Man detained for 'freezer alien' hoax

A Shandong man who admitted his claim to have killed an alien and stored it in a freezer was a hoax was arrested after his story went viral on Chinese social media.

Binzhou resident Li Kai was sentenced to five days in detention for creating false reports and disturbing public order after admitting to police that he had engineered a hoax as a publicity stunt on June 10, according to China Radio International.

"The alien [Li] claimed to have killed was made of wire, glue, and white pigment", said Binzhou police chief Zhou Xiaofei in the statement on Monday afternoon.

Li, a seafood dealer, first posted his story on popular online forum Tianya June 9. He claimed to have accidentally caught and killed an alien with an electrified wire trap he uses to catch small game on the banks of the Yellow River.

In his post Li alleged he had encountered several aliens on the early morning of March 9 when one touched his electrified trap. Li waited three months to post his story, complete with photos of the supposed alien corpse lying in a large capacity freezer.

However, the hoax thawed after Bo Weiqiao, web director at vehicle tech company China Transinfo, divulged on his verified Sina Weibo account that the alien story was a publicity stunt for a Binzhou seafood company which "sells artificial sea cucumbers."

NASA reposted Bo's claim on their official Chinese-language Weibo account.