4Chan is known for its pranks but according to users, the recent mysterious activity on the site is anything other than a joke.

Hundreds of users of the popular internet forum have claimed to have witnessed the posting of an alien looking directly into a camera in the Arizona Desert.

They claim that shortly after the posting, the site was unexpectedly taken temporarily offline and when it was restored, all traces of the image had been removed.

After a period of time, users were able to access the site again. To their surprise, they found that the photograph and everything relating to the image of the alien had been removed. This turn of events sparked outrage among the community who began insistently posting information relating to the alien image.

Multiple users have come forward to attest to the fact that they saw the image and their descriptions bear striking similarities. Each of the users has described the yellow scaled appearance of the black eyed alien. They have also claimed that the image was a very high-quality photograph that did not appear to have been photoshopped.

Others said that they had believed that the picture was a fake when they came across it on the original message board but that they were not so sure given the extreme efforts of someone to remove all evidence of it from the message board.

Despite the fact that many people are claiming to have seen the image, it does not appear as though any of them downloaded the photograph before it was taken down. Only one image of the picture is currently in circulation which is said to be highly corrupted.