Was 4chan shut down because someone posted this alien photo?

So rumours have it that a member of the 4chan forums posted a photo of a reptilian alien looking direct into the camera somewhere in the Arizona Desert.

However, 30 to 45 seconds after the alien photo was posted 4chan was taken down and when the site was restored and came back online all traces of the photo had been removed. All posts, comments, images, everything regarding the image had disappeared .

4chan users have been describing the photo to be very real it was a hi-res image and they believe it was not photoshopped or CGI.  Others who believed it could have been a fake are now no longer sure after the efforts it took for someone to remove all the evidence from the site.

This one photo reappeared which is said to be a highly corrupt recovered image of the original. However this is a fake and someone has tried to recreate the original using  an image of a dummy from a display in Japan and making it look like it was a corrupt image of the original.

Trying to find the original image is proving hard to do, however it seems someone maybe releasing parts of the original photo piece by piece to prevent it from being removed again.

Here is the photo re-released so far that most people claim is the original photo, however parts are pixelated and censored. It was described as “24489 Taken Aprox 24 miles north west of Luke Airforce Base Phoenix Az. Lab H4C”

Do you have the original hi-res photo? if so please feel free to send it to me and I will be happy to post it.

What do you think?  Was this a real life photo of an alien or is just all one big hoax?