Monster Pig

Monster Pig (or Pigzilla) was a controversial 2007 story that initially ran in the news media as a report (and a series of accompanying photographs) of an eleven-year-old boy shooting a giant feral pig. The pig was claimed to have been shot during a hunt on May 3, 2007 by an eleven-year-old boy named Jamison Stone. The location of the shooting was the Lost Creek Plantation, a commercial hunting preserve outside Anniston, Alabama, USA. According to the hunters (there were no independent witnesses), the pig weighed 1,051 pounds (477 kg) and 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) in length.

The story quickly ran into veracity problems with news organizations backing off on their coverage when inconsistencies in the story were revealed, including NBC, who canceled their interview with the Stone family when they suspected the story was a hoax. It was pointed out right away that the photographs of the pig released to the media seemed to be purposely posed and doctored to exaggerate scale. It was later also revealed that the "giant feral hog" was actually a large domestic farm-raised pig named "Fred" that had been purchased by the hunting preserve's owner 4 days before the hunt in an apparent publicity stunt. There was a 2008 grand jury investigation of the event based on charges of animal cruelty that was later canceled.