Nothing pulls at the heartstrings more than a missing child drama and the emails circulating around Malta pleading for information about a certain Ashley Flores appear to have drawn recent popular interest.
The email consists of a photograph of a beaming teenage girl, with apparent Maltese features, followed by a heartfelt plea from her parents for information and to pass the email on to as many people as possible.
“I am asking you all, begging you to please forward this email on to anyone and everyone you know, PLEASE,” the email reads. “...It is still not too late. Please help us... it only takes two seconds to forward this. If it was your child you would want all the help you could get.”
The surname Flores and the missing girl’s features lent credence to the possibility that Ashley was, in fact, Maltese, and stimulated further local interest.
But a few details appeared strange when the email began circulating in Malta’s cyberspace a few months ago.
Firstly, the same email was recalled to have actually made the rounds over a year ago, and both said Ashley Flores had been missing for just two weeks.
Secondly, the commotion caused in Malta by the surname Flores appeared unfounded. Flores, which is the word for “flower” in both Spanish and Portuguese, is an exceedingly common name in Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the United States. Any Maltese Flores would, in fact, undoubtedly speak of their Iberian ancestry.
Finally, the email lacked certain essential details that a missing child report would usually have, such as the last time and place she was seen, a physical description (height, weight etc.) and contact information.
A quick google search takes one to the Help Find Ashley Flores website – a single page with the photo of Ashley and the email’s text, next to which is a photograph Ashley’s “father”, who is meant to be a deli manager from Philadelphia, but who is strangely well-groomed, photogenic and wears a tie and hard hat.
The email, those expressing concern lately will be relieved to hear, is a complete hoax and one of the thousands of chain mails landing in unsuspecting inboxes around the world every day.
Not to be confused with mediaeval armour, internet chain mail induces recipients to forward the chain letter to as many people as possible. Some use emotionally manipulative stories such as that of Ashley Flores, get-rich-quick pyramid schemes, while others still threaten the recipient with bad luck if they break the chain.
The Ashley Flores email has, in fact, been blocking inboxes from the United States to Australia since May 2006. Neither the Philadelphia Police Department nor the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children lists a missing child by the name of Ashley Flores.
Such chain letters have become popular on MySpace as bulletins, and on YouTube as video clips. The Ashley Flores email, in fact, originates from a MySpace.com user in Philadelphia, a 17-year-old girl who calls herself Vicki.
Tracked down and contacted in Philadelphia by a sleuth from urbanlegends.com on a MySpace blog, Vicki replied when asked about the email: “Ashley Flores is not missing it was a merely a joke that got completely out of hand please inform everyone that email that she is NOT missing, it was a joke I’m sorry about any confusion.”