Asian, 20, disguised as elderly white male on flight to Vancouver

[Tony The Bot]

Asian, 20, disguised as elderly white male on flight to Vancouver
Posted via Canadian Content

In off-beat news, a 20-year-old Asian man tried entering Canada as an elderly Caucasian male. He was spotted by staffers as an older looking man with younger looking hands, a strange sight when you compare it to his disguised, silicon-covered neck. This all on a flight destined for Vancouver from Hong Kong.

According to Air Canada, the man originally only had one bag but the airline crew found two other pieces of luggage containing his disguises including a silicone face and neck mask, a brown leather cap, glasses and a thin brown cardigan.

Apparently, the young man swapped boarding passes with a 55-year-old American passenger. Nobody has confirmed yet why the passes were swapped.

Even stranger, the boarding pass also included a frequent flyer number associated with it.

Part way through the flight, the man removed his concealments and emerged from the washrooms as a 20-something-looking male. After the crew recognized the strange happenings, he was reported and subsequently escorted off the flight by Border Services.

He has now applied for refugee status in Canada.

As usual in the popular entry city of Vancouver, the man is currently detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency for review before an Immigration and "Refugee" Board.

Canada is currently debating on whether taking stronger measures on stemming the flow of refugee claimants entering Canada before being able to determine whether their claims are authentic.


Original Article: http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/asian-20-disguised-elderly-male-flight-vancouver_1029.html

 

[Kreskin]

Amazing disguise. What a shocker to airport security. Good the security lapse was exposed this way and not by a terrorist.

 

[Spade]

Grant him asylum! He is clever! We need him for the gene pool!

 

[Kreskin]

It's scary that someone didn't check him out closer. Surely he must have looked peculiar in person.

 

[Machjo]

It's scary that someone didn't check him out closer. Surely he must have looked peculiar in person.

What are we to do? Start pinching cheeks?

 

[shadowshiv]

What are we to do? Start pinching cheeks?

Sure, just so long as they aren't butt cheeks!8O

 

[Machjo]

Sure, just so long as they aren't butt cheeks!8O

I'm sure some old white man would love it if a security guard reaches out and pinches him o the cheek, pulling the skin hard to see if it's a masque!

 

[shadowshiv]

I'm sure some old white man would love it if a security guard reaches out and pinches him o the cheek, pulling the skin hard to see if it's a masque!

LOL! You didn't think my above post was serious, did you?8O

 

[Machjo]

LOL! You didn't think my above post was serious, did you?8O

I was sure you were kidding in the last post. So am I.

 

[shadowshiv]

I was sure you were kidding in the last post. So am I.

Cool. It's hard to tell sometimes with just words on a screen.

 

[Kreskin]

What are we to do? Start pinching cheeks?

No, but could ask him where he got the young Chinese accent.

 

[Machjo]

On a serious note though, the goal should not be to have the perfect security system. If that's our goal, all should go through security butt naked, each and every possession ought to be scrutinized in detail, each passenger, should have his skin examined to ensure it is really his, give a finger-print sample, and each digestive tract ought to be examined to ensure no drugs are present therein.

I'm sure we can all agree that such a 'perfect' security system ought not to be the goal. What we need is a security system that makes it difficult enough for most to choose to not break the rules, accepting that a few will manage to get through the cracks, and yes, sooner or later a terrorist will get through unless we're willing to have the 'perfect' system.

I think it is worth examining how he got though, lok at reasonable ways to prevent it from happening again, and implement any reasonable idea, which I'm sure would not make it impossible but merely more difficult to get through, again ensuring a reasonable system. I'm not ready to get my cheeks pinched on every flight.

No, but could ask him where he got the young Chinese accent.

Some people can master foreign accents. Also, seeing that he was going through Hong Kong Airport, chances are security itself was Hongkongese. I'd met a white man once with a Japanese accent because his British father and French mother shared Japanese as their only common language and he was born and raised in Japan. I'd also known a New Zealand family raising their children in China. Though their English was fairly 'New-Zealandish', it still had a slightly odd Chinese touch to it? Are we now to hire security guards with degrees in linguistics and anthropology to start analyzing the speech patterns of travelers? Consider too that those who've lived in many countries may often develop accents that are unique enough, even if they are born and raised in Canada. A Canadian adult living abroad for many years could potentially experience a change in his pronunciation.

We should also remember certain aspects of human psychology. We all know that a guard needs to change shift now and then because even the most responsible one will eventually start daydreaming over the repetitious monotony of his task. You could imagine the customs agent droning out the same questions and repeating the same actions all day long. I'm sure some of them reach a point where he could check a bag, and by the time he gets to the next one, he's already forgotten what was in the previous one. I also wouldn't be surprised if after a long shift, a guard could look in a bag, and while in all outward appearance appears to be concentrated, is in fact totally in la la land thinking about the party he's going to that night. Remember after all that's their job is not the most intellectually stimulating one imaginable. One possibility could be to rotate them to other jobs on a regular basis so as to help keep their interest and concentration up, but then that becomes a human resources planning issue. I honestly don't know what kind of psychological studies have been conducted to find ways to keep the job of the customs agent intellectually stimulating seeing the monotony of the job.

Sure you could fire someone if he lets a terrorist though, but of what good is that once the act is committed? And as for holding him criminally responsible, does he really get paid enough for such responsibility?

I wouldn't be surprised if from a psychological perspective, the human resources planning put into ensuring concentration of the customs agents is inadequate all round. After all, it's not easy keeping a worker interested in a repetitive monotonous job.

No, but could ask him where he got the young Chinese accent.

Also, how much did they talk to him? Pretend you're mute? Show your card and remain silent like Mr. Bean? Who knows?

Also, considering that many Quebecers could barely function in English, and likewise for many Nunavummiut, Canada being so diverse would make such a linguistic test difficult at best.

 

[Kreskin]

Considering they turned a blind eye to him exchanging boarding passes, it's likely they didn't notice much.

 

[Machjo]

Considering they turned a blind eye to him exchanging boarding passes, it's likely they didn't notice much.

Again, how many people are moving about at the airport all the time, and how many boarding passes do they see in a day? I used to work a monotonous job years ago, and I can still remember how I could work efficiently in carrying out most tasks, yet as soon as a task was even slightly different, I'd often screw up and have to redo it because I'd notice the change only half way through the process since I'd essentially become an automaton. This was not unique to myself, but to practically every colleague. That's just the nature of human psychology under such circumstances.

I've never worked in airport security, so I may be speculating, but based on my observations as a traveler, it does appear that they repeat the same task about every minute or so. That's about sixty times an hour, and over an eight hour shift, that's 480 times. Over a five-day work-week, 2,400 times. Multipy that by four weeks, that it's 9,600 times. Unless they have other tasks I'm unaware of during the week, and rotate to do various tasks, or find other ways to maintain their concentration, let's not fool ourselves into thinking that half the time they're in la la land while checking our stuff. Ironically enough, a less intelligent person could probably do a better job than a more intelligent one in this case because he's more likely to appreciate the challenge of the job. My guess though is that it is difficult to find someone who is not overqualified for the task.

 

[Kreskin]

They have no trouble putting me through the gears, and I barely resemble the disguise.

 

[Cristiane]

Seems like the hollywood makeup artists are doing some freelance works all over the world! lol
But this is serius business! If people start menaging to do bad and illegal things under a realistic makeup disguise that will cause quite a stir between the authorities!

 

[gingersnap]

The thing is, the ones they use in movies to look realistic are specially made for each actors face. They're not a type that pulls on over the head like this guy used, they're individual pieces that are carefully glued on to several different areas. Make-up is used on top and usually CGI during post. So imo, there is no way he should have been able to get by security, airline attendants and even other people in the airport.

Heads should roll for this slip up.

 

[petros]

 

[Machjo]

Seems like the hollywood makeup artists are doing some freelance works all over the world! lol
But this is serius business! If people start menaging to do bad and illegal things under a realistic makeup disguise that will cause quite a stir between the authorities!

What? You're not willing to be strip searched and have your cheeks pinched and pulled for your country, in the name of national security?

Ah, where's the sense of national pride?

The thing is, the ones they use in movies to look realistic are specially made for each actors face. They're not a type that pulls on over the head like this guy used, they're individual pieces that are carefully glued on to several different areas. Make-up is used on top and usually CGI during post. So imo, there is no way he should have been able to get by security, airline attendants and even other people in the airport.

Heads should roll for this slip up.

Again, let's be realistic. At least in the photos on the CBC, he looked damn real enough. If you're a lowly-paid guard at the airport just staring at thousands of faces all day long, it's a natural fact of psychology that you will eventually just go into a daze by the end of the day. Sure you could fire whoever let him through, but in the end, the next one will be ust as dazed after a month on the job.Unless of course the mask is very obviously flawed.

Now, if you required the airline to be financially responsible for such slipups, such as havint to pay his English and skills training, provide temporary housing, etc. to get him on his feet and help him integrate in Canada, then that would give the airline an incentive to improve security (for example take psychological factors into consideration by hiring less qualified people who would find the job enjoyable and interesting, or rotate staff between various jobs ove the course of the month so as to reduce the redundancy of the job and so improve concentration). It would also mean that airlines would have to suck up the cost of this by raising ticket prices, thus reducing the number of flights in the first place, and so make it easier for security to spot oddities by not having them get dazed by the sheer number of people going through security on an hourly basis.

 

[Cristiane]

What? You're not willing to be strip searched and have your cheeks pinched and pulled for your country, in the name of national security?

Ah, where's the sense of national pride?

ahaha so true! Didn'd thought about that! Next step after going true the body scan will be face pinching! I wouldn't be surprise if that happen.