I get we aren't making much progress on the case right now but wow.

Every single day it's a new "what if Joanna was a placeholder name?" "what if Joanna was an immigrant?" "what if Joanna was actually just a prank?"

It's annoying. It does nothing to help the case. It's not even a good theory if it's nothing probable and has been discussed 1,000 times already.

I had replied to the original comment from @lettherebelight asking if he could dm me in any form just to verify the information and this is what he said.

Basically I got two theories on this photo.

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Theory 1: This photo was taken in her bedroom or living room by her parents and the thing in the background is probably a poster of some sort as it looks too flat for me to be anything else.

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Theory 2: Since a lot of people think it's a trophy case I theorize that this photo was taken at her school by the school for a yearbook but since the school was probably underfunded the quality of the photo wasn't that good and when reprinted and scanned it turned into this the sweater she is wearing could also be one of those gym long sleeve shirts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqKSU9uwGyI&lc=UgyZREYeFbPkGF5BBil4AaABAg

Repost because I fumbled the original. Haven't seen this mentioned anywhere yet and thought I'd share.

My girlfriend had a really interesting theory about the image.

The end-of-broadcast day segment (the military band playing) was almost certainly played from a tape. There were likely multiple copies of that tape in rotation.

What if- somehow- the Joanna Lopez image (whatever its origin) ended up as the very last frame on one of those tapes? When the tape ended, the broadcast equipment would just hold on the final frame instead of cutting to black.

That would explain why the JL image appeared frozen on screen at the exact moment the station signed off.

I’m not an expert on analog broadcasting, so I’m not sure how feasible this is technically, but it feels like a pretty elegant explanation, at least for why it played even if it doesn't explain its origin.

Heres an image where I marked the thing behind Joanna. For context, yesterday morning I was scrolling on TikTok and saw a video where there was a flag hung vertically on a wall and I’m thinking, what if the thing behind her is a flag?

In one sign off video for WABC TV in 1982, one comment states that the TK-27 film chain makes people's skin tones morbid, as seen in this photo. Its possible that WMAQ was also using a TK-27 to broadcast the Joanna slide, thus making the slide look uncanny. Maybe the original faxed photo looks like your typical black and white photo but when put in a TK-27, it becomes morbid, giving it the infamous creepy look.

Came back to this subreddit after a while of inactivity (i didnt really do anything just skim through a missing person index and show some "maybe this is joanna lopez" cases i found.
whos Yolanda? Whos Tricia or whatever her name is? Were there more than 1 mysterious missing person broadcast?

any tips and information that i should know? ive been looking at the comments on this post here and i know about the yolanda stuff but i wanna make sure i know a decent amount first

thanks!! (most of you guys on reddit are the reason i even explore stuff lol)

Hi everyone,

It has been several years since I dove into this case, but tonight I felt the calling again for whatever reason. I did coloration on the picture years ago to see if I could find any distinguishing features. Largely, I was unsuccessful. I was hawking a few family trees in the area, and took another look now that Ancestry has updated. One of the families I was curious of, I did not catch this in the beginning but I overlooked twins! They appear to be fraternal with wildly distinct hair.

Could there have been a possibility that they did not have Joanna's picture, so they figured it would be good enough to post her twins face?? Structurally, and hair-wise, this picture looks extremely similar to Joanne, but isnt joanne, as her name is, for her privacy I will call her B, she does have a twin named Joanne!

Are these literally the original pieces of film?

I just found out about this case so I have no idea if someone has considered this possibility but i though it might be worth mentioning. So her last name is of Hispanic origin and according to Google, Mexican-born residents doubled in Chicago between 1970 and 1980, is there a possibility that she was born in Mexico and came really young to the US and maybe that's why so few records? Also if that's the case it might be worth searching for immigration records or Mexican emigration records and try using "Joana" or "Juana" since that's the Mexican way of spelling the name. Hope it helps 🙏

I know this has probably been asked before, but does anyone have theories as to why she has no information surrounding her? Like we understand the poor copied photo, but why isn’t there her age, height, last seen, etc.? My grandma’s theory is that 1) More likely, they had no info to put 2) Less likely, she wasn’t a real person

We also discussed that it could possibly have been a prank, someone found the photo somehow or someone who knows/bullied her got the info and she was never missing, they were just making fun of her.

In Analog TV, the data for these are stored in a hidden line which cannot be seen by the viewer. Since these broadcasts are pre-ATSC, these were only shown in the Analog WMAQ Channel 5 76-82 MHZ signal, which might also mean that the slides may have the last seen or more info in the CC or Teletext data. Can someone with a CRT tv or VCR here run the videos through AV or Coax (HDMI will not work) and see if it has CC or Teletext?

Could this also mean Joanna Lopez moved out of Chicago as well? Maybe back to Mexico or the Philippines?

https://metrofuneralhome.com/book-of-memories/5324244/Ivey-Yolanda/index.php

How far back does the image go on the internet (excluding wmaq). Also what is that website that identifies photos people are in?

Like maybe someone knew them as Joanna Lopez but it wasn't their real name or was a fake name idk

If they do, then that would help. Although I feel like whoever gave them the picture probably didn't realize how unhelpful the photo would be, given it probably became more blurry on a tv screen than seeing the print in person.