generated pictures should always be labelled.

“This must be talked about in schools, and we should avoid passing on images of this type to others, making them go viral.”